moon traveller herald

  - Pin on hand-carved backdrop by CJEVaughan- - Julie Newmar played Robot on 1964 sitcom My Living Doll- I got to go to the robotics conf in Boston this week. This was a different experience for someone who hasn’t been to a show with much real hardware for ages. The first technical conference I ever covered was IEEE Electro in Boston. And the memories rushed back. My hopes to succeed in this business were somewhat dashed at the start of Electro – it was a crush of imagery undeciphered. The impression remains: I was at a medieval bazar in a Star Wars universe. And without words. In those days they had well-built women [the derogatory term pocket protector men used was ‘booth bunnies’] along with [what I know now could be] shabbily built printed circuit boards (jerry rigged to make the show deadline with jumper cables here and there]. I remember looking at a pile of colorful metal shapes, wondering what was what [they were heat sinks of wide variety]....

The Philosophy of Modern Song comes as a nifty package with some great pictures, tho you have to go on the Internet to figure out who is who on some of them. The cover is part of the package, not that you can tell a book by the cover. On the Internet there's some discussions to figure out Who is the young woman rocker on the cover pic with Little Richard and Eddie Cochran? I couldn't guess. The Guardian put some heavy legwork into trying to figure out who and why. It’s Alis Lesley. Why? Why does there have to be a why? You have to think that somebody showed Dylan the picture and he said THAT’S IT! Just as he did when he put Claudia Cardinale in the set of inner sleeve artwork on the original copy of Blonde on Blonde. The photographer had the picture there on the drafting table and Dylan said YEAH, THAT. Later editions switched it out. But we weren’t waiting baited breathily for for the pics! Bob Dylan is a frigging Actual Institute in himself. He is where artists study the me...

the word expired on a virus  splaat the asteroid took off its hat metaphors were facile and easy you picked them off a tree all sleepy & sneazy before  the academy.  - j.v. Comment: In recent years, Natural Language Processing has been the driver advancing Artificial Intelligence. In recent months that has taken the forms of Large Language Models that mimic human intelligence using statistical analysis to learn the connections between words and finish unfinished sentences. Along the way these technologies have conjured for me recollections from reading Tzara and others who blew up sentences like painters blew up visual represenations.  More especially than most these concepts were plied by William Burroughs who said "the word is now a virus". I guess I've wondered if it always was, and it came from space on a comet. There's more on the topic I suppose in Word Virus: The William S. Burroughs Reader . When I was a lad his writings would sometimes appear in Harper, ...

  Cut up cliches based on Litany of Cliches off bargain tool lead petri party the Cube home leg  loosen history change the the the stick plug double pundit  eyes speak poke gasoline tingling pay and can road basement  throttle horns gold to pound wounds against and tipping circle  treasure at the ground star story changer back sails south  the teeth on back wall bathwater bull be the the  with take say above land go standard open play the  between the on hell of end cake up that bus  outside around bottle in preternaturally toes hit foot apart Stone  kick silos storm eat as what blockbuster in welcome the  goes hole pick has burn secret of mine third in  with hip a meat penny sticke r robust the meets laser  a casting the turbocharged pump to a in the have  camel’s medicine purposes spine radar dip meme the for one’s  heavy and the the rail pack pull riot the page  narrative tune the tango the on ride...

When I was in grad school I did my thesis on Local Area Networks - it was a last minute arbritary selection done at the suggestion of my wonderful classmate Richard Mack. I did the work of the technology assessment under the direction of my tech guru, brilliant beyond words Kirt Olsen. Cut my teeth! Over more than a year, while working nights at BU Mugar Library, I came up with the estimate that in five years LANs would be a $1B industry. I couldn't believe it - but it happened. What an honor it is for me today to interview Bob Metcalfe, the most pivotal and compelling individual figure in those developments! He has a great spirit still today, and enthusiasm for technology that continues to be an influence on us. Metcalfe postulated a law that describes - let's say - the influence on node counts on system behavior. I thought to ask him for his thoughts on the worldwide network imbroglio we now face. Metcalfe:  I think networking has over-delivered. In a short 50 years we’ve rea...

Did a breaking story Sunday-Monday on a bank run. A first for me! Was still catching my breath on Wednesday. Members of the high-tech and venture capital communities — as well as many in the world beyond — braced today in the immediate aftermath of last week’s Silicon Valley Bank failure. The regulators also said they had taken control of New York-based Signature Bank, which had also faltered, after becoming a major banking service provider to companies in crypto markets. The regulators announced “systemic risk exceptions” for both banks. This exception allows the regulators to take extraordinary action that goes beyond what they are are minimally required to do, and is used in rare circumstances when inaction may lead to a snowballing of investor fear. On Friday, the Silicon Valley Bank was closed by the California Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, and the FDIC was named as receiver. That came as the bank struggled to meet customers’ often-frantic requests for withdra...