R E F L E C T I O N S

Last night I watched the movie Deliver Us From Evil.  It was a frightening story about a cop and a priest.  The policeman gave up his belief in God because of all the evil in the world. The priest looked at the question from a different perspective.  He told the policeman that the question should really be why is there so much good in the world? While the movie was an unbelievable Hollywood story, with an exorcism at the end; what the priest said made sense to me.  God gave us free will so why aren't 't people more evil? Every day most people do good, or at least try to be good. Today I had lunch at Chic-fil-A, fast food restaurant and dropped my tray of food.  My cane caused me to lose my grip. Strangers helped me wipe the floor and pick up the tray. One man said they should have helped me to my table.  Another man went up to the counter to get a replacement for my meal and the manager was glad to oblige. I thanked everyone. I was embarrassed but...

It's going to happen and soon.  I'm only hoping that computers will never be self-aware . From Wikipedia: Self-awareness  is the capacity for introspection  and the ability to recognize oneself as an individual separate from the environment and other individuals.  While consciousness  is being aware of one’s environment and body and lifestyle, self-awareness is the recognition of that awareness.  (my highlight) If computers and artificial intelligence never become aware of their awareness then maybe they would have no self-motivation ( Motivated to achieve something due to one's own interest)   to dominate humans. Disaster could still happen but it would be due to a mistake in programming. But if computers and artificial intelligence become self-aware beings then we could be in even more danger. There's an excellent lecture with interesting ideas on this topic.  It's about 16 minutes long. Here's the link: Nick Bostrom- What ha...

Missile carrying drone (A  remote-controlled pilot-less aircraft.) I came across an article about unmanned aircraft which will fight our future wars.  These fighters can fly at speeds that would make a person unconscious due to the tremendous gravitational forces.  These planes will not require a cockpit with oxygen and escape hatch.  They will be controlled by a human the way drones are now controlled. What scares me is the ability to manufacture fighters with artificial intelligence. (The theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and translation between languages.) These planes would make decisions and take action on their own without human control.  They are called Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems (LAWS) Eventually they will be able to outwit their human creators; the way Artificial Intelligence can now beat...

My last post was about "Women's Ideal Body Types Throughout History". This video is about the men.

Young Woman Holding a Mirror by Giovanni Bellini Date  of Creation: 1515 This video shows how women with full figures (considered overweight by many) were often regarded as having the ideal shape in their time.  An example of the opposite was the extremely skinny shape of the model Twiggy. The descriptions in this video are difficult to read because of the white print on a light background. The speed of the film is a little too fast.  It may be good to stop the video every so often so you can read the descriptions.

Here is a video of an eagle in flight with a camera strapped to its back. This is truly amazing! There are more videos on YouTube.

About 7 months old (9/4/14); he's excited by his new ability. Their dog Arctic gets into the picture. His dad, Ryan stands by ready to catch Miles if he falls.  His mom, Laurissa takes the pictures.   

Here's a good site for quickly looking over historical events.  I was never a good student of history.  It just wasn't that exciting for me. But this site interests me because it's brief and to the point. Link:     Macrohistory - World History

There's an interesting link about decision making called "Analysis Paralysis". The article points out how introverts are vulnerable to this problem, but I feel that this problem is not limited to introverts. All of us are affected by it. From the article: "As an introvert, you're a deep thinker and you like to consider every angle of a problem. And that's a good thing — except when it leads to something called analysis paralysis. What is analysis paralysis? It's what happens when you get so carried away analyzing every aspect of a situation that you can't come to a decision. Instead, you just sit there, paralyzed, doing nothing. As an introvert, you're prone to analysis paralysis..." Here's the link: Avoiding Analysis Paralysis - For Dummies Here are two quotes about how "Analysis Paralysis" affects all of us. "I come from an environment where, if you see a snake, you kill it. At GM, if  you see a snake, the fi...

Whenever my wife Lynette sings "Baby Talk" by Jan and Dean, my grandson Miles stops crying and listens. I am only five years old and my baby's three But I know that she's my girl just you wait and see When I say I love my girl, she replies to me (Bom ba ba bom) Yeah Which means to say she loves me In baby talk To say she loves me Dib dib dib dib dib She can not be very well, everybody knows But to me she shore looks swell, in her baby clothes I asked her if her love is true and she only goes (Bom ba ba bom) Yeah I'll tell the world, that I love her so And if she wants to be my girl I'll never, (ever), never let her go When I kiss her on the cheek, oh so tenderly Although I'm only five years old, and my baby's three (Um dab um dab um dab dab um dab um dab dab) I really love my baby Dib dib dib dib dib Love my baby Dib dib dib dib dib