For those of you keeping score at home, Pluto has been renamed 134340 Pluto and 2003 UB313 (nicknamed “Xena”) has been renamed 136199 Eris. Eris’s moon was named Dysnomia, though its formal name is 136199 Eris I. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?
Monthly Archives: September 2006
avast, ye scurvy dogs
Patrick says:
arggh, matey! you best be talking like the foul-mouthed pirate ye claim to be!!!
…and he’s absolutely right. Arrrr, I mean, he harrrs th’ right ideer.
First Female Space Tourist Blasts Off
From AOL News:
An Iranian-American telecommunications entrepreneur took off Monday on a Russian rocket bound for the international space station, achieving her dream of becoming the the world’s first paying female space tourist.
Iranian-American telecommunications entrepreneur Anousheh Ansari paid a reported $20 million to become the fourth private astronaut to take a trip on a Russian spacecraft and visit the space station.
Olbermann shines again
Once again, Keith Olbermann gets right to the point and says it in a way I never could:
At the dedication of the Gettysburg Memorial — barely four months after the last soldier staggered from another Pennsylvania field — Mr. Lincoln said, “we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract.”
Lincoln used those words to immortalize their sacrifice.
Today our leaders could use those same words to rationalize their reprehensible inaction. “We cannot dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground.” So we won’t.
Instead they bicker and buck pass. They thwart private efforts, and jostle to claim credit for initiatives that go nowhere. They spend the money on irrelevant wars, and elaborate self-congratulations, and buying off columnists to write how good a job they’re doing instead of doing any job at all.
You must, must, must read the rest of his post. And let’s hope others do, too.
the next wave of AI: fast food managers?
Sure, we always hear about our robot overlords, but who would have thought that the next wave would be… dun dun DUNnnnnnn… a chicken restaurant manager?
Hyperactive Bob, the kitchen production management computer system from Hyperactive Technologies, is now being licensed to Zaxby’s, a fast-food restaurant chain with locations in the Southern states. … This artificially intelligent computer system not only takes orders, it gives them as well.
Hyperactive Bob is frighteningly close to Manna, a science-fictional system proposed by Marshall Brain in his novella-length story of the same name. In the story, Manna is a PC-based system that makes use of sensors around the restaurant to gain information; it then instructs employees. … Hopefully, no one will tell the makers of Hyperactive Bob about the Manna story; it has too many practical suggestions for the enslavement of humans.
This isn’t really a surprise to anyone that’s seen how much fast food restaurants have come to resemble factories. However, it’s good to note how interested corporate chains are in reducing the role of pesky, unpredictable humans.
[Thanks for the links, Adam!]