A.I. AND GOD
LINDA KINSTLER IS a doctoral candidate in rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley. And in The New York Times, July 18, 2021, she asks, more than rhetorically, “Can Silicon … Continue reading
RUN IT UP THE REM AND SEE WHO SALUTES
THERE YOU’D BE, just entering REM slumber enticed by your smart speaker playing a Chopin nocturne. Inexplicably, though, you dream that Ivory is 99.44-percent pure—it floats. Or that Budweiser is … Continue reading
SCIENCE TIDBITS—WITH AVIARY AND POLITICAL CONNECTIONS
“EVERYTHING CONNECTS TO everything else,” said Leonardo Da Vinci. And I get a sense of this while reading Science, published weekly by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. … Continue reading
SCADS OF DATA ENHANCE HUMAN DECISION-MAKING
HOW DO WE make a decision? To perform a particular action. To buy a product. To elect a person. Predictions and analyses of decision-making are research areas in both the … Continue reading
OLFACTORY MATTERS
A RECENT PODCAST by CrowdScience, BBC World Service, June 28, 2021, was devoted to our sense of smell. Here are tidbits gleaned from Anand Jagatia’s CrowdScience olfactory podcast, together with … Continue reading
L’ELIXIR DE MORAY
GEE, LYRICAL EEL talk is fun! It started with a memorable headline in Sabrina Imbler’s Trilobites science article in The New York Times, June 22, 2021: It’s titled “When an … Continue reading
COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS COMES TO THE CONCERT HALL PART 2
ORCHESTRAL MUSICIANS TEND to occupy the same seating at each concert performance. However, this may be changing to enhance circulation of air (and aerosols) suggested by studies of computational fluid … Continue reading
COMPUTATIONAL FLUID DYNAMICS COMES TO THE CONCERT HALL PART 1
CONCERT VENUES ARE reopening, thankfully, through efforts including widespread vaccination. Enhancing this pandemic mitigation, science has demonstrated the effects of airborne transmission. It turns out that swapping orchestral seating and … Continue reading
REMBRANDT’S A.I. PALS
EVEN SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY ARTISTS can profit from Artificial Intelligence. An example is given in Nina Siegal’s “Rembrandt’s Damaged Masterpiece Is Whole Again, With A.I.’s Help” in The New York Times, June … Continue reading
BUILT LIKE A BRICK
THESE DAYS, E-tailing downplays the term “brick and mortar.” However, this building material duo has interesting aspects, as described in Arianne Shahvisi’s “Diary” piece “Life in a Tinderbox,” in London … Continue reading
Simanaitis Says 