fractalnavel

somebody is starting a collection of katrina related video clips.  not extensive, mainly a few recordings of criticisms.  here's a wmp playlist of seven clips, totaling a bit over an hour. [best to save the list on your computer, then open the saved copy, but you can just click on it if you want]

of note are “real time” and “daily show” excerpts.

craig passed this on: corporations now running the show.  “Of the world's 100 largest economies, a majority -- 52 -- are corporations.”

definitely compatible with many arguments i've presented here.  i just wasn't aware of these sorts of particulars.  there are a number of scifi stories that present possible results of the continued evolution of this situation.

anyway, it's not just me ranting, so you can spread this one around.  people need to think about this, and change it.  as for me, you can be certain i will have more to say on this and related issues.

geez, it's amazing what gets results in terms of attention ;-)  i even got scolded for not responding to the comments promptly.

well, like i said, and as everyone confirmed, the weekly patterns of communication are easily explained as “lifestyle”.  or were those “excuses” ?  was anyone feeling guilty there ?  hope not, and doubt it.

as for john's request for some analysis (or was he wanting psychoanalysis?), i've included a chart of post counts vs. day of week.  it also shows comment and referral frequency.  not that this is really relevant to email communications, but it is roughly indicative of overall comms rates.

so, you can see that i post a little on weekends, but still the overall pattern is a big hump.  i guess i don't even talk to self much on those days.  i know for me it means more tv watching - scifi, movies, sports.  i also realize that i react to inputs more often than generating them out of the blue on my own, so there's a feedback effect that makes the pattern more pronounced.  even media takes a break, and of course business, so there's generally less news to react to as well.  i guess we still value our quiet times with selves, family and friends.  no surprises.

the reason for my original whine has more to do with the lack of “f2f” (is that a position as well?).  while everyone else is off pursuing, uh, “life”, i'm still sitting here at the keyboard.  now, who's fault is that ?  duh.  which offers another explanation for my low weekend posting rates:  i tried to be off visiting myself.  so i wonder - does anyone else have slow times at home on weekends, wondering where everone went ?  apparently not.

not that that's a bad thing.  you busy folks sound like you could use such alone time occasionally.  on the other hand, you all recognize the benefits that come along with all that fuss, bustle and traffic.

moving on: chat-bots.  i was thinking along the lines of actually setting up some automated comms, along the lines of a personal turing test, to see if anyone noticed ;-)  well, think about it: emulating a single, real human is much easier than emulating a generalized human, which is a flaw in the test.  that's much harder, and, um, there's no such thing even among humanity.  that's more representative of the aggregate babbling of the race, maybe like the web, which has an emergent intelligence of a different type.  so, emulate a particular human. hmm, who would be easy ?  surely the more bimbo-ish types would be straightforward.  and most of us have our ruts - er, “focus” - and narrow sets of experience and interests that would be rather straightforward to emulate.  most interactions are already set up to remain in those ruts as well.  the percentage and degree of novelty in everyday life has got to be pretty small. when much novel does happen, there is a proportionateal sense of incoherence about things.  so there is one true reality of “ai” and turing's test.

thanks everyone for the comments and compliments, these last were unexpected.  OOOoohhh - all tangents have normals, which for circles intersect at a single point - what's my point ?  i forget ;-)

as for the beverage lifestyle: don't just drink beer, be a beer drinker.  omm mani padme omm.... slurp.