I'm blessed with a limited yet manageable amount of intelligence. Ignorance is bliss, take it from me. My ex-brother-in-law, a computer scientist, used to argue with me about what intelligence really is, or at least how it's measured. He maintained that I.Q. tests can allow someone with a photographic memory to appear "intelligent."Chess has always been a game that requires deep concentration, which is why I avoid it. The matching of man against machine makes the game even more intriguing. Ladies and Gentlemen, in this corner, human being Gary Kasparov, in that corner Deep Blue, an IBM RS/6000 SP computer run by a team of five engineers.
Deep Blue is seen as the world's best chess playing machine. It can perform a ridiculous number of calculations, calling into question hundreds of thousands of possible chess moves in split seconds. The 34-year-old Kasparov, without benefit of a five-man crew and microchips, presumably needs only a good night's sleep and a light breakfast. He has defeated Deep Blue before in February of 1996 and just might do it again.
I guess the IBM guys have their own approach to artificial intelligence, but I'm not smart enough to understand it. To me, it sounds like they load every possible combination of chess moves into this Deep Blue thing, plus an evaluation of every game play the opponent has ever made in competition, get a lightning-fast processor to look at it all in a nanosecond, then come up with the "right" move. And that's all she rote.
My 14-year-old niece illustrates nicely a tiny flaw in this plan when she extends her arm as if to invite a handshake, only to withdraw it at the last moment with the exclamation, "Psyche!" The human mind is a devious thing. Remember, even HAL was fooled.
As of this writing, IBM's super chess computer and wiz Gary Kasparov are neck and neck in their latest chess challenge. If Kasparov wins, some will suggest that he "outsmarted" the computer. I would suggest that he psyched the machine--in a way only a human can, and always will.
By the way, when not losing to Mr. Kasparov, the IBM RS/6000 SP spends its time assisting air traffic controllers, among other tasks. Look out below!
I grew up in Louisville, Kentucky and The Kentucky Derby is an event that puts my hometown on the map once a year. Folks from all over the world jet to this tiny town nestled in The Ohio River Valley to witness and experience what has been called The Most Exciting Two Minutes In Sports. (Illustrating just how few people have actually seen me in-line skate.)
So too jet the jockeys, and one got stuck in the St. Louis airport with me on his way to Churchill Downs. I noticed him at the counter making a fuss. I had already made mine--having been warned by a TWA agent to calm down or call a cab and given a meal voucher which the kindly TWA employee suggested I use on alcohol.
When I struck up a conversation with this fellow (who was obviously as pissed off as I was about the whole situation), I had no idea he had to be on a horse's back at five a.m. the next morning. All I had to do was plan my box lunch and figure out a way to get to the track.
His name is Eddie Martin Jr. and he was scheduled to ride a horse in the fourth race, just hours away at this point. A third of the year he lives in Louisville and races at Churchill Downs; a third is spent in Florida and the rest of the time he lives and races in his home state of Louisiana.
We had hours to kill so I kept asking dumb, tourist-type questions of him that he patiently answered. Yes, it's better if the horse likes you. No, he'd never raced at Churchill Downs on a Derby Day ("My first time in front of 140,000 people."). No, he wasn't nervous at all ("Cool as a cucumber."). Most of the time when he wins he takes home 10% of the purse in addition to his regular fee. Since it was pounding down rain outside I asked him if he was concerned about a wet track. "My colt likes to run in slop," he offered in his laid back Looz-iana drawl.
My Derby betting plan was to put money on Pat Day, one of the winningest jockeys around. "Pat Day knows Churchill Downs," Eddie said, "So I watch what he does, when he breaks, when he holds back and once he gets comfortable with his lead I blast past him." I figured this was wishful thinking.
As we boarded our plane, to eventually arrive ten hours late, I asked Eddie what horse he was riding the next day. "Victor Cooley, don't know which race." And with that he was gone. By the time I got to the track the fourth race was about to begin. I bet ten bucks on Eddie and my friend, thinking the whole incident the night before was a "sign" bet thirty.
Eddie did indeed, blast past Pat Day to finish a close second. My friend won eighty-four dollars and I won thirtysomething. The money didn't matter--Eddie had pulled it off. I just wished he'd been flying the plane.
Have you read the fine print on the back of your airline ticket lately? Boil it down and it says that they'll get you there eventually. Maybe. Or at least refund your money. If you're really lucky you might get your luggage sometime later that evening too. What in the world has happened to air travel?
