turing was only human, too

two particularly choice excerpts from a recent darbnet discussion of artificial intelligence, which i found as amusing as they are sad-but-true...

Al Petterson:
"There are times, when I'm especially cynical, when I think most humans would fail a Turing test."

Seth Noble:
"That's the problem with a Turing test: while computers may have a limited capacity for intelligence, human beings have an infinite capacity for stupidity."

it was all greek to me

went to rhodes last week with jonathan and dorota. it was awesometastic, that's all there is to it.

of course, i was saddened by the fact that i had to yet again take an easyjet flight to gatwick, because no decent upstanding people (hey, i'd settle for an organism that had a spine) seem to be willing to give them any competition. why is this, people? why can't there be something, anything, good and wholesome in the airline industry, however small the oasis; instead of the pure, unadulterated essense of evil that currently holds the monopoly on affordable air travel? why, i ask you, why?

but even notwithstanding the fact that our return flight on thomas cook was an hour and a half late, and the "originally scheduled time" on the tickets had been an hour later than the time that we had received on the itinerary (which is what i was looking at when i bought my easyjet ticket, thinking i had 3 hours to spare), consequently causing me to sprint through gatwick with my luggage and only just narrowly avoid having to buy a new ticket at significant extra cost, the week was amazing.

we booked the trip with thomas cook, who despite their rather sleazy ghetto exterior, in the end, i think did pretty well by us. i mean, for three people: airfair (lgw->rho->lgw), 7 nights in a nice hotel, and a full brunch and dinner every day --- all for 764 pounds (around $480 per person). hey, for a deal like that, i didn't mind the nosebleed flights in the middle of the night (though naturally i would have been happier if they had been on time...).

right, so we got there in the middle of the night on saturday, piled onto a bus, and eventually got dropped at our hotel (last in line, just like always [smirk]). after a few hours sleep, went down and had breakfast, and it was immediately apparent that not only was the food on this trip going to be fabulous, it was also going to be my undoing. all the trappings of the greek breakfast things (bread, sliced meats, feta and other cheeses, olives, cucumbers, yogurt and honey, fruit, jams, cheese pastries, cream pastries, ...) and also the full english breakfast faire as well (potatoes, eggs any way you can imagine, bacon, sausage, beans, toast, granola, fruit juices, ...). wow... after thoroughly gorging ourselves on breakfast, "ricky" (who's name jon and dorota endlessly made fun of afterwards) our 22 year old thomas cook rep (good grief, i feel old), who spoke with a ridiculously thick british accent, gave us a brief collection of hints and tips for spending time on the island, and then attempted to sell us on their prepackaged day trips, which we smiled to ourselves and declined.

we sat by (and alternately in) the pool for an hour or so, and then caught the bus into rhodes town, with surprisingly little wait. of course, once we got there, we realized we had paid 1.70 x 3 of us, when a taxi would have only cost 6 euro, but hey, that's how you learn. walked around the old town some, but were pretty disoriented, so i'm sure we missed a lot. the floor mosaics in the palace of the grand masters were unbelievable. i want to learn how to make mosaics. of course there were also the expected shops everywhere, and we did some browsing, but i don't think anything was bought that day. on the way out, we tried to get information on possibly taking a day trip to turkey from the harbor, but it was all closed up since there wasn't a boat arriving or leaving at the time (slow port, i guess). taxied it back to the hotel, and treated dinner to the same devouring that we had given breakfast. ha.

monday we rented a car. oh, yes, i knew i had forgotten something. on our way out of the airport after we arrived in the wee hours of sunday morning, jon had gone over to ask about a car at one of the booths that was set up in the exit area (i guess the people running those companies know when flights are scheduled to arrive, since they were surprisingly mostly open and doing business). in his words, the lady he talked to had introduced herself as "Necteria, like the nectar of a flower," while "shaking her generous...um...'assets' in [his] direction." she had given him a phone number and promised him a price which we hadn't been able to match anywhere else, so we called her up to rent a jeep. about the time she asked for his name and he told her "Wall," i nearly died laughing when i heard her say on the other end of the phone (just as i had "predicted," but didn't actually thing would end up happening), "Wall, like the wall in your house?" clearly, this woman not only has "assets," but also some deeply seated word association issues.

