They are:

1) "I for one welcome our new fast food overlords"
2) "Who carries an AK-47?"
3) "Would you like to play Global Thermonuclear War?"

None of these things are (directly) related in any way that I can see, but all were on my mind today:

1) I read a news story today about a computer at Zaxby's fast food restaurants (I guess they're in the South) that actually orders around the human workers, decides scheduling, etc. Sort of interesting, but also very creepy. I'm all for awesome computers and artificial intelligence and all that, but unfortunately I think I've read/watched a little too much science fiction in my time and as a result am sort of distrustful by default of these sorts of things. You know, Cylons and Skynet and all that. First they order someone to give me my burger, but next they're killing all humans.

It reminded me of something I was just thinking about the other day, which is the IBM Pollyanna Principle. From what I understand this used to be a company principle at International Business Machines, and it goes something like this:

"Machines should work; People should think"

Unfortunately I think too often most people would prefer it the other way around, and this restaurant is a perfect example of this. I think it's too easy to let our computers do all the thinking and the number crunching while we dig holes and shuffle paper. I would much rather that I could send a robot out into the field to do site surveying for me, and then do all the calculations, drafting, boundary determination, and sifting through public records myself than vice versa. But hey, maybe it's just me.

Of course a side corollary of the IBM Pollyanna Principle is that a whole lot of problems occur whenever machines don't work and people don't think.

2) Maurice Clarett. If you were anywhere in Ohio today you're probably familiar with the story, and if you're outside of Ohio you probably won't care that much. I really don't have much add, except that Maurice Clarett keeps proving the idea that the difference between fiction and reality is that fiction has the burden of needing to be plausible. I usually think of people driving around in body armor and carrying AK-47s as "soldiers" or "guerillas," not "disgraced former football players."

3) 1up has a preview of an upcoming PC game called Defcon, which seems to be HEAVILY influenced by the Global Thermonuclear War game played by the WOPR computer in the movie "WarGames."

From the article:

"it is, for all intents and purposes, a multiplayer online RTS based on the end of WarGames. The big damn vector maps with the missile tracks racing across them and popping over cities to the sound of increasingly frantic string adagios was easily the best part of the flick. Honestly, we've been wanting to play that nonexistent game ever since."

So have I, so have I. The videos look particularly cool :).

Tags: ai, defcon, machines, ohio state, videogames
Current Location: 41.197N 81.433W
Current Mood: impressed
Current Music: Suikoden Gaiden Vol. 2 - City of Memories (Kyaro Town)