Appropriate and inappropriate workplace behavior

The recent spate of revelations about inappropriate behavior in the workplace has largely dealt with pretty serious offenses where the wrongdoing was obvious. But what about gray areas where people may not be sure if something is appropriate or not? To explore this NPR, in conjunction with the polling outfit Ipsos, conducted a survey to see what people thought was appropriate and what was not and reporter Danielle Kurtzleben discussed the results on last Saturday’s episode of All Things Considered.
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Public toilet etiquette

On my long flight back from California, I whiled away some of the time by watching some episodes of the comedy show Curb Your Enthusiasm that stars Larry David who plays himself as a somewhat cantankerous and annoying busybody who talks all the time, and deals with his life and interactions with other comedy writers and actors in Los Angeles who makes cameo appearances. I had never seen a full episode of the show before but had seen clips and was of course aware of David himself, especially given his many appearances on Saturday Night Live during the 2016 election campaign where his strong physical and vocal resemblance to Bernie Sanders, including his gruff manner, was exploited to the hilt.
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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.