I noted this week that the MIT guys have been busy. These are the 'rocket-scientists' of America. They think of a problem, and solve it. Well....they finally built a bartender-robot.
I'm not sure of the priority of such a requirement, or if the pub-owners of America hinted that it might be more cost effective.....but they sat down and designed the first version of the bartender-robot.
The guys who designed the bartender-robot admit that there are limits to this. For example.....if someone drops a drink on the floor.....this robot doesn't have the ability to solve the problem or clean up the mess....at least not yet.
I'm guessing a couple of Japanese robot designers will look over this bit of news....spend three years in an enclosed lab and emerge with a robot who does all the drink business, and cleans up the dropped drink.
I noted that they didn't really give the drink robot a typical bartender name....like "Ernie" or "Mandy" or "Monty". This is one of the key things about a bartender.....there's an established relationship between bartender and the customer.
Bartenders serve this odd position in life.....providing consultation, judgement, recommendations and tips.
A guy screws up on a relationship, and within hours....he'll be at the bar to ask for advice. A gal makes a big mistake at the office, and within hours.....she'll be at the bar to seek guidance. A guy will lose big-time at a poker game and within hours.....he's at the bar to get an opinion on how to explain this significant loss to the wife.
How will the robot fit into this scheme? I'm not sure. Maybe they can eventually program "Elvis 2.0" to stand there while serving a drink, and note the three big rules of a failed relationship, or rattle off the five best TV shows of the 1970s, or discuss rocket-science issues over dishwashers. Maybe you could tie this robot into Goggle and he'd just answer question after question. Maybe at some point, after the third or fourth drink....."Elvis 2.0" would ask you for a blood sample to ensure you aren't drunk and he'd test you right there at the stool.
We are probably safe for another decade or so before this sort of stuff gets out of control and suddenly they show up in big-name bars in Seattle or Portland. It'll be another thirty years before they start to show up in the heartland and small towns.
Saturday, 15 August 2015
Tuesday, 4 August 2015
Dead Lions Talk
Not that I care that much for the Cecil the Lion (the old lion that whacked by the American dentist)....but I noted today that some gal who claims to be a seance-expert.....that she was able to communicate with dead Cecil (the lion).
She wanted to let folks know that Cecil is doing ok in the afterlife.....urging folks to be strong and speak up for those who suffer. Bring some light and some love....to life. That was the words from dead Cecil (the lion).
Dead lion communication? Well....you see, this is all part of the whole gimmick. If some people hyped up the first part of the story....why can't a second wave hype up more of the dead lion story with some communication episodes.
Maybe we could have a seance crew each week communicate with dead animals....like Lassie, Flicker, Ole Yella, Mister Ed, and Flipper the dolphin.
Are we finished with Cecil and his affairs yet? No.
Sadly, I think there's still more to come.
She wanted to let folks know that Cecil is doing ok in the afterlife.....urging folks to be strong and speak up for those who suffer. Bring some light and some love....to life. That was the words from dead Cecil (the lion).
Dead lion communication? Well....you see, this is all part of the whole gimmick. If some people hyped up the first part of the story....why can't a second wave hype up more of the dead lion story with some communication episodes.
Maybe we could have a seance crew each week communicate with dead animals....like Lassie, Flicker, Ole Yella, Mister Ed, and Flipper the dolphin.
Are we finished with Cecil and his affairs yet? No.
Sadly, I think there's still more to come.
Friday, 31 July 2015
Pondering Over Cecil the Lion
I have followed to some degree....this Cecil the Lion story for the last three or four days. It's a simplistic story. American dentist saves up a ton of money ($50,000) and pays for a lion expedition in Zimbabwe. No one says the cost of the airline ticket, the booze for the period while in Zimbabwe, the food bill, or incidentals. I'd take a guess that it was a bit more than $50,000.
There seems to be a fair number of people upset by the shooting of Cecil. Maybe on the friendly lion side of this.....having a name like Cecil.....and being a "blood-thirsty dentist" (as one comment suggested on a page)....maybe I can buy into this whole story.
