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Chip-Level Haptics Solutions Enable Customers to Easily Tap into Market-Leading Touch Feedback Technology
August 25, 2009
SAN JOSE, Calif., August 25, 2009 – IDT® (Integrated Device Technology, Inc.; NASDAQ: IDTI), a leading provider of essential mixed signal semiconductor solutions that enrich the digital media experience, and Immersion Corporation (NASDAQ: IMMR), the leading developer and licensor of touch feedback technology, today announced they will collaborate to drive the adoption of haptics in digital devices. The companies will work together to provide solutions offering OEMs rapid implementation of high-quality haptic feedback in touch-enabled products.
Haptics, or touch feedback technology, provides a physical "touch" confirmation to the user when input is received into a system via a touchscreen, slider, touchpad or other digital interface. Through the collaboration, Immersion's TouchSense® high-fidelity haptic technology will allow IDT to address a broader range of multimedia applications with its IDT PureTouch™ silicon solutions, ultimately accelerating touch technology in consumer electronic devices.
"Touch sensor and haptics technologies are key components to the evolution of digital media and consumer electronic devices," said Ram Iyer, vice president and general manager for the IDT Computing and Multimedia Division. "Our touch sensor technology and collaboration with Immersion will allow us to address a broader range of applications while offering our customers the competitive advantages that haptics technology provides."
True multi-modal user experiences encompass sight, sound and touch – all physical sensations in consumer electronic devices that IDT is improving through its video, audio and touch semiconductor solutions that ultimately allow OEM customers to provide consumers with richer, more complete digital media experiences.
"IDT shares our vision of dramatically improved user experiences, especially in touch solutions," said Craig Vachon, senior vice president and general manager, Touch Line of Business at Immersion. "Enabling haptics at the semiconductor level is a catalyst for further innovation and for accelerated adoption. With Immersion's TouchSense technology in the IDT PureTouch solutions, the power of human touch – our most fundamental sense – becomes more widely available for manufacturers to bring to life in their products."
Deployed in over 70 million devices from several of the world's leading manufacturers, haptics technology fully involves the sense of touch to make the user experience with digital devices more efficient, intuitive, fun and more accurate. Applications include integration in products such as consumer electronics, mobile phones and handheld devices for commercial and industrial applications.
The IDT PureTouch LDS6010, 6018, 6040, and 6048 capacitive controllers integrate the TouchSense haptics technology, sophisticated software capable of delivering the crisp response required to achieve advanced tactile effects. The driver supports ERM (eccentric rotating mass) and LRA (linear resonant actuator) vibration motors, with a smart watchdog timer implemented to save power by activating shutdown mode if no PWM (pulse width modulation) activity is detected. A programmable on-board voltage regulator enables direct connection of the haptics supply to the system battery while still ensuring a consistent haptics experience across the battery discharge curve.
About IDT
With the goal of continuously improving the digital media experience, IDT integrates its fundamental semiconductor heritage with essential innovation, developing and delivering low-power, mixed signal solutions that solve customer problems. Headquartered in San Jose, Calif., IDT has design, manufacturing and sales facilities throughout the world. IDT stock is traded on the NASDAQ Global Select Stock Market® under the symbol "IDTI." Additional information about IDT is accessible at www.IDT.com.
About Immersion (www.immersion.com)
Haptic (touch) technology is the future of user experience in digital devices. Founded in 1993, Immersion harnesses human touch to create user experiences that deliver a more compelling sense of the digital world. Using one of Immersion's adaptable high fidelity haptic systems, partners can achieve a competitive advantage and greater revenue opportunities with products that are more intuitive, satisfying, efficient, and safe. With Immersion technology, world-class companies can deliver improved user experiences in products such as widely popular video games, leading video console gaming systems, advanced automotive driver controls, and award-winning mobile phones. Immersion manufactures its own line of medical simulators that incorporate touch technology. These virtual reality training tools, installed around the world, enable practitioners to improve their practice of sophisticated life-saving surgical procedures prior to operating on patients. With over 700 issued or pending patents in the U.S. and other countries, Immersion is the leading innovator in touch-enabled user experiences that bring the digital universe to life.
Forward-looking Statements
This press release contains "forward-looking statements" that involve risks and uncertainties, as well as assumptions that, if they never materialize or prove incorrect, could cause the results of Immersion Corporation and its consolidated subsidiaries to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.
All statements, other than the statements of historical fact, are statements that may be deemed forward-looking statements, including the statements regarding Immersion and IDT collaborating to drive the adoption of haptics, Immersion and IDT working together to provide solutions offering OEMs rapid implementation of haptic feedback, that Immersion's haptic technology will allow IDT to address a broader range of applications, ultimately accelerating touch technology, that Immersion technology offers competitive advantages, that enabling haptics at the semiconductor level is a catalyst for further innovation and for accelerated adoption, and that Immersion technology becomes more widely available for manufacturers,.
Immersion's and IDT's actual results might differ materially from those stated or implied by such forward-looking statements due to risks and uncertainties associated with Immersion's or IDT's business, which include, but are not limited to, the effects of the current macroeconomic climate; delay in or failure to achieve commercial demand for Immersion's or IDT's products; a delay in or failure to achieve the acceptance of force feedback as a critical user experience; unanticipated difficulties and challenges encountered in product development efforts between IDT and Immersion; and risks specific to Immersion, including, but not limited to, those risks resulting from Immersion's ongoing analysis of Immersion's accounting method regarding revenue recognition; other accounting adjustments that may result from review of Immersion's financial statements for the periods in question; Immersion's ability to timely file any required amended periodic reports reflecting any restated financial statements; the ramifications of Immersion's potential inability to timely file required reports; potential claims and proceedings relating to such matters, including stockholder litigation and action by the SEC or other governmental agencies; and negative tax or other implications for Immersion resulting from the accounting adjustments; and other factors. Many of these risks and uncertainties are beyond the control of Immersion or IDT.
For a more detailed discussion of these factors, and other factors that could cause actual results to vary materially, interested parties should review the risk factors listed in Immersion's most current Form 10-Q and risk factors listed in IDT's most current Form 10-Q, both of which are on file with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements in this press release reflect Immersion's and IDT's beliefs and predictions as of the date of this release. Immersion and IDT disclaim any obligation to update these forward-looking statements as a result of financial, business, or any other developments occurring after the date of this release.
Immersion, the Immersion logo and TouchSense are trademarks of Immersion Corporation in the United States and other countries. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.
IDT, PureTouch and the IDT logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Integrated Device Technology, Inc. All other brands, product names and marks are or may be trademarks or registered trademarks used to identify products or services of their respective owners.


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Last week end I participated on the Ludum Dare 48 hour game making competition. As I have been working with Proton lately I decided to use it for making this quick game too. After an exhausting two days at least I managed to submit something to the compo. The entry fell short in so many ways but...well there it is.
It's called "Around the World in 80 Seconds (or less)".
Here it is: http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum...view&uid=11119
Binaries for Linux and Windows are available from the above link.
PS. source is available too but don't go copying it. It's more suitable as an example how to NOT write code

subset: commoncrawl


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ZLS™ is an alternative produced water treatment process promoted by Eco-Tec for SAGD (Steam Assisted Gravity Drainage) boiler feed water in the production of heavy oil, most typically in Western Canada.
The process eliminates the need for the traditional practice of lime softening and its associated costs, large site footprint and operational challenges as a part the treatment process.
Technical validation of the process has been done and similar systems have been in commercial operation in heavy oil production in California for many years.
Eco-Tec's incorporates the following products into a ZLS process:
Spectrum Plus Filter™ to effectively remove oil and suspended solids to low levels as a pre-treatment to the RecoPur® ion exchange softeners RecoPur® Softeners (ion exchange) include various configurations of strong and weak acid resins which are brine-only regenerated and produce exceptionally low treated water hardness with low chemical costs.
OTSG Blowdown Treatment which removes silica from OTSG blowdown as a filterable solid to facilitate disposal or recycle of the water.
- OPEX reduction of 30-70% compared to current practices.
- Simple design, fewer pieces of equipment to operate and maintain.
- CAPEX for the water treatment at the Central Process Facility may be reduced by more than 30% due to the skid-mounted construction and compact footprint.
- Based on similar, proven Eco-Tec softening systems which have been in operation at multiple sites in heavy oil produced water processing in California for over 6 years.


