The Real Robots are coming!

According to the NYTimes article: Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man, by John Markoff, (Published: July 25, 2009), our computers are getting too smart. There are already computers that can vacuum my house and cut my lawn. they can detect intruders in my house. They can take a man to the moon and back. They help me remember 100's of phone numbers. They can search for a picture faster than I can take it. Are computers someday going to write this post for me? John seems to be concerned about a real world sceneario like the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, where HAL tries to outsmart his creators. A great movie created in 1968 and maybe a predictor of the future? Humans have been doing a pretty good job of screwing up the world lately, maybe a computer could do a better job?


On the other hand, in the same article Kurzweil makes a case for computers continuing to offer some big pluses for society. I agree with him - computers have extended life and made it more fun. "Other technologists, notably Raymond Kurzweil, have extolled the coming of ultrasmart machines, saying they will offer huge advances in life extension and wealth creation."


Thinking logically, computers have advanced life tremendously - with technology, we can transplant a heart, and even use an artificially created heart, but will we someday replace part of or an entire brain? Some days I feel my cell phone/PDA (personal digital assistant) is a small extension of my brain that I carry everywhere and lost with out it. Maybe one day it will be called a DAP or Digital Assistant Person? For some really interesting info on AI check out: Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.

SAVE Chuck!

I don't watch a lot of TV these days, but was curious to watch this show with a pocket protector wearing Geek. After the first episode I was hooked and it keeps getting better. My kids love it too.

@kihten started Twitter "save_chuck" and it started an online campaign to save Chuck. You can vote to save chuck at: http://tinyurl.com/ctbc83

You can read more about the save chuck campaign at slidereel.

This site fandomania is promoting a Chuck sponsor: Subway, in hopes they will influence NBC to renew the show. From fandomania: "Here’s your mission: Stop by a Subway sometime today and order a $5 footlong sandwich. When you check out, leave a note in the store’s comment box saying that you’re eating at Subway to show the company, which is a sponsor of the show, that you are a fan of Chuck and appreciate their support. In the TV network game, money talks, and I’d bet giving a bunch of business to Subway would be a lot more effective than flooding NBC’s mailroom with peanuts, tabasco sauce, and socks."

I'd like to contribute to this campaign by offering a free GeekGeer pocket protector to the first 100 people who sends a self addressed, stamped envelope to GeekGeer headquarters. Email me at marsh3_at_geekgeer.com for the mailing address.

Support Chuck by wearing your pocket protector to work today!

So I'm heading off to Subway for lunch today and I'll see if I can drag along a few pocket protector wearing geek friends.

Typewriter Technology
to TWITTER
and Back

Hi, if you are coming from my Twitter link to this site . . . boy do I feel like an out of date Geek. I don't know if the technology just keeps changing faster and faster or I'm getting slower and slower to learn and understand all these new things . . . facebook, twitter, linkedia, youtube, social media feels like a social mess to me, but fun.

The first "keyboard" I ever used is pictured to the right. I'm not as old as this typewriter (which sits in my home office today) It was my fathers and the new amazing typewriter technology of my youth was a Smith Corona "Electric" typewriter. I will be forever grateful for the touch typing class I took in high school that I hated at the time and could have never imagined that one day I would be typing on a keyboard hours and hours every day (and night).

My first computer was this Macintosh 128K that I have stored in my basement in anticipation of someday creating the Marshall's Museum of outdated Personal Computers that I've owned. The First day I bought it (the week Steve Jobs introduced them), I stayed up 24 hours straight playing with this new program called MacPaint drawing boats and my career in computer graphics began.

I've made a living in some form or fashion with something to do with pushing pixels around a screen on a computer ever since. That was 24 years ago. I now carry a computer in my pocket (Treo) that probably has 1000x the power and memory of this cute Mac, that by the way still works. GREAT Technology!

My First Real Robot

I was skeptical at first, but it does an amazing job -my iRobot vacuum. It's an amazing little thing about the size of an oversized Frisbee. It whirls around bouncing gently off furniture and anything else that gets in its way. It some remember where its been and seems to know where to go. I have had the pet dogs and my kids have had numerous toy robots, but this one is the first serious one, that really works and gets something done and affordable. What's next? A robot that cuts the lawn. I believe there is one I could buy. What I really need right now - is one that will rake my fall leaves.

I can definitely relate to this article in the New York Times by By DAVID BROOKS Published: October 26, 2007. I've been outsourcing my brain for years. I'm sure my Treo can remember more phone numbers, passwords, addresses, and friends last names than I could ever remember. I'm waiting for the day I can plug a USB cord into my brain and transfer info back into it.

The Outsourced Brain - New York Times

GEEK of the WEEK . . . Randy Pausch

Move over Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, my new Geek Idol is Randy Pausch. An amazing man and inspiration to all (not just Geeks).

"Randy Pausch Has Months to Live, but Inspires Others With Lecture on Living Life to the Fullest"
from ABC News: Dying Professor's Lecture of a Lifetime

From ABC's Good Morning America Show:
Randy Pausch, a 46-year-old computer-science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, has terminal cancer and expects to live for just a few more months. This week, he said goodbye to his students and the Pittsburgh college with one last lecture called "How to Live Your Childhood Dreams," on his life's journey and the lessons he's learned Randy Pausch, a 46-year-old computer-science professor at Carnegie Mellon University, has terminal cancer and expects to live for just a few more months.
This week, he said goodbye to his students and the Pittsburgh college with one last lecture called "How to Live Your Childhood Dreams," on his life's journey and the lessons he's learned.

And check out his Virtual World Builder tool for kids ALICE at http://www.alice.org/ . His proudest achievement - the ultimate "head fake" making a game out of learning how to program a virtual world.

Smile! You're on the Internet! :-)
And some people think text messaging is a new thing. It has actualy come full circle, because in the old days of the internet people used text symbols and short phrases to save a few bits of into. Oh the old days of the CIS and when AOL was America Online with a big fat modem hooked up between your phone and your computer :-)

Here's a great article on the old fashion text messaging . . .
Smile! You're on the Internet! :-)