Via MIT, here’s a Grand Unified Theory of Artificial Intelligence! T-1000s trying to kill your ass can’t be far behind.

As a research tool, Goodman has developed a computer programming language called Church — after the great American logician Alonzo Church — that, like the early AI languages, includes rules of inference. But those rules are probabilistic. Told that the cassowary is a bird, a program written in Church might conclude that cassowaries can probably fly. But if the program was then told that cassowaries can weigh almost 200 pounds, it might revise its initial probability estimate, concluding that, actually, cassowaries probably can’t fly.

“With probabilistic reasoning, you get all that structure for free,” Goodman says. A Church program that has never encountered a flightless bird might, initially, set the probability that any bird can fly at 99.99 percent. But as it learns more about cassowaries — and penguins, and caged and broken-winged robins — it revises its probabilities accordingly. Ultimately, the probabilities represent all the conceptual distinctions that early AI researchers would have had to code by hand. But the system learns those distinctions itself, over time — much the way humans learn new concepts and revise old ones.

“What’s brilliant about this is that it allows you to build a cognitive model in a fantastically much more straightforward and transparent way than you could do before,” says Nick Chater, a professor of cognitive and decision sciences at University College London. “You can imagine all the things that a human knows, and trying to list those would just be an endless task, and it might even be an infinite task. But the magic trick is saying, ‘No, no, just tell me a few things,’ and then the brain — or in this case the Church system, hopefully somewhat analogous to the way the mind does it — can churn out, using its probabilistic calculation, all the consequences and inferences. And also, when you give the system new information, it can figure out the consequences of that.”

(MIT: A Grand Unified Theory of Artificial Intelligence)

(Art is by Barry Underwood)

This petition aims to collect 1 million signatures wishing Rush Limbaugh a merry exile in Costa Rica, where he once promised he would move if healthcare reform passed. Sadly, I think it’s a lost cause: these guys are like little writhing maggot bombs dropped into the culture by El Diablo, poised on kamikaze missions to destroy everything good and humane in sight. This one’s already tapped out and drained and they’ve already got Glenn Beck up from his brimstoney summer villa to take his place. I have a better idea… let’s start a petition to have these evil fuckers locked in a room with Diamanda Galas.

Sign this petition, and your name will be added to a going-away card for Rush Limbaugh.

Rush promised that if the Healthcare Reform Bill passed, he would move to Costa Rica:
“I’ll just tell you this, if this passes and it’s five years from now
and all that stuff gets implemented — I am leaving the country. I’ll go
to Costa Rica”  – Rush Limbaugh

Now that the Bill has passed, lets honor this outspoken American with a proper goodbye. Once signatures hit one million, a card will be designed, printed and mailed to Rush Limbaugh and his associates (to ensure he gets the message).

(Adios, Rush!)

(Diamanda Galas)

 

 
Here’s a shocking blog dedicated to eating off The People’s Princess plate? Yes, this does exist.
 
(via Presurfer)

 
Wash away the horror!!!
 
Patrick Star by Brushcommander
 
(via Geekologie)

 
The next three installments (Tender Prey, The Good Son, Henry’s Dream) in Mute’s superbly remastered Nick Cave series came out yesterday and I’m pleased to report that they’re done to the extremely high standards established by the first batch. Each 2-disc set comes with a remastered stereo CD and a DVD-A with a choice of DTS or Dobly 5:1 surround mixes, as well as a PCM stereo version. There are ample B-sides, music videos and each set features the continuing, multi-part documentary by Iain Forsyth and Jane Pollard called Do You Love Me (Like I Love You) chronicling the recording of each album.

They sound fucking amazing. Tender Prey sounds especially good, with the surround versions offering total immersion in the Bad Seeds awe-inspiring swagger. Every Nick Cave album is an audiophile’s dream, but the Bad Seeds become a locomotive force of nature when experienced in these new surround versions. They sound so good, so like you’re right there in the studio with them, that it’s nothing short of exhilarating to listen to these albums at a high volume. When City of Refuge kicks in, it’s like being hit by an enraged Mack truck. My neighbors probably hate me.

The Good Son, one of my personal favorites, also unfolds remarkably in the airier surround mix. You can really hear how delicately the piano keys are being struck in The Ship Song and how hard the the xylophone is being pounded in The Weeping Song. The strings sound great and the drums really snap. It’s a great musical experience, nothing more, nothing less. These are albums that were meant to be listened to as complete song cycles and that’s how I consumed them. I highly recommend watching the docs before sinking into the album. Taken this way, it really builds anticipation for the music. The music does not disappoint.

