Category Archives: General Comments

I did a what I thought would be quick run to CVS last night to pick up some eye drops for Tiff.  I don’t know if it is the weather, or something in her eye, but she has had a little irritation.

When I got to CVS I was just overwhelmed with how many different eye drops there were.

It was not 10 or 20 or 30 varieties, I stood there and counted:

Ninety Seven (97) different varieties and sizes, not including varieties for contact users!

97.  Think about that a minute.  97 products that just do about the same thing.

Why?  The worst thing was, they all had different active and inactive ingredients.  There were drops and creams.

Being a man, I just picked up the store brand that was not a complete rip off and got out.  I was tempted to toss a coin, but I had no change on me, so I did eenie meanie miney moe instead.

I got to re-watch Blade Runner last night, and seeing the ‘replicants’ in the movie made me think about how far we really are from intelligent machines, no less machines more intelligent than us.

It is true computers are doubling in computing power every 18 months, but I think programs are only doubling in ability every 10 years. Is your computer experience now twice as good as it was 10 years ago? Sure, it was probably Windows 95, Mac OS 8.2, or RedHat 2, but is it really that much better now? You could surf the web. You could write e-mail and use already mature word processors, spread sheets, etc. Heck, you could even watch some videos, if you had a really advanced system. Today, the software does the same thing, just faster, NOT DIFFERENT.

The people who have been working on AI have discovered it is MUCH MUCH harder than they originally thought. You may be able to create a computer with the linear computational speed of a human brain, but the software just isn’t there. I think it will take a long time for the software to catch up to the hardware.

I think there still stands some important issues:

1) Lack of parallel processing. You may see a dual or quad core processor in a modern pc. The world’s fastest supercomputer has over 64,000 cores! But, they are still pocket calculators compared to a human brain. The brain may only work at a few Hz, but it is supremely parallel. While I am typing this blog, my brain is controlling every volentary muscle in my body, it is monitoring the position of every joint, it is monitoring temperature, air speed past hairs, pain receptors, sound vibrations, and over 20,000,000 bytes of information every second from my eyes. The information from my eyes has to be processed, and memories, some which may be decades old, are accessed to understand writing on the page. All of this is done in real time, all the time. All of this is done on about 40 watts of power. If computers don’t become massively parallel, they will just be glorified calculators.

2) Lack of creativity. The problem with computers is they only really do what you tell them to do. There are some neural networks and learning machines, but creating something from nothing is what a computer can’t do.

3) No body. I think a fundamental part of being a human, is being a physical thing. Arms, legs, eyes, ears, penis/vagina, nose, toes it all makes us what we are. Without the sensory inputs of a person, a computer can never think like a person. There are deaf and blind people out there, but the amount of information they process is still much more than what a computer can handle. If a person was just a brain in a jar, I don’t think they would think much like us. That is what a computer is, just a brain in a jar, with very limited inputs.

This gets me back to Blade Runner. The problem of making a thinking machine was circumvented by the fact Replicants were just genetically engineered people who were made into slaves. Their brains were biological, and their bodies were our bodies. I don’t think we will follow this route. Whether born of woman or a test tube, a human is still a human, and a slave is still a slave.

In the end, we may make intelligent machines, but I just don’t know. We are making computers very different from what Evolution has created. Evolution has a heck of a head start on us, and I don’t know if we are ready to meet our replacements yet.

Glenn’s August 2007 photos are up here.

It has over 600 images, so it may take a little while to load all the thumbnails. Glenn is doing ok, except for the teething and the occasional puking and slipping in said puke.

In computer geekery news, I was wondering about something that someone may have an opinion on. When using Mandriva Linux 2007.0 on my computer, I can have my browser (SeaMonkey), with 5 tabs open, e-mail open, AIM open, with 128K audio streaming into XMMS and be using 1 to 2% CPU usage. Is it the OS, the Processor/Motherboard combo, or the individual quality of the programs that allows this?

It am not trying to brag, but I am running everything on a 5 year old computer, and it is using 2% of the CPU. I am think it is either the OS, or the fact that I have a dedicated video card. At work, my Windows XP machine (P4 3.0 Ghz w/hyperthreading) is always pegging out the CPU usage with less running. It does have integrated video. Is a video card that important? At home I have a Athlon XP 2200 (1.8 Ghz), a quarter the RAM (512 vs. 2G) and it runs circles around my work computer.

On the other hand, I think when most of the applications install or run under Linux, they query the Kernel to what processor it is using, and optimizes the applications to run with that CPU’s extensions instead of the generic instruction set. Or it may be the Kernel is much better at utilizing the hardware?

Sorry about he geek rant.  Is Linux kernel that good, is the Windows kernel that bad, or is it just a separate video card that makes all the difference?

If stability and memory requirements of Firefox and Thunderbird are not to your liking, try out Seamonkey.

It’s also by Mozilla, and it is the continuation of the old Netscape suite of applications. The Navigator is based on the latest Gecko release, the mail/news program is more the adequate, and the Composer is excellent.

It supports all of the Firefox plugins, but add on support is a little shoddy at the moment. If you want a slick, easy to internet suite, check it out. It is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. Older versions are available for OS/2, Beos, and others. It loads quickly and has not crashed on my home Linux machine or work Windows XP machine as well.

I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

I am sure Glenn will want seamonkeys some day as well.  Poor, little shrimp.  At least it will teach him about the cycle of life.

What a lovely evening.  It has been storming off and on like crazy tonight.
Right in the middle of the worst storm, little Glenn starts making a gagging noise, then starts puking his guts out onto the floor.  So, in the middle of lighting and thunder and rain, I am sopping up baby puke with paper towels.
It looked like most of dinner came up. 
Let me tell you, baby puke smells just like adult puke.
Carrots don’t digest in your stomach either.
So, for all you future parents out there, you have a lot to look forward to.