Since others are covering a certain landmark in the History of Narcissism today, the only narcissism running rampant here will be that of El Somnambulo, the Ne Plus Ultra (remember, kids, the universally-beloved ‘bulo is both multi-lingual and a master of cunning linguistics) of Masked Bloggers. As such, there is no lead story today, b/c The Beast Who Preens Proudly IS the lead story. Isn’t he always?
NYTimes: Machines Threatening to Outsmart Man?
No, not Renaissance Men like The Beast Who Ponders in Latin, but mere ordinary intelligentsia:
Impressed and alarmed by advances in artificial intelligence, a group of computer scientists is debating whether there should be limits on research that might lead to loss of human control over computer-based systems that carry a growing share of society’s workload, from waging war to chatting with customers on the phone.
As examples, the scientists pointed to a number of technologies as diverse as experimental medical systems that interact with patients to simulate empathy, and computer worms and viruses that defy extermination and could thus be said to have reached a “cockroach” stage of machine intelligence.
This is truly alarming. If machines can simulate empathy, they can falsify birth certificates (What? That’s allegedly been done already?) and successfully run for office. Faking empathy is the #1 requirement for any successful politician. Tom Carper has made a career of it. Say-y-y, does anyone have proof that Obama is a human and not a machine?? Time to come clean with the American people, Robama…
Washington Post: Japanese Crows a Threat to Machines?
Sort of a Circle of (Artificially-Intelligent) Life thing going on here. The best that Man (co-starring “Woman” in a sweet and submissive role) and Machine have to offer has come up short against Corvus Macrorhynchos, aka Jungle Crows:
The conflict had gone Tokyo’s way until 2006, when the formidably beaked carrion-eaters launched a counterattack. The crow count has since risen about 30 percent.
Besides indulging in their usual high jinks — ripping open plastic garbage bags, scaring children in parks, pooping on passersby — crows have been sabotaging the city’s high-speed Internet network. Hundreds of fiber-optic cables have been slashed open by crows scrounging high-tech stuffing for their nests. The birds are also blamed for periodic blackouts. At least one has been implicated in shutting off power to a bullet train in northern Japan.
Think what this could mean should these crows migrate to the Russell W. Peterson Wildlife Preserve. They could swoop down on ‘Tom Carper’ at the ribbon-cutting (there’s a reason he’s called Robo-Candidate), leaving only a pile of carefully-calibrated springs and sprockets in their wake.
Der Spiegel: Frauleins Gone Wild/Berlin Culture in the Gutter
A city once teeming with intellectual and cultural vibrancy has been reduced to faux-Parisian coffee thingies and Wet T-shirt contests (the contests do not necessarily take place at the coffee-thingies, although showing off their thingies is what they’re all about), and of course, overindulgence in Homer and Smitty’s beverage of choice. Some people, including reporter Reinhold ‘Less Is’ Mohr, consider this a bad thing:
After the Wall fell, Berlin became a vibrant place teeming with creativity and excitement. But now Berlin has lost its soul and become a playground for the partying hordes of tourists who are driving away the very people who made the place so attractive and unique. It’s gotten as bad as Mallorca.
The place has been overrun by present and future British hooligans:
But that’s something you surely don’t have to tell the herds of British teenagers marching around — and around and around — the city’s Hackescher Markt area well past midnight. And instead of lugging around your average tourist accoutrements, like maps or digital cameras, these soldiers of insobriety are armed with half-empty beer bottles. Their cruelest moments come during the march between bars when their beer must hold out until, of course, they can duly shatter their glass bottles on the curbs.
These so-called “pub crawls,” which come with an early bird rebate, are the crusades of the modern age. But whereas the latter are about journeying to holy cities to pray, the former are about drinking yourself a path to the emergency room. And occasionally these pub crawlers will end up in the company of police. How dare these hypersensitive dorks, these ignorant killjoys call the police to file a noise complaint at six o’clock in the morning!
The Beast Who Pukes in the Gutter loves angry rants. And, when they’re as well-written as this one, he can only finish his first beer of the day and nod in approval.
Anchorage Daily News: Does This Seem Like Someone Who Is Criminally-Insane?
Ha! Gotcha! Not the name that is almost as famous as Jon and Kate. (BTW, who the bleep are Jon and Kate and why does anybody care? Seriously. The Beast With the Omnivorous Thirst for Knowledge HAS NO CLUE.)
And, indeed, it does seem more than a little ironic to post a story about an Alaskan who is/was criminally insane w/o an allusion to the Delusional One. But, when this (cribbed from Rugrats) poopetrator “is a schizophrenic who killed his wife in 1984 because, as he explained at the time, her body was invaded by red square crystal beings from outer space“, El Somnambulo has no choice but to take notice. It looks like insanity has taken hold of the judge and attorneys for both sides as well. Perhaps it’s some type of petroleum distillate in Alaska’s drinking water. When said distillate is fossilized, it is alleged to take the shape of red square crystals. Hmmmm…
The (UK) Independent: A Whole New Meaning to ‘Dumpster Diving’
Make that Dumpster Swimming and Diving. Why swim in shark-infested waters when you can commune peacefully with orange peels, coffee grounds and condom wrappers–and never come in contact with them? The craze is sweeping Great Britain and New York, which may or may not speak to the worthiness of the idea:
Some ideas are great; others are rubbish. This, it would seem, combines both. In what has become a summer phenomenon in New York, bathers are swimming in water-filled dumpsters – that’s American for skip – and queuing up for the privilege. The idea of swimming in rubbish skips originated in the UK. But, like many of Britain’s inventions, it has been taken up and given an injection of enthusiasm by the US.
Three giant skips have been hauled to an industrial lot in Brooklyn, where they were fitted with plastic liners and filled with 19,000 gallons of water. The skips are arranged in a half-circle and connected by a wooden deck, with folding chairs set out. Pool filters keep the water clean.
“We are trying to do a kind of lo-fi urban country club,” said David Belt, who, with associates Jocko Weyland and Alix Fienkind, masterminded the project. “It’s very ironic: it’s a trash receptacle, but it’s clean and refreshing. It’s funny how many people assume that people in New York would swim in really dirty water.” Uh, no it’s not. People just know New Yorkers.
These facilities do not employ lifeguards. Rather, they are watched by–drum roll, please–skip tracers. Ba-dum-bump.
NY Daily News: Best Beer to Bury Gates/Cop Feud?
Ever patriotic, the NY Daily News ponders the question of what beer Obama should serve to both quench the respective thirsts and to quell the lingering animosities between Professor Gates and Cambridge cop Crowley. While the Beast Who Slumbers’ thirst for knowledge is omnivorous, his thirst for beer is less so, and ‘pales’ in comparison to its stoutest supporters like RSmitty. So, El Somnambulo, in the only note of humility to be found in this entire article, calls on the experts to determine what brew is best to keep the Gates/Crowley dispute from remaining at ‘lagerheads’.
Thus ends El Somnambulo’s Valentine to Himself. As always, the pleasure has been all yours.