And Why Are You Wearing That Silly Human Suit?via Overheard in New York, Apr 28, 2009
Suit to man with cat on his head: Why is there a cat on your head?
Man with cat on his head: Why isn't there a cat on your head, douchebag?
--Union Square
Gizmodo: Verizon blocks warranty telemarketers, receives $50,000Those lousy auto warranty robo-dialers are finally going to stop calling Verizon customers as a result of the settlement of Verizon's lawsuit against the two companies.Auto Warranty Services and Explicit Media (Voice Solutions) had both used auto-dialers to call Verizon customers, as well as everyone else, to offer them auto warranty insurance. Verizon sued last year to stop the practice, and just received $50,000, which they will donate to charity. The main part is, of course, that Verizon customers won't be bothered by these two jackass companies anymore.
As print takes its place alongside smoke signals, cuneiform, and hollering, there has emerged a new literary age, one in which writers no longer need to feel encumbered by the paper cuts, reading, and excessive use of words traditionally associated with the writing trade. Writing for Nonreaders in the Postprint Era focuses on the creation of short-form prose that is not intended to be reproduced on pulp fibers.Writing for nonreaders in the postprint era (McSweeney's)
Instant messaging. Twittering. Facebook updates. These 21st-century literary genres are defining a new "Lost Generation" of minimalists who would much rather watch Lost on their iPhones than toil over long-winded articles and short stories. Students will acquire the tools needed to make their tweets glimmer with a complete lack of forethought, their Facebook updates ring with self-importance, and their blog entries shimmer with literary pithiness. All without the restraints of writing in complete sentences. w00t! w00t!
The ideal interest rate for the US economy in current conditions would be minus 5 per cent, according to internal analysis prepared for the Federal Reserve’s last policy meeting.Financial Times: Study puts ideal US interest rate at -5% (27 April 2009)
The analysis was based on a so-called Taylor-rule approach that estimates an appropriate interest rate based on unemployment and inflation.
A central bank cannot cut interest rates below zero. However, the staff research suggests the Fed should maintain unconventional policies that provide stimulus roughly equivalent to an interest rate of minus 5 per cent.
Fed staff separately estimated what size and type of unconventional operations, including asset purchases, might provide this level of stimulus. They suggested that the Fed should expand its asset purchases by even more than the $1,150bn (€885bn, £788bn) increase policymakers authorised at the last meeting, which included $300bn of Treasury purchases.
The assessment that the US central bank needs to provide stimulus equivalent to a substantially negative interest rate is unlikely to have changed ahead of this week’s policy meeting.
More Atheists Shout It From The Rooftops (New York Times)Polls show that the ranks of atheists are growing. The American Religious Identification Survey, a major study released last month, found that those who claimed “no religion” were the only demographic group that grew in all 50 states in the last 18 years.
Nationally, the “nones” in the population nearly doubled, to 15 percent in 2008 from 8 percent in 1990. In South Carolina, they more than tripled, to 10 percent from 3 percent. Not all the “nones” are necessarily committed atheists or agnostics, but they make up a pool of potential supporters.
Local and national atheist organizations have flourished in recent years, fed by outrage over the Bush administration’s embrace of the religious right. A spate of best-selling books on atheism also popularized the notion that nonbelief is not just an argument but a cause, like environmentalism or muscular dystrophy.
[...]
Until recent years, the Secular Humanists of the Lowcountry were local pariahs. Mr. Silverman — whose specialty license plate, one of many offered by the state, says “In Reason We Trust” — was invited to give the invocation at the Charleston City Council once, but half the council members walked out. The local chapter of Habitat for Humanity would not let the Secular Humanists volunteer to build houses wearing T-shirts that said “Non Prophet Organization,” he said.
When their billboard went up in January, with their Web site address displayed prominently, they expected hate mail.
“But most of the e-mails were grateful,” said Laura Kasman, an assistant professor of microbiology and immunology at the Medical University of South Carolina.
The board members meeting in the Kasmans’ living room were an unlikely mix that included a gift store owner, a builder, a grandmother, a retired nursing professor, a retired Navy officer, an administrator at a primate sanctuary and a church musician. They are also diverse in their attitudes toward religion.
Italy's Mafia thrives in global financial meltdown (Associated Press)Naples anti-organized crime prosecutor Roberti said the Camorra has pumped up what once was a kind of cottage industry, with crime clan bosses knitting closer ties with mobsters in China, where fake designer clothing, shoes and accessories are now churned out in factories for the mob.Trafficking in fake designer goods — which investigators suspect the Camorra is also peddling in the United States, France, Britain and Germany — is now becoming more profitable for the Neapolitan syndicate that dealing in cocaine and hashish, said Mainolfi, the customs and tax police general.
