elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
Tuesday, December 19th, 2017 01:15 pm
https://www.buzzfeed.com/tedchiang/the-real-danger-to-civilization-isnt-ai-its-runaway

I used to find it odd that these hypothetical AIs were supposed to be smart enough to solve problems that no human could, yet they were incapable of doing something most every adult has done: taking a step back and asking whether their current course of action is really a good idea. Then I realized that we are already surrounded by machines that demonstrate a complete lack of insight, we just call them corporations. Corporations don’t operate autonomously, of course, and the humans in charge of them are presumably capable of insight, but capitalism doesn’t reward them for using it. On the contrary, capitalism actively erodes this capacity in people by demanding that they replace their own judgment of what “good” means with “whatever the market decides.”
elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
Sunday, November 8th, 2015 05:57 pm
Christine notes, "I stumbled across Thomas Browne while researching the source of an uncited quotation in my father's papers: http://penelope.uchicago.edu/hydrionoframes/hydrio5.html "

" But man is a Noble Animal, splendid in ashes, and pompous in the grave, solemnizing Nativities and Deaths with equall lustre, nor omitting Ceremonies of bravery, in the infamy[25] of his nature.

Life is a pure flame, and we live by an invisible Sun within us. "


She also provides https://youtu.be/55IbaZW5FRQ
elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
Sunday, January 9th, 2011 04:36 pm
Howard Thurman said, “Community cannot for long feed on itself; it can only flourish with the coming of others from beyond, their unknown and undiscovered brothers.”

thanks MA
elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
Wednesday, January 5th, 2011 07:32 am


[Old Bloom County Sunday cartoon strip with most panels not quite legible, but the bottom right has Milo yelling at Opus, "AMERICA MUST NEVER AGAIN SPILL HER BLOOD IN FUTILE WARS!!"]

This is today's strip at http://news.yahoo.com/comics/classic-bloom-county
elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
Monday, November 29th, 2010 05:51 am

Hi Friends,

A couple months ago, someone shared a prayer in vocal ministry, in
which they repeated a phrase several times, dropping a word each time
until it ended in silence. I would like to remember the words, as it
seemed to be a wonderful entry into silent worship.

Thank you,
....


Hi ....,

That was Ruth F-----, and she was quoting Psalm 46:10: "Be still and
know that I am God," subtracting a word off the end each time.

Peace,
....
elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
Tuesday, September 21st, 2010 10:29 am
In "Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance", Cuddy shows that simply holding one's body in expansive, "high-power" poses for as little as two minutes stimulates higher levels of testosterone (the hormone linked to power and dominance in the animal and human worlds) and lower levels of cortisol (the "stress" hormone that can, over time, cause impaired immune functioning, hypertension, and memory loss).

... Subjects in the high-power group were manipulated into two expansive poses for one minute each: first, the classic feet on desk, hands behind head; then, standing and leaning on one's hands over a desk. ... "The poses that we used in the experiment are strongly associated across the animal kingdom with high and low dominance for very straightforward evolutionary reasons. Either you want to be big because you're in charge, or you want to close in and hide your vital organs because you're not in charge. ..."
-- http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/6461.html


I ponder the willingness to "play the primate game" as a survival technique and the justice and fairness that we really want.
elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
Friday, August 13th, 2010 07:15 am
Ref: arxiv.org/abs/1007.1750: Cosmological Models with No Big Bang
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Big Bang Abandoned in New Model of the Universe
A new cosmology successfully explains the accelerating expansion of the universe without dark energy; but only if the universe has no beginning and no end.

--==∞==--

Aptocracy from http://www.googlizationofeverything.com/2010/08/google_and_aptocracy.php
... one of the paradigmatic modern American values: merit conceived as technical competence. America, Walter Kirn writes, is run by "Aptocrats." These are people who excel at regimented procedures such as standardized tests and other forms of numerically quantifiable achievement. They conform to regimented expectations of excellence and clearly see every rung they must ascend on the ladder of success. "As defined by the institutions responsible for spotting and training America's brightest youth, this 'aptitude' is a curious quality," Kirn writes. "It doesn't reflect the knowledge in your head, let alone the wisdom in your soul, but some quotient of promise and raw mental agility thought to be crucial to academic success and, by extension, success in general. All of this makes for a self-fulfilling prophecy. The more aptitude that a young person displays, the more likely it is that she or he will have a chance to win the golden tickets--fine diplomas, elite appointments and so on--that permit you to lead the Aptocratic establishment and set the terms by which it operates."44 Aptocracy, on which Kirn elaborates in his funny memoir, Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overachiever, rewards a large measure of gumption in addition to its strata of otherwise "fair" technologies of assessment (test scores, diplomas, and certifications)

