Jack Valenti says stupid things -- really, really stupid things

Grok Headline matches for Jack Valenti says stupid things -- really, really stupid things

Bloody stupid things to do when writing
C libraries, #78

Bloody stupid things to do when writing
C libraries, #78 12/15/2003 02:05 PM
...having callback function arguments that do not take a corresponding invocation-specific data pointer. You want to have a function that takes a function pointer, and have your library call that function at some point in the future if some event happens? Cool! Works for me. I like those. (Well, sorta, event/callback/async programming is a pain) However.... the signature should never be: int register_callback(func_pointer_t callback); Bad! Bad programmer! No cookie! That signature should be: int register_callback(func_pointer_t callback, void *extra_data); Or, if you'd rather, take a struct that has the function pointer and callback data in it, if you don't want to...

Bloody stupid things to do when writing
C libraries, #43

Bloody stupid things to do when writing
C libraries, #43 12/16/2003 02:52 PM
Failing to fully specify what happens with input buffers. Returned buffers too. For example, ponder a hypothetical (yeah, right) library routine--let's call it, say, new_form which takes a NULL (rather than NUL, which is different, but you knew that) terminated buffer of field pointers. You call it and the fields in the buffer are now part of a brand-spanking new form. Yay, us. Anything that handles even part of form and field stuff is welcome, as it's a pain (though I could rant about ncurses for a while. But not today) to handle. But... what happens to that buffer? Is...

"You see? You see? Your stupid minds!
Stupid! Stupid!"

"You see? You see? Your stupid minds!
Stupid! Stupid!" 01/06/2004 03:19 AM

When Things On Your Mac Do Cool Things
You Didn't Expect Them To... Or
Adventures In Mac-Based Audio

When Things On Your Mac Do Cool Things
You Didn't Expect Them To... Or
Adventures In Mac-Based Audio 01/03/2004 12:11 AM
If you play an instrument, write songs, sing, or wish you could do any or all of the above, take a look at DigiDesign's amazing little Mbox, a complete audio production system with many uses. By Bob LeVitus (Mac Observer via MyAppleMenu)

""I’m not the kind of artist who feels
that I have a mission of any kind
whatsoever. The 19th century was about
that. What right do I have? In many ways
it robs people of a lot of things. I’m
an average enough person to point to the
things that I’ve..."

""I’m not the kind of artist who feels
that I have a mission of any kind
whatsoever. The 19th century was about
that. What right do I have? In many ways
it robs people of a lot of things. I’m
an average enough person to point to the
things that I’ve..." 07/13/2004 03:21 AM

MIT and Jack Valenti have a chat

MIT and Jack Valenti have a chat 04/29/2004 12:32 AM

MIT's The Tech newspaper recently sat down with Motion Picture Association of America head Jack Valenti for an interview about digital rights. The writer, a MIT engineering student, probes (perhaps a bit too tenaciously) the bad side of the DMCA, namely DVD encryption and playback on Linux, which is currently illegal. In the end it's a nice short piece on two opposing viewpoints coming together and trying to see each other's point of view, something that's often lacking in digital rights debates.

43 Things Web Service API on 43 Things

43 Things Web Service API on 43 Things 04/17/2005 10:05 PM
43 Things Web Service API on 43 Things .. 43things adds web services API

43things.com/about/view/web_service_api
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Good things, bad things

Good things, bad things 03/06/2004 02:03 AM
Good thing: to have surge protection on your computer array.
Bad thing: kick accidentally the surge protection thingy so that the wall socket becomes loose, and have a big, catastrophic power failure.

Good thing: to be able to read your blogs while eating breakfast
Bad thing: to drop a bun in your cereal, and have milk splashed all across your laptop

Good thing: iTunes for Windows
Bad thing: Windows

Good thing: actually having sunlight in the mornings.
Bad thing: the mornings.

Good thing: upcoming go -tournament (http://takapotku.suomigo.net - feel free to come by and say hi!) next weekend.
Bad thing: not sleeping enough before the weekend.

Interview in The Tech with Jack Valenti

Interview in The Tech with Jack Valenti 04/30/2004 04:52 AM

There's a short interview in MIT's The Tech newpaper with Jack Valenti about DMCA. I'm glad that Jack is still willing to have discussions like this. This is what I meant when I said that I think Jack should be respected. Even if you don't agree with him, he's still willing to try to discuss his position with you.

via Creative Commons weblog

Jack Valenti wrong, but charmingly so

Jack Valenti wrong, but charmingly so 04/09/2004 03:59 PM
SiliconValley.com Mar 28 2004 11:30AM GMT

MIT makes Jack Valenti look like an
idiot

MIT makes Jack Valenti look like an
idiot 04/30/2004 08:34 PM
MIT's The Tech interviews the MPAA's outgoing spokesmonster Jack Valenti, with hilarious results. It's not often that a slickster as teflon coated as Jack gets made to look an utter fool (though I'd welcome a round onstage with him in front of a university audience) so bravo and bravo again to The Tech's Keith J. Winstein, who ran circles around Valenti.

