Gould playing Bach’s Invention No.1

Auditioning Bach for soundtrack of the Kite book trailer.

Coriolis Effect: A good name for an amusement ride or a rock band

When you go on a spinning ride and it makes you dizzy, but you keep going on anyway, you are self-administering the Coriolis Effect.

Writing Resource: 30 Latin Terms Explained

30 Latin Terms Explained, from Listverse

USF Science Fiction Symposium Feb 16-18

Three big names at this event: Gregory Benford, Ben Bova and Harry University of South Florida’s Science Fiction Symposium
Feb. 16 – 18
Sponsored by the USF Humanities Institute

Experts predict emergence of Human-level AI

H+ magazine does an extensive survey attempting to nail down 21 experts on the specific timeline and impact of  true artificial intelligence. Some predict Nobel Prize level scientific work within 30 years (for what that’s worth.) The Turing Test is mentioned. If you’re not familiar, that involves a kind of blindfold question-answer session, and for the machine to pass  it would be required that the human would not be able to tell the respondent is artificial.

Far be it from me to question official experts but this is a the kind of thing that always seems to be 20 years away. The incentive of these experts to promote the possibility cannot be taken into account because then there’d be no story. The responses are interesting and as scary as they’re meant to be but no specifics on how harmful AI will manifest is forthcoming. Science fiction is invoked to provide the atmosphere. 

Applying common sense, which always seems to befuddle experts,  just the question of which approach to take is a give-away that reliance on such experts to find a clear path will get you lost on a hurry. Probability theory came out as the most popular approach? I don’t know why it was even a choice. I supposed there must really be AI researchers out there pursuing a pure probabilities solution to AI, but  I’d think even the least intelligent human is getting it right well inside the margin of error, and the smartest of use are not walking around calculating the odds subconsciously.

For my money than I’d let it ride on one of those nonlinear dynamic systems.

NASA, a small step in the right direction

NASA awards $50 million in grants to private companies to develop technologies for Low Earth Orbit. A couple of the usual suspects are here , including Boeing, but also a start-up associated with Amazon’s founder, Jeff  Bezos.

Constellation canned, the right move, whatever the reason

The current US administration’s proposed budget kills the Constellation/Ares rocket program that would have been the next step to getting the US back to the Moon. A worthy goal, the Moon…someday but short-sighted right at the moment. In the Sixties there was a race worth winning. Now not so much. Now’s the time for sensible outside-the-box thinking. But is NASA capable?

The administration may have made the right choice for the wrong reasons, but who can say what the reasoning might be? Can’t be to save money. It’s the biggest budget ever.  Spite directed at the previous administration? Possibly. An effort to hinder any military applications of technological gains? Could be that too. Proponents of the program cite that as one of its benefits. Rand Simberg at TransTerrestrial Musings, blogging with the authority of an aerospace engineer, takes on that and other points in this post.

But whatever the reason, enough of blunt instruments. Maybe it will spur some innovation. Chemical boosters will get you there but a hundred years from now they’ll be equated with the biplane. Remember the biplane? It was all the rage, oh, just about a hundred years ago. NASA itself is the biggest blunt instrument, but there’s precious little chance of them scaling back to be the safety oversight agency and grant-writing they should be. Sure, let them keep deep space to themselves, but leave LEO to the entrepreneurs. 

High time to get smart about space exploration, and it won’t happen with aerospace giants partnering with bloated government bureaucracies.

Get on the roof first. LEO is where it’s at. Then from there the Moon again and then the rest of the Solar System.

Figure out how to make a space station you can walk upright in like a human, instead of squeezing through little Habitrail tunnels and chambers. Yes, walk before you run, but walk upright, and when you can then humans will really be in space. That would be a major achievement, and it could be accomplished in Earth orbit.

District 9 Nominated for Best Picture

Prawn!

The Oscar nominations were announced today and somehow or other District 9 is among the Best Picture nominees. Now I enjoyed the movie but let me go out on a limb and predict that it will not win the Best Picture Oscar. You might say, well, this is the first years of the expanded 10-nominee, watered- down category…but wait. It’s one of two science fiction flicks in the running. So, pro-rating back to the smaller list and, well…Avatar would still be there.

Space war notions; Back to the Moon

Fascinating and reality-based analysis of space warfare in the context of imaginary futures at Rocketpunk Manifesto.

And the Open Luna Foundation is a volunteer organization working to get Earthlings back up there to harvest all that green cheese.

Janet Dash’s adaptive modules

Here they are.  Adaptive intelligence in robots. Predator-prey behaviors. Is self-preservation inherent in intelligence? 

Don’t know who Janet Dash is? Read Kite!