So ... was Terri a brat for spilling and splashing water all over the place or was she helping me by getting the floor wet and ready for mopping ?
Sunday, February 27, 2011
TERRI - BRAT OR ?
I was in the bathroom, cleaning the counter and moving the black garbage bag from room to room to prepare for tomorrow's pickup. Walked into the kitchen and OMG! Somebody's had a pool party in here! Yes, water covered most of the kitchen floor and I could see no source but the empty water bowl. I had to grab the wet mop. Since the floor is ceramic tile, no real damage was done (that I know of).
So ... was Terri a brat for spilling and splashing water all over the place or was she helping me by getting the floor wet and ready for mopping ?
So ... was Terri a brat for spilling and splashing water all over the place or was she helping me by getting the floor wet and ready for mopping ?
Monday, February 14, 2011
WINTERLUDE
It's time for Ottawa's Winterlude again and wouldn't you know it -- it's raining. Boo! How are people meant to build ice sculptures in this weather? I don't have plans to wander on the frozen canal myself but I imagine lots of people would enjoy the opportunity ... if only the ice stays. See Crystal Garden for photos of ice sculptures.
February 17, 2011 — Ottawa's Rideau Canal Skateway is closed due to a combination of warm temperatures and poor ice conditions ... The National Capital Commission made the announcement Wednesday (16th), stating that the skateway will remain closed until further notice.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
IBM's WATSON PLAYS JEOPARDY
Remember when IBM's Deep Blue played chess against Kasparov in 1997? This year, the excitement is building for Watson's appearance (if you can call it that) on Jeopardy Feb. 14-16. Watson is a Question Answering (QA) system that runs on IBM's fast (3.55 GHz processors) POWER7. I'm sure they won't be dragging the actual computer to the Jeopardy studios!
To give an idea just how powerful a computer needs to be to compete with not just anybody off the street, but actual Jeopardy winners -- the POWER7 cluster running Watson has 2,880 cores (90x32 3.55 GHz core) and 90x 256GB RAM. I compare that to my Toshiba laptop with the T2300 1.66 Ghz processor and 1 GB RAM.
I read an interview about how Watson works at this page.
Luckily for me, the interviewer asked my question ...
By the way, Watson will compete against Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings, million+ dollar winners. See http://www.facebook.com/ibmwatson and/or Google IBM Watson Jeopardy for links to many fascinating web pages about Watson/POWER7 and the upcoming shows.
To give an idea just how powerful a computer needs to be to compete with not just anybody off the street, but actual Jeopardy winners -- the POWER7 cluster running Watson has 2,880 cores (90x32 3.55 GHz core) and 90x 256GB RAM. I compare that to my Toshiba laptop with the T2300 1.66 Ghz processor and 1 GB RAM.
Watson, powered by IBM POWER7 (credit: IBM)
I read an interview about how Watson works at this page.
Luckily for me, the interviewer asked my question ...
How well would Watson do on the Turing test at this point in time?
Dr. Eric Brown of IBM: Whenever I get that question, my initial response is: If you were to rephrase the Turing test slightly, and couch it in terms of, if you had two players playing Jeopardy!, and you couldn’t tell which one was the computer and which one was the human, and that was the Turing test, then I think Watson would pass that very easily. But, of course, the Turing test is defined more broadly and open-ended, where you really have an open-ended dialogue, and Watson is not up to that task yet.
By the way, Watson will compete against Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings, million+ dollar winners. See http://www.facebook.com/ibmwatson and/or Google IBM Watson Jeopardy for links to many fascinating web pages about Watson/POWER7 and the upcoming shows.
Monday, February 7, 2011
LIBRARY BOOKS #1
A miscellaneous selection of the books that I've read so far this year. The local library is great for me -- I have neither the money nor the room for all the books I like to read.
Why Do We Say It? The stories behind the words, expressions and cliches we use.
I would like to see more words and phrases explained than this book provides, but it's a good start. Why do I get the feeling that some of the explanations are questionable? Guess I'm just too much of a skeptic :-) These two samples are believable:
Salad days Why do we call a man's youth his "salad days"?
It's because when a man is young, he is "green" and greens go into making a salad.
Proletariat Word comes from the Latin proletarius -- the name given by ancient Romans to the lowest class in the community.
Twitter by Paul McFedries is a helpful introduction to using Twitter and associated websites. Terri_pal on Twitter
Darkly Dreaming Dexter
The famous TV series Dexter started as a book series by Jeff Lindsay. The character's alliterative self-deprecating sense of humor springs from the pages to give a delightful diversion from the dark deeds of destruction. (Dexter is Delicious, Dexter in the Dark, Dexter by Design, Dearly Devoted Dexter)
Mindscan by Robert Sawyer.
Due to a threatening health condition, Jake decides to take a chance on uploading/copying his mind into a durable, android-like body. What happens after that is the result of quantum entanglement, legal disputes, unexpected friendships, and one discovery leading to another. The underlying theme is the brain and consciousness; coincidentally, Nova Science Now last week was also about the human brain.
See http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/how-does-the-brain-work.html
Why Do We Say It? The stories behind the words, expressions and cliches we use.
I would like to see more words and phrases explained than this book provides, but it's a good start. Why do I get the feeling that some of the explanations are questionable? Guess I'm just too much of a skeptic :-) These two samples are believable:
Salad days Why do we call a man's youth his "salad days"?
It's because when a man is young, he is "green" and greens go into making a salad.
Proletariat Word comes from the Latin proletarius -- the name given by ancient Romans to the lowest class in the community.
Twitter by Paul McFedries is a helpful introduction to using Twitter and associated websites. Terri_pal on Twitter
Darkly Dreaming Dexter
The famous TV series Dexter started as a book series by Jeff Lindsay. The character's alliterative self-deprecating sense of humor springs from the pages to give a delightful diversion from the dark deeds of destruction. (Dexter is Delicious, Dexter in the Dark, Dexter by Design, Dearly Devoted Dexter)
Mindscan by Robert Sawyer.
Due to a threatening health condition, Jake decides to take a chance on uploading/copying his mind into a durable, android-like body. What happens after that is the result of quantum entanglement, legal disputes, unexpected friendships, and one discovery leading to another. The underlying theme is the brain and consciousness; coincidentally, Nova Science Now last week was also about the human brain.
See http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/how-does-the-brain-work.html
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