Marvin and The System

By: | April 6, 2016

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We live with machines. And our machines are getting smarter. They’re still very dumb, they do what we tell them to, and often not really all that well. But we’re teaching them. And I do mean “we.” When you tag your friends on Facebook, you’re teaching its facial recognition system what to look for in faces. When you click on ads or Google results you’re training its system to know what you like. Computer scientists are working on ways to make machines learn smarter, learn passively, make connections we never even thought of.

Alpha Go, an artificial intelligence trained to play Go, recently beat a Go grandmaster. This is a big deal, partially because Go is an extremely complicated game, but also because the system did things while playing that nobody expected. It made moves that seemed like mistakes, and twenty moves later were suddenly clearly not mistakes. Now imagine your computer could surprise you in that same way.

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Redux: The sniffle, hack, sneeze blame game

By: | April 4, 2016

This post first ran on March 22, 2013.  We run it again here because it does seem like half the world is sniffling, hacking, sneezing, and looking for who to blame. We recommend this view over the medieval one. 
Sneezers_shutterstockThe storytelling begins the morning you wake up with a slight scratch in your throat. Oh, this is nothing, you tell yourself, as if denial was the best antidote to a virus. If I just sip some throat-soothing tea, I’ll be fine.

When the runny nose starts, you load up on oranges or Fisherman’s Friend and promise yourself an early bedtime. When evening rolls around, your head is on the verge of exploding with mucous. You can try to hit the sack early, but it’s no use. The mucous is flowing fast and furious now, and perhaps you’re coughing too. You’ll get no sleep tonight.

When morning arrives, you’re exhausted and cranky and this is when the next phase of storytelling begins. You need an explanation — what is it, and why me?

Without a bunch of lab tests, you won’t find any certainty. But that’s ok, because you’ll invent an explanation that at the very least feels true. Oh, it’s that flu that was going around at work. I must have caught this from that coughing bastard on the plane. Obviously, my husband’s little cold mutated into this nasty flu.

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The Last Word

By: | April 2, 2016

Cherry blossoms frame the Washington MonumentThis week the Last Word on Nothing, usually riffing on the theme of science, marked a week where we talked about anything but.

Guest Judith Lewis Mernit traces Easter traditions to their odd combination of origins in a dead man risen and a fertility goddess.

Rose spends her leisure hours in vicarious bladesmithing competitions. Followed by lots of chopping.

Thirteen is a magical age for venturing into self sufficiency, and the best place to do it is on the land.

The much vaunted cherry blossom bloom is fleeting, and so is one lifetime’s chance to experience them.

I use an advent calendar to mark the completion of a project. How about you?

Photo by our own Helen Fields

The Advent Calendar Method

By: | April 1, 2016

advent calendarLast Tuesday, I finally finished sorting out two years’ worth of tax returns, stubbornly eschewing the accounting industry even as my receipts and special forms multiplied to fill the desk. I sealed the envelope then turned and opened up the Number 9 door on my Quentin Blake advent calendar.

The main illustration itself, adorned with glitter paint, is entitled “Snowman and his family” and it features an implausibly tall snowman and seven members of a scribbly family that most readers would associate with Roald Dahl stories.

Underneath Door Number Nine, I was met by a child standing on his head next to a frog, also standing on its head. On the inside of the door was written “16 days to go!” Until what, exactly? It was March 22nd. But I saw the number and replaced the calendar against the wall with great satisfaction. Continue reading →

Coming of Age

By: | March 30, 2016

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A few years ago, I joined a group of families on a backcountry kayaking trip in Alaska’s Prince William sound. A kid named Will was just about to turn 13, and I was there to watch him come of age. I’d known him as a strong little wild-haired monkey, but on this trip he became something else, turning into a new kind of person.

Will and I jumped to shore on a mangy, alder-and-spruce island. We were sent as scouts looking for two things, flat places to camp and cook, and bear scat. The bear scat we found looked old, no fresh kills or dark droppings of meat and berries. This was our spot.

Will was set for adventure. He would be our fire starter with his new knife, a magnesium rod, flint, and some dryer lint brought from home. His dad had given him four dry matches and no more. He’d been watching survivor shows on TV. He had a knack for this outdoors stuff.

Will and I found a few options for clearings, then circled back to each other. “This look good to you?” I asked. The straggle-haired boy nodded eagerly: “Yeah.” Continue reading →

Meet My New Favorite Television Show

By: | March 29, 2016

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I am a very selective television watcher. This doesn’t mean that I only watch the best shows, in fact quite the opposite. I’ve never seen Breaking Bad or The Sopranos or Orange is the New Black. My boyfriend has, I think, almost come to terms with the fact that I will probably never finish The Wire. (Before you rage-close this tab, let me be clear, I have watched two and a half seasons. It is very clearly a great show. But watching it makes me stressed out and unhappy, two things I try to avoid in my life if I can.) I also can’t watch shows that involve a lot of tension or awkward humor, so nearly every modern comedy is off the books, as are any shows that are scary or just unpleasant (looking at you The Bachelor).

But we have cable (mostly to watch sports) and I do have some favorite shows. The programs in my sweet spot are low-stakes, but relatively fast moving “reality” television. Cooking contest shows like Chopped, house-hunting and remodeling shows like House Hunters and Property Brothers. There’s always just a tiny bit of tension, but you know that in the end everybody will get an open floorpan or a weird ice cream and be happy. And in the spirit of sharing things we love, I am going to now tell you about my new favorite television show: Forged in Fire. Continue reading →

Guest Post: The Hidden Rites of Spring

By: | March 28, 2016

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On Easter Sunday, between watching videos of puppies frolicking with bunnies and helping neighbor kids hunt for backyard eggs, I spent some time puzzling over the crypto-pagan religious festivals of the first month of spring. The connection, for instance, between chocolate eggs and the resurrection of Jesus Christ; fertility rituals and Virginia ham. And how a triangular cookie — spilling forth fruit, no less — came to symbolize the shriveled ears of a Persian villain named Haman.

I started with Easter, a word used only among English speakers*, mentioned only once in the King James Bible. This is because William Tyndale, when he rebelliously translated the Bible into English during the early 16th Century, used the word ester in one instance, instead of the Hebrew pesach. That wasn’t what got him burned at the stake, specifically, but it sure didn’t help. Eostre, as we already knew from the Venerable Bede in the 8th century, was the Germanic name of a pagan goddess associated with the month we now call April.

That Tyndale’s mistake not only never got edited out, but became, in some countries, the accepted name for the Christians’ most significant spring festival, brought about one of the more bizarre heortological mashups in all of history: A fertility rite organized around a newly dead man emerging from his tomb. Continue reading →