TT: Indeed, but are you doing that when you rent a movie from Blockbuster and you watch it at home? ... I run Linux on my computer. There’s no product I can buy that’s licensed to watch [DVDs]. If I go to Blockbuster and rent a movie and watch it, am I a bad person? Is that bad?

JV: No, you’re not a bad person. But you don’t have any right.

TT: But I rented the movie. Why should it be illegal?

JV: Well then, you have to get a machine that’s licensed to show it.

TT: Here’s one of these machines; it’s just not licensed.

[Winstein shows Valenti his six-line “qrpff” DVD descrambler.]

TT: If you type that in, it’ll let you watch movies.

JV: You designed this?

TT: Yes.

JV: Un-fucking-believable.

Link< /a> (via Joi)

Jack Valenti Actually Gets A Question He
Can't Answer

Jack Valenti Actually Gets A Question He
Can't Answer 04/28/2004 02:31 PM
One of my complaints concerning most interviews with Jack Valenti concerning his views on copy protection is that most interviewers don't ask any of the tougher questions that Valenti should answer. Now, Slashdot is pointing to an interview of Valenti by an MIT student, where the student confronts Valenti about why he can't watch legally purchased or rented DVDs on a Linux machines, and actually shows Valenti some "illegal" DVD descrambling code, which apparently gets a curse out of Valenti. While it is amusing to see Valenti get flustered, it doesn't seem like the most productive interview. Rather than focus in on such a tiny aspect (why you can't watch DVDs on a Linux machine) it would have been more interesting to get at some of the bigger questions concerning the MPAA's views on intellectual property - such as how things like the VCR (which Valenti called "the Boston Strangler of the movie industry") actually saved the industry.

Jack Valenti: The Exit Interview

Jack Valenti: The Exit Interview 08/31/2004 06:27 AM

"Jack Valenti Interview with an
intelligent journalist"

"Jack Valenti Interview with an
intelligent journalist" 04/29/2004 09:09 AM

Watch Jack Valenti Try To Rewrite
History

Watch Jack Valenti Try To Rewrite
History 06/21/2004 03:59 PM
News.com is running an interview with Jack Valenti where they actually ask him the question that many interviewers have skipped over, about his famous "Boston strangler" quote about how the VCR will kill the movie industry. Valenti, in his usual manner, tries to rewrite history by making two claims. First, he says he was never actually against the VCR, but was just worried about the piracy aspect. Second, he says he's been vindicated in those views because of all the VCR related piracy that's out there. He's wrong on both points, but the News.com interviewer doesn't challenge him. First, it's pretty clear that if you say that the VCR is the Boston Strangler to the film producer, that you expect it to kill off the film industry. Instead, the VCR completely revived and revitalized the industry. Second, his claim on vindication is because of incredibly misleading stats that he throws out (twice!) claiming that the industry is "losing" $3.5 billion a year to piracy -- not considering the fact that the vast majority of people who end up with pirated films were unlikely to buy the full cost version. Compare this to another interview today by the Harvard professor who did that study a few months ago suggesting that file sharing does not damage sales. In that interview, the professor admits what the entertainment industry refuses to believe: there are multiple factors related to file sharing that impact entertainment sales. Some of it is as a substitution (people will download instead of buy) and some of it is as a promotion (people will use the free downloadable content to make a decision on what to buy). These two factors can compete. The professor wants to find out what the actual impact of these competing factors will be, while the industry refuses to believe that anyone could possibly use these tools for promotional value. It's a dangerous blindness to reality that doesn't bode well for them.

Jack Valenti... Misunderstanding The
Digital World Right Up Until The End

Jack Valenti... Misunderstanding The
Digital World Right Up Until The End 08/30/2004 03:19 PM
Jack Valenti is getting ready to retire, but that hasn't stopped him from continuing to give interviews where he says stuff that are clearly false or purposely misleading. My biggest complaint with the interview isn't with Valenti, actually. It's that the interviewer, JD Lasica, who definitely knows better, didn't challenge Valenti on any of his ridiculous answers. Not once does he say anything. Even when Valenti trots out his ridiculous excuses for why you should never be able to back up a DVD, where, in a single answer Valenti confuses the different between digital and tangible items and then insists that there should be no reason to back up digital items because they last forever. Of course, they only last forever... um... if you can back them up. So, there's a bit of a disconnect there, and it should have been hammered home. Also, Valenti continues to insist that there's no such thing as fair use. Or rather, he makes a series of contradictory statements about fair use, none of which fully make sense. He first seems to say that you can only use fair use on content that belongs to you, in which case you wouldn't need fair use (it already belongs to you!). Next, he claims that if someone fast forwards through something in classroom, that is fair use, but follows it up by saying the law doesn't recognize fair use (which is simply false). These are all things he's said before, so there's nothing that new in the interview, but how could the interviewer, especially someone who has written a new book about these things, let Valenti get away with them? That's why he continues to think he's right -- because no one tells him to his face that he's wrong when he spouts this stuff.