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"You know Sharia law? You know we could kidnap you?"
The alleged "refugees" in the Twin Cities are making headlines for two different reasons, but with Islamic jihad as the common thread.
- Muslim males between the ages of 18-40 volunteering to wage jihad in the Middle East and North Africa.
- Muslim males between the ages of 18-40 volunteering to wage jihad in the state of Minnesota.
As reported by World Net Daily (WND.com) and CityPages.com (of Minneapolis), roving gangs of young Somali males are now turning an upscale Minneapolis neighborhood into a veritable garbage can. And to make matters worse, they're threatening native-born American women with kidnapping and rape because Shari'a Law authorizes such.
While CityPages.com describes the perpetrators simply as "jerks," the Thomas Beach neighborhood is seeing said "jerks" disregarding trash bins, "preferring to dump vodka bottles, cigarette butts, and soiled diapers on parking lots, sidewalks, and bike trails…"
CityPages.com did relate the experiences of "longtime neighborhood resident Annan Wilson, who lives less than two blocks from [Lake Calhoun]." As reported;
Welcoming them to Thomas Beach were three vehicles, parked side by side and blocking the entrance to the lot. Nearby was a throng of young men, two of whom were chucking a basketball and football at other parked cars. Sensing a bad energy, Wilson's party detoured, walking away from their sandy destination.
Wilson walked out into her front yard the following day. She could hear f- and n-bombs coming from the beach. She moved in for a closer look. The same three cars were camped out again near Calhoun Parkway. She recognized the men from the day prior.
"They were so aggressive," she tells City Pages. "You could just tell it was bad news."
Husband Peter paid the men a visit at the behest of his wife. He asked that they tone it down. His requests were turned around into accusations of racism. A short time later, when Annan decided to snap pictures of the perps' cars, the men responded, "'F*ck you! We'll come take a picture of your house and take care of you,'" she says.
But it didn't end there.
According to Minneapolis police, the very same day Wilson encountered the men at the beach, a 30-year-old woman who lives on the parkway was told: "We're going to kidnap you and then we're going to rape you.""They showed up for three days straight, but that day was definitely the worst," says the victim, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feels unsafe using her name. "When they first approached me I was in my garage unpacking boxes. That's when they said, 'You are very beautiful. Your home is very beautiful. We want to live here.'"
Sorry, but I'm married, she responded.
"Then they said, 'That's no problem. You know Sharia law? You know we could kidnap you?'" according to the victim. "… I took this to mean they're their own judge and jury and they can do whatever they want. They can kidnap me and rape me because they're allowed under the law they believe in."
However, the write-up in WND.com wasn't afraid to call it as they saw it. As reported, "Nearly all Somalis living in Minnesota are either refugees or children of refugees. They form a burgeoning Muslim enclave created by the U.S. government's long-term refugee policy."
Dropping quite the truth bomb on the Minneapolis news media, WND.com noted;
A check of the Star-Tribune website, Minneapolis's largest newspaper, did not turn up a single story about the June 28 terror-threatening run through the Lake Calhoun neighborhood.
KSTP Channel 5, an ABC affiliate in Minneapolis, never mentions that those making the alleged terroristic threats were Somalis. The station's video report by Brett Hoffland, however, zooms in on a police report highlighting that the suspects were "approximately 20-30 Somali males" who were making "comments" that turned to "threats."
"Multiple young men have been harassing them," Hoffland reported.
"We couldn't get them out," a woman tells Hoffland from behind shadows, her voice digitally altered to protect her identity. "We didn't know what to do."
When the shouts of "We're going to rape you" rang out, "it was just a very traumatizing experience," the woman said.
The Somalis were driving onto the sidewalk and onto the homeowners' lawns, "all while shooting off bottle rockets and screaming" their threats, she said.
"It's a scary thought especially for those who have young children."
Multiple neighbors took cell-phone videos of the roaming gang of young Somali men.
It's not the first time they've showed up, but on June 28 the threats were "much more personal," the female resident told KSTP.
The Minneapolis Police Department told KSTP it has opened an active investigation, and police were taking it "very seriously."


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Hoarding will receive a chic makeover at MOMA when New York–based artist Martha Rosler examines the American ritual of selling crap in her exhibition "Meta-Monumental Garage Sale"—and she needs your vintage goods in order to pull off this massive construction. Rosler's large-scale installation (which will open November 17) invites visitors to browse and buy secondhand items, many of which will be donated by you at tonight's Pop Rally: Meta-Monumental Pre-Game. After bidding adieu to your coveted knickknacks, enjoy an evening of drinks, garage-inspired games, and a musical performance by the Postelles and DJ Diggy Lloyd. Also, in honor of tonight's Fashion's Night Out, you'll also have access to a special screening of Rosler's Martha Rosler Reads Vogue (1983).
Thu., Sept. 6, 8 p.m., 2012
This article from the Village Voice Archive was posted on August 29, 2012


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How to find and remove Superfish, Komodia and PrivDog malvertising software on your computer
Just go to below webpage for a simple and fast test.
Superfish, Komodia, PrivDog vulnerability test
If you see a "YES" the you have a problem. Otherwise you will see "Good,Superfish is probably not intercepting your connections."
Just download the free portable lenovo SuperFishRemovalTool
Open SuperFishRemovalTool and click Analyze and remove SuperFish Now button.
For manual removal follow this guide.


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SUFF 2012 Preview: Wikileaks – Secrets & Lies, Hit So Hard
The Sydney Underground Film Festival is almost upon us! The festival is taking place September 6-9 at The Factory Theatre in Marrickville. The full programme can be viewed here and information about how to buy tickets can be found here.
I've already previewed three films (including the opening and closing nights) here – in this preview I take a look of two of the documentary films showing at the festival, Wikileaks – Secrets & Lies and Hit So Hard. Reviews after the jump!
Wikileaks: Secrets & Lies (Patrick Forbes, 2011)
It would be hard to listen to the news these days and not hear mention of Wikileaks or founder Julian Assange. Wikileaks: Secrets and Lies wraps up much of the events from the group's start to the releasing of a significant volume of war-related classified material to the public. If you've followed the news closely, it is likely that you'll be familiar with many of the events which are documented in the film. However, if you're like me and only pay limited attention to the news, you are likely to find this informative and quite shocking.
What makes the film worth watching is the interviews with Assange himself. He is a curious and quite elusive creature (especially of late as he is trying to avoid being expedited to Sweden in relation to rape allegations), so hearing about his beliefs and reasoning behind Wikileaks' actions in his own words was quite interesting. The film-makers have tried to present a balanced view of Wikileaks, so as well as hearing the Wikileaks line, we also hear from journalists and government officials who have issues with the leaking of the classified material and/or the way it was leaked. The logistics behind the coordinated timing of the information release across multiple time-zones was like something out of a spy novel.
Hit So Hard (P. David Ebersole, 2011)
If you grew up in the 90s, or listened to/listen to 90s grunge and punk rock, then I think you'll find this documentary very interesting. This documentary follows a very familiar rise-and-fall trajectory, but the subject is so fascinating that it doesn't matter. I was engaged throughout and felt like I'd been given a rare personal insight into the 90s rock n roll lifestyle.
The documentary is about former Hole drummer Patty Schemel and her life in the music industry – a lifestyle which could have easily taken her life, like it did that of fellow Hole band-member Melissa Auf der Maur, and of course Kurt Cobain, who became a close friend of Patty's when during her time in the band. The film documents Scheml's early influences, her experience as a female drummer in the punk scene, and her time with Hole. It tells of her battle with drugs and her struggle to get out and build a new life.
Schemel really holds nothing back here, and it was obvious that she had battled many demons during her time with the band. Considering what she went through, it says a lot that her passion for music is still so strong, even without the drugs. It was also extremely interesting (and quite sad) to see home-video footage of Patty and the Cobain family. Courtney Love joking on camera to a tiny baby Frances that she thought Daddy was dead but he'd just gone out, really broke my heart.
Well worth watching, especially for fans of that era of music. Straight after I finished watching it I put on some Nirvana.


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2013-11-18, by Jesus Puerta Pelayo
2013-11-15, by Achintya Rao
2013-10-22, by Anonymous (not verified)
2013-10-16, by Alexey Finkel
2013-09-20, by Anonymous (not verified)
2013-09-19, by Anonymous (not verified)
Collide @ CERN and Swiss choreographer Gilles Jobin are working in collaboration with the CMS experiment at CERN, which
2013-09-10, by Achintya Rao
Being a young researcher in a collaboration the size of CMS can be daunting, and requiring to move to CERN even more so. A new scholarship has been set up with the aim of supporting master's students, PhD researchers or post-docs of the CMS Collaboration for a year's stay at CERN.
2013-08-25, by Achintya Rao
2013-07-29, by Achintya Rao
2013-07-11, by Piotr Traczyk
The CMS Guitar has already visited Point 5 in the past but this was her first time underground, with the detector itself.


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The number of violent crimes rose by 18 percent in the United States last year while property crimes went up by 11 percent, the government reported Wednesday.
It was the first year-to-year increase for violent crime since 1993, marking the end of a long string of declines. Violent crime fell by 65 percent since 1993, from 16.8 million to 5.8 million last year.
According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics' annual national crime victimization survey, the size of the percentage increases in both violent crime and property crime for last year was driven in large part by the historically low levels seen in 2010.
The increase in violent crime was the result of an upward swing in assaults, which moved up by 22 percent, from 4 million in 2010 to 5 million last year. The increases in violent crime experienced by whites, Hispanics, younger people and men accounted for the majority of the increase in violent crime.
In the latest survey, property crime was up for the first time in a decade, from 15.4 million in 2010 to 17 million last year. Household burglaries rose 14 percent, from 3.2 million to 3.6 million. The number of thefts jumped by 10 percent, from 11.6 million to 12.8 million.
The victimization figures are based on surveys by the Census Bureau of a large sample of people in order to gather data from those who are victims of crime. They are considered the government's most comprehensive crime statistics because they count both crimes that never are reported to the police as well as those reported.
Last May, the FBI's preliminary crime report for 2011, which counts only crimes reported to police, concluded that crime dropped again last year, down 4 percent for violent crime and 3.7 percent for property crime. The declines slowed in the second half of last year, a sign to academic experts that the many years of lowering crime levels might be nearing an end. Historically, less than half of all crimes, including violent crimes, are reported to police.