I've been flying on commercial carriers for well over twenty years. Since the passage of the Airline Deregulation Act of 1978 service has been going steadily downhill. Folks in their twenties have no idea what it used to be like, on time departures and arrivals, a meal with metal flatware. Just imagine.
I've long since given up on airline food. A "meal" has dwindled to a tiny bun with a slice of mystery meat on it, a packet of processed mustard, a small bag of chips and if you're lucky a cookie. Thanks. Staying on schedule is another matter and that's getting to be a crap shoot. What am I paying hundreds of dollars for? A lottery ticket? Is this a contract or a best guess?
May I suggest TWA look into an intranet that would give them instantaneous updates on plane/passenger status. The antiquated systems the smartly-uniformed agents tap away on seem circa Sixties to me. There is no excuse, in these wired times, for telling family members in the destination city as TWA did last week, that a passenger (me) is in the air (wasn't) when I would be sitting for another nine hours before boarding a flight. Pitiful.
This was a flight that after one cancellation and two delays was stopped on the Tarmac because a TWA employee had neglected to secure an external access panel. It was hanging open as we happily taxied down the runway. Oh, and this is the airline that protests the FBI's suggestion that catastrophic mechanical failure brought down Flight 800.
For almost a century and a quarter The Kentucky Derby has been held on the first Saturday in May. Increasingly it seems the weather is more like Winter than Spring and this year was no exception. Cold, windy, drizzly and generally miserable. Has it occurred to anyone that the way the world turns we may not be having the same Spring weather today as they had one hundred years ago on this calendar date?
I'm no meteorologist, but I have a hard time believing the sun is over the same spot on the globe it was for the first Derby over a century ago. (Maybe, like the recent floods, Clinton could convince me the bad weather is a result of global warming caused by air conditioners, hair spray and Al Gore's long-winded speeches.)
But enough complaining about the weather. That's out of our control. There were two cruel rules at this year''s 123rd running of The Kentucky Derby. Umbrellas were not allowed, and cigars were. Umbrellas have been ruled out because they can block the view of the spectator to the rear, not to mention their handiness as a weapon. (People who lose large sums of money tend to get testy. People who consume mass quantities of mint juleps and lose a large sum of money are especially dangerous.)
Cigars seem to be this year's fad (let's hope it dies fast). The men smoking them exhibit severe cases of cigar envy, needing to have a bigger one than their neighbor. The women get into the act too, apparently showing just how liberated they can be, sucking on a huge stogie impressing one another and their dates. (The thought of a kiss makes my stomach turn.)
There were more cigar stands than beer stands at Churchill Downs this year, which I think is a travesty. A thick blue haze of noxious stank hung over the grandstands and permeated every inch inside and out of Churchill Downs as fools tried to impress one another.
I know Kentucky is a leading tobacco-producing state, but in the era of growing anti-tobacco sentiment and legislation, this literally in-your-face demonstration of stupidity would be easier to take if it didn't smell so rank. A cigar, mint julep and thou? Yuck.
The last time I saw Thomas Dolby (besides on VH1's Big 80's show performing his hit "She Blinded Me With Science") was in 1993 at a San Francisco multimedia show demonstrating his cool new technology for CD-ROM game soundtracks. Dolby had devised a scheme that allowed game developers enhanced flexibility synchronizing appropriate background music with the player's movements through the game's challenges on the fly.
Then the CD-ROM market died. ("Science!")
Not to let a little thing like the demise of entire industry slow him down, Dolby picked up the pieces and turned his full attention to the web. His new company is called Headspace Inc., which will initially concentrate on the addition of sound to Java animations.
Headspace has a technology that will take audio files and turn them into "rich music format," which will enhance their ability to stream through the increasingly crowded internet pipeline. Headspace is butting heads with some pretty terrifying competition though, industry leader Progressive Networks (RealAudio, RealVideo, real money) and Liquid Audio, among others. Even Dolby Labs kicked up a fuss. Dolby Labs, the noise-reduction folks, made a little noise about the "Dolby" name. The result is that Thomas Dolby is now known, at least for the moment, as Thomas Dolby Robertson.
You can check out Mr. Dolby's (Robertson's) wares at the 7UP site. Since his early albums, Thomas Dolby has had an ear for quality and I suspect he will bring his high personal standards to whatever venture he undertakes. We'll see. However trick the technology timing is everything, and the web is moving faster than anything before it. Dolby-Robertson could get blind-sided again.
