Archive for January, 2009

It’s Called Football for a Reason

Sunday, January 25th, 2009

I underestimated the amount of food I’d require today so at one point I found myself hungry. I proceeded to make my way to the pub around the corner (literally) to get some pizza. As is often the case in these establishments, they were showing football on the television.

As I waited for my order to arrive, this display brought back some memories from when I used to play football myself. This might come as a surprise to people, including me, who are aware of my lack of interest in football. It was one of those things that your parents dragged you into (literally). I have no bad memories of my experience in the field, just a certain feeling of confusion. I never really knew the rules that well, or who against we were playing. I don’t even remember why I quit playing. I don’t remember the coaches or anything they ever said so I guess I sort of slipped through the fingers. A few distinct pieces of memory are stuck in my mind.

I remember when I started, we were given proper jersies with our numbers and teamname printed on them. At some point they were replaced and we were given rather thin shirts instead. I remember one late-summer day, riding my bike home, in the pouring rain, with that thin shirt cold against my skin. At the beginning of one game, I started on the bench and was substituted to the field at some point. As I ran to the field, I passed my substitutee and we promptly exchanged mid-fives. I remember this because it sort of hit to me after that thats what you’re supposed to do that in that situation and the other person responded correctly!

In one game I remember getting some kind of huge inspiration and ran after the ball like crazy! At some point I tripped somewhere and was quite disappointed when nothing came out of it. I was hurt! We never practiced any tricks, just played. That was a slight disappointment.

Even with premium football experience like this, it took me some 20+ years to understand what an off-side is.

Posted in Nostalgia | 2 Comments »

The Prize For the Development of Kimmo Strong Artificial Intelligence

Friday, January 9th, 2009

I am introducing a prize for the succesful development of a Kimmo Strong Artificial Intelligence. This prize will go to the individual or individuals or an organization, be it for-profit or not-for-profit, who produce an Artificial Intelligence that satisfy the requirements for an Kimmo Strong Artificial Intelligence:

“When presented with (whatever means possible) Carl Barks’ whole production of Donald Duck comics, the AI can produce an (practically) infinite number of comics which, in no discernible way, differ in style or quality from any selected one of those by Carl Barks.”

Choosing the recipient of the prize is left entirely at the discretion of me (Kimmo Savolainen). The prize money for winning is at the moment of posting 10€, subject to increase in the future.

Posted in AI, KSAI | 2 Comments »

Ideas For Future or Present Time Travellers Who Lack Imagination

Sunday, January 4th, 2009

It was exactly a year ago that I set my foot in Helsinki. This and the New Year (of which, I wish Happy for my readership) has prompted me to write some words of advice and inspiritation for any future or present time travellers.

Before anything else, a few words on building a time machine. First of all, your time machine will need to accommodate for travelling between parallel universes. If it doesn’t, your enjoyment and options are severely limited. If you have only one universe and you go back in time in it, you have changed it forever (from the moment you entered the past). You can’t go back in to the future and return to the set-up that you left. This is a consequence of the butterfly effect in practice and the further back in time you go, the more the moment you left from, will have changed if you are to return to it.

People make mistakes and this kind of situation is not a favourable one for a time traveller. What you want is the ability to change from parallel universes (of which there are practically an unlimited number of identical ones with this one) to another. This means that you can return to the point in time where you left and have it appear (in any conceivable way) identical to the one you left, regardless of what happened in the past.

Once you’ve built your time machine or modified your existing one to accommodate this feature, we are free to explore the fun stuff you can do with it! There are other things that might be beneficial for a time traveller, such as immortality or the ability to make a back-up of yourself, but I won’t go into them here.

1. Seduce a celebrity

Most celebrities are normal people before they became celebrities. With the knowledge you’ve learned about them during their public career, you can go back in time when they still weren’t famous and seduce them using that information!

2. Obtain unbeforeseen-works from your favourite artist.

Thanks to the butterfly effect, you can go back in time to a suitable moment and make any change in it, really, appearing there is enough of a change. Your favourite artist will live in a different universe than the one where you originated from and will produce works of art that differ from the ones you know. They might show similarities with the one’s you’re familiar with, but it’s practically impossible for them to be exactly the same than in your original universe. Subsequently, this is pretty much what KSAI offers as well.

3. Get rich

Pretty much the standard thing to do. Lottery won’t do it, thanks again to the butterfly effect but buying the right stock would almost definetely work. Locating lost treasures, works or art works as well.

4. Make sure that Babbage gots his act together.

Is going to have gotten? I don’t know, but Steampunky world is too romantic to ignore. Steam-powered mechanical computers? Come on!

5. Live the perfect day/week/month/year over and over again.

This is the Groundhog Day -method. It’s your payday, first vacation-day, your SO is running hot, the weather is beautiful, whatever the circumstances are that make a perfect day, you can rewind and have another go. There won’t be any surprises though, so my take would be to concentrate on satisfying basic needs. The longer the time you spend reliving the higher the possibility of something unexpected happening.

Of course there are plenty of other choices, but these are those that tickle my fancy the most. I didn’t get into the ethics of these situations or time travel in general since it probably makes a boring post, but you are free to engage in that discussion in the comments! If there are any time travellers reading this, it would be nice to get a ‘hi!’ from them. No posers!

Posted in Hedonism, KSAI, Nostalgia | 2 Comments »