Category Archives: Musings

It’s Summer, So Where’s That Album I Promised?

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We’re working on it, trust me. Here’s a little chart I made up of the status of the songs that will be on Truths and Lies and Make-Believe:

Thankfully, summer just started and has a few weeks left in it.

Over the next few weeks I need to get going on finding a location for the album cover photo shoot, contracting a photographer, producing the final cover art, etc.

Oh, yeah, and finish the remaining songs — that would seem to be important.

And having the album mastered, and arranging to produce some physical copies, and letting folks know about it.

At least I’ve got that last one covered for now.

Stay tuned!

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Knee-Jerk Reaction? Or Am I Just Being a Jerk?

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This post is about the metaphorical mountains of excrement that get shoveled our way over the Internet, and those we shovel all by our lonesome selves. If that sort of thing doesn’t interest you, by all means just move along.*

Loud Yelling Please
(“Loud Yelling Please,” by Enokson, from Flickr via Creative Commons)

Here in Cyberland, we are inundated with blog posts, news feeds, trending topics, and whatnot. Some are thought-provoking, some entertaining, and some just infuriating. Or am I the only person who has seen a comment or item that made them mad enough to chew up a 2×4 and spit out toothpicks?

If you’ve not had that particular reaction — if your online world is full of peace and goodness and harmony — consider yourself blessed, consecrated, and possibly already ascended to the third or fourth Heaven.

But if you’ve felt that rush of angry adrenaline, what have you done about it? Did you gin up a retort as fast as your fingers could find the keys, and post it in the comments with a swift click of the mouse? Oh, how tempting that is, especially when the emotional charge makes that click of the mouse feel as good as giving the person a poke in the eye, a punch in the gut, a kick in the ass.

I’ve succumbed to that temptation and written those kind of reflexive posts, although of late I’ve come to realize that “reflexive” is not the right word. I really don’t write a “reflexive” blog post or article or e-mail. Maybe that’s because the editor in me requires that I read it over (and over, and over) to make the language more precise — at which point I realize that I’ve moved beyond having a knee-jerk reaction into being a full-blown jerk about asserting my own opinion.

So, upon reflection and usually thankfully, I often end up deleting whatever it was I wrote. Now, if I could only train myself to ignore what it was that incensed me in the first place, how much more pleasant my life would be.

But I know that no matter what group I am part of or with whom I identify, members of that group will eventually disappoint me — and if I expose myself to other groups with other points of view, whether political or spiritual or social or what-have-you, they will surely enrage me from time to time. And sometimes the issue may actually be important enough to enter into the discussion, or even into the argument.

Lord, help me pick my battles … and to not be a jerk about it.

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*Speaking of the Internet, I saw an interesting piece online the other day that pointed out that creative people can sometimes be jerks. If this post isn’t your thing, you might prefer reading that one.

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Coming This Summer: ‘Truths and Lies and Make-Believe’

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With the help of my friends and family, I’m putting together an album of original music which I’m calling Truths and Lies and Make-Believe.

Truths and Lies and Make-Believe

I describe it as “a compendium of musical selections, inspired or influenced by science fiction, fantasy, life, and faith … a multitude of things.” The plan right now is for it to include ten original songs: mostly “filk” (genre-related music), but with a few other odds-and-ends thrown in as well.

Like all my other projects, this is a part-time endeavor — heck, these days it seems as if I’m living a part-time life — but I intend to finish and release it this summer. Exactly when this summer I’m not sure, so I’m not being any more specific than “summer.” As we make progress, I’ll post updates here on the Ghost Writer blog.

Meanwhile, you can get a PDF version of the flyer here, if you have some strange desire to share it your friends (or even your enemies). And don’t forget, “The Monster Hunter Ballad” is available now.

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‘Shovel Ready’ Depends on What’s Being Shoveled

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Or, Why Improving Infrastructure Won’t Create a Whole Lot of Jobs.

The economic stimuli that Washington has tried in the last few years have included a number of construction programs; probably in your area, as in mine, a few project sites are marked as being the results of the Recovery Act. And in his press conference today, the President alluded to our country’s need for infrastructure repairs and intimated that, if we would only fund the needed repairs, we would see significant job growth and economic growth.

Road construction - 1921
(Road construction – 1921. OregonDOT image, from Flickr, under Creative Commons.)

