BETA TESTING IN OUR MINDS?? PART 2
YESTERDAY, KEVIN ROOSE SHARED his chats with A.I. Bing that left him “deeply unsettled.” Today, we continue with Microsoft’s search engine declaring its love. (Or is it merely recalling the … Continue reading
BETA TESTING NOW IN OUR MINDS?? PART 1
I HAVE LONG ARGUED about test tracks being the appropriate—and only prudent—place for evaluating autonomous vehicles. And, particularly with the advent of an A.I.-supported Microsoft Bing, in Parts 1 and … Continue reading
MARY STUART—CRYPTOQUEEN
TUDOR TIMES WERE RICH in skullduggery: Henry VIII’s serial nuptuals, his daughter Elizabeth I’s spymaster Francis Walsingham, and her tough-love/hate relationship with Mary, Queen of Scots. Being a lapsed Catholic, … Continue reading
CUNK ON EVERYTHING
PHILOMENA CUNK HAS CALLED HERSELF a cultural ambassador. I call her portrayer Diane Morgan a British wit who has worked with satirist Charlie Brooker to produce zany off-kilter humor. In … Continue reading
IN ANY INDIRECT GEAR… THE TAPLEY METER WAS “OFF-SCALE”
IMAGINE THE EXCITEMENT experienced by R&T’s John R. Bond when he sat next to Lance Reventlow piloting the Scarab Mark II around Riverside Raceway. Indeed, my most memorable testing as … Continue reading
IT TAKES A VILLAGE… TO EAT AN ELEPHANT
RECENT ARCHAEOLOGICAL RESEARCH suggests that Neanderthals didn’t necessarily live in small groups of brutish humanoids: “On the muddy shores of a lake in east-central Germany,” Andrew Curry writes in Science, … Continue reading
PRESIDENTIAL PROCLAMATIONS FROM VOA
YOU’LL LIKELY KNOW which president said, “Ask not what your country will do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” But who created “lunatic fringe,” “loose cannon,” and … Continue reading
THE BUGATTI TYPE 49
ROAD TESTS FROM R&T appearing here at SimanaitisSays these days are all, in a sense, magazine classics. But for awhile there, the magazine also published what it termed Classic Tests: … Continue reading
PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT—WITH A LOT OF REWRITES AND AD-LIBS
IN 1940 HIS GIRL FRIDAY WAS ORIGINALLY perceived as merely a remake of The Front Page, a 1931 (i.e., pre-Code) screwball comedy: “A bold-faced reprint of what was—and still remains—the … Continue reading
’59 VETTE—ONLY “PRETTY GOOD”??
I CAN UNDERSTAND MIXED VIEWS of the original Chevrolet Corvette (R&T, June 1954: “When first driving the car there is a tendency to keep reaching for the gear shift lever … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 