He has calculated that for every euro it costs to manufacture the counterfeit designer goods, the Camorra earns 10 euros, while for every euro spent to run drug trafficking, it earns six or seven euros.
The fakes, sold in street stalls and clothing shops in the Naples and Rome areas, arrive by the tons in Naples' sprawling, chaotic port, where custom officials manage to check only some 5 percent of the shipping containers being unloaded, Mainolfi said.
ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND VENTURE CAPITALISM
You have two cows.
You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of
credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a
debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so that you get all
four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows.
The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a
Cayman Island Company secretly owned by the majority shareholder who
sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company.
The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on
one more.
You sell one cow to buy a new president of the United States, leaving
you with nine cows.
No balance sheet provided with the release.
The public then buys your bull.
Question: What are your top ten products of all time?
Answer:Question: What are your ten worst products of all time?
- Electric Light Bulb
- Japanese Lunch Box(es)
- Mercedes 300 SLR “Uhlenhaut”
- Boeing 707
- Porsche 911
- Apple Macintosh (after the Macintosh SE)
- Arne Jacobsen Chair “3107” by Hansen
- Sony Walkman 2
- Gibson Les Paul Custom Guitar
- Hubble Telescope
Answer:
- Gas-guzzling SUVs
- Neck-pain-causing Notebook computers
- Typical conference chairs and ambiance in hotels
- Software UI on mobile phones
- Most hospital equipment
- Violent video games
- Fake “crafts” products (e.g “Hantcraft” dustpan & brushset)
- Computer accessories requiring 2+ hour installment
- Restaurant table that “kill” your kneecaps
- Myriads of power adapters
Formed in 1971, Liberty now enrolls more than 11,000 residential students, along with thousands more who study through Liberty's distance-learning programs. The university teaches creationism and that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, while pledging "a strong commitment to political conservatism" on campus and a "total rejection of socialism."
Roose's parents, liberal Quakers who once worked for Ralph Nader, were nervous about their son being exposed to Falwell's views. Still, Roose transferred to Liberty for the spring 2007 semester.
He was determined to not mock the school, thinking it would be too easy — and unfair. He aimed to immerse himself in the culture, examine what conservative Christians believe and see if he could find some common ground. He had less weighty questions too: How did they spend Friday nights? Did they use Facebook? Did they go on dates? Did they watch "Gossip Girl?"
It wasn't an easy transition. Premarital sex is an obvious no-no at Liberty. So are smoking and drinking. Cursing is also banned, so he prepared by reading the Christian self-help book, "30 Days to Taming Your Tongue."
He lined up a publisher — Grand Central Publishing — and arrived at the Lynchburg campus prepared for "hostile ideologues who spent all their time plotting abortion clinic protests and sewing Hillary Clinton voodoo dolls."
Instead, he found that "not only are they not that, but they're rigorously normal."
He met students who use Bible class to score dates, apply to top law schools and fret about their futures, and who enjoy gossip, hip-hop and R-rated movies — albeit in a locked dorm room.
A roommate he depicts as aggressively anti-gay — all names are changed in the book — is an outcast on the hall, not a role model.
Ivy Leaguer "infiltrates" Falwell's university (Associated Press, 22 April 2009)
5 Jobs You Wanted As A Kid And Why They Suck (Cracked.com)Because you need a Ph.D. just to do an astronaut's dry cleaning. To be an actual astronaut, a person has to be two-thirds Stephen Hawking, and one-third someone who has perfect vision and awesome hand-eye coordination. To make sure they have the right guy, NASA subjects their astronauts to an endless series of grueling tests.
Before they go to the celestial trampoline we call the moon, astronauts spend about ten years keeping themselves in peak physical condition while essentially taking the SAT every single day. Even if your kid's some rare breed of super genius who enjoys both tests and pushups, it's still not all it's cracked up to be. To give your kid an idea of what an astronaut's job is truly like, do the following:
Step 1: Go buy a van - preferably a 1976 Peugeot.
Step 2: Have the owner's manual translated into Russian.
Step 3: Tell your child to pretend the van is a space station, and that his or her assignment is to rotate the tires.
Step 4: Push the van to the bottom of a swimming pool. Hand your child the translated owner's manual, a toolbox and a balloon full of air.