The problem is....no one says much when a lion attacks a kid and drags him off into the tall grass for an afternoon treat. I can venture through 300-odd newspapers in the US and I doubt if there's been a single such story over the past decade.
On average, just in Tanzania alone....there's around 70-odd lion attacks on humans each year, which result in death.
If you count all of Africa, on average....it's around 250 humans killed by lions each year. If you counted in snakes, leopard attacks, elephants charging into villages, etc....there's probably a thousand Africans a year killed by wildlife.
In India, there's roughly eighty people killed yearly by Tigers.
No one ever says much over these events....unless you live in the country affected. The local news in India will report each tiger-attack and name the poor woman or kid that was dragged off into the woods. Tanzania newspapers will typically a lion-attack of a human on page one or page two, and likely sensationalize the event. No, they don't ever assign a name to the lion because there's just no necessity to such a situation.
Had Cecil ever attacked a human? No one suggests such and you can only guess that Cecil mostly stayed with four-legged animals for his lunch and dinner treats.
Are we pretty naive? Well.....yeah.
We quickly bought into the story because of the friendly lion name of Cecil. Had he been a "Cerberus" (demon of the pit), or Seth....we might have been less inclined to think that nicely of Cecil.
Adding onto this....we have a natural dislike of dentists because we think they are dishonest in their prices. The fact that this guy had $50,000 to throw around on a lion-hunt license seems to bother some folks.
A big deal? I have my doubts. The sad truth is....this dentist could have paid the $50,000....gone over and spent seven days hunting some lion, and resting one moment by a stream.....had Cecil suddenly jump over a boulder and confront the dentist in a moment where the gun was six feet away. Cecil would have chomped down on the dentist arm, then his leg, and then dragged the poor guy off into the high grass to enjoy an afternoon snack.
A Zimbabwe reporter would have arrived at the local hospital to get some pictures of the half-eaten American dentist and wrote a fine 10,000-word Steinbeck-like piece over the last day of dentist's life....what he ate....the fancy Chinese hunting jacket that he wore.....the fake Nike tennis shoes that he bought on the final morning....the last song played the night before by the washed-up British singer at the resort....the cheap local beer that he consumed in significant quantities throughout the day....and noted that some local tribe had assigned a curse with Cecil a decade ago....that he was a 'bad' lion.
It would have been a front-page story in Zimbabwe. Oddly, the story would have only appeared in the local paper of the dentist on page two....noting his passing and noting his wife or kids were sad over this but noted that he died in the thrills of his hobby. The gravestone would note somewhere.....'lion-hunter'.....in the remarks.
Yeah, that could have been the alternate story to the day, and no one would have raised a glass to the dentist or uttered some profane comment about the man-eater lion named Cecil. We are that stupid, if you think about it.
There seems to be a fair number of people upset by the shooting of Cecil. Maybe on the friendly lion side of this.....having a name like Cecil.....and being a "blood-thirsty dentist" (as one comment suggested on a page)....maybe I can buy into this whole story.
The problem is....no one says much when a lion attacks a kid and drags him off into the tall grass for an afternoon treat. I can venture through 300-odd newspapers in the US and I doubt if there's been a single such story over the past decade.
On average, just in Tanzania alone....there's around 70-odd lion attacks on humans each year, which result in death.
If you count all of Africa, on average....it's around 250 humans killed by lions each year. If you counted in snakes, leopard attacks, elephants charging into villages, etc....there's probably a thousand Africans a year killed by wildlife.
In India, there's roughly eighty people killed yearly by Tigers.
No one ever says much over these events....unless you live in the country affected. The local news in India will report each tiger-attack and name the poor woman or kid that was dragged off into the woods. Tanzania newspapers will typically a lion-attack of a human on page one or page two, and likely sensationalize the event. No, they don't ever assign a name to the lion because there's just no necessity to such a situation.
Had Cecil ever attacked a human? No one suggests such and you can only guess that Cecil mostly stayed with four-legged animals for his lunch and dinner treats.
Are we pretty naive? Well.....yeah.