a little while later, a "jeep" was delivered out front for us. jon was of course intensely saddened by the fact that it was not, in fact, a real jeep, but rather a suzuki sidekick (though curiously marked "jimny" on the back). at least it was 4wd, so he got over it eventually.

damn it, why do my stories always have to be so long? more later...

in an alternate univers(ity)

i'm pretty sure i already mentioned that sabine talked me into joining the university choir, and that they were going to mit in boston. well, that was last week, and let me tell you, it was a pretty cool trip.

okay, so mostly, it was just a eerily deja-vu sort of experience, because the host student i was assigned to lived in the dormitory called "east campus," which for most intents and purposes could easily be dubbed "bizarro dabney." seriously, the only significant differences were: 1. the size, 2. the straight hallways, and 3. the locks not only on the outer doors but also from the stairwell into each floor (that last one was a bit annoying, since we didn't have keys and had to call people to come down and let us in).

seriously, though. paintings on the walls, random ill-advised mechatronics augmenting everything imaginable, the laid-back "dirty hippy" stereotype of the people who live there (who also have a proclivity for attending classes barefoot)... somebody shoot me now; i'm getting sappy and sentimental and it's making me sick. but it's really true: it felt like home. i really miss living with other people. especially cool people (well, people that i think are cool, anyway; i guess at engineering schools we're all technically social misfits).

and granted, i was only there for a week, but i spent a lot of time with them in that week, and got to know a little bit about them and their habits and their classes. and sure, there were the requisite handful of freaks, but as far as i'm concerned, techers are techers whether from the northeast or southwest---the caltech kids who loved to ignorantly boast about how they could transfer to mit at the drop of a hat and be on easy street were pretty much full of shit, as far as i can tell. the kids i was with worked every bit as hard as we did, and actually had significantly better morale. i also noticed (to my own shame and chagrin) that they seemed to even be slightly better at following through on pet projects than i was, or than i remember most of us being. pressure sensors under the mural in the bathroom controlled the music player when you pressed on various features. my host had servos and gears and springs and strings all hooked up to his light switches and his computer such that he could control all the lighting (some six or seven different fixtures) from the touch screen on his bedside table. and then you have to admit the "disco dance floor" on first east is pretty damn badass no matter who you are. i really hope that for next year's drop day they do something similar on a larger scale in dabney. i think it would be really awesome.

it probably bears mentioning that they don't have the same type of "house system" that we did, but in a sort of self-organized manner, a very similar dynamic has arisen nonetheless. there's no real concept of "membership," but there is a temp housing trial period for new students who eventually choose where the want to live, and tend to stay there, though there's nothing preventing them from moving. i found that kinda interesting.

by the end of the week, i was very sad to have to leave. i was also insanely jealous of jessie and markus (yes, our old house presidents) who are the resident advisors (called "grt"s at mit) on second west. i know i have a pretty sweet deal going for myself here in switzerland, and i definitely appreciate the benefits of having my own apartment, however small (chiefly, my own bathroom and properly equipt kitchen), but god i miss living in close proximity to friends. don't get me wrong, i've got quite a few friends here, and good ones, too, but there was something special about living together and just seeing people and spending down time together even when there weren't specific events or activities planned...

maurice and i were talking over lunch one day, and he mentioned that he's thinking about finally moving into lausanne (he currently lives in yverdon, and takes the train for an hour each way every day), so i hit him up for the usual "hey, if we pool our resources, we could swing something pretty sweet," and i think he actually bit. at least he asked me again later that afternoon if i had been serious, so it seems like it might work out. i'm trying not to get my hopes up to high, but it stands a decent chance of being awesome. hrm... this has kinda grown into an entry of its own, which doesn't seem to be a summary of the week's events, so i'll wrap it up here, and try to do the recap tomorrow or something.