Real Dialogue: The Tech interviews Jack
Valenti

Real Dialogue: The Tech interviews Jack
Valenti 04/29/2004 07:47 AM
Real Dialogue: The Tech interviews Jack Valenti .. an interview of Valenti by an MIT student .. really hilarious dialogue .. interview .. superb

www-tech.mit.edu/V124/N20/ValentiIntervie.20f.html
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MPAA Names Dan Glickman To Replace Jack
Valenti

MPAA Names Dan Glickman To Replace Jack
Valenti 07/01/2004 07:14 PM

Bio-stupid

Bio-stupid 08/02/2004 11:59 PM
Salon Aug 3 2004 4:08AM GMT

It's the war, stupid

It's the war, stupid 05/27/2004 05:07 PM

Does CBS think we're that stupid?

Does CBS think we're that stupid? 02/10/2004 02:42 AM

I'd like to someday live in a country where a quick nipple shown on TV isn't the end of civilization, and that's not what irks me about the halftime show tonight. What does get me about the Superbowl halftime show is CBS insisting it was an accident, calling it a "wardrobe malfunction."

It's funny, when you collect the evidence, I wonder if CBS really thinks the public is stupid enough to believe it:

1. It was planned from the start.
2. There are snaps on her outfit clearly visible, designed to be unsnapped. Most garments are sewn together sans snaps and don't fall apart.
3. She's wearing a "nipple shield" to partially cover her breast. If it was unplanned why on earth would she have this huge chunk of metal there? Was it to skirt some FCC rule against an entirely naked breast?
4. Worst of all: She has a single coming out which is coincidentally being rushed to the airwaves based on the "overwhelming worldwide demand." Check the timestamp on the bogus press release, it was posted before the game was even over.

Is it all a big coincidence or is this how controversy is manufactured to sell records these days?

It's the IQ, stupid

It's the IQ, stupid 08/27/2004 01:51 PM
"Innate intelligence has to do with capability and ignorance to do with variables such as educational opportunity and personal diligence. But the conundrum remains. Is intellect important in presidents? If Americans can't solve the question definitively in the matter of John Kerry and George Bush, we damn sure ought to make an educated guess."

stupid cupid

stupid cupid 02/12/2004 04:50 PM
I occasionally contribute to this fantastic online magazine called "The Cult of the One Eyed Cat." It's named after a real cat, who only has one eye, who once gave me half a look that chills me to this day.
This month's issue is all about Valentine's Day, so I wrote a snarky piece wherein I get frank about my true feelings for this annual tradition.
Here's a little bit to get you started:

Valentine's Day is upon us yet again, and husbands and boyfriends all over the country are trying to solve a fiendishly complex puzzle: what do we get our wives and girlfriends? If you're dating, are you dating long enough for roses? What if you're dating too long for roses? And what color? Should you get chocolates, because she's so sweet, or should you stay away from chocolates because she will freak about how it's going to make her fat?
The stakes are incredibly high. If we work out the Rube Goldberg machine that is the female psyche, we may just get that once-a-year blowjob . . . but if we fail to read the tea leaves correctly, we end up spending the evening alone in the bedroom with ESPN Classics while she watches Lifetime in the living room and talks on the phone with her bitter single friend who hates us.

You can read the rest of my story, and some other stories that are much better than mine, at The Cult of the One Eyed Cat

It's Your Stupid Boss

It's Your Stupid Boss 07/19/2004 03:18 PM

Direct and Related Links for 'It’s Your Stupid Boss'

“Refraining from opening e-mail attachments from unknown senders is the number one way companies can stop the spread of viruses and worms. But evidence from a survey by AT&T and the Economist Intelligence Unit (EUI) shows that 78 per cent of top-level employees surveyed, ranging from board members to CEOs and CIOs, plead guilty to double-clicking on unknown files. Ironically, this ‘Network Security: Managing the risk and opportunity’ survey, released Thursday, also showed that 92…

All the stupid people. Where do they all
come from?

All the stupid people. Where do they all
come from? 11/03/2003 11:13 AM
Opinion Campaign to Re-Educate the Public

It's the work, stupid

It's the work, stupid 06/02/2004 12:53 AM

Doc chimes back.....

Digital codestyle aggregation < STRONG>

Two datapoints, perhaps historical.

First, Sun apparently decides that the revenue model to beat (since charging for hardware and software seem to be losing propositions) is selling services. Bill Snyder (from that last link):

Stripped of the marketing hype, Sun hopes to sell services, rather than simply pushing hardware and software at its customers, and have them pay as they use those services.

Second, Marc Canter's latest rap: Ho w to make money with digital lifestyle aggregators - Part I. Excerpts:

Aggregation is a killer app - that no one owns. It's public domain. Everyone benefits from it. So is integration as well...

