Tag: sausage grinder of snark

Wet Start

Umayyad Dynasty (yes, just as easy to understand as Duck Dynasty)

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Philip K. Dicks

Hey, 2 – 1 over Ghana

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Good? News

IT’S ALIVE!

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What?  Accountability?

Blackwater on trial over killing of 14 Iraqi civilians in 2007

Associated Press

Wednesday 11 June 2014 10.17 EDT

Blackwater founder Erik Prince declared: “I believe we acted appropriately at all times.” The Nisoor Square shootings spelled the death knell for his company. Formerly known as Blackwater Worldwide, the company is under new ownership and Prince is no longer affiliated with it. The company was sold to a group of investors who changed the name to Academi.

…

In 2009, U.S. District Judge Ricardo Urbina dismissed the case against the Blackwater guards. From the Iraqi government’s perspective, the dismissal was an example of Americans acting above the law. Urbina said government lawyers ignored the advice of senior Justice Department officials by building the criminal case on sworn statements of the guards given under a grant of immunity – meaning the guards’ own statements could not be used against them.

Two years later, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit revived the prosecution, ruling that Urbina had wrongly interpreted the law. The decision gave the Justice Department another chance.

In the upcoming trial, one of the guards, Nicholas Slatten, is charged with first-degree murder. The other three guards – Paul Slough, Evan Liberty and Dustin Heard – are charged with voluntary manslaughter, attempted manslaughter and gun charges. Slatten could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted, while the other guards face a mandatory minimum penalty of 30 years in prison if a defendant is convicted of the gun charge and at least one other charge.

No, A ‘Supercomputer’ Did NOT Pass The Turing Test For The First Time And Everyone Should Know Better

by Mike Masnick, TechDirt

Mon, Jun 9th 2014 7:43am

Okay, almost everything about the story is bogus. Let’s dig in:

1. It’s not a “supercomputer,” it’s a chatbot. It’s a script made to mimic human conversation. There is no intelligence, artificial or not involved. It’s just a chatbot.
2. Plenty of other chatbots have similarly claimed to have “passed” the Turing test in the past (often with higher ratings). Here’s a story from three years ago about another bot, Cleverbot, “passing” the Turing Test by convincing 59% of judges it was human (much higher than the 33% Eugene Goostman) claims.
3. It “beat” the Turing test here by “gaming” the rules — by telling people the computer was a 13-year-old boy from Ukraine in order to mentally explain away odd responses.
4. The “rules” of the Turing test always seem to change. Hell, Turing’s original test was quite different anyway.
5. As Chris Dixon points out, you don’t get to run a single test with judges that you picked and declare you accomplished something. That’s just not how it’s done. If someone claimed to have created nuclear fusion or cured cancer, you’d wait for some peer review and repeat tests under other circumstances before buying it, right?
6. The whole concept of the Turing Test itself is kind of a joke. While it’s fun to think about, creating a chatbot that can fool humans is not really the same thing as creating artificial intelligence. Many in the AI world look on the Turing Test as a needless distraction.

Oh, and the biggest red flag of all. The event was organized by Kevin Warwick at Reading University. If you’ve spent any time at all in the tech world, you should automatically have red flags raised around that name. Warwick is somewhat infamous for his ridiculous claims to the press, which gullible reporters repeat without question. He’s been doing it for decades. All the way back in 2000, we were writing about all the ridiculous press he got for claiming to be the world’s first “cyborg” for implanting a chip in his arm. There was even a — since taken down — Kevin Warwick Watch website that mocked and categorized all of his media appearances in which gullible reporters simply repeated all of his nutty claims. Warwick had gone quiet for a while, but back in 2010, we wrote about how his lab was getting bogus press for claiming to have “the first human infected with a computer virus.” The Register has rightly referred to Warwick as both “Captain Cyborg” and a “media strumpet” and has long been chronicling his escapades in exaggerating bogus stories about the intersection of humans and computers for many, many years.

Throwball

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The Amish Mafia

The Dream Team

Philip K. Howard’s 3 part Web Exclusive interview below the fold (no, it doesn’t get any better).

Goofus & Gallant

Spore Report

You’re very handy, I can tell. I bet you like to read a lot, too.

Print is dead.

Oh, that’s very fascinating to me. I read a lot myself. Some people think I’m too intellectual but I think it’s a fabulous way to spend your spare time. I also play raquetball. Do you have any hobbies?

I collect spores, molds, and fungus.

Below the fold Chrissie Hynde x 2 including Exclusive Web Extra!

Oh, and tonight’s shows and commentary.

Introducing Michael Che

Sherman Alexie

Gigi Ibrahim’s 3 part Web Exclusive extended interview below the fold.

Caaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain!

Dan Esty

Stephen cleaned up his chin but as always there is more discussion below the fold.

Yup.  “Progressives.”

Economics?  Not a Science.

For a discussion of Stephen’s new facial hair you can join me below the fold.