Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman

Posted on by

“You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here. . . I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell. It doesn’t frighten me.”

— Richard Feynman

Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman

The new face of the GOP

Posted on by

I’m ten weeks in on my TV news fast and I’ve dropped 50 pounds in psychic weight. No, I’m not living in a cave. I check the New York Times a couple of times a week (I even have a paid subscription), and I visit the BBC World News page for a more global perspective. Turns out there’s important stuff happening in other pars of the world. So I do get some news about American politics but now I’m controlling the spigot.

Early days for the new president but I’m wondering if it’s going to be as much fun as he thought. Time will tell. Of greater interest to me is to what extent Trump will become the new face of the Republican party. I’m sure this analogy has been worked hard because it’s so apt. After a night of Jägermeister shots the GOP wakes up to discover that dream about the tattoo parlor wasn’t a dream. Going to be hard to call yourself the Party of Reagan after a four year kegger at Sigma Tau Trump.

But who knows. That Trump tat might be good for free drinks for a long time. If so, party on! But if The Donald shits in the punch bowl, it’s gonna be hard to say it wasn’t his party.

Bots are a new medium

Posted on by

Kevin Kelly points us to an interesting piece on bots by John Borthwick. Turns out bots are a bigger thing than I realized, and they’re gonna get a lot bigger.

“Most researchers estimate that during the election cycle, bots made up approximately a quarter of all the online chatter on a particular issue or meme. […] As people understand that accounts aren’t necessarily human, they will start to trust platforms and networks less.”

Mr. Borthwick make reference to Dexter which is (I think) a service that will help you develop a bot for your business (or whatever). You can see my chat session with their demo below. And if you’re feeling a little lonely…

Chat bots are going to become a thing in 2017, as Clem the CEO of Hugging Face, an awesomely interesting chat bot company says, “everyone, one day will have an AI friend”.

 

Safe Shorts

Posted on by

“A German company recently sparked controversy after launching a line of women’s underwear that it claims can protect the wearer against sexual assault. Called ‘Safe Shorts’ the underpants are made of a slash and tearing-resistant fabric and feature a combination lock and a loud alarm system that goes off when the pants are tampered with.”

“Short Pants feature three different forms of protection against assailants. First, the pants’ drawstrings are made of a very tough material that makes them almost impossible to cut or tear, and the combination lock prevents the attacker from untying them or pulling off the underwear without first untying the drawstrings. Then there is the soft protector in the crotch area that prevents assailants from tearing the Soft Pants between the wearer’s legs.”

“And finally, there is the alarm system that produces a loud acoustic signal (130 decibels) when it detects that the pants are being tampered with. The wearer can also trigger the alarm voluntarily by by sharply pulling the drawstrings to scare off the attackers and as a call for help.”

“The jogging model costs $160 and the everyday use one are $107.”