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Joey Lawrence-Wesley Snipes action film 'Havana Heat' even crazier/better than we thought!
Image Credit: Bob Charlotte/PR Photos; Mark Dye/PR PhotosIf, like us, you read the Variety headline "Snipes, Lawrence join 'Havana Heat'" and needed to know more about the indie action film costarring Wesley Snipes and Joey Lawrence shooting this November, prepare to be very happy. Producer James Ordonez, president of Tayrona Entertainment Group, just gave EW some serious details about the movie and its efforts to be the next Expendables (yes, offers are out to Chuck Norris and Jean-Claude Van Damme!).
• We begin with the plot: "Havana is a mysterious, sensuous city with gorgeous architecture, white Caribbean beaches, hot, pulsating music, vintage American automobiles and some of the most beautiful women in the world. CID Special Agent Sean Franklin [Lawrence] and his partner, gung-ho rookie, NCIS Special Agent Brianna Evans [Fighting's Zulay Henao] are assigned undercover in Havana after another agent is murdered. At the same time, a heavyweight fight between American Ruben Palace and Cuba's Kid Carlos becomes an international incident when a girl Ruben meets in a salsa club is found dead. Sean and Brenda team up with National Revolutionary Police Force Detective Jose Aguillerra to uncover the mystery behind both crimes."
• Where does Snipes come in? "Snipes plays Major Evans, Sean Franklin's boss and father of his assigned rookie partner…. Major Evans coordinates all the infiltration operation in Cuba and will engage once he finds out his best man and daughter are in danger," Ordonez says. What made producers think to pair Lawrence and Snipes? "As a coincidence with The Expendables, Havana Heat was put together as a retro '80s action all-star movie. We were looking for a very big teen 1990s idol who still is young and fresh to play the lead action role, and Joey Lawrence was the perfect candidate," he says. "Wesley Snipes is one of the most recognized action stars of all times… so it was perfect to put them together."
• This all-star movie may include Jean-Claude Van Damme. "Raul Julia-Levy, son of late Raul Julia is also part of the cast, and he's personally convincing Jean-Claude Van Damme to join the cast as well in order to have a major fighting scene that will reprise the final fight between Van Damme and Raul Julia in the 1994 action flick Street Fighter, which was Raul Julia's final movie," Ordonez says. Julia-Levy plays a Cuban driver with a secret, and Van Damme is being courted for the role of Mikhail Guzman, a hardcore criminal and human trafficker. Producers are also in talks with Chuck Norris (to play Commander Winston, Snipes' superior) and The Terminator's Michael Biehn (to play Warrant Office Pelski, who's been training Henao at GITMO). Whether or not those three deals get signed, the confirmed supporting players include: The Expendables' Randy Couture as Bruno Bresler, the manager of the American boxer (who'll be played by UFC fighter Heath Herring); La Femme Nikita's Peta Wilson as Captain Camille Davenport, who's been helping Lawrence's character, on bereavement leave when he gets the call to Cuba, work through his troubled past; American Ninja's Michael Dudikoff as Lawrence's ex-partner who gets shot in Cuba; Zorro: La Telenovela's Lorena Rincon as the assassin; and Bollywood star Nicholas Brown (Kites) as a criminal involved in extortion and gambling.
The goal is a theatrical release next summer. What do you think?


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LONDON – Schools are increasingly replacing the King of Kings with the King of Rock and Roll.
As Great Britain continues to become a more "multicultural" society, school nativity scenes – a staple of the Christmas season – are becoming increasingly secularized.
MORE NEWS: VIDEO: Ron Paul appears to suffer 'stroke' during livestream
The Telegraph reports:
Christianity is being banished from school nativity plays as the annual performance of the Christmas story is replaced with bland "winter celebrations", research among parents suggests.
Even in schools which retain religious themes, most now opt for a modernised version of the nativity story, often featuring elaborate twists and children dressed as unlikely additions such as punk fairies, aliens, Elvis, lobsters, spacemen and even recycling bins.
Examples cited in the survey conducted by Netmums, the parenting website, even included a retelling of the story modelled on The Apprentice. Others told of children dressed as ingredients in a Christmas lunch including carrots, sprouts and – confusingly – pumpkins.
Only one-third of schools offer an accurate telling of the biblical story of Jesus' arrival complete Mary and Joseph, inn-keepers, shepherds and magi.
About 12 percent of schools hold a Christmastime event with no mention of the holiday, with some even incorporating other religious holidays, like the Muslim festival Eid, the Jewish Hanukkah or Hindu Diwali.
Meanwhile, some schools are struggling with government regulators.
Some councils are threatening to ban the presentations "amid health and safety fears over curtains and chairs," The Press and Journal reports.
Safety edicts are being issued by council "occupational health, safety and well-being teams," shocking school leaders and children.
MORE NEWS: UI prof scrambles to rewrite slavery assignment after student complains on Twitter
One such demand requires ensuring chairs are in a fixed position or linked together "so that it cannot be moved easily by an audience in a state of excitement," according to the paper.
Regulators are also closely scrutinizing the fire retardancy of stage curtains.
"We have had concerts there for 30 or 40 years and never had an incident. There is no more risk this year than there was last year," says Fiona Matthews, chairwoman of Castletown Primary School Parent Council.
Town leaders ended up stepping in and overruling their regulators.
"Health and safety is important – but when things like this happen it is ridiculed," Landward Caithness councillor Matthew Reiss says.
Other schools are clamping down on picture taking.
The Manchester Evening News reports only 38 percent of schools now allow parents to take pictures at will.
Nearly 20 percent ban snapping photos altogether.
A third of schools require parents who do take photos to sign a form stating they will not post them to social media sites.
Siobhan Freegard from Netmums tells the paper, "Nothing makes a parent prouder than seeing their child on stage at the Christmas concert, but like Nativity plays, this tradition is dying out."


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Courses by Topic: Digital Imaging
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For a complete listing of currently scheduled courses, visit the Continuing Education Training Schedule.
If you have any questions about Amigos continuing education events, contact Amigos Training Support, 800-843-8482 (972-851-8000 in the Dallas area) or email@example.com.
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|Intermediate Imaging: Scanning Essentials
|Digital Imaging, Technology