To start to reap the benefits of digital lifestyle aggregation - you need to get smart about architecting systems that rely upon XML, open standards and web services.

So personalization and customization find their destiny intermixed with Integration and Aggregation. The only way to produce compelling enough experiences is by integrating a wide range of built-in constructs, combining that with agregated web servcies and content and topping it all off with unprecedented levels of control and customization. In one product or service.

All three of these tenets are tatooed on my forhead.

----

OK so wait. This post was supposed to be about 'making money' - and you're lost. Right?

Well think about it - you couldn't possibly (on your own) produce even half of the built-in constructs, features and capabilities we're saying digital lifestyle aggreation (DLAs) requires. That's where open source comes in.

By supporting and contributing to open source projects - portal vendors will actually be able to have their cake and eat it too - proprietary solutions, branded memes and viral uptake. Just give open source a try - define it to your own requirements and insights and help out the world while you're helping yourself.

I think he's saying "sell your environment," no? Not clear.

In anycase, it's not about selling. It's about renting. You rent your domain names, your Net access, your disposable hardware. Stop and think about that last one for a bit. Your personal data — the stuff on your laptop's hard drive — may change constantly, but it's your life in a box. And it moves every two or three years (if not more often) from one laptop or desktop or removable drive or remote host to another. What you pay for a new box almost amounts to a revolving charge, an annuity. Rent.

So you charge on a project basis to build stuff, then you rent out your space or your services. Oldest models in the world.

Welcome to the land of deflated but sustainable margins. Also the land of the finally grown-up computer business. (When it gets there, which it isn't yet.)

Look at it this way: It's the work, stupid. A new slogan I'm trying on for size. Serves in architecture, design, construction, and a pile of other fields from which the computer biz borrows its lingo. Why not here too? [D oc Searls]

Marc's add-on.....

This is getting fun.

Having folks like Doc add their two cents to this is like collaboratively writing a business plan...

a) As usual I learn more from Doc by just listening.  I don't necessarily see it as "sell your environment" as much as "give away compelling experiences - that if they're done right - will have PLENTY of good old fashioned advanced features that people will pay for.  Only folks who appreciate and can gain value from software should have to pay for it.  Every vendor has to figure out the seam between free and paid (as 6A just did.)

b) One thing about this rental angle that Doc adds in - is that you're also renting access to a community of others just like you - doing the same thing.  That's what's cool about the AlwaysOn Network right now.  There are otehrs blogging about teh same stuff and collectively we present a group voice.  Lots of other examples of this sort of juju out there.  Now there's one that tightly coupled to a social network -as well.  Again putting things into context (which is what danah has been screaming for......)

c) Finally - Doc reminds us all that the REAL savings is not in less licesning fees, but in self support.  How much IT money is spent on training, support, and migration?  What if everyone could support each other?  I mean - Oh My God!  All this AND I get to be called a leader in the Open Source Widget business?

Why wouldn't  portal jump on board?  I just hope Terry Semel, Ruppert Murdoch and Richard Branson grok this. I think Barry Diller does.

"Well that was stupid, guess they
shouldn't just do it."

"Well that was stupid, guess they
shouldn't just do it." 03/26/2005 12:44 PM
A Child's View of the Army "....Like every other boy he was going through the little green army men phase....Gabe is roughly five years old and very articulate. Thus it should have come as little surprise when he began having one army man in charge, and the rest start building something. "Sir, we're ready to build the rocket." " : Five year old Gabe explains - via stacked creamers and table bricabrac, at an IHOP breakfast - the ramifications of mindless subservience to authority.

PREVIEW: It's the War, Stupid

PREVIEW: It's the War, Stupid 04/14/2004 06:22 AM
Larry Miller's message to President Bush .. PREVIEW: It's the War, Stupid .. latest

weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=39 59&R=9DDC31DDD
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It's the googleware, stupid!

It's the googleware, stupid! 11/11/2003 03:22 PM
It's never good to leave things hanging (nor, I suppose, is it that great an idea to link to yourself) so I did the sensible thing--empirical testing. Threw up a new image, mentioned it on IRC, and a few folks went to look. No googlebot. Dowloaded Opera and installed it, telling it that I was OK with google's adware/spyware stuff. Threw up another image, and looked at it with the new install of opera, which I then shut down and haven't fired up since. The result? Five minutes and 38 seconds after my look at the image, here comes googlebot!...