Google may be the perfect realization of Aptocracy. Google hires the best of the best from America's top university technological programs. Even those who work in marketing and sales must demonstrate aptitude via tests and gamelike interview questions.45 This focus on standardized, predictable tasks as the measure of achievement is ostensibly fair. Success in America no longer depends so heavily on social status, ethnicity, or gender. Those things still matter, and once in a while a stunningly incompetent exception circumvents the Aptocracy and rises to power , as George W. Bush did. But the Aptocracy has transformed America largely for the better over the past forty years. It has also created the environment in which Google could gestate, grow, thrive, and dominate.46
elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
Monday, July 26th, 2010 07:52 am
Work first thing again today, but trying to pace myself a little and watch the firehose.

The Joy of vicissitude

Change is a part of life. Change -- even sudden and painful change -- is indeed about the only thing that is certain in life, yet often we deny it or run from it. Instead, learn to prepare for change, face change, and even embrace it. We must adapt to the vagaries and ceaseless changes of everyday life. Experience can be a good teacher for dealing with the vicissitudes of life and work. Perhaps this is why athletes, for example, improve through real-game experience due to all the challenges that one faces in a real game that can not be simulated well in practice. If you want to get better at something, you have to do it, make mistakes, make adjustments, and improve over time. Just as a martial artist has his training enhanced by widening his experience through confronting ceaseless changes, we too can broaden our skills by being open to change and developing our skills further through the experience of dealing with those changes.

-- from Garr Reynolds "Wisdom from the principles of Budō: Lessons for work & life" based on the book Budo Secrets: Teachings of the Martial Arts Masters by professor and Aikido instructor John Stevens


In addition to exposing less for the Web to forget, it might be helpful for us to explore new ways of living in a world that is slow to forgive. It’s sobering, now that we live in a world misleadingly called a “global village,” to think about privacy in actual, small villages long ago. In the villages described in the Babylonian Talmud, for example, any kind of gossip or tale-bearing about other people — oral or written, true or false, friendly or mean — was considered a terrible sin because small communities have long memories and every word spoken about other people was thought to ascend to the heavenly cloud. (The digital cloud has made this metaphor literal.) But the Talmudic villages were, in fact, far more humane and forgiving than our brutal global village, where much of the content on the Internet would meet the Talmudic definition of gossip: although the Talmudic sages believed that God reads our thoughts and records them in the book of life, they also believed that God erases the book for those who atone for their sins by asking forgiveness of those they have wronged. In the Talmud, people have an obligation not to remind others of their past misdeeds, on the assumption they may have atoned and grown spiritually from their mistakes. “If a man was a repentant [sinner],” the Talmud says, “one must not say to him, ‘Remember your former deeds.’ ”

Unlike God, however, the digital cloud rarely wipes our slates clean, and the keepers of the cloud today are
sometimes less forgiving than their all-powerful divine predecessor.

-- Jeffrey Rosen’s “The Web Means the End of Forgetting,” NYTimes Magazine as quoted by Mike Madison
elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
Monday, April 26th, 2010 07:04 am
Bar-- Bab-- (returning to visit the area) spoke in ministry at Meeting, referring to Parker Palmer's description of the Tragic Gap.

It turns out Parker Palmer (a Quaker educator) speaks and writes about this very often, and one can find his reference to the tragic gap in multiple venues.

I copy this over because it catches something i've known without a name for it:

The insight at the heart of nonviolence is that we live in a tragic gap-a gap between the way things are and the way we know they might be. It is a gap that never has been and never will be closed. If we want to live nonviolent lives, we must learn to stand in the tragic gap, faithfully holding the tension between reality and possibility.

