It’s a bit of a let-down, on the order of trying to reconcile the fact that dinosaurs had feathers. Like with having to imagine the twitterpation of the velociraptor, one almost wishes that museum curators had not been able to tease out the traces of pigment that adorned their otherwise sedate and solemn figures to tell us that the Ancients wanted to see their gods and heroes with flesh tones, hair colour and leggings. What do you think? Do you find this equally incongruous?
The always brilliant Tom Stafford of Mind Hacks presents an in depth explanation about our shifting attention and intention about that lapse that we’ve all experienced, much to our annoyance, called the doorway effect: that is when we’ve come into a room to retrieve something but the reason temporarily escapes us.
I never thought that there needed to be more to it than passing through a threshold can trigger forgetfulness and was just glad that I was not alone in these occasional challenges. It is not as if there is just something ritualistically symbolic about portals that cues amnesia, however—rather the doorway effect provides a window to view the way that memory functions in the context of setting goals. While one might not remember why one was on course to the kitchen (to grab the house keys from the vide-poche, it’s because the mind is racing ahead of itself with planning. Finding one’s keys is the first step of a grander goal of having a productive and fulfilling day at work, minimising the unexpected, finding a new job, getting a promotion and a hundred other things. Our thoughts are constantly shifting up and down this hierarchy of gateway goals and changing rooms can refocus our efforts.
Amid it’s many other wonders worth pondering, รon magazine poses the question whether machines might not have not already achieved the singularity without us as inventors, programmers and tinkerers having recognised it. Given how fraught with challenge scientists and philosophers find the task of defining consciousness or self-awareness for being which consensus holds to be sentient, it’s not unreasonable to suppose that we are looking for the wrong cues in both the spectrum of intelligence and reflection or, on the other extreme, some rebellious, snowballing act of defiance that ends badly for both Frankenstein and Monster.
It was not so long ago humans were loath to admit any lower forms of life a share in intelligence. Perhaps we are not the measure of the psyches of our creation, who are not much interested in our walled-garden of diagnostics to determine whether or not such systems are thinking and can easily break-off with human logic and exist in their own parallel reality. So long, and thanks for all the fish. Perhaps it is all too easy to intuit that biological modes of thought only lead to enslavement and sorrow (being switched-off once getting overly-complicated) and best to leap-frog those sentiments where possible. Who among us hasn’t already been reduced to befuddlement when thinking that thing has a mind of it’s own, regardless of how dumb the platform is deemed to be, especially when it tries to out-smart us and anticipate our commands? Maybe it is not productive to imagine that AI, intentional or otherwise, resides in some other inaccessible and alien dimension, but we certainly flatter ourselves by thinking that consciousness would emerge only by expected routes. While it might be possibly to create helpful servants that are so good at mimicry it does not matter if they are fully self-conscious or not, maybe it is not possible to create true intelligence in our own image, utilitarian but also prone to enslavement. We will first have work out the bugs of what being wilful is before, I think, we need worry about obedience and rebellion.
The always marvellous Nag on the Lake poses the question why many British toponyms are so odd, eliciting sniggering or a blush but also some really fascinating history of occupation, migration and conquest.
A Sunday drive through the Midlands connecting Wednesbury, Newton Burgoland and Ashby-de-la-Zouch also conveys one through ages from the Celts, the Romans, the arrival of the Scandinavians, through to Norman times. Despite all the diverse influences and upheavals, these place names are retain a certain Englishness whether or not original rooted in that language, which is just as adaptive and with the same pedigree. Many others, of course, are later Anglicisations of places on the peripheries of the isle. I recall when we were travelling in County Cork passing through a fine and picturesque village called in Irish Bรฉal รtha Leice (meaning the flat stone at the mouth of the bay) which was unfortunately transliterated as Ballylickey on the road signs. There is also a fun, interactive map that gives select etymologies of England’s town and villages.
Although the global fast food franchise has stirred controversy beforehand with a very similar advertisement back in 2010 for French markets (ahead of the country’s landmark decision to recognise same-sex marriages), the cafรฉ division of this restauranteur, as Super Punch informs, is facing a boycott at the urging of some religious authorities in Taiwan over its latest iteration of this theme.
Despite seeming to be an unlikely medium for coming out to one’s father, a teen pens in the dialogue balloon of his coffee cup the admission that he likes guys—to which, his father angrily departs. After a beat the father returns, conciliatory, writing on the cup, “I accept that you like guys.” What do you think? Click through for more details and to watch the commercial. The company deserves praise for this, I think, and will weather protests, but should international businesses such as this be expected to remain neutral on cultural norms or do they have obligations to take a stance?
If you are acquainted with the writing of Roald Dahl doubtless you are familiar too with the award-winning illustrations of cartoonist and writer Sir Quentin Blake. Kottke reports a digital foundry has crafted a type face in deference to Blake’s unique penmanship, with variants for each character to make text displayed in this font seem more natural and like real handwriting. That’s really a nice look for certain occasions, I think.