We quickly bought into the story because of the friendly lion name of Cecil. Had he been a "Cerberus" (demon of the pit), or Seth....we might have been less inclined to think that nicely of Cecil.
Adding onto this....we have a natural dislike of dentists because we think they are dishonest in their prices. The fact that this guy had $50,000 to throw around on a lion-hunt license seems to bother some folks.
A big deal? I have my doubts. The sad truth is....this dentist could have paid the $50,000....gone over and spent seven days hunting some lion, and resting one moment by a stream.....had Cecil suddenly jump over a boulder and confront the dentist in a moment where the gun was six feet away. Cecil would have chomped down on the dentist arm, then his leg, and then dragged the poor guy off into the high grass to enjoy an afternoon snack.
A Zimbabwe reporter would have arrived at the local hospital to get some pictures of the half-eaten American dentist and wrote a fine 10,000-word Steinbeck-like piece over the last day of dentist's life....what he ate....the fancy Chinese hunting jacket that he wore.....the fake Nike tennis shoes that he bought on the final morning....the last song played the night before by the washed-up British singer at the resort....the cheap local beer that he consumed in significant quantities throughout the day....and noted that some local tribe had assigned a curse with Cecil a decade ago....that he was a 'bad' lion.
It would have been a front-page story in Zimbabwe. Oddly, the story would have only appeared in the local paper of the dentist on page two....noting his passing and noting his wife or kids were sad over this but noted that he died in the thrills of his hobby. The gravestone would note somewhere.....'lion-hunter'.....in the remarks.
Yeah, that could have been the alternate story to the day, and no one would have raised a glass to the dentist or uttered some profane comment about the man-eater lion named Cecil. We are that stupid, if you think about it.
Wednesday, 29 July 2015
Book Review: Only Yesterday
Only Yesterday; An Informal History of the 1920s, by Frederick Lewis Allen.
First, I'll admit....from high school and college....the 1920s are the weakest area written and covered by any instructor. I probably should have picked up this book forty years ago and read it.
Allen does a great job in detailing the lead up to the 1920s and the whole decade. He explains the effect of World War I and the Wilson era. He leads you through a simplistic chapter on Harding and his failures as a leader and man. And there's chapters twelve and thirteen, which detail the bull market of the 1920s and the eventual collapse. If you were wanting a concise description over a two-hour read of the period and Wall Street's' collapse and our decade-long depression....go to chapters twelve/thirteen.
I strongly emphasize reading chapter ten, which covers the alcohol period and growth of the mafia through bootleg sales.
What you come away with....is this significant change in America that comes from the war, women's voting, Prohibition and it's failure, and the arrival of innovation upon the doorstep of simple America. We were never the same after 1920....we were an entirely different culture of people.
Chapter eleven will cover the boom and bust of real estate markets and closely parallel the decade prior to 2008's economic collapse in the US. It's a shocker for most people who never heard of the various issues of the period.
An excellent book and worthy of any personal book collection.
First, I'll admit....from high school and college....the 1920s are the weakest area written and covered by any instructor. I probably should have picked up this book forty years ago and read it.
Allen does a great job in detailing the lead up to the 1920s and the whole decade. He explains the effect of World War I and the Wilson era. He leads you through a simplistic chapter on Harding and his failures as a leader and man. And there's chapters twelve and thirteen, which detail the bull market of the 1920s and the eventual collapse. If you were wanting a concise description over a two-hour read of the period and Wall Street's' collapse and our decade-long depression....go to chapters twelve/thirteen.
I strongly emphasize reading chapter ten, which covers the alcohol period and growth of the mafia through bootleg sales.
What you come away with....is this significant change in America that comes from the war, women's voting, Prohibition and it's failure, and the arrival of innovation upon the doorstep of simple America. We were never the same after 1920....we were an entirely different culture of people.
Chapter eleven will cover the boom and bust of real estate markets and closely parallel the decade prior to 2008's economic collapse in the US. It's a shocker for most people who never heard of the various issues of the period.
An excellent book and worthy of any personal book collection.
