01 JAN 2012 by TGAW
The Problem with Sending Robots to Troubleshoot
Now if a robot is given an order, a precise order, he can follow it. If the order is not precise, he cannot correct his own mistake without further orders. Isn't that what you reported concerning the robot on the ship? How then can we send a robot to find a flaw in a mechanism when we cannot possibly give precise orders, since we know nothing about the flaw ourselves? 'Find out what's wrong' is not an order you can give to a robot; only to a man. The human brain, so far at least, is beyon...Folksonomies: troubleshooting softwaresupport
Folksonomies: troubleshooting softwaresupport
In 1955, in his story "Risk!" Isaac Asimov has Susan Calvin explain the problem with sending robots in to troubleshoot a situation. 57 years later, I find her words to acurately describe why it is hard to hand off certain support tasks to new developers.
12 SEP 2011 by ideonexus
Religion is Comforting
Science is complex and chilling. The mathematical language of science is understood by very few. The vistas it presents are scary—an enormous universe ruled by chance and impersonal rules, empty and uncaring, ungraspable and vertiginous. How comfortable to turn instead to a small world, only a few thousand years old, and under God's personal; and immediate care; a world in which you are His peculiar concern.Folksonomies: creationism
Folksonomies: creationism
1 
notes
notes...in comparison to Science's baffling complexity. A quote from Isaac Asimov.
23 MAR 2011 by ideonexus
1973 Humanist Manifesto II - Introduction
The next century can be and should be the humanistic century. Dramatic scientific, technological, and ever-accelerating social and political changes crowd our awareness. We have virtually conquered the planet, explored the moon, overcome the natural limits of travel and communication; we stand at the dawn of a new age, ready to move farther into space and perhaps inhabit other planets. Using technology wisely, we can control our environment, conquer poverty, markedly reduce disease, exten...
1 A revised Humanist Manifesto, considered necessary in response to World War II and Nazism. Isaac Asimov was among the signers.
06 MAR 2011 by ideonexus
Isaac Asimov on Star Trek
They speak about the mission of the Enterprise being "To boldly go--" a split infinitive I heard every single time--"To boldly go where no man has ever gone before" they mean it primarily, I suppose, in... territorially. They're visiting stars that no man has till then ever visited. Their going through vastnesses no man has ever penetrated. But in addition, they're meeting problems that man has not faced.
[What] Star Trek really presented was the brotherhood of intelligence. It mattered not...
1 The prolific science fiction author explains what was so great and inspiring about the original television series.