Sorry, Mr. President, but it doesn’t work that way anymore.

In the old days, when huge teams of men were needed to clear trails, prepare roadbeds, pour concrete or spread asphalt, “shovel ready” meant just that: ready for lots of men with shovels to get started on the work. But when was the last time you saw a construction site full of men with actual shovels, doing the backbreaking work of building something big? Armies of men could be employed to complete such projects in the past, because manual labor was not only cheap and plentiful, it was also necessary.

Modern construction equipment has replaced the phalanxes of shovel-wielding workers, the number of people required to wield shovels on any job site is quite small, and no amount of increased spending on infrastructure is going to change that. In fact, it seems that the very people who propose that “shovel ready” might involve hiring huge numbers of the currently unemployed would howl at the thought of the conditions under which such people would have to work in order to match the output of a mechanized road crew.

Do many of our roads and bridges need to be repaired? Yes, and that has been true for as long as we’ve had roads and bridges. In many cases we have not done a good job of maintaining the infrastructure on which our economy depends. But we cannot expect investments in roads and bridges to lead directly to monumental gains in employment.

Nor can we expect investments in roads and bridges to lead directly to tremendous economic growth, but for a different reason. When roads and bridges were built to connect places that had until then been unconnected, allowing commerce between the places to develop, we saw great economic gains* — but repairing existing infrastructure cannot supply that same benefit. Especially in the U.S., most places are already connected that need to be connected. Unless the widened road, or the repaired bridge, or the expanded airport, or the upgraded rail line will actually reduce the time and cost of transporting people and goods, it’s unrealistic to expect any great economic benefit over and above the wages paid to the people who are doing the work.

And, as stated before, there won’t be as many of them as were needed in the past.

___

*One of the reasons the development of trains and railroads could be considered a great moment in manufacturing history, as I talked about in this video.

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Today is My Five-Year Blog-iversary

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I started this blog five years ago today. I can’t remember why.

My first post* explained that the blog was basically “a new attempt at getting our warnings out to the world” (referencing my alter ego’s practice of warning of impending storms). I’ve done a little of that: warning about the metaphorical storms I see looming off the coastlines of our lives. Perhaps I’ve done less of that than I should, though I’m sure I’ve done more than some readers would prefer. C’est la vie.

I’ve had the most fun keeping up the space history series. I actually started that in late August 2008, so its five-year cycle is coming to a close. What should I do then?

Over the last five years, I’ve averaged a new post every 2-3 days. Sometimes it’s been burdensome, but for the most part I’ve been able to fit it into my routine. How worthwhile has it been? I’m not sure. As self-indulgent as it is, I can’t help but feel that it’s ultimately meaningless, and qualifies as what the Teacher called “chasing after the wind.”

But, a few folks have told me they enjoy it, and that’s enough. So, thanks for reading!

___

*All the old posts were moved from the original platform to WordPress earlier this month.

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Are We Missing the Point on Artificial Intelligence?

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Read an interesting article yesterday about Duke University neuroscientist Miguel Nicolelis, who takes issue with science fiction author Vernor Vinge and futurist Ray Kurzweil’s famous Singularity: that point at which computer intelligence emerges and outstrips human intelligence, which has been a staple of science fiction for years.

Robot
(“Robot,” by ewen and donabel, from Flickr under Creative Commons.)

The viewpoint article, “The Brain is Not Computable”, introduces Nicolelis and his new book on the brain and human thought. As opposed to Kurzweil, et al, who foresee artificial intelligence being developed in the next few decades as computers grow ever more powerful, Nicolelis posits that the functions of the human brain — including random and unpredictable interactions among its myriad neurons — will not be replicated inside a machine.

That reminded me of a conversation I had during a panel discussion at a science fiction and fantasy convention many years ago,* in which I expressed my own doubts about artificial intelligence. I’m dubious of its appearance any time soon, not from the perspective of computer science but from that of Theory of Knowledge.

Specifically, the emergence of true AI would seem to require the computer (or network of computers) to transcend its own programming. We have seen tremendous performances by machines as repositories of quickly-accessible data — the “Watson” computer that competed so well at Jeopardy! was such a machine, capable of parsing the answer and finding the components of the most likely question. But as I understand it, Watson was still following instructions: still performing tasks it had been programmed to perform.

