Baby Winter Olympics

I mentioned before that the only Winter Olympic sport I would care to watch is curling but since I do not have cable TV, I could not see any because the network broadcasts only show it at weird hours. But I got lucky on my long flight last week because the airline had various TV channels and while surfing through, I managed to catch the US vs. Switzerland women’s curling contest. It was fascinating. The level of strategy involved and the precision with which the teams can aim the ‘rock’ towards the ‘house’ (I am slowly learning the jargon) is amazing.
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Is there art in artificial intelligence?

I mentioned the fascinating Science Café talk on Deep Learning. At the very end, there was a thought provoking question raised by an artist in the audience who asked whether such machines could create works of art. The speaker pondered the question and answered that in his opinion, the answer is no. His reasoning was that in a work of art, the artist is trying to convey something based on their life experiences and emotions and a computer, however sophisticated and capable of learning, would not be able to draw upon such resources.
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Some pet peeves

There are some things that in the grand scheme of life don’t matter at all but still annoy me.

One is the increasing use of overwrought headlines for news stories that promise way more than they deliver. As one might expect, I read a lot of progressive websites and am sick of overwrought and exaggerated headlines that say that this or that conservative on some program was ‘totally destroyed’ or ‘eviscerated’ or ‘went down in flames’ or ‘had a meltdown’ or something similarly dramatic. The articles never match the hype and all that usually happened is that the allegedly destroyed person simply got into a shouting match with other guests or the hosts, hardly a novelty on talk shows these days. I understand the need to generate clicks and traffic in order to generate revenue but in my case the result has been the opposite of what is intended. I actually avoid clicking on stories that have such headlines.
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The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar

People going missing and then returning much later and doubts arising about their identity make for engrossing real life stories and have been the stuff of books and films. This is even more so when the missing person is a child who is later reunited with their families. The excellent radio program This American Life this week repeated an old episode where a child named Bobby Dunbar disappeared in Louisiana in 1912 at the age of four. After being missing for nearly eight months, he was discovered in the company of William Walters, an itinerant piano tuner and handyman.

Or was he?
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Blogging anniversary

It was 13 years ago today that I decided to try this new thing called ‘blogging’. It was hosted by a newly installed blogging platform at my university and the friendly people working there helped me get over the initial difficulties of learning how to do basic things. I did not expect to blog for long but here I am, still plugging away and having fun.

Dog recued from frozen river

I am a sucker for good news animal stories like this one from the UK via Carla Sinclair.

According to the YouTube page:

RSPCA inspector Jaqui Miller successfully rescues a dog who had gotten stuck in a frozen river. The inspector was secured with a rope, and prones down to reach the dog without falling through the ice herself. She then frees the dog who then stumbles back to shore.

Channeling Marcel Marceau

We are currently experiencing a prolonged period of snow and extreme cold and wind, though In Cleveland the snowfall has been a couple of inches every other day or so and not the massive snowstorms that have hit other parts of the northeast. But it was bad enough that driving required considerable caution.

This video of Mike Warner of Oregon trying to climb stairs in 90 mph wind reminds me of the old ‘walking into the wind’ mime classic.
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