Global Emergence

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trees!

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smarterplanet:

Engineering Intelligence: Why IBM’s Jeopardy-Playing Computer Is So Important

Source: Mashable

Language is arguably what makes us most human. Even the smartest and chattiest of the animal kingdom have nothing on our lingual cognition.

In computer science, the Holy Grail has long been to build software that understands — and can interact with — natural human language. But dreams of a real-life Johnny 5 or C-3PO have always been dashed on the great gulf between raw processing power and the architecture of the human mind. Computers are great at crunching large sets of numbers. The mind excels at assumption and nuance.

Enter Watson, an artificial intelligence project from IBM that’s over five years in the making and about to prove itself to the world next week. The supercomputer, named for the technology company’s founder, will be competing with championship-level contestants on the quiz show Jeopardy!. The episodes will air on February 14, 15 and 16, and if recent practice rounds are any indication, Watson is in it to win it.

At first blush, building a computer with vast amounts of knowledge at its disposal seems mundane in our age. Google has already indexed a wide swath of the world’s codified information, and can surface almost anything with a handful of keywords. The difference is that Google doesn’t understand a question like, “What type of weapon is also the name of a Beatles record?” It may yield some information about The Beatles, or perhaps an article that mentions weapons and The Beatles, but it’s not conceptualizing that the weapon and recording in question have the same name: Revolver.

Achieving this is what makes Watson a contender on Jeopardy!, a quiz known for nuance, puns, double entendres and complex language designed to mislead human contestants. Google Search, or any common semantic software, wouldn’t stand a chance against these lingual acrobatics.

stopkillingourworld:

US Government Agencies and BP Collaborating to Cover Up True Scale of Gulf Disaster

SOURCE  <== read it!

This t r u t h o u t article titled, “Out of Sight, Out of Mind (Even When It’s Not Out of Sight)” puts into succinct article form what many of us have been trying to express via our social networks and that is simply this:  BP and our Government are collaborating to cover-up the scale of the Gulf oilpocalypse. And what is so frightening about this is that they are getting away with it.   And not only are they getting away with it, they’re also being aided by other agencies like the New York Times.  The photo above is the one the NYT ran with their article about how most of the oil “poses little additional risk” and in running that article (which was picked up and circulated around the world by AP, Reuters, etc) including the pretty picture that went with it, lots of naive USAmericans and other people around the world think it’s true!   Even many people who know better believe the headline because it’s much easier than facing the truth.  

It is much much easier to believe the truly fabulously played propaganda that we’re being fed than to think and investigate for ourselves what is truly going on.  I applaud Dahr Jamail and Erika Blumenfeld for comparing the coverup to that of Chernobyl disaster because that’s what it is.  It is a full fledged coverup of a disaster that has the potential to impact the entire United States and beyond.  We must realize that and not be eased back into our own complacency; like we do over and over and over again. We do that because it’s easier, and it’s even easier to sit behind our computer screens and post comments and concerns but how effective is that and what really changes?  If you read the comments to any blog post or online news article about what’s going on in the Gulf everyone is saying the same thing.  Here’s a perfect example, posted by “An”:

“BP lies, our government lies, animals die, people will be adversely affected, both in health and economically, and we are supposed to swallow the “disappearance” of thousands of gallons of oil. I guess our government believes we are all stupid, and we probably are, since we elected them.”

Does it matter who we elect?  I don’t think it does - remember how we raised our voices about not bailing out the Wall Street suits who manipulate us like marionettes, who got us into the financial mess in the first place, who pay hardly any taxes but run the country nonetheless?   We stopped them initially but they simply got a tiny bit more clever and went ahead and did it anyway…  our voices aren’t heard.  We don’t really carry any clout in the Government because we don’t have the funding that the lobbyists have.  And that’s all that matters in this country anymore - MONEY and MORE STUFF.  Short term profits and big bonuses.  And to make it all worse they steal common goods like our water, our mountains, our oceans, and they somehow declare they own them and do whatever they can to commercialize these common goods for their own profits!  

We have to own this ourselves people.  We have to start taking matters into our own hands.  But we need to start with our personal makeover first;  stop buying so much stuff - especially instantly disposable stuff, stop giving morally bankrupt corporations your hard earned money, weather proof your home, and start going after local and state governments to do more renewables, and sustainable energy alternatives. We have to talk to our friend and our families and get them to give a care about what’s going on, to change the way they’ve been doing things because we simply cannot continue on the same path we’ve been on for the last 50 years.  Simply cannot.  

If we don’t do it, who will? 

stopkillingourworld:

RUSSIAN HEAT, ASIAN FLOODS MAY BE LINKED

SOURCE