Verizon Says Don't Be Stupid

Verizon Says Don't Be Stupid 05/27/2004 09:35 AM
Sometimes you have to wonder why companies bother to put out press releases. We don't usually post press releases here, but some are just so odd, they deserve to be called out. Verizon Wireless put out a press release today that can best be described as telling people: don't be stupid while using your mobile phone. Basically, it's a list of things that you shouldn't do while driving and talking on your mobile phone ("Never take notes or write down phone numbers while driving!"). It's not as if someone is going to read this list, smack their head and say "Aha! No wonder I keep getting into accidents!" Then, at the end, they sneak in the real reason for this press release, first saying: "Dropped calls and dead zones can be frustrating for drivers," which may be true, but doesn't seem to have much to do with the rest of the press release. So, they quickly follow that up with the "oh, and by the way..." part of the press release reminding people that number portability is now in effect - so, if you must do stupid things on your mobile phone while driving, you might as well do them as a Verizon Wireless customer.

Stupid Movies

Stupid Movies 05/28/2004 09:35 AM

I'm glad to see that "The Day After Tomorrow" -- a disaster movie about climate change -- is getting bad reviews. Much of science in this picture, by almost every account, is ludicrous. There's almost no doubt that we're heading toward serious global consequences due to our prolificacy in the use of energy and other things that affect climate, but stupid movies shouldn't be moving the discussion in either direction. And when otherwise reputable people and organizations like Al Gore and Moveon.org use the movie to leverage their own concerns, they don't enhance their own reputations. The notion that global warming could set off an ice age is not stupid, however idiotically and unrealistically the movie portrays such an event. Scientists have offered persuasive evidence that such a thing is at least thinkable. And there's widespread consensus among scientists about global warming itself. I'll probably watch this movie when it hits the cable channels. I won't imagine, however, that it's about much of anything serious.

Stupid rain

Stupid rain 05/24/2004 12:32 PM
Why is it everytime I make plans with someone, the goddamn weather gets in the way?!?! Even my mother said...

When ad execs get stupid

When ad execs get stupid 09/13/2004 04:10 PM
ZDNet Sep 13 2004 7:53PM GMT

Its the War Economy, Stupid

Its the War Economy, Stupid 01/22/2004 02:11 AM
So Dean has lost Iowa, but he will get another chance to win that state. Jeff points to exit polls and says: Kerry has strong support among those who support the war. Ditto Edward and Gephardt. In short: The war...

Stupid Fun Club

Stupid Fun Club 06/04/2004 01:14 AM
Software Development Magazine: Inside the Stupid Fun Club.

Software Development Magazine wrote an article called "Inside the Stupid Fun Club" (registration required).

The author, Alexandra Weber Morales, unexpectedly encountered the Sad Robot, broken down and crying for help on the streets of Oakland.

We were shooting a couple of hidden camera reality TV "One Minute Movies" for NBC: one of a Sad Robot torn apart into pieces and pleading for help from passers by, and the other of a Robot Waiter taking orders,  serving food and bantering for a tip in a barbecue restaurant.

I (Don Hopkins) developed the custom "robot brain" software for Will Wright's Stupid Fun Club, mostly in Python. It involved writing lots of high level Python code and XML data, and integrating all kinds of different software components together with SWIG, C++, ActiveX, Java, IRC, HTTP and WiFi. The robot features 3D facial animation, speech synthesis and recognition, conversational scripting, artificial intelligence, personality simulation, telerobotic remote control via wireless networking, with an interactive web interface for controling its behavior in real time.

For another Stupid Fun Club project, I also used Python to develop expressive synthetic speech authoring tools (audio speech “phonoscoping”, like visual animation “rotoscoping”), and talking toy simulations.

Python is ideally suited for brainstorming and prototyping new product ideas, as well as developing custom real-time robotic software for supporting creative Stupid Fun Club projects like reality TV production.

Eventually, Alexandra Weber Morales tracked down the person responsible, Will Wright, at his private production company, the Stupid Fun Club. She asked Will about the Sad Robot:
[I've added my own comments like this.
-Don]

Uh, OK. So, what kinds of reactions did people have to Sad Robot?

Wright: A lot of people were talking directly to it. Most of the women who were walking alone just sped up like they were spooked by it. Most of the single men would stop and start stripping it for parts, ignoring that the robot was talking to them. And it was mostly the couples who would actually interact with it and try to help it. Some would have long conversations, pushing the buttons.

We had a whole sort of troubleshooting thing, and we wanted to see how far people would go to help it. It was sort of a Good Samaritan experiment.

She also asked about the software we developed to control the robot, simulate its personality, animate its face, and listen and talk with people.

Have you heard of an AI knowledge base called Cyc?

Wright: For the conversational side of it, we’re using something similar to Cyc—in fact, we were looking at Cyc. There’s so many different layers. First of all, there’s the voice recognition, which is getting much better but is still pretty limited. Then, once you have the voice, you go into the conversation engine, and then it’s doing something like Cyc or Alice or Eliza: trying to give an appropriate response to what your input was. One of the projects we’re working on here is this toy design where we have these toys that converse with each other via infrared text-to-speech.

There are all these different approaches to AI. Some of them are more brute force, like Cyc. There’s also artificial life, an attempt to evolve systems rather than build them from the ground up.

Where’s this work being done?