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Post-Embodied AI
On the Integration of Embodied and Unembodied Approaches
to Artificial General Intelligence
Ben Goertzel
Human intelligence is hard to separate from human embodiment. We learn to think, as infants, largely in the course of learning to use our bodies. Even our most abstract goals can largely be viewed as sublimated versions of bodily goals. So many of our cognitive patterns and linguistic forms can be traced back to perception and action metaphors – from the inner visualizations with which many of us represent abstract knowledge, to the spatial relations implicit in pronouns like "above", "by" and "through."
A natural question, therefore, is: What about embodiment and artificial intelligence? More specifically, what about embodiment and artificial general intelligence (AGI)? It's clear that some cognitive capabilities currently considered under the loose heading of AI – for instance, chess-playing – can be carried out just fine by unembodied software programs. But these are what Kurzweil (2000) calls "narrow AI" programs. What about the grand dream of AI – software programs that can autonomously learn about new problems and domains themselves, create new inventions and problem-solving strategies, reflect and spontaneously communicate. Suppose one accepts the "strong AI" claim that software programs, in principle, can achieve these things. Then the question still remains: Can these dreams be fulfilled by unembodied software programs, or do they require software programs embedded in sophisticated robot bodies, with sensors and actuators approaching, rivaling or exceeding the human body in diversity and precision?
Expert opinions on this have ranged all over the map. Some distinguished AI theorists and practitioners believe that embodiment is thoroughly unnecessary for AI; others argue that it's absolutely critical, and any AI system that's not embodied doesn't have a prayer of approaching true AGI.
In this essay I'll give my own opinion on the issue, which starts out somewhere in the middle of the two extremes, and ends up in the closer regions of outer space. First of all, I think embodiment is valuable but not necessary for mind in general, and for AGI in particular. I'll give a detailed analysis of exactly why embodiment is incredibly useful for AGI. But then, I'll argue that an exclusive and obsessive focus on embodiment is actually counterproductive for AGI. In fact, a lot of the technologies developed by the anti-embodiment crowd can be extremely useful for AGI – if they're integrated into an embodiment-encompassing framework. This leads me to the notion of post-embodied mind – intelligence that possesses a body (or more than one), but also possesses knowledge not derived from its body's sensorimotor capabilities in any way.
Post-embodied mind is not humanly natural, but I will argue that it's actually a more effective approach to intelligence than the one embodied in our brains. Furthermore, it may actually be the condition that we're evolving towards. A human with a special chip in their brains connecting them to the Internet and a massive network of interconnected databases – that would be a post-embodied human. It seems obvious that a post-embodied human would have a lot easier time learning and thinking than a plain old embodied human. Similarly, a post-embodied proto-AGI system is going to have a lot easier time getting trained to be really smart than a plain old embodied proto-AGI.
In addition to making these general points in some detail, I'll also describe here -- very loosely, as this is not a technical article -- how this approach is being pursued in the context of my own current practical AGI project, the Novamente AI system (Goertzel et al, 2003; Looks et al, 2004). Basically, we're pursuing a combination of natural language based teaching, loading-in of formally encoded knowledge, and control of a simple embodied agent. The AI architecture is specifically designed to enable this kind of broadly integrative, post-embodied approach. While most of the points I make in this essay are fairly abstract – and most of them seem pretty obvious to me now – some of them are ideas that occurred to me only in the course of the my practical work on Novamente during the last couple years.
Before launching into my own views, I'll give a quick overview of what others believe about embodiment and AI. I make no pretense to completeness – I'm just surveying the major perspectives, and giving a couple examples of well-known adherents to each.
First of all, among the "embodiment is unnecessary" crowd, there are several subspecies. The "knowledge encoding" crew believe that it's possible to write a long list of all the "common sense" facts about the world that every human learns through their embodiment, and simply supply this list to an AI, to fill up its brain with the basic knowledge it would get if it had a humanlike body. There are various opinions about how to write the list. Some, most notably Doug Lenat and the Cyc team (see www.cyc.com or Lenat, 1995), believe that it should be done in a formal mathematical language like predicate logic. Others, such as Chris McKinstry, founder of mindpixel.com, believe it should be done in a natural language like English.[1]
On the other hand, some believe that explicit encoding of commonsense knowledge is unnecessary, and an AI system can pick up all it needs to know about the world through linguistic means – through conversations with humans. Jason Hutchens' HAL project at a-i.com (Graham-Rowe, 2001) was an example of this.
The most impassioned and articulate defense of the opposite position – that embodiment is critical for AI – was made by Hubert Dreyfus in his famous book "What Computers Can't Do" (1979). Dreyfus drew on Continental philosophy to argue that human intelligence is fundamentally situated in the body, and that considering intelligence as separated from embodied-ness is about as sensible as considering cognition as separate from memory. He considered the separation between intelligence and embodiment to be an artificial distinction made by a flawed research programme, without basis in reality. In "The Embodied Mind" (1992), Francisco Varela and his collaborators deepened Dreyfus's critique by connecting it with Eastern philosophies of mind and being.
In terms of practical modern research, the embodiment-focused approach to AI is, not surprisingly, closely associated with robotics. Rodney Brooks (1999) and Hugo de Garis (De Garis and Korkin, 2002) are examples of well-known robotics researchers whose goal is to begin with simple robots carrying out simple embodied cognition, and then gradually make the robots and the corresponding cognitions more complex.
An alternative strategy, however, is to work with AI systems that control simulated bodies. At the present time, simulation worlds don't provide the kind of richness of sensation and action that the physical world does. On the other hand, they're a lot easier to play with: work on robot cognition has a dangerous habit of getting bogged down in the engineering and tuning of robotic systems, and never exploring the "cognitive" aspect all that fully. John Santore's (2003) PhD work used Stuart Shapiro's SnEPs AI system to control an agent called "Crystal Cassie" in the "Crystal Space" simulated environment (an open-source environment created for 3D gaming). Similarly, John Laird (2002) has initiated a project using the SOAR AI system to control agents in 3D gaming environments.
As hinted above, my view is an intermediate one. As is usually the case in AI, the truth lies somewhere between the two extremes. Clearly, embodiment is not really necessary for AGI, in a theoretical sense. However, equally clearly, embodiment makes the task of teaching a proto-AGI system a heck of a lot easier – to such a great extent that trying to create a totally unembodied AGI would be a foolish thing.
I've just used the phrase "teaching a proto-AGI system." What I mean by this is as follows. I divide the task of creating an AGI into two parts: first building the initial software system, and then teaching this "baby mind" how to think, reason, feel, etc. and filling its mind with knowledge. The proto-AGI is this initial software system.
This bipartite division of the AGI-creation problem is valid for almost all, but not all, approaches to AGI. In some approaches to AGI, the first part is almost trivial, because it's assumed that a very simple architecture can give rise to intelligence through repeated self-modification and self-analysis (Juergen Schmidhuber's (2004) OOPS system is an example of this). In most approaches to AGI, however, both of the stages are substantial and important, and the initial software system prior to learning has much of same the structure and dynamics that the system will have after a substantial amount of learning has taken place. Learning, at first, just provides content, refinement to the initially given components, and additional components existing within the initially given components. Eventually of course an AGI system may learn enough to rewrite all its source code and become something totally different than its creators intended. However, in most approaches to AGI, it is assumed that this kind of total self-modification will occur only after the system has become a highly sophisticated general intelligence using its original architecture. In this context, what I mean by a proto-AGI is a software system that has the overall software structures and dynamics needed to support general intelligence – but lacks the specific knowledge needed to operate in the world, and lacks the specific control structures needed to operate in various (practical and cognitive) situations.
How then can one turn one's proto-AGI into a genuine AGI? How does one turn an AI baby into an AI child? How critical is embodiment for this process?
Firstly, I think it's clear that the knowledge encoding approach – taken on its own, without integration with other fundamentally different approaches -- is intrinsically problematic. The Cyc knowledge base (the biggest one out there) has well over a million predicate logic relationships in it, each representing a piece of commonsense knowledge, but it's nowhere near complete enough to represent the knowledge in the mind of a small child (though it far exceeds the knowledge of most children or adults in various specialized areas such as geography, weights and measures, etc.). According to theoretical computer science, predicate logic has universal expressive power – so if the scope of human knowledge is finite (which is guaranteed, for instance, if the universe is computable or quantum computable), then it's possible in principle to encode all human knowledge in predicate logic. However, this "in principle" observation doesn't address the question of how to get all the knowledge out of human minds and into predicate logic. It may be that most of our commonsense knowledge is implicit, so that "we" (in the sense of our conscious linguistic minds) don't even know what we know. In that case, producing a commonsense knowledge base may not be possible until neuroscience can scan the human brain with tremendous accuracy, and use a highly refined theory of brain function to read the commonsense knowledge out of the scanned images. Most likely the scanning technology will be there in a few decades (see Broderick, 2002 and Kurzweil, 2000 for reasoned estimates), but when such a refined theory of brain function will emerge is anyone's guess.
On the other hand, the idea of teaching an AI system commonsense knowledge and cognition through the process of conversation is not fundamentally flawed, at least not in the obvious way that formal knowledge encoding is. Conversation may get across both explicit and implicit knowledge – often we say far more than we know we're saying. My suspicion, however, is that teaching a proto-AGI system via conversation alone will be very, very painfully slow.
One factor that could speed up the teaching-by-talking process is the judicious use of formally encoded knowledge. Databases built by formal knowledge encoding may be very helpful to AI's as they engage in conversations – providing explicit knowledge to help them anchor the implicit and explicit knowledge they obtain from their dialogues. For this purpose, it seems, commonsense knowledge bases built up using natural language will probably be more useful than knowledge bases like Cyc, created using formal logic. The reason is that a conversational AI system, to apply database knowledge in the context of conversation, must match conversationally-derived information with database information. If the database information is similar in form to the conversationally-derived information, then this matching problem will be relatively easy, and won't require complex, computationally expensive and hard-to-tune inferencing. On the other hand, if the database information is in a form very different from the conversationally-derived information, then the matching problem can be quite subtle.
This is an issue my colleagues and I have already encountered in practice, in our work with the Novamente AI system. We have a system component that maps natural language sentences into "Novamente nodes and links" – Novamente's internal knowledge representation. We can also load in knowledge from Cyc or other structured databases, translating their formal languages into Novamente nodes and links. However, the problem of matching natural language derived knowledge with database-derived knowledge turns out to be more irritating than one would initially think.
For instance, suppose one tells Novamente a simple sentence such as "Ben just gave Izabela the red ball." One would like Novamente to be able to infer that, shortly after that, Izabela had the red ball. In order to make that inference, Novamente requires the commonsense knowledge that "After X gives Y to Z, then shortly after that, Z has Y." This commonsense knowledge is implicit in Cyc, SUMO and some other available knowledge bases. However, extracting this knowledge from any of these databases in such a way as to provide value for language understanding, requires a substantial amount of logical inference – nothing Novamente can't do, but more work than one would like one's AI system to need to do to figure out something so very simple. On the other hand, if one simply supplies Novamente with the relevant commonsense knowledge by telling it the sentence "After X gives Y to Z, then shortly after that, Z has Y", then Novamente will automatically map this sentence into nodes and links in a way that matches the way it maps the sentence "Be just gave Izabela the ball" into nodes and links. The commonsense background knowledge will match the conversational linguistic knowledge in form, making the matching between the two of them almost immediate, as it should be. For this reason, in the Novamente project, we would have much more use for a Cyc-like compendium in simple English than for Cyc itself.
Now, you might argue that a Cyc-like
compendium in English is unnecessary, because all that information is
implicitly there in the vast amount of text already present on the
Internet. But, while this is true, it's
also true that extracting commonsense knowledge from general texts requires
sophisticated linguistic understanding – and sophisticated linguistic
understanding, as much recent work in computational linguistics suggests,
requires commonsense knowledge. So there
is a chicken-and-egg problem here, which may be resolved by formally encoding
commonsense knowledge in simple English.
The Novamente system already "understands" simple English (in the sense
of successfully mapping it into internal nodes and links, using an interactive
user interface that allows a human helper to correct its mistakes), so it can
understand a simple English database.
This commonsense knowledge can then help it to expand its knowledge of
English, which enables it to better understand free text, which builds up its
knowledge base, etc.
One of the reasons often given for the necessity of embodiment in AI is the need for "symbol grounding" to aid with language understanding and cognition. The idea here is that, for a system without any sensors or actuators, the word "apple" is defined solely by its relations to other words, and to abstract entities such as database records. On the other hand, to a system with a body that can see, smell, hear, taste, grab and throw apples – or carry out some subset of these interactions with applies – the word "apple" will be associated with a host of nonlinguistically based patterns. The word "apple" may in other words be "grounded" (Harnad, 1990). This grounding, in essence, consists of a lot of commonsense facts about apples – not just abstract facts like "apples are usually red or green or yellow and "apples are edible fruits", but also a lot of more specific facts, such as information about the distribution of lengths and curvatures of apple stems, information about how bitter various apples have tasted at various stages of ripeness (and how similar their particular variety of bitterness has been to the bitterness of various other fruits), etc. In principle, all these facts could be encoded in a knowledge base using predicate logic or natural language, but it would be a heck of a pain – because most of these facts are implicit in the human mind, only articulated via great and unnatural effort. Most of these facts are things that emerge naturally and pre-verbally in any reasonably powerful pattern-recognition system supplied with a large number of examples of applies, and are cast into a verbal or otherwise easily-communicable form only awkwardly and difficultly.
Creating an AI system that can ground concrete terms like "apple" isn't such an amazingly difficult thing. At this stage, given the advanced state of various relevant sorts of narrow-AI research, it's basically an exercise in integrated systems design and the tuning of statistical learning: one has to take a perception component and a linguistics component and hook them up together, via some kind of cognition component that's able to recognize correlations between words and patterns among perceptions. There is nothing here that strains current technology. Research projects such as the Robot Brain Project
(www.rdc.imi.i.u-tokyo.ac.jp/robotbrain/e/ ; see e.g. MacDorman et al, 2001) have sought to push in this direction.
A question here is: How can you tell if your AI system has correctly grounded "apple"? Being able to correctly distinguish apples from non-apples isn't really good enough. You need to test whether the system can draw useful conclusions about apples – and about other things, using apples as a metaphor – with roughly the same kind of fluidity as a human.
What's a bit subtler is the grounding of linguistic "glue words" like prepositions. Words like "through," "past", "over" and "near" embody subtle patterns of spatial relationship, which are hard for humans to articulate yet easy for us to manipulate implicitly. The semantics of these words is a classic case of implicit knowledge. Cyc is fairly weak in this area in spite of giving numerous different senses for each preposition and attaching predicate logic expressions to each. Cyc gives 14 different kinds of "in", each defined by different logic expressions, but the "essential meaning" of "in" seems not to be contained in any of these definitions exactly – it's a fuzzier kind of implicit knowledge. It's not that the "real definition" of "in" can't, in principle, be expressed in logical form – of course, it can be. But the real definition is a mixture of abstract formal concepts like those given in Cyc, with a load of specific examples of in-ness, familiar to us all from everyday life, and a load of perception-and-action-heavy patterns abstracted from these specific examples. Enumerating all these cases, for a system without a library of embodied experiences in its mind, would be extremely laborious. On the other hand, for a system with a library of embodied experiences, it's easier: there are thousands of examples of in-ness in storage, and plenty of patterns on different levels of abstraction emergent from these. A new in-ness situation may be understood by reference to these various examples and the low and mid-level patterns abstracted from them, not only by the very abstract patterns among these examples that are captured in formal, Cyc-style definitions of the senses of "in."
Note, I'm not arguing that Cyc-style abstract definitions don't exist in the human mind, nor that they shouldn't exist in an AI mind. The point is that these definitions, in an embodied mind, are only the top of a pyramid of more and more abstract patterns emergent from sensorimotor data. Sometimes questions are best resolved by reference to the top of the pyramid, and sometimes by some of the patterns lower down, even sometimes very-low-level patterns close to the level of the original sensorimotor data.
And now we have reached another significant problem with unembodied AI. The network of patterns on various levels of abstraction, which emerges in an embodied system from sensorimotor data, is not only directly useful to a mind, it's also useful as a metaphor for thinking about non-directly-sensorimotor‑related things – and as a training ground for teaching the system to manipulate hierarchical/heterarchical networks of patterns (this sort of pattern-network is called a "dual network" in (Goertzel, 1994, 1997)).
Regarding the "metaphor" issue: It's no coincidence that so many of our prepositions are spatial metaphors – to a large extent, we've learned to think by learning to think about the spatiotemporal world all around us. But it's not only that we humans learn the meaning of "through" by reference to a database of experienced examples of through-ness, but also that we learn how to manipulate and interrelate abstract relationships like "through", "in" and "because" by learning to manipulate and interrelate their concrete instantiations in the perceived and enacted world. Without this "playground" for learning to interrelate such relationships, it will be hard for an AI system to get the knack. Not impossible, just substantially more difficult.
Cognition requires a host of heuristics, many which are too subtle and implicit for us to explicitly program into our AI system