I contend that machines such as Watson are at the lowest end of what I think of as the chain of intelligence: Data are interpreted into Knowledge, and Knowledge is applied and refined into Wisdom.

A true AI — or, if you will, an intelligent artifice — will have to be much more than a sophisticated data-mining tool. For it to adhere to Theory of Knowledge, it will have to be able to form concepts based on the data presented to it; to convey knowledge those concepts will have to be predictive in nature, and the artifice will have to test those predictions against reality and, if needed, modify and continue to test them. Once it can rely on the accuracy of its predictions enough to carry out independent,** routine tasks without recourse to intervention by its programmers, we might consider it intelligent — but as its intelligence is tried in the fire of reality, will that artifice develop anything approaching wisdom?

Will such a device — artificial, independent, and intelligent — be developed in our lifetimes, and will it approach (let alone surpass) the functions of the human brain? I’m aware of the danger of saying anything will never happen, so I won’t say no … but I doubt it.

The cyberneticists are welcome to prove me wrong.

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*TriNoCon, perhaps? NASFiC? I don’t remember … and that bothers me.
**Which brings up another thorny issue with respect to any artifice: from whence shall it develop the will to act independently?

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This is My New Blog …

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Sort of the same as my old blog: Same name, same posts (transferred from the old one), but new software.

The main reason for the switch is the demise of the Space Warfare Forum; without that, there’s no reason to keep forum software running and to use its somewhat clunky blog interface. I suppose I could keep both going, but I can’t think of a good reason. (Anybody got one?) My hope is that keeping this new blog up and working will be a little less labor-intensive than the other.

Still working some of the kinks out — cleaning up the old posts that didn’t transfer quite right, figuring out what features to include and how to get all the little things to work — but even slow progress is progress. Not sure when re-directs will be in place.

So, for now, here it is.

Your thoughts?

GR-closeup-08

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Happy New Year, and My illogiCon Schedule

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Happy 2013 to one and all! I hope your New Year has started well, and that it gets better as it goes along!


(Professor Schroedington, the illogiCon mascot, from their CafePress store.)

A new year means a new round of science fiction and fantasy conventions, and the first one on my calendar is illogiCon, to be held right here in the Research Triangle 11-13 January. Here’s my schedule for the event:

Friday the 11th

  • Filk Workshop, 8 PM

Saturday the 12th

  • Panel, “Finance for Beginning Writers,” 10 AM
  • Filk Concert, 2 PM
  • Baen Books Traveling Road Show, 3:30 PM

Sunday the 13th

  • Reading, 1 PM
  • Panel, “Sitting in the Hot Seat,” 3 PM

Tim Powers is the Writer Guest of Honor, Mark Van Name is the Toastmaster, and a whole lot of other cool people are guests at this year’s con. I know I’ll have a great time! Hope to see you there.

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Because I Need One More Project … The Manufacturing Minute Video Series

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I’m pretty sure I really don’t need any more projects, but this one falls in the “it was my idea” category so I got to do it.

I am now the host of a series of YouTube videos called the “Manufacturing Minute.” As of now, we’ve done three official episodes, the most recent of which (below) was on “additive manufacturing.”

There are some extra videos on the Manufacturing Minute YouTube channel, and we’re going to try to put up a new one every week or so. I hope that some of my other Industrial Extension Service co-workers will take part, too, so it won’t be just my ugly mug on your computer screen. We’ll see if that happens.

Drop a line and let us know what you think, or if you want us to feature a particular topic.

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My Nephew's Jazz Album … + This Date in Space History

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If you like jazz, check out my nephew Ben Rolston’s album, Fables.


(Cover art for Ben Rolston’s FABLES. From the associated Bandcamp page.)

Ben is a bassist and composed all the songs in the collection. I am not particularly an aficionado of jazz, so don’t take my opinion as authoritative, but my favorite selection is “Branches and Bark,” which has some nice horns in it.

On the Bandcamp page, Fables, you can listen to each track, which is a pretty cool feature. The whole album has ten tracks, and sells for $10.

Now, as for this date in space history, so …

Thirty-five years ago today — September 29, 1977 — the Soviet Union launched their Salyut-6 space station from the Baikonur Cosmodrome atop a Proton K booster. Aboard Salyut-6, cosmonauts were able to stay in space for longer durations than ever. What that has to do with jazz, I don’t know … but there it is.

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