Wright: The Santa Fe Institute is one place. There’s genetic programming, or adaptive systems, to give computers a way to learn and get feedback. That looks like a more promising approach.

Back in the ’60s, when computers were first being used in business, everybody assumed we’d have artificial intelligence in 10 years. When 2001 came out, in 1967, and people came out of that movie saying, “I can’t believe that a computer will be able to play chess that well.” But they took the conversation with HAL for granted. In fact, it was the opposite: Chess turned out to be the easy part; natural conversation turned out to be the hard part. Within 20 years, we’re going to have machines like this that have full autonomy and pretty good conversational ability. We could build a stove that would have a long conversation with you. So the real interesting question for me now is, what’s going to happen when our world is surrounding us with intelligent machines? These are going to be the first aliens we meet.

Describe the software running this thing.

Wright: The conversational chatbot is Alice. It takes input and you give it a dictionary to define what it knows about.

[ALICE is written in Java, so Python talks to it through an IRC server running on the robot. We can connect to the same IRC channel over the wireless network, watch the messages going between ALICE and the brain, interject text to speak and think, switch moods, play facial animations, tweak the personality, execute commands, etc. Later I developed a more powerful web based " Homunculus" interface, for operating the robot in real time, with a web browser on a remote laptop or handheld.
-Don]

Winter: That’s connected to Microsoft speech recognition, which is fantastic.

[I wouldn't go that far. It doesn't suck, but "fantastic" is a stretch. 
-Don]

Winter: And some simple AI, since Alice may or may not understand what you’re talking about.

[In other words, Alice is like the mad old aunt with Tourette's Syndrome you keep locked away in the attic. Alice is only used as a backstop, when the Python/XML/AI layer of the robot brain can't think of anything to say. But it's turned off when we don't want the robot to seem insane.
-Don]

Winter: The most intelligent thing it ever did is we had an opera singer in here singing to the robot, but the robot didn’t like it. So she said, “maybe I should explain the story,” and after the singer finished, the robot paraphrased the whole thing back to her. It was about the most amazing thing we’d ever seen; we all just about started believing in robots at that moment.

[What's really interesting is abusing the speech recognizer, by putting the robot brain into a mode where it listens to itself (and anyone else) talk! It's like the mutating telephone gossip game, or the news media echo chamber: The robot repeats what it thinks it heard itself say, which it then mis-recognizes and distorts again and again, in a feedback loop of quasi-coherent rhyming speech! Any words you interject get mixed in and distorted in the speech recognition/synthesis feedback loop. It naturally finds and converges on extremely strange attractors in the recognizer's hidden markov models of the English language, chanting and mutating gramatically plausible but semantically ridiculous phrases, in response to whatever it thinks it hears. When properly configured, the robot can actually compose live performances of original surrealistic beat robopoetry, responding to the audience in real time! Stanislaw Lem calls that "Bitic Literature".
-Don]

Winter: When we take these in public, it seems like the people who are less technical savvy are the ones who interact with it, whereas the people with technical backgrounds are standing there reverse-engineering it.

Are you following what MIT has done with humanoid robots such as Kismet?

Wright: There are lots of research labs around the country building these types of robots, but they never take them out into the public. We drive them into a laundromat or a restaurant and see what the response is.

When we filmed Sad Robot, we also filmed a scene in a restaurant with a robot waiter. It was interesting how many people totally bought it. Usually within three or four minutes, they were completely normal about it. People kind of expect that there will be robots in the future; it’s just a matter of when.

[The Sad Robot: A pitiful broken down female robot is crying for help, bent out of shape and fallen on its side with a mangled tractor tread, next to a stinky garbage dumpster, begging reluctant passers by to turn it upright, describe its condition, press its big red reset button, adjust its controls, step away before it explodes, and call a mysterious professor on their cell phone.
The Robot Waiter: An earnest robot waiter, just trying to do its job taking orders, delivering food to tables, telling jokes and bantering for tips, and collecting dirty dishes. Afterwards submits itself to a Robot Waiter Performance Evaluation Survey, and begs the human to give it good marks, otherwise it might lose its job.
-Don]

Robot: If you could have any kind of robot, what would it be? The goal is elimination of crime, combined with rehabilitation of criminals … Yes, it seems very long to me, too.

What do you use for automated testing?

Wright: Our own suites. Most of our stuff is in C++, but we have a proprietary visual scripting language I designed, called Edith, for the behavioral code for the Sims. It’s totally geared to AI and the Sims.

[The robot software is written in C++, Python and XML. Edith is used to program simulated personalities, but for simulated people instead of real robots. Edith is the tool for programming The Sims, for scripting the artificial intelligence of the characters and objects. The Sims visual programming language itself is called SimAntics. Edith is Maxis's official tool for programming SimAntics code, while iffpencil2 is another third party SimAntics programming tool, developed outside of Maxis.
-Don]

Winter: I think it’s time for the Christmas robot.

