Monday, July 27, 2009

first synthetic brain in ten years




Well, there we go again.
I think if I was in charge of this project the result would be something like Woody Allen's 'Instant Pudding' in "Sleeper" that expanded madly out of control until he had to beat it back into the kitchen with a broom.

--but maybe this because the model, no offense to me or the rest of my species, often feels as reliable (at least in terms of memory of its own experience) as a bowl of warm tapioca.

So -
seems it takes one laptop to simulate the impulses and connective activities of one neuron. Times a hundred billion neurons.

I guess we're getting used to knocking around terms in the billions lately.
I read recently that there could be one hundred billion trillion inhabitable planets. Chew on that, synthetic brain - you also-insignificant wirefest of brilliance unmanifest.

Maybe if they can actually get this done we will find an answer for why we don't quite seem to be a hundred-billion-laptops smart - (if one). Or why it's so hard to believe one hundred billion trillion is actually a number. Or why, when I lose my keys I seem to do it three times in a week. Or why we get lonesome sometimes, seemingly for no reason, and bravely make plans to improve, in the dark about everything, our selves, our cells, our souls, our place and space and time, our worth and and woe and wants.

Wait a minute.
Did someone say 'pudding'?

Butterscotch?
okaysure, why not?

Sunday, July 26, 2009

start .... and FINISH!




well, while I sit here blogging, my loyal reader and thousands of others are nearing the finish line of the 2009 San Francisco Marathon -- an extraordinary tour of one of the most beautiful cities in the world, to be sure, but, my goodness, a statement- just by doing (the truest kind) of the best we can be - ALIVE, peaceful, driven and present in the extreme!!

Huge Congratulations and thanks for the inspiration for those of us who finish before we start, start but don't finish, don't start, don't finish. I'll endeavor to learn from your example. I feel incredibly proud!