A history of computers

A History of Computers is a site that takes a broad view of the history of computers. It includes a page on Ramon Lull and his significance, for example. There aren’t as many entries for modern computing advances, but a good spread over time.

Update: Thanks to Jacinda, I was alerted to the fact that the link above is not longer working. You can still see the site using the Wayback Machine.

Robot by Moravec

Just finished Hans Moravec, Robot: Mere Machine to Transcendental Mind. The book starts with a short history of robots and AI. There is a chapter on the computing and the mind where he predicts that we need something like 100 million MIPs (and a comparable amount of memory) to match the human mind’s processing. He answers critics to the effect that AI was oversold by arguing that AI has been stagnant partly because they were not using fasther computers. He then extrapolates from advances in robotics to science fiction claims about transcendental minds. I have to admit I started skimming when he went off the deep end – he may know his science but he isn’t that good on the sci fi. The chapter reviewing Turing’s responses to claims that artificial minds would not be possible is a good review of the arguments, but the rest of the book is a poor version of Kurzweil’s Age of the Spiritual Machine. Read on for quotes…
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Journalism and Storytelling

A rant. A common story told in journalism school is that what they teach is “storytelling” (for example, see Storytelling in journalism.) A couple of years ago I noticed that everytime I visited a communications programme or journalism programme I was told they were into the business of “storytelling” as if this was some deep discovery or a secret hidden from the rest of us. The implication was that initiates (journalism students) were taught to give up naive views of what they would learn inorder to learn creative writing. Journalism as a discipline told itself a story that excused it from such mundane challenges as understanding, accuracy and timeliness in order to become a creative art closely allied with public relations (otherwise known as propaganda.) They believed their own story and now we pay for it by having to read papers that are little more than collections of columns (where the columnist is the story), fictions (that entertain the reader), and editor’s reflections about the media (navel gazing.) Google News is the refreshing antidote – news (not stories) that is aggregated by algorithm (not storytelling). Read on for more ranting…
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In dialogue lies hope

The BBC has been hosting a hopeful dialogue between an Eygptian and Israeli woman. (See BBC NEWS | Middle East | Mid-East pen friends part 4: Shared land) Besides the hope that such conversations inspire in the face of the ordered murder both sides have fallen into, it is worth noting how this conversation works as a dialogue. Its power lies in its being witnessed – its being played out in public. The comments almost overwhelm the conversation – and in the public play conversation becomes dialogue.
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