The Blog
Let Commencement Commence!
I’m always amazed to see kindergarten, middle school, and all other kinds of milestone graduation ceremonies. This never occurred to us when we were kids. We moved straight from grade to high school. Our grade school was grades 1 to 8, and when grade 8 was finished, there was no ceremony. For us there were…
The Aliens Say:
To Paraphrase the Alien in Plan Nine from Outer Space: “All you faculty are stupid!” In American society, we often see a dichotomy between an upper and a lower class. And sometimes this division is false, but persists nonetheless. For example, on an academic campus, we may see a prejudice on the part of maintenance…
Just in Case…
…you thought I was no longer getting spam texts: they haven’t stopped. On a good/bad day (depending on your perspective) I’ll get at least three spread over texts, Telegram, and WhatsApp. There are two of my recent favorites. Note: I didn’t click that link.
Silver-where?
If you are ever confronted with a meal’s place setting that has more than four pieces of silverware—don’t panic! There are two brilliant pieces of advice to follow (that I didn’t invent but have followed successfully): 1) start from the outside and work your way inward, and 2) watch others to see which implement they…
Not Now, Nor Ever Been
Years ago, the term “liberal” suddenly became a pejorative term; people began to use it to insult others. The complete breakdown in civil discourse that followed Trump‘s ascension, of course, led to the incitement of the word “libtard” and the development of further insults. Many of us rebranded ourselves as “progressive.” That seemed to dodge…
How Did I Get Here?
One night, in a moment of instrospection, I had this thought: Whoever thought that the child of a single mother raised on welfare would earn a doctorate and later travel around the world? It probably happens more times than I’m aware. (I hope so.) But for me, it seems like an extraordinary thing. When I…
Some Directors…
One of my favorite Berkeley directing stories concerns the professor whom I would later fire from being my dissertation advisor. He was directing a show and my good friend Mike Foster (whom I met as a student in a class I was TA for and who later became a close friend) asked a question of…
God, Luck, and Planning
Often I hear people claim that, “God put me in the right place at the right time!” I have never heard anyone credit God for delivering them to the wrong place in their lives. Others of course attribute success to luck, which I guess is as mysterious a force as a deity. And I remember…
AI and Alignment 2
In my previous post, I mentioned inquiring about alignment as applied to both artificial intelligence and Dungeons & Dragons. I did a follow up regarding specific sci-fi literature. What follows is the AI’s response. Science fiction literature provides a rich catalog of artificial intelligences that match each D&D alignment: Lawful Good — R. Daneel Olivaw…
AI and Alignment
I saw the word “alignment” in a New York Times article dealing with artificial intelligence. I recall my days of playing Dungeons & Dragons, and wondered how we might apply that idea of alignment to AI. So I wrote a prompt asking about this, and popped it into Gemini. What follows is the AI response: …
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