莊周夢蝶

Once Zhuang Zhou dreamed he was a butterfly. As a butterfly he was carefree, happily doing as he pleased. He did not know he was Zhou. Suddenly he was awake and then Zhou was in his solid form; he did not know if he was Zhou dreaming he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhou. However, Zhou and the butterfly surely have a distinction. This is called the transformation of things.

From Discourse on the Sameness of all Things

New Year, New Look

I was really happy with my old look, but then Blogger had to go all smart on me and do all this beta upgrading and what not... result, my nice template started conflicting with their increasingly Orwellian control systems, and it ended up with no one being able to post comments on here.

So, here's the new look. Tried to stay as close as possible to the old look (none of that white-washing that others seems to have gone for), but clearly it's not the same. Lost my nice banner. Lost all my counters. And also lost a good couple of hours which were meant for studying. Oh well... it's only the start of the term, no reason to get stressed!

Er...

lessons from the wired

Kevin Kelly on Artificial Intelligence. I love this guy...

In general, I like Hans Moravec’s formulation that these are our children. How does one raise children? You train them for the inevitable letting go. If our children never left our control, we’d not only be disappointed, but we’d be cruel. To be innovative, imaginative, creative, and free, the child needs to be out of control of its maker. So it will be with our mind’s children, the robots.

Is there a parent with a teenager who is not concerned, who does not have a bit of worry? It took us a long time to realize that the power of a technology is proportional to its inherent out-of-controlness, its inherent ability to surprise and be generative. In fact, unless we can worry about a technology, it is not revolutionary enough. Powerful technology demands responsibility. With the generative power of robots, we need heavy duty responsibility. We should be aiming to train our robotic children to be good citizens. That means instilling in them values so they can make responsible decisions when we let them go. [...]

What is the most spiritual event we could imagine? A verifiable contact with an ET would rock the foundations of established religions. It would rekindle the question of God no matter what ET’s answers. I think the movie *Contact* is the only movie where a theologian is a star. But we don’t have to wait for SETI to contact ET. We will do it by making ET; that is by making a robot. In this way ET goes by another name: AI.

People worried about AI being an artificial human are way off. AIs will be closer to artificial aliens. Your calculator is already smarter in arithmetic than any person in this room. Why aren’t we threaten by it? Because it is “other.” A different kind of intelligence. One superior to us, but one we aren’t particularly envious of. Most of the minds we make including the smartest AI, will be “other.” Even in the possibility space of types of conscious minds, there are 2 million other possible species of intelligence than the one type we know (humans) -- each one of them unique and different as a calculator and a dolphin. There is no reason to make a clone of human intelligence because making traditional version is so easy. Our endeavor in the coming centuries is to use all minds so far (artificial and natural) to make all possible new minds. Meeting these minds I think will be the most spiritual thing we can imagine right now.

Pics and bobs...

So this is what I've been up to during those long winter weeks...

A little trip to Venice, to see my friend Filippo (not the monster, the sexy skipper):


Preceded by looking Jon drink coffee in the kitchen of Tot's old flat:


Followed by some art in my hometown, after a lot of wine had flown (mainly on the table, hence the mountain of salt, hence the salt/snowman)...


Oh, then lots of staring at this picture in my room, since that's where I was studying for my essays. That's my dad, with my sister in his arms. Circa 1979.


And finally, a random pic of pink-haired PDF:

Essays completed!

Gosh what a marathon. Two essays due today completed and handed in, the first one on East Asia's economic growth, and in particular on Taiwan's development strategies since 1949, the second one on enviromental conservation and the promotion of sustainable livelihoods, with a special analysis of the conflict between snow-leopards and mountain communities in the Annapurna Conservation Area of Nepal. Light stuff, man.

And minutes after I return to the library for more studying (clearly I like the pain), the fire alarm goes off and the building is evacuated. Hundreds of students who were finishing their essays before the 4 pm deadline panicked as their computers shut down and the Nazi porters dragged them out of the building.

For me, it was the signal I needed to drop what I was doing, come home, chill out, forget about gym resolutions (they can start tomorrow) and grab this week's copy of Hello!

Shallow! Totties! Shallow!

Straight to Jesus

Very interesting, Mr Muder...

Back in Italy

Have been here for almost 10 days, and I my body is beginning to develop strange tremors in my left arm, accompanied by enduring throat-piercing pain which basically prevents me from speaking.

Temperature outside the house: -2 C.
Temperature inside the house: -12 C.