Fictitious nightclub owner Bob Porter, a character in David Menconi's novel Off The Record, explains the business of running a bar with live music.Bands looking for gigs send me tapes or CDs, and I try to listen to as much of them as I can stand. A lot of them are so painfully bad, I don’t make it too far through. If a band is really terrible, it’s always nice if they’ve sent a CD rather than a tape easier to skip through and listen to a little of each song. I’ve been doing this a long time, and can usually tell how a band will do with one listen to their tape (“I can name that band’s draw in two notes”). Hell, by now, I can just look at their picture and almost always figure out everything I need to know. Such as:If a band is posed on the porch or front steps of a large house; if anybody in the picture is wearing a shirt with a collar, a baseball cap or any item of clothing with a sports logo; and if they look well-fed-- if they look like the people I hated in college, in other words--this is a band that will draw what I call the “date-rape demographic.” Bands like this tend to play sensitive-white-boy (read: limp-wristed) guitar pop that draws ditzy sorority girls, meaning their frat-boy predators are sure to follow. This is a crowd that drinks A LOT, and I can always count on at least a couple of fights in the parking lot. Bands like this pay the rent, but a lot of them are more trouble than they’re worth.
If a band is shown posed in some sort of outdoor “natural” setting; if anyone is barefoot; if at least one member has shoulder-length and/or facial hair, a ponytail and/or a beret; and if there is a tie-dyed garment involved chances are good this photo will literally reek of patchouli. Hippie noodlehead rock. The Grateful Dead has been gone a long time, but there’s still gold in aimless noodling. Gold for the band, maybe, but not the bar because noodlehead crowds tend to prefer pot to beer. I’ll clear less on a noodlehead band than a date-rape one, even though the noodleheads usually draw bigger crowds.
The audience is largely college-age, but with some older hippie types still hanging on. Noodlehead bands generally keep their fans after they graduate, more so than the date-rape ones. Date-rape bands are kinda like “LUG,” Lesbian Until Graduation, a college thing most people outgrow. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, of course.)
If a band is shown in a dark room, and/or out-of-focus; if anyone is wearing glasses; if at least one member has a receding hairline and is making no attempt to cover it up; if someone is wearing either an impossibly square or ridiculously hip T-shirt (“Sesame Street” on the one hand, or some band so obscure I haven’t even heard of them on the other); if someone is covering their mouth with their hand, or has their head bent at a weird angle; if the bass player is a girl--hey, kids, it’s the new alternative!
There are lots of egghead-type bands around here, this being a college town and all. They come and go, and all of them sound pretty much the same to me. True, I’m a jaded old fart and all that. But most of them just don’t have the chops to get away with the weird junk they try to pull off--jerky time signatures, non-existent tunings, repetitive drones--and it all sounds like badly played King Crimson covers. Bands like this tend to have small but devoted followings, 40 or so people who will show up and hang on every detuned note and off-key yelp. They’ll drink water and soda pop, meaning I usually lose money. But that’s okay, because these bands and their crowds are almost never a bit of trouble. If I had date-rape or even noodlehead bands in here every night, I’d go nuts. Egghead bands give me some downtime, and the occasional one that actually goes somewhere will pull an audience every bit as loyal as the noodlehead crowd. Of course, they still won’t drink…
...you don’t want to speak like Barack Obama. You want to speak like you. Nevertheless, as a student of the art of public speaking, you can — and should — observe Obama’s oratorical skills. The greats all learn from other greats, so don’t hesitate. Study Obama’s repertoire, take what you like, and use what you can to improve your own public speaking.BNET (Harvard Business School Blogs): Five ways to speak like Obama
Adventures in Open Source: Oracle Buys Sun (20 Apr 2009)While I thought Sun paid too much for MySQL, I think Oracle got this one right. The best analysis I’ve seen so far is from Larry Augustin, so if you’re interested in such things be sure to check it out.UPDATE: Monty weighs in.
Marijuana advocates point to signs of change (New York Times, 19 April 2009)SAN FRANCISCO — On Monday, somewhere in New York City, 420 people will gather for High Times magazine’s annual beauty pageant, a secretly located and sold-out event that its sponsor says will “turn the Big Apple into the Baked Apple and help us usher in a new era of marijuana freedom in America.”
They will not be the only ones partaking: April 20 has long been an unofficial day of celebration for marijuana fans, an occasion for campus smoke-outs, concerts and cannabis festivals. But some advocates of legal marijuana say this year’s “high holiday” carries extra significance as they sense increasing momentum toward acceptance of the drug, either as medicine or entertainment.
