Voder-Vocoder

“There are few things that are so unpardonably neglected in our country as poker… Why, I have known clergymen, good men, kindhearted, liberal, sincere, and all that, who did not know the meaning of a ‘flush’. It is enough to make one ashamed of one’s species.” — Mark Twain

“If you steal property, you must report its fair market value in your income in the year you steal it unless in the same year, you return it to its rightful owner”
—Internal Revenue Service publication 525

Just so you know.

Below the fold: a cartoon from 1989. The story of my year.
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Google employee: “We are not scanning all those books to be read by people; we are scanning them to be read by an AI.”

George Dyson: “For 30 years I have been wondering, what indication of its existence might we expect from a true AI? Certainly not any explicit revelation, which might spark a movement to pull the plug. Anomalous accumulation or creation of wealth might be a sign, or an unquenchable thirst for raw information, storage space, and processing cycles, or a concerted attempt to secure an uninterrupted, autonomous power supply. But the real sign, I suspect, would be a circle of cheerful, contented, intellectually and physically well-nourished people surrounding the AI. There wouldn’t be any need for True Believers, or the downloading of human brains or anything sinister like that: just a gradual, gentle, pervasive and mutually beneficial contact between us and a growing something else.“

(Source)

Though I never met the man. Edgar T once told me that the Prince gave him a cookie when Ed was young.

“…The parties were mind-bending. I have a photo of his front yard and its slackful contents: coffins, stacks of tires, dismembered mannequins, etc. I was told he made his millions by taking out an insurance policy against going insane, and then going insane, though I’ve never been able to verify this….”

Last week I was reading an article about Miers’ main qualification as a Supreme Court nominee being, as it is with all Bush appointees, personal loyalty to the president. This criteria makes a Machiavellian sort of sense when applied to cronies you’re going to make cabinet secretaries or bureau chiefs, but I couldn’t figure out why you’d require personal loyalty from someone you were selecting for a lifetime appointment… unless, I realized, you also intended to be in office for life. That’s when I realized: they have no intention of leaving office. No way in hell are they taking any chance of losing an election with some other candidate. They are entrenched in the White House for good.

(source)

“Temper tantrums are typically frowned upon at the office, but they are still considered more acceptable than crying.” (source)

Remember the iPod? Why do you think it was so prone to scratching and going all gunky after a year in your pocket? Why would Apple build a handheld technology out of materials that turned to shit if you looked at them cross-eyed? It’s because the iPod was only meant to last a year!

Cory Doctorow (source)

Whenever I hear them use the word “freedom” now, I mentally substitute the word “oil,” and suddenly the sentence is translated into perfect sense: “Oil is on the march,” “The terrorists hate our oil,” “Our heroic troops have paid the ultimate price for oil,” “Oil isn’t free,” etc.

—Tim Kreider (source)

People like me read the encylopedia for fun.

Today I read about Li-ion batteries. “ At a typical 100% charge level at 25 degrees Celsius, Li-ion batteries irreversibly lose approximately 20% capacity per year from the time they are manufactured, even when unused.”

“Nowhere in the Constitution does it say anything about it being illegal to ridicule or deride someone’s lameass religious beliefs.” (source)

What it looks like: Insane Tom Cruise chose to marry innocent Katie Holmes as part of a cynical publicity stunt.

What we hope it is: Skeptical mastermind Katie Holmes is plotting a cold-blooded, single-handed takedown-from-within of the Church of Scientology.

(source)