In conclusion, now that there are seven of these sets, I’ve been listening to a lot of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds lately. I’ve owned these albums for years, I bought them when they originally came out, but as is typical, I’d listen to each for a while, then put it away, a year later the next one comes out, I’d listen to that one for a while, then I’d shelve it, etc, etc. With a solo career going back 26 years at this point, to hear all of them again, so masterfully refurbished, and so fresh sounding, I’m struck by the fact that only Nick Cave, of all of the major artists to emerge during the 1980s, has the back catalog to really deserve this kind of respect and archival treatment. Truly, Cave should be seen as one of the all time great artists of the rock era and these sets make a convincing case for that, indeed.

I’ll say it one more time: Mute really do the finest reissues of any label I can think of. You’d have to go to the recent Neil Young Archives Vol. 1 (reviewed by me here) to find an equivalent to what they’re doing here (Depeche Mode got the same treatment a few years back). Each set is a fantastic consumer value. As the compact disc format dies, Mute are still giving punters an actual reason to return to the record store. Good for their business and good for the fans, too.
 

 
Dear Glenn Beck fans, this is what God thinks of you, Witness this awesome cosmic punking!

Dozens of people who parked at the University of Central Florida for an event say they were set up after their cars were towed. They said event parking signs directed them to a lot, but more than 50 cars in that lot were towed. People said those signs and their cars were gone when they got back.

A viewer contacted WFTV after his car was towed Saturday, along with 52 others. All of them were in line to recover their cars at an impound lot and all of them attended the Glenn Beck show at UCF.

The people parked in a Kappa Sigma lot. Mike Vedder thinks they were set up. He doesn’t know if it was a dislike of the conservative commentator or money.
“Maybe the have a deal with the tow truck company or maybe they got kickbacks under the table,” Vedder said.

They all said an event parking sign clearly directed them into the lot. Students at the fraternity wouldn’t comment, but WFTV caught up with the owner of Orange County Towing and Recovery, Ronald Hulbert.

“I have a lot at stake, a lot invested. I’m not going to lose it over a $125 tow, times 53, times 53, it was a good day,” Ronald Hulbert said.

Hulbert admits he’s never towed that many cars in one day before; he said it took him at least eight hours to tow all the cars. Each driver had to pay cash, netting him more than $6,600.

This is a great prank to play on the type of assholes who’d pay money to see Glenn Beck speak, isn’t it? Perfection. Whoever did this, I love you.
 

 
Thank you Scott!

 
For those whom the colors of nature just don’t suffice, it’s edible (?) spray paint for your comestibles. Blech ! Wonder if it’ll turn your shit gold and silver ?
 

 
via The Urban Grocer

 
Forget the EBay scam artists and deadbeat landlords normally on Judge Judy. This case involves a dead cat, two destroyed television sets and a guy who routinely does stuff that would make Marilyn Manson blush.

Having said that, a recent “Judge Judy” face-off between two indie rock “former friends” Kate Levitt of the band Teeth Mountain (the plaintiff) and Jonathan Coward aka gross out performer Shams (the defendant) went beyond the merely unexpected into the realm of the ridiculously untenable.

Coward is a fellow who’s known for doing some rather extreme things, onstage and off. Things puking all over a piano and that can involve dead animals. If anyone in indierockland is a likely suspect for killing a cat, it’s probably him, but I don’t think that’s what happened, at least in this case.

Maybe Levitt pulled the wool over Judge Judy’s eyes, (although you can tell she’s wondering herself), but as you watch the clip, a few things become obvious:

1.) Levitt has no picture of the dead cat itself, just the smashed TV set(s). No blood is seen, either.

2.) Who in the world would still want to be friends with someone who deliberately killed their pet?

For those two reasons alone, it seems that what went down in the courtroom was probably a bit of indie rock performance art. The episode is pretty silly to begin with, but it gets really funny during the closing credits. Note the cameo appearance by noise musician Narwhalz, who calls Judge Judy “mama” and lives to tell. That’s what really lead me to conclude the whole case was fake!

Legend of Zelda remixed Old Testament style!

(Via Encyclopedia Dramatica)

Roving Buddha of the 177th Astral Highway explains… something to you. Message lost due to lack of subtitles, enlightenment deferred.

(Via Encyclopedia Dramatica)