Wright: Are you running that … weapon? I don’t know if we want to sit here. [A dancing snowman on a wheeled platform with a circular saw mounted on its front bumper approaches a plastic toy-store robot.]

Winter: No, you would die. You’d better take cover.

[The interview ends.]

The snowman quickly demolishes the toy, shooting debris throughout the warehouse. With Winter’s encouragement, I spend 10 minutes in a nonsensical conversation with the robot. He also shows me the Minute Movie that have been made for NBC—and they’re hilarious.

I leave this unconventional interview impressed with the way the Stupid Fun Club has turned a fascination with robots and toys into a lucrative and wholly entertaining enterprise. Meanwhile, the larger concerns about the technical strengths, limitations and implications of these semiautonomous machines go mostly unanswered. Wright and Winter seem firmly on the side of presentation, and somewhat unwilling to delve deeply into how their toys work—as if to say, “Where’s the fun in asking all these questions? Just talk to the robot.”

I'm certainly interested in delving deeply into how the robot brain works myself, but not everyone else is. So I used Python to develop a high-level XML based AI and wireless web remote control system, which enables creative writers and designers like Will Wright to script and control the robot behavior, and reconfigure it for different scenarios, without needing to deal with Python, C++ or the other software components that went into building it.

[Don Hopkins' RadiOMatic BlogUTron]

Ben Affleck's stupid Car

Ben Affleck's stupid Car 12/31/2003 11:59 PM
Ben Affleck taking their parking spaces .. More of Ben's expensive car

tommee.net/ben
track this site | 4 links

Stupid Web Tricks

Stupid Web Tricks 05/10/2004 07:16 AM
CNET May 10 2004 11:05AM GMT

fat and stupid is no way to go through
life, son

fat and stupid is no way to go through
life, son 02/05/2005 09:02 PM
RIP, Dean Wormer

Stupid PDF-only Policy

Stupid PDF-only Policy 01/28/2004 06:41 PM
he Consumer Federation of California just issued a privacy report that is full of useful information -- but it's available only as a large PDF file, not in HTML or RTF or plain text.
Grok Description matches for Jack Valenti says stupid things -- really, really stupid things
GrokA matches for Jack Valenti says stupid things -- really, really stupid things

Interview with Helen Greiner of iRobot

Interview with Helen Greiner of iRobot 08/03/2004 07:42 PM
Phillip Torrone sent us a link to his recent interview with Helen Greiner, the chairman and cofounder of iRobot Corporation. The article includes photos of the new Roomba Discovery and the Linux-based PackBot. There's also a cool photo of the debris remaining from PackBot #129, which was killed in action in Iraq earlier this year while on a bomb disposal mission. Helen's prediction is that we are 100 years from seeing general purpose humanoid robots. Less intelligent, task-specific robots, on the other hand, are here today and will continue to improve rapidly.

iRobot Cofounder Helen Greiner
Interviewed

iRobot Cofounder Helen Greiner
Interviewed 08/02/2004 03:32 PM

"Raising Helen"

"Raising Helen" 05/26/2004 07:40 AM
If you're a Christian Coalition member looking for a movie that reinforces all the homespun values you hold dear, this Kate Hudson vehicle is for you!

Little to Annoy at Helen of Troy

Little to Annoy at Helen of Troy 07/14/2004 11:27 AM
The beauty company bulks up its bottom line and beats down inventories.

Helen Hunt Gives Birth to Baby Girl (AP)

Helen Hunt Gives Birth to Baby Girl (AP) 05/21/2004 01:01 PM
AP - Helen Hunt and her boyfriend, writer-producer Matthew Carnahan, have something to be mad about besides each other: a baby girl.

Helen Vendler on Cultural Democracy and
the Arts

Helen Vendler on Cultural Democracy and
the Arts 05/07/2004 10:41 AM
Michael Madison was kind enought to point me to this link of Helen Vendler's speech to her 2004 Jefferson Lecture. It's provocative on matters of the relative value of philosophy and literature to a humanistic education. It would not be hard to embed some of her points in a Free Culture argument as well.

The Many Faces of Helen - How to find an
actress who can launch a thousand ships.
By Julia Turner

The Many Faces of Helen - How to find an
actress who can launch a thousand ships.
By Julia Turner 05/15/2004 05:52 AM
a pictorial essay on Helen of Troy .. explains .. Slate

slate.msn.com/id/2100449
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My husband is bipolar

My husband is bipolar 09/24/2004 09:37 AM
In spite of his diagnosis, he continues to drink and smoke pot. What is going to happen to us?

Should I be better friends with my
ex-husband?

Should I be better friends with my
ex-husband? 04/01/2005 11:04 AM
After six years there's still a lot of tension.

