everybody wonders and some people know

[chestnutcurls]

As others have already said, Happy Potter's Eve. :) I just found out that my and Kathy's British copies aren't due to arrive until June 27th at the earliest. This will not do, so Kathy and I are going to a release party at Bookstar tonight. When we're done, we'll give the American editions to two pre-selected needy friends, and keep our British ones for our inevitable pick-apart analysis re-readings.

I'm so excited about the book, but I don't know when I'm going to have time to start reading. Tomorrow morning I'm going with Kathy to the mother of all bridal shops. Then I have to make an appearance at Jamie's birthday party, and in the evening I'm getting dolled up to go to The Beauty Shop with Casey and some other old-school RUF girls. Then I probably ought to spend Sunday with my family, since I haven't seen them since I got back and I have things to give them. So there's another weekend gone before it starts. I said I needed a vacation, and I had it, and it was great; now I seriously need a day off to rest and do nothing. I feel like a hamster on a hamster wheel.

My grandma called last night to ask about my trip. Surprisingly, she didn't freak out when I told her I went to meet people from online. In fact, she said she was proud of me for branching out and being adventurous. I felt so good when I got off the phone with her. My grandma is cool.

Kathy and I watched T2 last night, and it totally freaked me out. You know, people have got to start learning lessons from these movies. How can people look at Matrix and T2 and still think advanced AI is a good idea? I'm not saying I believe we're going to be wiped out by machines, but something like that could happen if we don't cool it with the technology. People don't think about the consequences of what they're creating. I sometimes pray God will send some Tower of Babel-ish event before we really dig ourselves into a hole. Okay, you probably all think I'm crazy now. I'll go away and do pull-ups in my cell next to Linda Hamilton.



Before:


After:


The problem with organizing my CDs alphabetically is that the embarassment of my collection becomes very obvious. I can no longer hide the "not cool" CDs at the bottom of the tower. :P

Comments

Harvey the Wonder Hamster

[aardwolf.livejournal.com]

Niiiiice collection... my DVD's look like that. :P

I just used the hamster in a wheel analogy last night, except I compared my life at work to a hamster in a wheel that powers the computers here. As long as I'm sitting bored in my office (running in the wheel), everything works fine. As soon as I leave, chaos ensues... True, it's a different analogy, but I still used the hamster. :P

[moredetails.livejournal.com]

Hi Brenda!

It's weird how your CD collection seems to shrink when in the second rack. Now you have plenty of room to buy more. :)

[calypsobard.livejournal.com]

I so need to arrange my CDs!!!

Have fun at the mother of all bridal shops!!!

[fraserspeirs.livejournal.com]

Here a dystopian reading list for you:

• The Emperor's New Mind - Roger Penrose (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0192861980)
  
• Why the Future Doesn't Need Us (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html), and article in Wired by Bill Joy.
  
• Some of Ray Kurzweil's writings (http://www.kurzweilai.net)
  

...sleep well. If you can ;-)

[moredetails.livejournal.com]

Oh and I wanted to add that LJ keeps me much more updated on current events than if I didn't use it. I would never know about when movies (like LOTR and Matrix) and Harry Potter books were coming out if it weren't for your entries because I'm not into them so I don't keep track. But knowing is handy in conversations with others!

Them: "The new... oh I just blanked on his name.. but the new book is coming out tomorrow."

Me: "Harry Potter?"

Them: "Yes! I don't know why I couldn't think of that."

See, then I look aware.

Re: Harvey the Wonder Hamster

[chestnutcurls.livejournal.com]

Yeah. My analogy is the opposite. I run nonstop and never seem to get anything done.

[chestnutcurls.livejournal.com]

Yeah...I already know I'm getting the new Michelle Branch next week. :)

[chestnutcurls.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Did you go there when you were looking for dresses?

[chestnutcurls.livejournal.com]

Thanks...and also thanks for the nightmares I will surely have after reading those. :)

[chestnutcurls.livejournal.com]

:)

Glad to be your daily dose of sci-fi geek/book nerd culture. :)

[fraserspeirs.livejournal.com]

Oh, I forgot one more: the Spiritual Robots (http://technetcast.ddj.com/tnc_program.html?program_id=82) series on technetcast.ddj.com. These are a series of *really* good talks from very eminent computer scientists. Bill Joy recaps his Wired article, which is probably the best talk to listen to.

[calypsobard.livejournal.com]

no we didn't make it there. I found my dress at the first shop I went to. I need to get my scanner conencted agfain and get someo f the pics scanned.

[jmcphers.livejournal.com]

Fraser gave some good links! I've read a few books on AI, including most of The Emporer's New Mind (Penrose), The Age of Spiritual Machines (Kurzweil), and Godel, Escher, Bach. And one of my courses last quarter was on machine learning. It's one of my research interests.

I can assure you that only the most egotistical scientist could think that we'll be creating anything like the machines in the Matrix or Terminator anytime in the near future. I think Ray Kurzwiel is off his rocker when he claims that we'll be seeing human-level intelligence in the next few years. He, and many other AI people, have a simplistic view that assumes that as soon as computers approach the complexity and speed of the human brain that they will be able to demonstrate the same kind of intelligence. I think this is patently ridiculous—we are light-years away from understanding the structure of the human brain and how it works, much less from emulating it. Maybe in the distant future we'll have to worry about machine intelligence, but right now even the smartest AI is pretty stupid. (-:

[chestnutcurls.livejournal.com]

Hey, thanks. I feel a little better now. :) (Which I needed, since I just read the Joy article and was pretty freaked by it.)

offended

[greenhornet.livejournal.com]

did I forget to tell you I was a cyborg! This is techno-phobia
Snicker ;>)

[dakoda.livejournal.com]

YES! Cat beds and carriers!!! WOOOOO!!!!

....oh wait...I was supposed to be looking at the CDs and the holders. Oh yes, very nice, definitely nice (but not as nice as the cat bed/carrier). ;)

[anoronwen.livejournal.com]

Wow, Brenda! That's a whole lot of cds!

[chestnutcurls.livejournal.com]

:)

Yes...neither of which he enjoys. He never lays in that cat bed- he prefers the chairs or our beds. :P

[dakoda.livejournal.com]

haha. Yves has a box that she loves more than life itself. It's just some random box, and she lives in the thing! lo

[chestnutcurls.livejournal.com]

Oh my gosh! Gandalf does the same thing! I call it his clubhouse. It's just a random box. He never lays down in it, only sits in it very straight and stares at people. It's weird. :)

[dakoda.livejournal.com]

Yves sits in hers and stares at people to! Sometimes she sleeps, but it's also standing up. lol She is such a weird kitty.

[fraserspeirs.livejournal.com]

Kurzweil and his ilk have been promising us that AI is "only five to ten years away" for about 45 years now. Another book in the Kurzweillian school of thought is Mind Children by Hans Moravec (which I own but haven't read!).