Essays written: 0.
Books read: 1.
Studies researched: 142 on line. None read beyond the introduction.

Historic Italian cities visited: 6 (Rome, Siena, Bologna, Parma, Milan, Venice).

Cars crashed: 1. My mother's. Into a wall. Somewhat the nervous system felt better after that. The noise of lashed metal soothed my growing sense of internal panic. Cronenberg sprung to mind. I feel like doing it again.

I am beginning to look like Rasputin. Unshaven. Feverish. A Dostoevskyesque murderous character. I am convinced I am being spied. Or followed. Or both.

Tonight's news: gay rights activists place statuettes of a gay and a lesbian couple in the Parliament's cresh in Rome. An old man is arrested for pretending to be blind in order to claim benefits from the state. Prime broadcasting time devoted to both news: 15 minutes. Time devoted to international news: 0.03 minutes.

I feel like I am living in a sinister pantomime.

I miss my world. I miss the world.

To Jeff

There's the moon asking to stay
Long enough for the clouds to fly me away
Well it's my time coming, i'm not afraid to die
My fading voice sings of love,
But she cries to the clicking of time
Of time

Wait in the fire...

And she weeps on my arm
Walking to the bright lights in sorrow
Oh drink a bit of wine we both might go tomorrow
Oh my love
And the rain is falling and i believe
My time has come
It reminds me of the pain
I might leave
Leave behind

Wait in the fire...

And I feel them drown my name
So easy to know and forget with this kiss
I'm not afraid to go but it goes so slow

mana mana

Shortbus

Fabulous. It's just like the sixties, only with less hope.



Sofia: I think I have some sort of, you know, clog in my neural pathway somewhere between my brain and my clitoris.

Justin: That's disgusting. Don't think of it as a clog. Think of it as some sort of magical circuit board. A motherboard filled with desire that travels all over the world. That touches you. That touches me. That connects everybody. You just have to find the right connection. The right circuitry. Look at all these people out there. They're trying to find the right connection. And I personally expect a few blown fuses before the night is over and maybe one of them will be yours.

Oh God...

Global Orgasm

From the very same (fabulous) people who gave us Baring Witness, comes this new initiative which might just do the trick for us...

The Event

WHO? All Men and Women, you and everyone you know.

WHERE? Everywhere in the world, but especially in countries with weapons of mass destruction.

WHEN?
Winter Solstice Day - Friday, December 22nd, at the time of your choosing, in the place of your choosing and with as much privacy as you choose.

WHY? To effect positive change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible surge of human energy a Synchronized Global Orgasm. There are two more US fleets heading for the Persian Gulf with anti-submarine equipment that can only be for use against Iran, so the time to change Earth’s energy is NOW!

And here's the science (although I don't seem to be able to load it...)

Kinetic Sculptures

The amazing world of Theo Jansen's Kinetic Sculptures...

Banksy in LA

A genius...

Strange Maps

This is coooooooooooooooool...!!!!

At the Roundhouse

the amazing Giles Peterson


the breathtaking Seu George

Trespassers do Buffy

Season 6, for your eyes only...

Ted Faggart

This has cheered me up for a month.

Romanzo Criminale

One of the best films to come out of Italy in the last... well, actually I cannot remember what the last good Italian movie was, so it musy be a while.

Dark, visceral and virile, Romanzo Criminale has all a film of this genre should have: tough guys, beautiful babes and streams of blood oozing out of gun-wounds, together with a twisted plot that only Italians will get in its entirety. Absolutely flawless.

strange days

waking up before the alarm clock goes off;
grabbing clothes and bike, straight out of the house;
bracing in the cold and clear morning air,
the one that smells like January and winter;
climbing the familiar spyral staircase;
reaching the familiar spot, on the 3rd floor,
the one opposite the smart blond girl
studying corporate law;
turning page after page after page after page;
sucking in all the information, while
scribbling notes on the side,
mulling over a sentence, in amazement, in disbelief;
rushing to a lecture
squeezing past the lingering crowds;
sitting quietly with a pen in the right hand;
returning to the palace of books,
searching for a computer;
typing quickly, lazily, absent-mindedly;
walking back to the same spot,
the one opposite the smart blond girl
studying corporate law;
seeing the darkness descend onto the city;
putting the books back in the small locker;
drinking a beer with a friend or two,
talking about how to put the world to rights;
cycling quickly back to the house in the evening traffic;
eating something grabbed casually on the way;
feeling strangely serene at the end of the day;
lying on the bed, the lights of the city still glimmering;
closing my eyes.