‘In a speech Friday night to the Annual American Association for the Advancement of Science conference, Google co-founder Larry Page let slip with a truth we all suspected:
“We have some people at Google [who] are really trying to build artificial intelligence (AI) and to do it on a large scale…It’s not as far off as people think.”
Yep, you read that right, Google is trying to build real AI. The worlds most dominant online company, with the largest conglomeration of computing power the world has ever seen, is trying to build artificial intelligence, and according to Page it isn’t that far away either. The term Googlebot is about to take on a whole new meaning, and in the not to distant future as well.’
‘It’s still going to be legal in Arizona for trucks to have splash guards with racist terms and silhouettes of naked women.
The state House on Thursday rejected a Democratic amendment that would have banned splash guards with images that are “obscene or hateful.” [..]
“I personally am tired of explaining to my 11-year-old son why they (women) are depicted on mudflaps , but not all women are 36Ds. He’s very confused by that,” Ulmer said. “But seriously, this is about family values — what are we going to send out as a message to our children.”‘
This is quite sad, actually.
see it here »
‘A bill modifying Hungary’s penal code could allow pornographic material involving 14- to 17-year-olds to be made and kept for personal use.
The Justice Ministry said the draft proposal, presented last month by Hungarian Justice Minister Jozsef Petretei, was in line with European Union norms which give members states the right to regulate the issue at national level.
But Opposition lawmakers attacked the proposal as “legalized pedophilia” and a family welfare group described it as “the waiting room of prostitution.”‘
‘What does it take to transform your PC into a teraflop supercomputer? It may be less than you think – two graphics cards and programming know-how are enough to push your desktop PC’s performance into a range that required 10,000 processors a decade ago.
Nvidia today released the first public beta of its CUDA, software developer kit, which so far has only been available to a limited number of developers. The company promises that the software will allow full access to the 128/96 cores of GeForce 8800 graphics cards and leverage their floating point capability, not only for graphics, but other applications that rely on number crunching performance as well.’
Follow up to: Human Slingshot
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‘”We’re going to talk a little bit today about the inevitable zombie uprising, the zombie apocalypse – also known as ‘zombocalypse.'” So begins William Spencer, addressing 150 science-fiction geeks at last October’s Archon convention in Collinsville, Illinois.
Spencer, a 31-year-old body-piercer who is dressed this day like a Commando character, is a founder of the Zombie Squad. A St. Louis-based survivalist group that uses the walking dead as a metaphor for the breakdown of society, the Zombie Squad’s primary mission is to teach disaster-preparation tactics to the public. What unites this quirky mix of tattooed hipsters, role-playing gamers and sci-fi nerds is an insatiable appetite for zombie flicks.’
This is a press conference given by the people behind those ‘Suspicious Packages’ That Paralyzed Boston Part of Cartoon Network Marketing Campaign. It’s pretty funny. :)
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‘An elderly woman who had been living without power in her home due to hurricane damage was finally seeing the light Friday night, when power to her home was restored. What makes her story amazing is that the hurricane which put her in the dark was Andrew, almost 15 years ago, and she’s been living without power to her house since August 24, 1992.’
Lots of people trying to sell her hair for lots of money.
This one is at $400k at the moment.
Various different mapping services in a nice little flash application.
‘A dog trying to survive the subzero wind chills froze to the ground, but because of one woman’s generous heart, the dog has another chance at life, KMBC’s Lara Moritz reported Wednesday.
“He had sat down on the ground where the frozen ground was, and his body had stuck or bonded to the ground, so probably when he tried to stand up, it ripped the flesh from his rear area,” volunteer Melissa Zarda said.
The dog was named Shiver, and animal volunteers said it could happen to any dog left outside in the cold without shelter.’
If this is your first night you have to fuck.
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‘Women who claim to be victims of ‘date-rape’ drugs such as Rohypnol have in fact been rendered helpless by binge-drinking, says a study by doctors.
They found no evidence that any woman seeking help from emergency doctors because their drinks were allegedly spiked had actually been given these drugs. [..]
Around one in five tested positive for recreational drugs while two-thirds had been drinking heavily.