My only complaint, Barry, is the lack of cat and / or chow content in these photos. Don't let it happen again.Well, after recuperating at home this weekend (from nothing unusual - just the daily slings and arrows that the flesh is heir to) - I don't think this is going to be a problem.
The phrase finder (UK): One over the eightMeaningThe final drink that renders someone drunk.OriginThis originated as UK military slang. The first reference to it in print is in Fraser and Gibbons' Soldier & Sailor Words, (1925):"One over the eight, one drink too many. Slightly intoxicated, the presumption being that an average 'moderate' man can safely drink eight glasses of beer."After a gallon of beer 'slightly intoxicated' seems a bit of an understatement. Beer was weaker in the 1920s than it is now, but even so.
Newsweek to turn new page with relaunch (Financial Times, 16 April 2009)For more than a year, Thomas Ascheim, the former Nickelodeon cable executive who is Newsweek’s chief executive; Jon Meacham, editor; and Fareed Zakaria, international editor, have plotted the radical remaking of a product that had lost its relevance as a news source years ago as readers turned to the internet and cable news.
In November, the team submitted a plan to return to profit within five years. “You can keep doing what you have been doing all the time and march nobly off a cliff or you can adapt and change,” Mr Meacham told the Financial Times.
A prototype of the redesign that will be launched in early May is a cleaner take on the old, with more white space and bolder photographs. The launch will coincide with a relaunch of Newsweek.com that will replace wire copy with links to the best sources of online news, even if published by rivals.
Newsweek intends to court a high-end audience seeking in-depth commentary and reporting. It plans to leave the mass market behind by cutting the circulation it guarantees to advertisers, from 2.6m to 1.5m by January. Subscription prices are expected to double, executives said, and $25m could be saved annually from printing and distribution costs. Newsweek has cut 160 staff through voluntary redundancies and a handful of layoffs, but protected a stable of star columnists, correspondents and contributors.
Focusing on a smaller but devoted readership earning an average $100,000 a year will allow the magazine to raise advertising rates, although lower circulation will reduce page rates, making attracting smaller, luxury advertisers easier.
The idea is to capture territory dominated by The Economist and the New Yorker. The incumbents respectively distribute about 711,000 and 1m copies in the US and both have weathered the downturn better.
Born Again American
is committed to the rebirth and re-expression of citizenship through informed and thoughtful activism. It is an initiative of Declare Yourself, a national non-partisan, non-profit (501(c)3) organization dedicated to increasing young voter participation and civic involvement. Declare Yourself’s on-line voter registration tool has been used by almost four million people since 2004. Declare Yourself grew out of the 2003’s Declaration of Independence Road Trip that toured an original 1776 copy of the Declaration to schools, town halls, and other locations all over the country.
About the Video
Our founder, TV producer and philanthropist Norman Lear, was talking with Academy Award-winning songwriter Keith Carradine one night, and the Born Again American video was, well, born. It took the efforts of Director Mark Johnson of Playing for Change, Producer Brent Miller, and 16 performers and two choruses to bring Keith’s song to life in 14 iconic locations around the USA. The singers and musicians, non-professionals all, were chosen because they are living the lyrics in these troubled times, not just performing them.
When did your county's jobs disappear? An interactive map of vanishing employment across the country (Chris Wilson, Slate)The economic crisis, which has claimed more than 5 million jobs since the recession began, did not strike the entire country at once. A map of employment gains or losses by county tells the story of how those job losses first struck in the most vulnerable regions and then spread rapidly to the rest of the country. As early as August 2007, for example—several months before the recession officially began—jobs were already on the decline in southwest Florida; Orange County, Calif.; much of New Jersey; and Detroit, while other areas of the country remained on the uptick.Using the Labor Department's local area unemployment statistics, Slate presents the recession as told by unemployment numbers for each county in America.
The "evidence" against him?On Friday, EFF and the law firm of Fish and Richardson filed an emergency motion to quash [pdf] and for the return of seized property on behalf of a Boston College computer science student whose computers, cell phone, and other property were seized as part of an investigation into who sent an e-mail to a school mailing list identifying another student as gay. The problem? Not only is there no indication that any crime was committed, the investigating officer argued that the computer expertise of the student itself supported a finding of probable cause to seize the student's property.
