Author Archives: Steve Mays
The Queen’s Gambit
This is a thriller about tournament chess. The tournaments aren’t just background for a more exciting plot, the chess games are the action. Piece-by-piece. Don’t play chess? (I don’t) Doesn’t matter, I was on the edge of my seat. (Wikipedia)
As with the only other novel I’ve ready by Walter Tevis (Mockingbird), I felt a sense of impending doom on every page of this story. I was exhausted by the end. I didn’t read closely enough to learn if Tevis was a chess player. Hard to image writing this story if he wasn’t.
If there was a false note, for me it was the main character’s struggle with alcohol and pills. According to Wikipedia, the author had the same struggle. This element just seemed “tacked on” to me.
[I was reminded of the drinking binges (and hang-overs) of Matthew Scudder, the alcoholic detective created by Lawrence Block. It was hard to read those without a cold cloth on the back of your neck.]
Dignity in doing other things
I’m not sure why Kevin Drum is an expert on robots but he wrote an interesting article for Mother Jones. The excerpts below are from the Washington Post Wonkblog:
“There’s a couple of arguments against the idea that AI is coming soon. One is, as you say, a philosophical argument, which boils down to “However smart machines seem to get, they’ll never have true human intelligence.” I just don’t think that matters. You can call it intelligence or something difference, but that’s semantic. What matters is that they can accomplish the same things humans can.”
“So who has all the money? It’s whoever has the robots. And who has the robots? The people who have all the money. Today’s income inequality will be peanuts compared to income inequality then. […] If I’m right about what happens with artificial intelligence, there won’t be any work, period, so there won’t be dignity in work. We’ll have to find dignity in doing other things.”
Flying by iPad
Barb had a meeting in Kansas City today and the client sent the company plane to fetch her (and save a few billable hours, I assume). She snapped this photo of the pilot’s iPad. I shared this on Google+ where Bisbo (a pilot for Southwest) posted the following comment:
“The major airlines are starting to go to this, and slowly moving away from paper charts. With it tied into GPS, you can see your position along the route, and you can also overlay weather radar information from the NWS. In fact, I often get much better weather information form my First Officer’s iPhone than I do from dispatch.”
The Retirement Myth
“Only 58% of us are even saving for retirement in the first place. Of that group, 60% have less than $25,000 put away … a full 30% have less than $1,000.” According to Nielsen Claritas, Americans age 55 to 64 have a median net worth of $180,000 — less than they’ll likely need for health care spending alone during retirement. — According to ConvergEx Group
“The entire concept of retirement is unique to the late-20th century. Before World War II, most Americans worked until they died.”
“According to the Centers for Disease Control’s actuary tables, someone born in 1950 could expect to live to age 68.2, while someone born in 2010 could expect to live to 78.7.”