I harbor no illusions about how hard it is to live that way. Though I aspire to be one of those life-giving people who keeps a grip on both reality and hope, I often find that tension too hard to hold--so I let go of one pole and collapse into the other. Sometimes I resign myself to things as they are, sinking into a life of cynical disengagement. Sometimes I embrace a dreamy idealism, living a life of cheerful irresponsibility that floats above the fray.
elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 03:24 pm
http://dogobarrygraham.blogspot.com/2010/03/no-one-is-born-so-no-one-is-born-again.html

Firewood becomes ash, and it does not become firewood again. Yet do not suppose that the ash is future and the firewood past. You should understand that firewood abides in the phenomenal expression of firewood, which fully includes past and future and is independent of past and future. Ash abides in the phenomenal expression of ash, which fully includes future and past. Just as firewood does not become firewood again after it is ash, you do not return to birth after death.
- Dogen

The best way i manage to understand "self" is by thinking of a wave on the ocean. The thing we see and name "wave" is actually a sum of many different energy waves. The thing we see that crashes on the shore is a transfer of energy -- some is reflected to contribute to more waves, some is absorbed by the shore and changes the shape of the landscape.
elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
Monday, February 1st, 2010 01:20 pm
“To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for a utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is in itself a marvelous victory.” -- Howard Zinn

What i bought in the bulk candy section when i forgot to have my healthy afternoon snack before going to the grocery:
* licorice all-sorts
* Jordan almonds
* (butter-ish) mint nonpareils (pastel kiss shapes)
* maple nut clusters

When i came home, i poured my pomegranate juice into my teapot, added powdered ginger, clove, and allspice, then an equal amount of hot water. Shortly after taking a few gulps of this tonic, i felt socked in the sinuses. I note that in the eighty some allergy tests, artificial maple, allspice, licorice and pomegranate were not included. (Ginger and cloves were.)

Things i did this morning between meetings

* personal correspondence via LJ
* wrote freecycle to figure out why my two freecycle posts are still waiting for the mod
* announced to the lgbtq website folks that there was a subscription script problem that i'd fix eventually and *promptly* got a fix from the original author

Late afternoon included a nearly thirty minute call with my mother, where we commiserated on both our continued respiratory malaise. After reading a ticket response from someone who did not complete work i swear he said he'd completed, i went and started an "Mexican" casserole. We had an aging jar of commercial spinach cheese dip that went into it, as well as mashed and chili-spiced chickpeas, canned mushrooms, and black beans with ladles of canned enchilada sauce, layers of corn tortillas, and sprinkles of shredded "Mexican" cheese mix. Surely nothing authentic or gourmet about it, but it should be edible.
elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
Monday, December 7th, 2009 06:31 pm
http://www.vaginadentatablog.net/?p=139


But I was also struck by how much psychological research is based on WEIRD subjects.

And by weird, I mean Western, Educated, Industrialised, Rich and Democratic (WEIRD). A fairly recent paper in Behavioural and Brain Sciences (pdf) looked at how behavioural scientists routinely publish broad claims about human behaviour and psychology based entirely on people called Dave and Sarah who live in places like Tufnell Park and Happy Harbor (OK, that one’s where the Justice League hang out) and then assume that they are “standard subjects”*.
elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
Thursday, October 8th, 2009 11:02 am
The Internet sometimes causes people to stop thinking and to just act, especially when they’re emotional; people really need to keep thinking, especially when it comes to things they do and say on the Internet. The results if they don’t may change their lives.


-- http://madisonian.net/2009/10/08/fake-profile-poster-barred-from-public-job-for-life/

The context is someone doing something stupid resulting in them being barred for work for the State of New Jersey for the rest of their life.

At this point i'm tempted to question whether that's a punishment or not, but i recognize the hours i spent waiting for the shuttle, watching drivers on 34th St and wagering with myself whether i could identify the NJ drivers before seeing their plates, may not be sufficient cred' for knocking The Garden State.
elainegrey: Inspired by Grypping/gripping beast styles from Nordic cultures (Default)
Friday, September 11th, 2009 01:15 pm
"On the cruelty of really teaching computer science"
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EWD1036.html

"It is possible, and even tempting, to view a program as an abstract mechanism, as a device of some sort. To do so, however, is highly
dangerous: the analogy is too shallow because a program is, as a mechanism, totally different from all the familiar analogue devices we grew up with. Like all digitally encoded information, it has unavoidably the uncomfortable property that the smallest possible perturbations -i.e. changes of a single bit- can have the most drastic consequences ... In the discrete world of computing, there is no meaningful metric in which "small" changes and "small" effects go hand in hand, and there never will be.

...

Besides the notion of productivity, also that of quality control continues to be distorted by the reassuring illusion that what works with other devices works with programs as well. It is now two decades since it was pointed out that program testing may convincingly demonstrate the presence of bugs, but can never demonstrate their absence. After quoting this well-publicized remark devoutly, the software engineer returns to the order of the day and continues to refine his testing strategies, just like the alchemist of yore, who continued to refine his chrysocosmic purifications."
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