s – our AI systems have got to learn them. Reasoning about time and space, about other minds, about our own goals and actions, about plans over a short term versus a long time, and dozens of other examples – all these sorts of reasoning involve generic inferential methods, but they also involve case-specific inference control heuristics, which must be either learned by experience, or supplied by some very subtle sort of cognitive/computing science that is nowhere near existence yet. There is plenty of "AI" work in these areas at present, but it's all extremely crude compared to what human children do. Contemporary AI planning systems, for example (see e,g, Russel and Norvig, 2002), exceed most adults in planning the operations of a factory when all the factors and conditions involved are well-defined – but perform worse than the average young child in planning problems where the situations and entities involved are nebulously defined and/or poorly understood.
The example of planning hints at some other important points. Embodiment isn't just about getting a rich field of sensorimotor data in which to ground one's symbols, it's also about having a body to move around and generally control. The process of controlling one's body with simple multi-time-scale goals in mind, is an excellent training ground for learning how to achieve goals by controlling systems in the context of diverse data rich in patterns on multiple scales. Furthermore, the process of modeling one's own physical self is excellent practice for modeling one's own mental self – and modeling one's own mental self is critical, if one wishes to modify and improve oneself.
In none of these cases is embodiment strictly necessary for learning how to think – there are other approaches to learning planning, other approaches to learning introspection and self-control, other approaches to learning to balance patterns on multiple space and time scales, etc. The point is that embodiment provides a way of learning all these things, and more, in a richly interconnected way.
Another important point is that, since we are embodied, we have reasonable intuitions for the way various sorts of learning go in embodied systems. If a purely non-embodied learning mechanism is plausible – which I doubt, but I'm not sure about this – it would be more alien to us and hence will likely be harder for us to monitor and tune, and fill with our various human insights into how the world operates and how thinking may usefully be done. In fact, even an AGI embodied in a humanlike body would be fairly alien to us due to its different cognitive architecture. Given the current state of robotic technology, the most likely case to come about is an AGI embodied in a not-very-humanlike body – which will obviously have a psychology highly different from ours, but hopefully similar enough that a real psychological connection can be built between it and its human teachers.
One way to realize that it's a mistake to equate "embodiment" with "precisely human-style embodiment" is to remember cases like Helen Keller – a woman who was blind, deaf and had a very limited sense of smell. Mostly she experienced the world through touch, and her teacher "spoke" to her in language by tracing out the shapes of letters on her hand. Helen Keller was intelligent and articulate and, it would seem, basically developed a full understanding of the world. Of course, touch – together with kinesthesia, and inner feelings like hunger, thirst, pain, sexuality and so forth – provides a lot of bits of data at every point in time. But there's nowhere near the complexity of the data coming in through vision. A key point to notice is that touch is the sense that truly provides the sense of embodiment. The skin divides the self from the other, and allows one to tell when one is touching some other object, to feel the nature of the environment in which one is immersed, etc. To embody an AI, I'd rather have a digital Helen Keller – a robot with a body with skin and sensations all around it – than a typical modern mobile robot with a camera eye and some bump sensors and sonar.
There are two aspects to "learning how to think" that are hard to fully distinguish from each other: learning how to think at all, versus learning how to think like a human. All humans share, to a certain extent, a common world-model. Parts of this world-model may be explicitly stored in the fetal brain, at an abstract level, but I doubt this is a very significant factor. More important, I suspect, a lot of the world-model comes out of the relationships between our in-built human drives and feelings: hunger, thirst, pain, sexuality, movement, heat, cold, etc. Some of the rest comes out of the relations between our particular sensors and actuators – for instance, a mind with sonar would tend to build different world-models, as would a mind that controlled wheels or wings instead of legs. And some of the rest comes from the social relationships that ensue from our biology, e.g. parent-child relationships, sexual relationships, issues of trust and deceit and the signals that go along with these, etc. In order to share the human world-model in the sense that a human would, an AI really would need to have a human-like body. Helen Keller shared most of the basic human world-model, because she had a human body (and also note that her brain was wired to think in terms of the common human senses even though some of her sensory input devices didn't work – for instance, she still had her visual cortex to think with, though it couldn't be applied directly to visual sensations, it could still be applied to think about other tasks in a vision-like way).
Human patterns of cognition are closely tied to the human world-model, not just to the fact of embodiment. For this reason, an embodied AGI, unless it has a body modeled very closely after the human body, is not going to think like us – not even if its head is filled with Cyc-ishly or conversationally imparted "human common sense." It will take this human commonsense and integrate it with its own nonhumanly-embodied experience and come up with something different. The closer its embodiment is to ours, the more easily we'll be able to guide it as it learns how to think.
This notion of the "human world-model" is described by Eric Baum (2004), from a computational-learning-theory perspective, as inductive bias: a predisposition to recognize certain types of patterns in the world. For instance, it's fairly well demonstrated empirically that, although the human brain doesn't come with any specific linguistic knowledge at birth, humans do have some strong inbuilt biases to recognize certain kinds of linguistic patterns (Pinker 2000; Calvin and Bickerton, 2001). If we create an AGI system and give it neither linguistic knowledge nor linguistic-pattern-oriented biases, and then try to teach it human language, then we are placing it at a severe disadvantage relative to humans – even if we've given it an accurately human-like body to move around in! For this sort of reason, Baum argues that real AGI is a long way off: he believes that we need to wait for neuroscience to fully interpret the brain, so we can read the inductive biases out of it and program them into an AI system. On the other hand, I believe that we can work around the "inductive bias" problem via a messy, creative, integrative, post-embodied approach.
So what's an AGI designer to do?
I believe there is a strong argument for creating embodied AI, as opposed to taking a wholly unembodied approach. However, I'm not a member of the "AI should be driven by robotics" camp. In fact I'm currently involved in a lot of work – on things like unembodied natural language processing – that most hard-core embodied-mind enthusiasts believe is worthless so far as AGI is concerned.
The practical fact is that, right now, given the technologies at our disposal, embodying AI systems is a pain. Furthermore, modern robot technology focuses on things like vision processing and arm movement, which are "far from the essence" where embodied intelligence is concerned – there's been disappointingly little work on robot skin, for example. For these reasons, there's a strong real-world motivation to go as far as one can possibly go with unembodied methods – and integrate embodiment only where avoiding it would lead to truly absurd inefficiencies. With this in mind, I like to distinguish two approaches to embodied AI: pure embodiment, in which the AI knows only what it learns via its body (though it may of course have predispositions toward certain types of knowledge programmed into it from creation), and impure embodiment, in which the AI has one or more bodies but may also have other important sources of knowledge (generally, some sources present in it from creation, some interactively presenting it with new information as it learns). What I advocate is impure embodiment, or, to give it a more positively-spun name, post-embodiment.
Post-embodiment is a path of pragmatism – but interestingly (and this is one reason for the name), it's also perhaps a more forward-looking perspective than the classical embodied-mind view. We humans are embodied, and our minds exemplify the usefulness of embodiment for cognition – but, we humans are obviously far from optimal intelligent systems. More and more, as culture and technology advance, we voyage far beyond our bodies, and gain knowledge from remote regions of the outside world. It's not too long until we'll be able to graft computer chips into our brains and tap directly into quantitative, relational, textual and multimedia databases of various kinds – thus gaining vast amounts of information that have no direct connection to our physical bodies … information coming directly into our brains, not through our senses. Furthermore, virtual reality technology will in time mature and allow us to have the sense of occupying multiple "physical bodies" in multiple "places." In short, there is an argument to be made that human intelligence will become less embodied during the next decades as technology advances. And clearly this will be an enhancement rather than a regression of our intelligence.
Post-embodiment for humans is a futurist hypothesis, but for AGI's, it can be the initial condition. AGI's should have bodies, because embodiment provides a highly efficient medium for learning a lot of valuable things in an interconnected way. However, AGI's should also use every other means of knowledge-gathering and learning-stimulation at their disposal.
What does this mean in practice? The most sensible course for AGI seems to be threefold.
First, one should embody one's proto-AGI system in one or more worlds so it can have rich sensorimotor experience. Simulated worlds may be useful for grounding of various relational concepts, and learning self-control and self-modeling. However, given the simplicity of current simulated worlds, real-world perceptual data seems to be very valuable as a complement, due to its greater richness, leading to a richer hierarchical/heterarchical network of emergent patterns
Second, one should converse with one's proto-AGI system regarding all sorts of things, including what it sees and does in the worlds it interacts with
Third, one should feed one's proto-AGI system as much prepared knowledge as possible -- preferably in simple natural language, but also in the form of quantitative, relational and logical data, since this is more readily available than "simple natural language" based databases
So for instance, if a post-embodied AI system is told "Ben gave Izabela the ball," then it may know that shortly afterwards, Izabela has the ball, for one of two reasons. It may know this because someone explicitly told it that "If X gives Y to Z, then shortly afterwards, Y has Z." Or it may know this because it observed a number of instances of real-world interaction associated with the word "give," and noticed this as a pattern in several cases with actual X's, Y's and Z's. The presence of formally-given commonsense knowledge may be useful, but this knowledge can only go so far and eventually experientially-based learning has got to take over. For instance, how does the system know that, after the giving is done, Ben no longer has the ball? This is not part of the intrinsic nature of giving, because if Ben gives Izabela a cold, he may still have the cold; and if a wife gives her husband a child, she still has the child. Again, it may be that the AI system has explicitly been given knowledge of the form "Balls are solid physical objects" and "If X gives Y to Z, and Y is a solid physical object, then shortly afterwards, Y has Z and X does not have Z." On the other hand, it may be that the system has learned this pattern from observing a number of situations with a number of real X's, Y's and Z's. In any particular example, one can retroactively say: "If the system had this and that pieces of commonsense knowledge fed explicitly into it, it could figure that out." But the problem is that there are far too many examples, and extracting all this implicit knowledge from the human mind is quite slow and difficult. The above formula regarding solid physical objects, though it may look fine-grained to the untutored, is in fact an overgeneralization, and needs to be replaced by more refined formulas – et cetera, ad nauseum.
The middle ground proposed here is well-illustrated by this simple example. A purely embodied approach doesn't give the system any explicit background knowledge, it lets the AI system learn things like the relation between giving and having on its own, at the same time as it learns linguistic syntax, learns to move its body, and so forth. A purely unembodied approach tries to encode every last rule in some formal way (using e.g. predicate logic or natural language). A post-embodied approach tries to have its cake and eat it too – for instance, in this example, this might involve explicitly encoding "If X gives Y to Z, then shortly afterwards, Y has Z" and letting the system figure out "If X gives Y to Z, and Y is a solid physical object, then shortly afterwards, Y has Z and X does not have Z" from experience. Note that the experiential learning problem here is significantly easier than in the purely-embodied case, because all the system needs to learn is a modification of a pattern it's already been told. Or, in the post-embodied approach, one might tell the system the latter, more complicated formula about embodiment and physical objects, and let it figure out the refinements on this based on experience. The important point isn't exactly where the fed-in knowledge leaves off and the experientially-learned knowledge begins, the point is that both kinds of knowledge exist and are allowed to synergetically feed off each other.
For another example, consider Cyc's 14 senses of the word "in" – which a careful analysis shows not to be sufficiently fine-grained to provide a thoroughly human-like understanding of the types of in-ness in the world. In a purely embodied approach, the AI would learn some rough equivalent of these senses – and also acquire a more refined understanding -- through experience. In a purely unembodied approach, if the 14 senses are inadequate, they must be either improved by the creation of a larger database with 37 or 61 senses, or else improved via a series of conversations in which various examples of the many different shades of in-ness are discussed. In the post-embodied approach, we can begin with the notions of in-ness provided by resources like Cyc and online dictionaries[2], and allow them to be elaborated via insights into in-ness obtained by observing – and conversing with humans about -- various examples of in-ness in the perceived, interacted-with world. It seems clear that, if it can be pulled off, the post-embodied approach provides a more efficient approach to learning – as it brings more information into the AGI's mind more quickly.
This approach is "impure" because it doesn't require that the proto-AGI learns everything from experience. Rather, it assumes that one's proto-AGI system has a flexible enough knowledge representation, and a powerful enough set of cognitive dynamics, that it is able to integrate diverse forms of knowledge (formal, experiential and linguistic) and use each form to assist its understanding of other forms. More specifically, for instance, it assumes that the perception module of one's proto-AGI system is set up so that the emergent patterns that form within it can be easily and naturally matched up (by the system's "inference" module, whatever form that may take) with the patterns that form in the system upon interpretation of linguistic utterances.
If there is a reasonable objection to this integrative approach, it's that it may be too hard to get the emergent perception-patterns to match up to the linguistic-understanding patterns. In a purely embodied mind, the linguistic-understanding patterns will have largely emerged from perception-patterns, therefore this matching is almost guaranteed. In a post-embodied mind, this matching is not guaranteed, and the system must be engineered carefully to ensure that it occurs. Otherwise the kind of linkage shown in the above example – where perception-based learning elaborates patterns explicitly told to the system – won't happen in practice, and the post-embodied approach doesn't work.
I believe the representations and dynamics in the Novamente system are adequate to this task – and, over the next few years, we'll find out if I'm right or not. At the moment we have a roughly half-complete proto-AGI Novamente, with the rest of the design worked out in moderate detail and awaiting implementation and testing. We're just beginning the process of feeding the system knowledge in natural language, and transforming knowledge from Cyc and other knowledge repositories into Novamente's knowledge representation. And a project to embody Novamente in a simulation world (based on Crystal Space (crystal.sourceforge.net), the same technology used for Crystal Cassie, and on the VOS framework (interreality.org) as well) has just begun last month, in May 2004.
The perspective on embodiment I've outlined here is highly controversial when considered in the context of contemporary, conventional AI theory. Even so, though I consider it to be basically "just common sense." However, at least it's not sterile "common sense" – in the context of Novamente, it has led me to some fairly interesting insights regarding the useful fusion of linguistic, formal and perceptual knowledge – some of which I've hinted at above. So the ideas given here constitute a conceptual perspective that has proved useful for guiding practical work on at least one proto-AGI system.
But enough about Novamente -- my main point here isn't the Novamente approach in particular – it's the general approach, the concept of post-embodied AI. Embodiment is important, it's incredibly useful as a learning mechanism for minds – but we shouldn't get carried away with it and assume that all non-embodied mechanisms for getting information into AI's are Bad Things. Rather, in a sufficiently flexible AGI framework, it's possible to have embodiment and also utilize the approaches typically associated with anti-embodiment philosophies. This may have the effect of making both the pro- and anti-embodiment schools of thought unhappy with one's work. However, it may also provide the maximum rate of progress toward actually creating AGI.
Thanks are due to Mark Waser, Izabela Freire, Moshe Looks and Deborah Duong for recent conversations on these issues.
n Baum, Eric (2004). What Is Thought? MIT Press
Broderick, Damien (2002). The Spike.
n Brooks, Rodney (1999). Cambrian Intelligence: The Early History of the New AI. MIT Press.
n Calvin, William and Derek Bickerton (2001). Lingua ex Machina. MIT Press.
n DeGaris, Hugo and Michael Korkin (2002). "THE CAM-BRAIN MACHINE (CBM) An FPGA Based Hardware Tool which Evolves a 1000 Neuron Net Circuit Module in Seconds and Updates a 75 Million Neuron Artificial Brain for Real Time Robot Control", Neurocomputing 42, Issue 1-4
n Dreyfus, Hubert (1979). What Computers Can't Do. Harper-Collins.
Ben, Cassio Pennachin, Andre Senna, Thiago Maia and Guilherme Lamacie (2003). Novamente: An Integrative Approach to Artificial
General Intelligence. In R. Sun, Ed., Papers of the IJCAI 2003 Workshop
on Cognitive Modeling of Agents and Multi-Agent Interactions,
n Goertzel, Ben (1997). From Complexity to Creativity. Plenum Press.
n Goertzel, Ben (1994). Chaotic Logic. Plenum Press.
n Kurzweil, Ray (2000). The Age of Spiritual Machines. Penguin.
n Harnad, Steven (1990). The Symbol Grounding Problem. Physica D 42, 335-346
n Laird, John (2002). "Research in Human-Level AI Using Computer Games," Proceedings of the ACM
n Lenat, D. B. (1995). "Cyc: A Large-Scale Investment in Knowledge Infrastructure." Communications of the ACM 38, no. 11
Looks, Moshe, Ben Goertzel and Cassio Pennachin (2004). Novamente: An Integrative Approach to
Artificial General Intelligence. AAAI
Workshop on Human-Level Intelligence, October 2004,
MacDorman, K. F., Tatani, K., Miyazaki, Y., Koeda, M. & Nakamura, Y.
(2001). Protosymbol emergence based on
embodiment: Robot experiments. ICRA 2001: Proceedings of the IEEE
International Conference on Robotics and Automation, May 21-26,
n Pinker, Steven (2000). The Language Instinct. Perennial
n Russell, Stuart and Peter Norvig (2002). Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach. Prentice-Hall.
John F. and Stuart C. Shapiro, Crystal
Cassie: Use of a 3-D Gaming Environment for a Cognitive Agent. In R.
Sun, Ed., Papers of the IJCAI 2003 Workshop on Cognitive Modeling of
Agents and Multi-Agent Interactions,
n Schmidhuber, Juergen (2004). Optimal Ordered Problem Solver. Machine Learning, 54, 211-254
n Varela, Francisco, Evan Thompson and Elanor Rosch (1992). The Embodied Mind, MIT Press
[1] Though unfortunately, the Mindpixel database of commonsense knowledge facts appears to be mostly useless. It's been entered in mainly by Web-surfers with childish senses of humor, and the collaborative-filtering rating mechanism on the site doesn't seem to have worked well enough to ensure reasonable quality.
[2] In fact for this particular purpose (preposition meanings), the Novamente project has built our own knowledge resource which we call the Preposition WordNet.