Friday, 17 July 2015
The Ice Age Story
There were several news reports this week over a University of Northumbria project, which suggests that in roughly fifteen years.....we will enter a mini Ice Age.
Naturally, this got people hyped up a bit.
The details come mostly from sun activity and cycles. What they can generally say....is that the sun absolutely has cycles and it's proven over and over by the data that they collect. Unlike the model data for environmentalists which usually is proven to wrong.....the sun data goes through a cycle and you can note the impact or variations of the cycle. For a climate change guy.....it's pretty tough work to disprove this stuff. Naturally, it bothers the climate change folks because this means conflict with carbon efforts and warming efforts.
Naturally, if you got to the point of believing this....then you'd ask a question or two. If we enter such a harsh winter-like period.....won't we use more carbon to warm ourselves? Oh my....yes.
What we end up with? Well....from the 1700s....winters typically started earlier and ended later. You had a shorter spring and fall. Heating? Well....you can figure if you live up in New York or in the upper part of the US.....around twenty-five to fifty percent more heating than you currently use. This might disturb some folks.
As we get closer to the anticipated period.....my humble guess is that environmentalists and climate change folks will argue that this is related to their mess, and has little to do with the sun. After a year or two of extremely long and harsh winters.....they will lose the bulk of their believers....IF all of this comes to pass. I'm not a hundred percent in belief over this, but I tend to believe in history repeating itself, and I know the consequences of the last mini ice age.
My humble suggestion is that you might want to get into some solar heating cells in ten years and wisely invest in more insulation for the house. It might be worth it.
Naturally, this got people hyped up a bit.
The details come mostly from sun activity and cycles. What they can generally say....is that the sun absolutely has cycles and it's proven over and over by the data that they collect. Unlike the model data for environmentalists which usually is proven to wrong.....the sun data goes through a cycle and you can note the impact or variations of the cycle. For a climate change guy.....it's pretty tough work to disprove this stuff. Naturally, it bothers the climate change folks because this means conflict with carbon efforts and warming efforts.
Naturally, if you got to the point of believing this....then you'd ask a question or two. If we enter such a harsh winter-like period.....won't we use more carbon to warm ourselves? Oh my....yes.
What we end up with? Well....from the 1700s....winters typically started earlier and ended later. You had a shorter spring and fall. Heating? Well....you can figure if you live up in New York or in the upper part of the US.....around twenty-five to fifty percent more heating than you currently use. This might disturb some folks.
As we get closer to the anticipated period.....my humble guess is that environmentalists and climate change folks will argue that this is related to their mess, and has little to do with the sun. After a year or two of extremely long and harsh winters.....they will lose the bulk of their believers....IF all of this comes to pass. I'm not a hundred percent in belief over this, but I tend to believe in history repeating itself, and I know the consequences of the last mini ice age.
My humble suggestion is that you might want to get into some solar heating cells in ten years and wisely invest in more insulation for the house. It might be worth it.
The Snake Story
I noted this morning in the news.....cops in Austin are saying they have a problem of an unusual nature. Some kid died, and from the evidence at hand.....they say he had a pet cobra snake. The snake bit him and he died within minutes. The snake? Well.....he wandered off. So far.....no one has found him. There's an intensive search to be mounted by local authorities on Friday.
From time to time.....you will note news items like this where people build up some collection of dangerous snakes because of a fascination. Occasionally, they get bit, and some live....some die. It's a fairly dangerous hobby.
Back around 1984, I was briefly in Colorado and we had this episode to occur with a couple.
Authorities found them dead on some hilltop....mutual suicide deal. They both had various issues and it didn't take much work to establish facts over the case. The one odd thing were all these empty canvas bags in the back of the car. So they went back to the house of the couple and noted these empty glass cages.
Cops asked questions of the neighbors. The neighbors noted around twenty-odd poisonous snakes in the private collection that the couple held. All were gone.
