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Sunday, February 20, 2011

Did everyone forget we are in a recession?

I find it amazing at the disconnect between the "facts on the ground" and Repub policies. We are in a recession, right? Doesn't that imply we should stimulate the economy? It is consensus economics that this is true. But Repub policies go in the opposite direction. They are pursuing policies that will increase the severity of the recession, which means more job losses for a longer period of time. Didn't they run on increasing jobs? Everything they have done so far will have the effect of job loss. This is simply bizarre. What is worse is the American people losing sight of how we got here: Repub ideology.

"Elementary, my dear Watson"

One of the most important things that happened in the last week was not even political. Watson's defeat of the Jeopardy champs is very significant. The key development was getting past what AI researchers call the "frame problem," which is basically the ability to understand context, knowing when people mean "bat" as in baseball or "bat" as in flying rat. I remember some philosopher's near certainty that this was an insoluble problem. I'd be interested to see how they did it.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Double Posting to My Blog

My wonderful wife, Lyn, showed me how to cross post between my blog and Facebook, so all my posts will be in both places.