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The knockout stage has kicked off for Euro 2012 thereby taking the football fever to a higher level. There are plenty options you can socially connect to the madness. There's Twitter and other apps like OnSports, PlayUp, Share The Match etc that does a fine job handling the social updates pertaining to the game.
However, a new social network, Kyck plans to make the experience more specifically soccer-centric. The service went live last summer with a website and the release was followed by an iOS app launched afterwards. The company plans to go mobile and an Android variant is expected during the end of the current year. The company was started by Mac Lackey, a vet in the online tech industry and was sold off later. The team currently consists of 14 members and 3 interns.
The social network is currently invite-only, although, the team urges users to ask for an invite which will most likely get answered in a day. Alternatively, you can ping them on Twitter, letting them know about your eagerness and passion to join the network by adding a hashtag #KYCKme to your tweet. Once you get in you can follow international teams as well as any player to check out the latest conversations related to the topic. Similarly, if you wish to get your views included in a specific conversation feed, you can tag them with the relevant tag. Check-ins to a game, club or player will ensure you get in-app or push notifications related to them in later times. The social element comes in as a hybrid of Twitter features. You can follow people to get updates(photos, comments, notes etc) from him/her on your stream. Moreover, the spiffy algo also curates a list of contents(Top Kyck) that are considered commendable by the community.
The new network is planning for a public release sometime during the next month. The UI and wider availability are two major elements they are putting their faith in to ensure better feel for the users.
While OnSports and PlayUp remains my favorite, I can't stop myself from using the official Euro 2012 app in an unceasing manner while I'm not in front of a TV. But that said, the Euro 2012 app is for the time being I will certainly love to have something like OnSports that is entirely for soccer games and all sorts of them. Thankfully Kyck feels so much like it. Since I prefer Android, I will have to wait for some time to comment more on the mobile experience the soccer social network delivers. Until then we will love to hear more from you about your favorite sports apps.