What the head cop ended up summarizing for the reporter....was this theory that the couple had released all of these poisonous snakes there on the hilltop....in the midst of the Rockies....into the wild. This included a couple of cobras. The snake expert included a comment or two into the story that winters are severe and he didn't have a lot of faith that these particular snakes would survive. Course, he suggested this......he couldn't be sure.
It's been thirty years since that summer and one has to wonder.....if he was right, or if there's a whole hilltop infested with cobras in Colorado. One of those things that you'd rather not ask about.
From time to time.....you will note news items like this where people build up some collection of dangerous snakes because of a fascination. Occasionally, they get bit, and some live....some die. It's a fairly dangerous hobby.
Back around 1984, I was briefly in Colorado and we had this episode to occur with a couple.
Authorities found them dead on some hilltop....mutual suicide deal. They both had various issues and it didn't take much work to establish facts over the case. The one odd thing were all these empty canvas bags in the back of the car. So they went back to the house of the couple and noted these empty glass cages.
Cops asked questions of the neighbors. The neighbors noted around twenty-odd poisonous snakes in the private collection that the couple held. All were gone.
What the head cop ended up summarizing for the reporter....was this theory that the couple had released all of these poisonous snakes there on the hilltop....in the midst of the Rockies....into the wild. This included a couple of cobras. The snake expert included a comment or two into the story that winters are severe and he didn't have a lot of faith that these particular snakes would survive. Course, he suggested this......he couldn't be sure.
It's been thirty years since that summer and one has to wonder.....if he was right, or if there's a whole hilltop infested with cobras in Colorado. One of those things that you'd rather not ask about.
Saturday, 11 July 2015
The Exorcism in Mexico
I read a fair number of news sources throughout a normal week (probably over 1,000 news items). Occasionally, you will pick up one item which demands a bit of pondering.
Roughly a month ago....the archbishop of Guadalajara (a state in Mexico) did up an exorcism of sorts. Cardinal Iniguez got with some other Catholic priests.....huddled quietly in a room.....and tried to drive out demons from across all of Mexico.
No one is saying much over the success and there's some thought that it was way too big of a problem for just a couple of priests (you'd probably need two-hundred priests for the Mexico problem).
So, this brings around this solution to applying for problems in the US. Could we work up some massive 10,000 priest operation and do a big-time exorcism in the US?
Naturally, some folks in Alabama would ask questions. Would this mess around with legit sin (gambling in casino operations, drinking two-percent beer on Saturday night, conducting relations with the Dairy Queen lady or the Piggly Wiggly clerk)?
Then they'd ask if this was mumbo-jumbo and just fake?
Somewhere down the line.....they'd eventually ask if this were permanent or just a short-term solution.
Finally, some guy would ask if Satan was really responsible or were people just blaming their stupidity and lax morals on some fake thing.....thus not taking responsibility over themselves?
For some reason, I'm not buying into the Mexico exorcism episode. Nor do I think most Mexicans believe the story beyond just a gimmick of the Catholic Church to fake people out.
Roughly a month ago....the archbishop of Guadalajara (a state in Mexico) did up an exorcism of sorts. Cardinal Iniguez got with some other Catholic priests.....huddled quietly in a room.....and tried to drive out demons from across all of Mexico.
No one is saying much over the success and there's some thought that it was way too big of a problem for just a couple of priests (you'd probably need two-hundred priests for the Mexico problem).
So, this brings around this solution to applying for problems in the US. Could we work up some massive 10,000 priest operation and do a big-time exorcism in the US?
Naturally, some folks in Alabama would ask questions. Would this mess around with legit sin (gambling in casino operations, drinking two-percent beer on Saturday night, conducting relations with the Dairy Queen lady or the Piggly Wiggly clerk)?
Then they'd ask if this was mumbo-jumbo and just fake?
Somewhere down the line.....they'd eventually ask if this were permanent or just a short-term solution.
Finally, some guy would ask if Satan was really responsible or were people just blaming their stupidity and lax morals on some fake thing.....thus not taking responsibility over themselves?
For some reason, I'm not buying into the Mexico exorcism episode. Nor do I think most Mexicans believe the story beyond just a gimmick of the Catholic Church to fake people out.
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