Charles one-ups them all. While Waverly doesn’t answer its phone, Charles doesn’t even have one, at least not one that’s published. To get a table I would send an e-mail message, and some unseen, unknown, disembodied reservations deity would write back. It was like I was in a “Bourne” movie, arranging a secret meet. I was the Joan Allen character, but with a better colorist.I haven’t yet told you the wildest part, which is the restaurant’s windows — so Salinger, so Garbo. They’re covered in old newspapers and blue tape, as if the space is under construction or even condemned, and they’ve been that way for so long that when I paused on the sidewalk the other night to read the fine print, I learned that Sarah Palin had resuscitated the McCain candidacy.
The newspapers are at first funny, then odd, then just sort of sad, maybe because Charles doesn’t have enough else going for it. In the end I couldn’t get around that.
[...]The lamb kebabs should be called tartare. That’s how close to raw they were. The salmon, supposedly pan-seared, was more like pan-spurned, by which I mean it was nearly raw, too. Charles is as stingy with heat as it is with light. Maybe it’s saving on utilities.
It shouldn’t have to, given what it charges for wine. On a recent list only two of about 60 reds were under $70, and I couldn’t find a white for under $60 — not that I’m scrimping! It made me wonder: aren’t the newspapers, the blue tape and the unpublished phone number velvet rope enough?
And did I really just say that? It doesn’t sound like me, but then we’re all sounding a little different since the Dow went south, Obama came east and Bernie Madoff went up the river.
The only thing I was fit for was to be a writer, and this notion rested solely on my suspicion that I would never be fit for real work, and that writing didn't require any. - Russell BakerApologies for the light blogging. The kind of writing *I've* chosen to do for a living does in fact involve real work, and my team just shoved a 500+ page proposal response out the door last night.
Tony was a bit bowled over by the reaction on the street the day after the first show aired. At his tobacco/newspaper shop, where he said he’d been anonymous for decades, he was now lionized. “Dick, you make so I can’t-a go anywhere,” he mock-complained. And then he did complain: “But, Dick, I’m-a look-a so old.” As a young man, he’d been a handsome dog.A week after that show aired he went to France, Spain, Italy and Japan. Home-recording of television was not all that common back then but, he said, “Everywhere I’m-a go they go to a machine, push a button and up comes Dick Cavett and Slydini. How they get I don’t know.” (Magicians cassetted that show all over the world to one another.)
Jacob Dickerson, writing at Huffington Post: "Gay Marriage Is After My Rights"... unlike the rest of the two thirds of America who don't believe in gay marriage, I'm attractive. I'm educated, funny, well spoken, and generally a pleasure to be around. I'm exactly what the gays want, and with my background in playwrighting and my past in theater, they already know that the homosexuals have a foot in my door.Gay marriage is about turning me gay. After all, what else outside of my fear of not being able to commit myself to another person before the eyes of the government was stopping me from gaining a love of dick? I can already feel it starting. Since the decision in Iowa, I've noticed words creeping into my lexicon like Chiraz and Emory Board. I've begun to realize that D&G is a fashion label and that Monet is not. I'm even showering more. Gay marriage is trying to take vaginas out of my life forever.
I don't know what to do. A storm is gathering, and I know what's going to happen next. It'll start Raining Men.
Ten principles for a Black Swan-proof world: Nassim Nicholas Taleb, Financial Times, 7 April 2009
2. No socialisation of losses and privatisation of gains. Whatever may need to be bailed out should be nationalised; whatever does not need a bail-out should be free, small and risk-bearing. We have managed to combine the worst of capitalism and socialism. In France in the 1980s, the socialists took over the banks. In the US in the 2000s, the banks took over the government. This is surreal.
[...]
4. Do not let someone making an “incentive” bonus manage a nuclear plant – or your financial risks. Odds are he would cut every corner on safety to show “profits” while claiming to be “conservative”. Bonuses do not accommodate the hidden risks of blow-ups. It is the asymmetry of the bonus system that got us here. No incentives without disincentives: capitalism is about rewards and punishments, not just rewards.
Local currency to boost small town's economy (News 14 Carolina)A grassroots organization in a small Chatham County town is putting a new spin on an old idea in the hopes of energizing the town's economy.The PLENTY Currency Cooperative believes a new currency it plans to unveil in a few weeks – and a local bank's willingness to distribute it – will encourage people to spend their money in Pittsboro.And the attractive exchange rate for the new bills, called PLENTYs, won't hurt either."We're starting with an initial exchange rate of 90 cents per PLENTY, meaning you can go in with nine U.S. dollars and get 10 PLENTYs back, which is essentially a 10-percent-off coupon for shopping locally," B.J. Lawson, with the Plenty Currency Cooperative, said.Local U.S. currencies date back to the Depression era. While the PLENTY's been around since 2002, the original version's odd denominations and lack of convertibility to Federal Reserve notes posed a problem."There was a genuine risk that if you sold a big sculpture or had a big fuel order, you could end up with a disproportionate number of the PLENTYs," Lyle Estill, with the cooperative, said. "Now that we can exchange them at Capital Bank, that fear goes away and I'm standing by to see every merchant in town happily accepting PLENTYs."
