moon traveller herald

Marvin Minsky on YouTube discusses the history of his work. Minsky [1927-2016] was the founder of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Lab, and a key figure in Artificial Intelligence's early development. He was a central figure in highly nuanced [meaning I don't understand them] academic controversies around nerual nets and symbolic logic. He was initially inspired by reading a book on mathematical biophysics by Nicholas Rashevsky. This book provided mathematical decription of biological functions. [which would as described seem to foretell soon brewing cybernetic theories, I'd add].  He was also moved  by the science fiction of H.G. Wells. He liked sci-fi, he said, because the authors made guesses about the future, and that seems to map to what researchers do. He invited Ray Bradbury to his lab once to view the robotics. Bradbury demurred - he didn't want to see clunky real robots - it would cloud his imagination. Minsky more or less admitted these first-take MIT robots w...

 1. I have been studying Disinformation since Journalism School. More and more the study of disinformation became a specific college study. [One of my professors back in the day, Larry Martin, had a full career as head of Intelligence in Czechkoslovokia during Communist Era. He could tell you how it was done before the Web.] 1.5 Weakly funded in the last two years the Important Cause of Disinformation Study has all been shut down. 2. This is how the Constitution Loving Dictator Works. The Mission: Spread Partisan Propaganda that He approves of. Harass others. 3. How? Set up pop-up groups with Right-Thinking Billionaire Funding capable of heaping subpoenas for emails, text messages, and other information related to government and social media companies. [This post was researched with the help of NYTimes and Bing AI.] 4. Complying with these requests consumed time and money. The threat of legal harassment also led to a decrease in funding from donors, including philanthropies, corpor...

Artificial Intelligence, or AI, is right up there with the MidEast, Ukraine, Democracy, Inflation and Kim Kardashian among the memes that we see in our news feeds today. *On Wall Street, AI hopes drove a big boost in the stock market. People are going to lose jobs and machines are going to take over and we can rake in some bucks: Hurray!  *For my brother, it’s a quick “Belated Birthday Card source” [Hell with Hallmark]  *For headline writers, AI fever has been a chance to get clicks, hits and page views based on FUD - Fear Uncertainty and Doubt.  *For an older writer, [me] AI nudges one forward, raining down ideas when his own synapses are flagging .*&%!  I spent over 40 years in the computer trade ‘press’ – as the Web took over it was called ‘media’. I wrote was about what was inside these boxes. The Definition of computer is 1-input, 2-processing, 3-output – all of which is enabled by 4-memory. The last 5 years before I retired I had the Big Data beat. That w...

  A monk's prayer Bitter is the wind tonight, It tosses the ocean's white hair: Tonight I fear not the fierce warriors of Norway Coursing on the Irish Sea.  -Anonymous  [Translated by Kuno Meyer] Wind fierce to-night Wind  fierce to-night. Mane of the sea whipped white. I am not afraid. No ravening Norse On course through quiet waters. -Anonymous [Translated by Seamus Heaney] Serendipity today - I pull out a Kuno Meyer translation from St Patrick's Irish Poetry posts past. And lo, that evening, reading through a book of Seamus Heaney translations. I discover the same poem with a different rendering. The fear of the Viking raider impelled many an imagining of the sea, and poem. [- J.V. The painting is by Albert Ryder.

Misposted this on Moon Traveler...But I Embrace the Random! For the music of your life and more visit Sister Site:  https://alcompasdelmundo.blogspot.com/ Any program that starts and ends with Little Walter has got something going on right. And in this version of Mexican radio’s Al compas del mundo (radioactivaTX.org – in Tequisquiapan, Queretaro) I can do no wrong. Though I kind of, sort of, do a chronology of the harmonica in American blues, I had to start off this playlist with Little Walter Jacobs for reasons obvious to me and, I’m certain, many others. Followed by an all-time favorite – Rollin’ and Tumblin’, with Walter again, Muddy Waters, Baby Face Leroy Foster and an unnamed participant or two. It is a given that the blues developed in the United States brought by an enslaved population that introduced African characteristics from many different roots and regions. This lyric-less version of Rollin’ and Tumblin’ is played, moaned and wailed to create a mood that – to these e...

I grew up in an alien camp Not far from the 17 ramp Counted all the lights in the old Noosphere Worked like hell ‘til I invented beer https://www.youtube.com/shorts/VdEn4J0PKxI

  Humanism applied to technology was a mindthrob in my youth - looking to make a mark, I guess. Found odd: Not much mention of it on this blog. But share here a link to the Thread of Humanism on Moon Traveller. Oddly came to this morning with Pansychism or Panthiesim on my mind. The morning after a Night of Pints. That Pansychism, in opposition to humanism. Got out my Selections from Ancient Irish Poetry [Kuno Meyer]. Asked Google if St Francis was a panthiest [Answer: No, his comment on nature were all straight from Scripture.]  My guru on humanism is Jacob Bronowski, a part of my directed studies back in the Milwaukee days. I looked him up this morning and, in fact, he had something to say in the panthiest way: You will die but the carbon will not; its career does not end with you. It will return to the soil, and there a plant may take it up again in time, sending it once more on a cycle of plant and animal life. Human or Cell? At what level do we want to encounter the Unive...

[NASA] - An international crew of four reached orbit following a successful launch to the International Space Station at 10:53 p.m. EST Sunday from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. NASA’s SpaceX Crew-8 mission is the agency’s eighth commercial crew rotation mission with the company to the space station. [Shown Above: Before the launch.]