The Fisher's Husband

The Fisher's Husband 04/17/2004 04:49 AM
One morning each spring the fisher would pull her longest net from the livery and carry it to the dock to prepare for that year's deep sea hunt. Her husband, who loved her dearly, would wake to the whish of the net being dragged away and wring his hands tightly. He feared for her safety on the months-long journey and each year worried enough to add seven new gray hairs to his head. After

My husband the sex addict

My husband the sex addict 04/22/2004 07:52 AM
I'm a Brit married to an American man with an ex-wife and lots of Internet lovers. Should I stay or go?

notes that her husband did not type

notes that her husband did not type 09/10/2004 03:48 AM
ABC News

abcnews.go.com/sections/Politics/Vote2004/bush_documents_040909 -1.html
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Congrats to Jon Husband and Qumana....

Congrats to Jon Husband and Qumana.... 06/22/2005 02:41 AM

.... for sealing their deal with Lektora.

Husband on BBQ murder charge

Husband on BBQ murder charge 06/08/2004 09:54 PM
A man will appear in court on Wednesday charged with murdering his estranged wife and her sister at a family barbecue.

ATI insider, husband to pay $1.5-million

ATI insider, husband to pay $1.5-million 04/12/2005 05:21 AM
globetechnology.com Apr 12 2005 9:44AM GMT

Bride guilty of killing husband

Bride guilty of killing husband 02/01/2005 09:19 PM
A bride who stabbed her husband a week after their honeymoon is found guilty of manslaughter.

Shot bride's husband 'devastated'

Shot bride's husband 'devastated' 08/03/2004 04:01 AM
The newly-wed husband of a woman found shot dead at her home tells of his grief - as police hunt for her father.

Jones' Ex-Husband Claims She Used Drugs
(AP)

Jones' Ex-Husband Claims She Used Drugs
(AP) 07/22/2004 11:14 PM
AP - The ex-husband of three-time Olympic champion Marion Jones told federal investigators that Jones was using banned performance-enhancing drugs during the 2000 Games in Sydney where she won five medals, two newspapers reported.

I can vote for whoever my husband tells
me to! Take THAT, Taliban!

I can vote for whoever my husband tells
me to! Take THAT, Taliban! 03/08/2004 11:04 PM
&quot;Please, my dear brothers, let your wives and sisters go to the voter registration process,&quot; Karzai told a gathering to mark International Women's Day. &quot;Later, you can control who she votes for, but please, let her go.&quot; The liberation of Afghanistan's women continues.

Husband charged in freezer murder

Husband charged in freezer murder 06/22/2004 03:52 PM
The husband of a woman whose dismembered body was found in their home is charged with murder.

Husband quizzed over freezer body

Husband quizzed over freezer body 06/22/2004 05:54 AM
A man whose wife's dismembered body was found in their south-west London home is arrested at Heathrow airport.

Husband hunted over freezer body

Husband hunted over freezer body 06/10/2004 09:35 AM
Police investigating the murder of a woman, whose dismembered body was found in a freezer, say they are looking for her husband.

Woman Fails in Bid to Run Against
Ex-Husband (Reuters)

Woman Fails in Bid to Run Against
Ex-Husband (Reuters) 06/09/2004 07:25 AM
Reuters - A Texas woman who threatened to run against her ex-husband, U.S. Rep. Charles Gonzalez, after a bitter divorce now says she will not be a candidate.

Cot death - woman's hope for husband

Cot death - woman's hope for husband 01/22/2004 04:57 PM
A woman is hopeful her husband will be proved innocent of murdering their baby in a review of cot death cases.

Husband held over holiday death

Husband held over holiday death 05/10/2004 04:44 AM
A Bolton man is held in the Dominican Republic over his wife's death after it is thought she fell from her hotel balcony.

If Your Husband Has a Porsche, Follow
Him (Reuters)

If Your Husband Has a Porsche, Follow
Him (Reuters) 05/26/2004 10:18 AM
Reuters - Don't trust a man with a fast car.

Court: Woman Must Pay Husband for Baby
(AP)

Court: Woman Must Pay Husband for Baby
(AP) 06/01/2004 05:21 PM
AP - A South Korean court ordered a woman to pay her husband $42,380 in compensation for having a baby with another man, a judge said Monday.

Husband charged on double murder

Husband charged on double murder 06/08/2004 04:53 PM
A husband is charged with killing his wife and her sister and trying to kill their mother at a family barbecue.

Schiavo Family, Husband Spar Over
Funeral (AP)

Schiavo Family, Husband Spar Over
Funeral (AP) 04/01/2005 08:17 PM
AP - The medical examiner completed the autopsy of Terri Schiavo on Friday, clearing the way for the release of the body to her husband, who plans to cremate her remains and bury the ashes without telling his in-laws when or where.

Woman Allegedly Beats Husband With Poker
(AP)

Woman Allegedly Beats Husband With Poker
(AP) 12/28/2004 07:30 PM
AP - An 89-year-old Omaha woman has been charged with first-degree assault for allegedly beating her 88-year-old husband with a fireplace poker, police said.

Jack Valenti says stupid things -- really, really stupid things

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