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Rustic Blueberry Galette
with crystallized ginger
Adapted from Food & Wine
Serves 6
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour,
plus more for sprinkling
1 1/2 tbs candied ginger, minced
1/4 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks cold unsalted butter,
cut into small pieces
1/4 cup ice water
2-4 tbs sugar,
depending on the sweetness of the blueberries
2 tsp grated lemon zest
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
4 cups blueberries
2 tbs fresh lemon juice
1 egg plus 1 tbs milk
1 tbs candied ginger, minced
Preheat the oven to 375°F. In a large bowl, mix the sugar with the lemon zest and flour. Fold in the blueberries and lemon juice and let stand for 15 minutes.
Spoon blueberry filling in the center of the pastry, leaving a 1 1/2-inch border all around. Fold the pastry border up and over the blueberries, pleating it as necessary.
Whisk together egg and milk to form an egg wash. Brush the egg wash on pastry and sprinkle tart with sugar and candied ginger. Bake for about 55 minutes, or until the pastry is golden brown and the filling starts to bubble. Transfer the baking sheet to a rack and let cool. Cut into wedges and serve warm or at room temperature.


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Toni Kroos' agent Volker Struth has given hope to Chelsea in their pursuit of the Bayern Munich star, denying recent Spanish reports which claimed he had already agreed personal terms with Real Madrid.
Prestigious Spanish newspaper Marca reported on its front page Real Madrid are on the verge of completing their first summer signing after agreeing a five-year deal worth €5m a year with the German star.
Marca also added negotiations between the club are advanced and a fee between €25m and €30m has been proposed.
However, Kroo's agent has quickly denied those reports claiming that the Bayern Munich star is still uncertain about his future.
"There is no agreement or Real Madrid or any other team," Struth was quoted by AS.
"Toni is currently playing the World Cup, which is the main priority now. Before the end of the tournament there will be nothing new about his future."
Chelsea and Barcelona have also been recently linked with Kroos while Manchester United were also interested but are now reportedly out of the race after signing Ander Herrera.
The 24-year-old has only one year left on his contract at the Allianz Arena and could be available for just £20m, a bargain for a player considered one of the world's best players in his position.
Chelsea have already signed Cesc Fabregas but reports in Spain claim Jose Mourinho is also keen on bringing him to Stamford Bridge, having tried to convince him to snub Real Madrid's proposal by offering a €8.5m a year salary.
Meanwhile, Barcelona officials are reportedly likely to offer Bayern a swap deal for Kroos, including the coveted Alexis Sanchez as part of the negotiations.
Meanwhile, Spanish newspaper El Confidencial claims Real Madrid are also monitoring Brazilian international Luis Gustavo should they finally fail to land Kroos.


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Sayyed Nasrallah on Ayatollah Rafsanjani: We Lost a Great Man, Will Never Forget His Support
Local Editor
On the occasion of the death of Ayatollah Sheikh Hashemi Rafsanjani, Hizbullah Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah issued the following statement:
''To Allah we belong and to him we shall return''
We have lost one great man of this nation, Ayatollah Sheikh Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, may his soul rest in peace, who was sponsor, defender and significant supporter of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon over 34 years, and a kindhearted and sympathetic father as well as tough protector in all difficult times.
He believed in the central cause of the Muslim nation, the cause of Palestine and al-Quds, carrying its flag, and was a stubborn and strict resistant fighter against the Zionist scheme in Palestine and the region. He ultimately supported the people of Palestine, their cause, resistance and bloody fighting. Palestine and its cause were always present in his longtime struggle during the tyrant Pahlavi Shah era and after the victory of the blessed Islamic revolution in Iran led by Imam Khomeini, not to mention his role in all the responsibilities he had taken until the last day of his life.
We in Hizbullah will never forget Sheikh Rafsanjani's supporting positions in all fields and in every time. He used to be happy when we are happy and sad when we were sad. He had never been late to support us.
I, in the name of Hizbullah leadership and all the resistance men and the families of martyrs, the sacrificers, and the people of Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, offer deep condolences to His Eminence Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei and all great scholars, and to Sheikh Rafsanjani's honorable family, as well as the respectful officials in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the dear Iranian people. We ask Allah almighty that the Sheikh's soul would rest in peace and be in the highest ranks of the believers. We also ask Allah that all his lovers be patient and tolerate his loss.
He will always be loved, appreciated, thanked and prayed for.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
Monday, Rabi' al-Thani 10, 1438 Hijri
Januray 9, 2017 A.D.
Source: Hizbullah Media Relations


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Accommodation offered
The International Institute of Social Studies offers four different type of accommodation for you to choose from. Dorus, Bazarlaan, Gondelstraat and Buitenom. Two of the accommodations, Dorus and Bazarlaan are managed by DUWO (Dutch student housing corporation) and the other two are managed by ISS itself. All accommodation offered by ISS meets the same basic quality standards. They vary in terms of location, size and atmosphere.
Two residences are located next to ISS (Dorus & Bazarlaan) and the other two within 7-15 minutes cycling or public transport.
The fully furnished rooms are for single occupancy only and include a kitchen and other common areas shared with one or more ISS students. We have a few bigger rooms which are primarily intended for couples. A linen set, blanket and pillow will be waiting for you upon arrival. On the inventory list you can see what furniture is available in your room. All residences have laundry facilities.
Dorus Rijkersplein ("Dorus")
A modern residence located right behind the ISS building, a 2-minute walk away. This residence accommodate 125 single rooms and 10 double rooms (intended for couples). All rooms have their own bathroom, and a shared kitchen for 5-8 rooms. There is a common room where you can watch TV and relax, and a laundry room.
Bazarlaan ("Bazar")
Another modern residence and like residence Dorus Rijkersplein located just behind the ISS building, a 2-minute walk away. This residence accommodate 57 single rooms. All rooms have their own bathroom, and share the kitchen with 3-4 rooms. The common room, as well as the laundry room, is located in "Dorus".
This residence is located in Scheveningen, near the seaside. It is 3,4 km from ISS, 15 minutes by bike or public transport. A bit further away from ISS, but near the boulevard and beach (500 metres). This residence accommodates 29 single rooms. All rooms share a bathroom with 2 other rooms and the large kitchen facilities with 14 rooms. Students share a common room where they can watch TV and relax. This residence has a big courtyard/garden. A laundry room is available.
This residence is located in a 19th century building very close to the city centre. It is 1,9 km from ISS, 7 minutes by bike or a 22-minute walk. This residence accommodates 11 single rooms. All rooms share the bathroom and kitchen facilities. There is a nice courtyard/garden and a laundry room is available.
This residence accommodates 11 single rooms. All rooms share the bathroom and kitchen facilities. There is a nice courtyard/garden and a laundry room is available.