The findings further erode the theory that there is widespread use of Rohypnol and GHB, another drug said to be favoured by predatory rapists.’
‘Six blind patients have had their sight partially restored by a “bionic eye” surgically implanted on to their retina. Although it restores only very rudimentary vision, the device has proved so successful that its developers are about to begin a study of a more sophisticated version with between 50 and 75 patients.
If this trial goes to plan the device could be available to patients in two years, and one day it could be used to digitally enhance human sight. The bionic eye works by converting images from a tiny camera mounted on a pair of glasses into a grid of 16 electrical signals that transmit directly to the nerve endings in the retina.’
‘A window said to be the one through which Lee Harvey Oswald shot US president John F Kennedy in 1963 has been sold for $3.8 million on eBay, the Internet auction house says.
The description of the window and frame sold to a person in the Netherlands says it was the one that stood in the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas, from which Oswald killed Kennedy on November 22, 1963.
The window had been on display for 10 years at the Sixth Floor Museum in Dallas, until its owner, Caruth Byrd, claimed it back.’
‘For 17 months, Jimmy Earl Adams battled heart problems as he prepared his defense on a charge of sexually assaulting a client at the cosmetic procedures center he owns in North Richland Hills, his attorney said.
On Friday morning, moments after a Tarrant County jury acquitted the 59-year-old, Adams was rushed to a local hospital, suffering what he said was a heart attack.
“My comment … my comment is that I’m in the emergency room,” Adams said in a telephone interview a few hours after the verdict. A woman who took the telephone from him said the family declined to make any additional comments.’
You’d think they’d teach people to steer before they put them in charge of large ocean going vessels.
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‘A township woman was in critical condition at a Philadelphia hospital after accidentally setting herself on fire while lighting a cigarette over a stove. [..]
“We’re getting reports that she was lighting a cigarette over top of the stove, and the flames from the stove communicated to her hair and some clothing,” said Chief Oakley.
“Fortunate for her, she was standing underneath a sprinkler head, and the heat from when she ignited touched off the sprinkler head, and it was right over top of her,” he said.’
‘The United Nations has been urged to launch a space mission designed to take out an asteroid threatening to smash into the Earth in 2036.
In scenes straight out of Hollywood action movie Armageddon, a group of astronauts, engineers and scientists say they are monitoring an asteroid named Apophis, which has a one in 45,000 chance of striking Earth on April 13, 2036. [..]
“It’s not just Apophis we’re looking at. Every country is at risk. We need a set of general principles to deal with this issue,” Mr Schweickart, a member of the Apollo 9 crew that orbited the moon in March 1969, told an American Association for the Advancement of Science conference.’
Followup to NASA looks for solutions to asteroid problem.
‘An 18-year-old Lyle High School student is facing two felony charges for allegedly lacing brownies with laxatives and distributing them at school, making staff and students sick. [..]
The principal said that on Feb. 6, the defendant had brought a pan of 16 brownies to school and gave them to staff and students. He said Orth admitted on Feb. 7 that he and two other 18-year-old males baked the brownies at one of their homes. The principal claimed the defendant had admitted to purchasing the laxatives and other ingredients.
The complaint stated that the other two males said they were “just watching” while the defendant made them.’
Making art with enemas, by the looks of it.
‘Actor Sylvester Stallone says the seizure of several items of his luggage at Sydney Airport on Friday night was the result of a misunderstanding.
Customs officers are investigating the prohibited items, which were confiscated from Stallone and five others in his entourage when he arrived during a routine luggage check.
The actor and his party were held for several hours after X-rays showed up the banned items.
Customs are yet to confirm what the seized items are.’
‘Police arrested eight Chippendales dancers and three others during the first of three sold out performances Friday, accusing them of violating the city’s adult entertainment ordinance.
Officers raided Jake’s Sports Cafe about 30 minutes after the show started and the venue was closed. They arrested the venue’s manager, the show’s promoter and the dancers’ manager along with the dancers in front of a disgruntled crowd of women.
Shortly after, several hundred women began chanting, “Bring them back, bring them back” and “the City Council sucks, the City Council sucks.”‘