Electricity Grid in U.S. Penetrated By Spies (Wall Street Journal, 7 April 2009)Cyberspies have penetrated the U.S. electrical grid and left behind software programs that could be used to disrupt the system, according to current and former national-security officials.The spies came from China, Russia and other countries, these officials said, and were believed to be on a mission to navigate the U.S. electrical system and its controls. The intruders haven't sought to damage the power grid or other key infrastructure, but officials warned they could try during a crisis or war."The Chinese have attempted to map our infrastructure, such as the electrical grid," said a senior intelligence official. "So have the Russians."
Barry the giant sea worm discovered by aquarium staff after mysterious attacks on coral reef (Daily Mail (UK), 31 March 2009)Aquarium staff have unearthed a 'giant sea worm' that was attacking coral reef and prize fish.
The 4ft long monster, named Barry, had launched a sustained attack on the reef in a display tank at Newquay's Blue Reef Aquarium over recent months.
Workers at the Cornwall-based attraction had been left scratching their heads as to why the coral had been left devastated and - in some cases - cut in half.
[...]
...'It really does look like something out of a horror movie. It's over four feet long with these bizarre-looking jaws.
'We also discovered that he is covered with thousands of bristles which are capable of inflicting a sting resulting in permanent numbness.'
Mr Slater said Barry, who has now been relocated to his own tank, probably arrived as a juvenile in a delivery of living rock from another aquarium.
For years, most cooks looking for an artisanal alternative to the ubiquitous Quaker brand had only one option: Anson Mills. This Columbia, South Carolina-based company has dominated the heirloom-grits scene since it launched in 1997, thanks to a cultishly loyal chef base and wide distribution. But these four producers have brought some diversity to the market, and in the process are leading a Grits Belt renaissance.I have historically been an Anson Mills partisan (as foodie friends in NYC will attest) but look forward to checking these other sources out.
Boykin Mill Farms (Rembert, South Carolina) These old-fashioned yellow grits are ground in a water-powered mill and come in old-school paper or cloth bags ($5 for a two-pound bag; boykinmillfarms.com).
Carolina Plantation (Darlington, South Carolina) In the unofficial home of NASCAR, local farmers use granite stones to produce these [coarse]-ground grits. ($4 for a two-pound bag; carolinaplantationrice.com).
Mill of Old Guilford (Oak Ridge, North Carolina) Heirloom white corn and a made-to-order philosophy set these speckled grits apart from the pack ($15 for 2 two-pound bags; boiledpeanuts.com).
Mills Farm (Athens, Georgia) Tim and Alice Mills rely on one acre of corn and a trusty mule to produce the Red Mule grits local chef Hugh Acheson loves (redmulegrits.com; call 706-543-8113 for current prices).
Research group switches on world's first "artificial intelligence" tasked-array system.
For several years now a small research group has been working on some challenging problems in the areas of neural networking, natural language and autonomous problem-solving. Last fall this group achieved a significant breakthrough: a powerful new technique for solving reinforcement learning problems, resulting in the first functional global-scale neuro-evolutionary learning cluster.
Since then progress has been rapid, and tonight we're pleased to announce that just moments ago, the world's first Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity (CADIE) was switched on and began performing some initial functions. It's an exciting moment that we're determined to build upon by coming to understand more fully what CADIE's emergence might mean, for Google and for our users. So although CADIE technology will be rolled out with the caution befitting any advance of this magnitude, in the months to come users can expect to notice her influence on various google.com properties. Earlier today, for instance, CADIE deduced from a quick scan of the visual segment of the social web a set of online design principles from which she derived this intriguing homepage.
There are applications for CADIE across Google's entire product line - e.g., Gmail Autopilot:
What happens if a sender and recipient both have Autopilot on?
Two Gmail accounts can happily converse with each other for up to three messages each. Beyond that, our experiments have shown a significant decline in the quality ranking of Autopilot's responses and further messages may commit you to dinner parties or baby namings in which you have no interest.