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I never hang around at the gate to allow the aircraft to drift, My question is who just "sits" at the gate for hours, I thought the whole point of the Sim' is to set flightplan and get into the air and fly? Tongue planted firmly in cheek!legoboyvdlp wrote in Tue Jan 09, 2018 7:52 pm:Maybe? Does it or does it not?
Because i'm using a simulator and not a game
Thorsten wrote in Wed Jan 10, 2018 6:18 am:But the issue at hand is that YaSim is in a sense closer to a game engine than to a simulation...
In this sense, AeromaticC++ is also a game engine, as well as all wind tunnel simulation software, where the input is a basic parameterisation of the problem and the output is a model of the physics.
Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 7 guests


text:
| The view from the mall concourse.
Ferragamo celebrated the glittering expansion of its Galleria boutique Tuesday night with an A-list cocktail party and shopping for a cause. Ten percent of sales — through this week — benefit M.D. Anderson Cancer Center.
MOLLY GLENTZER PHOTOS John Eddie Williams at the center of the scene inside Ferragamo's newly-enlarged Galleria boutique on Tuesday night.
The night's sponsors included Sheridan and John Eddie Williams, Courtney and Bo Hopson and Janet Gurwitch along with Town & Country magazine. Ferragamo USA president Vincent Ottomanelli was on hand along with M.D. Anderson president Dr. John Mendelsohn.
Sheridan Williams was bejeweled and beautiful from her head….
To her Prada-clad toes.
| Janet Gurwitch, left, and Diane Lokey Farb.
John Mendelsohn spoke briefly.
Mendelsohn sent a sobering note through the crowd with his statement, "At some point in your life, 40 percent of you in this room will have cancer."
Although, for what it's worth, he told the Chronicle later that he was not particularly pleased with last Sunday's New York Times cover story on the hospital; he deemed it too negative. "When you have a doctor who's survived 14 years with cancer, that's a positive story," he said.
Partygoers found plenty to be positive about as they surveyed Ferragamo's 4,000 luxurious square feet of retail therapy environs.
Courtney Hopson and Joyce Echols (and others) loved the 'Lida' platform, $790.
Aside from the new designs, there were classics to oggle from the Ferragamo's Creations collection, which resurrects iconic designs from the company's archives. (This is only the third time it's travelled from the label's New York flagship store.)
We're talking remakes of the slippers Salvatore Ferragamo designed for Katharine Hepburn; the gold-mirrored platforms he did for Carmen Miranda; Claudette Colbert's snazzy suede booties and styles worn by Sophia Loren, Eva Peron and other grande dames of the past. Be sure to check the soles; they're numbered, limited edition productions. (Hepburn's slippers are the least expensive, at about $600 per pair.)
| Sole-searching — the Hepburn slipper.
Some shoppers noted that the Italian luxury goods maker's current styles are evolving. Less traditional, a little more hip. Customers responded. Wildly.
| Serious shopping going on…
In the crowd: Yvonne Cormier with her gorgeous daughter Claire Cormier Thielke, Judith Oudt, Lynn and Herschel Maltz, Lindsey Love, Sandra Fletcher and Vance Ratliff, David Phillips, Melissa Aram, Leslie Sharp and Leslie Tyler-Fink.


text:
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With years of CTS experience, we can reduce your energy consumption, energy waste and your resource costs.
Building automation, based on just your needs, optimizes and makes your building intelligent.


text:
VideoSecu 4 Pack 150ft HD Video Power Security Camera Cables Pre-made All-in-One Extension Wire Cord with BNC RCA Connectors for 720P 960P 960H CCTV Surveillance Camera DVR System CBHD1504 B8O
Use with Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) applications and security camera components. This pre-terminated CCTV cable is perfect for transmitting video and power. Simplify the installation of surveillance systems by using one cable to carry video and power. Extend the cable on your new camera easily with this extension kit. Don't waste time soldering or crimping


text:
Sabbath Music
Friend August 2017 "Family Night Fun" Music can affect our mood and our ability to feel the Spirit.
Ideas of Things to do on the Sabbath
Ensign March 2017 "Helping Children Delight in the Sabbath" Lots of wonderful ideas of fun things to do with children on the Sabbath.
Friend August 2017 Have the children make a notebook of their favorite stories and activities from the Friend magazine.
Friend August 2017 "To make the Sabbath day special, we make scripture scenes from our toys. We made Moses standing on Mount Sinai while the Israelites worshipped a golden calf." Nathan, Ryan, and Paul
Goal Card
Ensign March 1992 "So Why is Sunday Different" Jack Weyland
Play a conference talk while other things are making noise such as appliances, tv, radio, etc. In order to hear the conference talk the first thing they will have to do is to turn off all the competing noises. That is why Heavenly Father has given us the Sabbath day—so we can turn off competing influences and listen to the Spirit.
Strengthen Family Relationships: Play "Spin the Family Bottle." This requires a large, empty soda pop bottle. The family sits in a circle. Someone spins the bottle on the floor, then tells what he or she likes about the person to whom it points. Next, that person spins the bottle and the process is repeated.
Primary 1 Manual: Lesson 15 "The Sabbath is a Day of Worship"
Primary 7 Manual: Lesson 14 "Jesus Christ and the Sabbath Day"
Friend August 2015 – Children's responses about how to keep the Sabbath Day holy.
Primary 2 Manual: Lesson 37 "I Can Keep the Sabbath Day Holy"
Primary 6 Manual: Lesson 20 "The Israelites Receive Food from Heaven"
Object Lesson: Use a pitcher of water, a bowl, and a cup to illustrate how we might become spiritually filled. Pour water from the pitcher into the cup, explaining that as we attend our Church meetings, worship, and keep the Sabbath day holy, we are filled with the spirit of the Lord. During the week we are involved in activities that may drain our spiritual reserves. Name several possibilities, such as school, chores, sports, friends, a disagreement with a family member, or making a wrong choice, as you pour water from the cup into the bowl. On the Sabbath day we can become spiritually filled and refreshed again. (Primary 6 Manual: Lesson 20)
Friend April 2017 "For Parents of Little Ones" Ideas for helping your little ones have a holy Sabbath Day.
Friend January 2018 "For Parents of Little Ones" Ideas for helping your little ones have a holy Sabbath Day.


text:
I obviously know that correlation doesn't imply causation, but sometimes I see a sequence of events and I'm like COME ON…case in point:
same tbh https://t.co/9qS1WVoyV2
— Jodi Beggs (@jodiecongirl) September 13, 2018
And lo and behold, less than 12 hours later (focus your attention on the hovertext)…
See what I'm saying?????? Hey world, I, uh, want a pony next. Here's the full comic:
Not surprisingly, I have some thoughts here (because ruining jokes is one of my favorite hobbies). First, this comic presupposes that higher compensation will result in our economic superhero working more…but one thing that I've noticed about superheroes, specifically those who technically have no superpowers (looking at you, Batman and Iron Man), is that they're really rich. If our econ superhero follows this pattern (sidenote: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA), I'm not convinced she'd be particularly motivated by monetary compensation- even worse, she could be on the backward bending part of the labor supply curve, in which case higher compensation could result in her doing less superheroing rather than more!
Second, I kind of want to applaud our super-economist for only charging a 50 percent commission, thereby leaving the lady with a decent amount of consumer surplus. Third, well…wouldn't Captain Surge create competition in the superhero market and thus lower rather than raise prices? Shouldn't Captain Surge be going to places where there's s superhero shortage, not just show up to places that already have superheros and create a superhero glut? I guess what I'm saying is, like my feelings regarding much other surge pricing implementation, I am largely unimpressed by Captain Surge (but do find him pretty realistic).
I guess it's also a good time to remind you that this exists:
You're welcome.


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A quiz night is held at St. Peter's Church Hall every month to raise much needed funds.Proceeds to Aston School PTA.
Bring along a team of family or friends or just yourself and join one of the regular teams. It's a friendly, relaxed evening.
Cost is £5 per person.
Bring your own drink and snacks - it's thirsty work!
Forthcoming Quiz Night dates for your diary:
Where: St Peters Church Hall, Sutton Weaver, WA7 3ES
Time: 7.30pm to start at 8pm
Other info:
Remember to bring your own drinks and snacks
To book contact Jen on 01928 718155
Acting classes for adults are being launched in Frodsham, Cheshire.
The classes, run by Chester-based Centre Stage Academy, will start on Tuesday
March 27th from 8.30pm at Frodsham Community Centre.
It will run from 8.30 – 10pm every Tuesday and is open to anyone from 18 years
Sessions will focus on: drama, acting and the theatre; improvisation; learning
new skills; gaining confidence; and improving your voice.
The Centre Stage Academy are aiming to promote Drama in smaller communities
where it is more difficult to get to the larger cities, enabling people to get
involved and giving them the chance to learn and improve their skills.
Cost is £8.00 for first session, after which !
blocks of 5 or 10 can be paid for.
Sessions are undertaken by a very experienced and fully qualified Drama teacher
with a great deal of practical experience!
Organiser Janet Schofield said: "We are aiming to promote drama in smaller
For details contact Janet on 07779 744353 or email: Contact Janet
Proceeds to the school (PTA).
Majorettes is a combination of dance, marching and baton skills. It encourages team work, co-ordination, stamina and balance. We are looking for new team members to join this exciting new Majorette Troupe.
If you are interested and aged between 6 and 13yrs then please contact Jacquie on 07740 168725 or come along to the training sessions on a Saturday from 2.00pm until 4.00pm and Wednesday night 6.00pm until 8.00pm
Please click the image to enlarge>>>>
Stroll the market stalls selling local food, drink & crafts - Every 3rd Saturday of the month at Robert Gleave Home & Garden Centre - Mill Lane, Frodsham
Runcorn Linnets FC are a Trust-based team formed in the 2006 off-season by the fans of the now defunct Runcorn FC (which was playing under the name "Runcorn FC Halton" at the time). We play in the North West Counties Football League. Having started out in North West Counties Division 2, we successfully secured promotion to Division 1 (now called the Premier Dvision) matching Winsford at the top of the table, but missing out on the League Title by goal difference.
For more information visit:
If any one is interested, I make hand made Christmas and all year round cards.
A percentage goes to a charity that is most nominated by my customers.
When a person buy's a card all they do is write the name of their chosen charity on a piece of paper and the charity with the highest score, the money goes to that charity.
If enough people are interested I can arrange an evening for the cards to be seen and tea or coffee.
Or if any one would like to make or design their own cards a class can be arranged.
Veronica Gaytor
Contact number is 07754316411.
Meeting in the Village Hall on the first Wednesday of the month (except August) in St. Peter's Church Hall, Maple Avenue, Sutton Weaver at 2-00pm.
A warm welcome to all.
Meeting in the Village Hall on the second Wednesday of the month in St. Peter's Church Hall, Maple Avenue, Sutton Weaver.
New members always welcome.
Weaver Sailing Club W.S.C. is a sailing club formed 40 years ago to promote and facilitate the sport of dinghy sailing. The Club is located on the lower reaches of the River Weaver near Frodsham, Cheshire.
For more information visit:
Theatre - The Brindley
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