It looks like the rights for Foundation TV/Movie rights will be changing hands yet again. Too bad the HBO deal announced in 2014 fell through. Hopefully Skydance Television will make it actually happen this time!
Tonight with my wife, I watched an interesting episode of Nova titled “The World’s Smartest Machine.” Romantic, right? You can tell we are a couple of geeks at heart. Being a huge fan of Asimov and his robot creations, I am continually amazed at the progress of robotics and artificial intelligence. As a kid I was playing chess as early as the 3rd grade. I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty good chess player. When I heard about a computer that supposedly could beat a world champion chess player, I was intrigued. Garry Kasparov battled IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer in 1996 and won, however he eventually lost a rematch in 1997. Well, IBM is back at it, this time taking on Jeopardy. Nova takes us behind the scenes with the developers of “Watson,” the next step in AI. I was disappointed when the episode ended and it didn’t say who won. I didn’t realize until logging on PBS.org that the contest actually was taking place while I was watching Nova (on my media center PC). After some frantic Google searches, I eventually came across a Twitter feed with a link to a Youtube posting of the episode. This was not quite 2 hours after the episode aired! Isn’t technology great? I expect the Youtube post to be served a DMCA take down, so watch it soon if you plan on it. In addition to the episode at the end of this post, I’ve embedded the Nova preview and an humorous parody of the challenges Watson overcame during his development. I suggest watching the Nova episode first. If you are at all interested in AI, you must check these out!
There are two more nights to the match, airing Tuesday February 15th, and Wednesday the 16th. Be sure to check them out, along with some live blogging on PBS.org. I find myself rooting for Watson, not because I want to see humans defeated, but because I want to see humans capable of making something smart enough to do it. Who do you think will win? Who do you want to win?
I didn’t realize that Battlestar Galactica Season 4 technically started with the Razor double episode. I guess they needed to satisfy starving BSG fans because we’d have to wait until April this year for the rest of the season to pick up. I debated between waiting until season 4 was done, then watching season 1-4 back to back or just watch the new ones as they come out. I discussed this dilemma with my wife, and she suggested I just watch them as they come out, then I could do both. That sounded like a good plan, because I found I don’t have the willpower to wait. I’ve watched the first 2 episodes (following Razor), and I’m hooked once again. At the end of season 3 I was pretty sure who the last Cylon model was, but now anyone seems to be fair game. Many fans have whined about BSG ending with season 4, but I don’t agree with them. I’d rather have 4 good solid seasons than have it dragged out like Stargate SG-1. Check out Sci Fi Channel’s BSG page for more info, or the video page to watch the last 2 full episodes at Sci Fi Rewind. Actually, they have the last 3 episodes of season 3 as well. For Razor, you’ll have to catch it on TV, find recording, or check out the unrated extended dvd.
In 1992, the year of his death, Isaac Asimov was awarded the Hugo Award for best novella for writing Gold. This story, along with many others was published in 1995. Along with 14 other short stories, there are collections of essays called “On Science Fiction,” and “Writing Science Fiction.” Interestingly enough, I found the essays much more interesting than the stories themselves. I think this is partly because I have read a TON of his fiction, but haven’t got around to reading his non-fiction. I’ll give a brief overview of the essays, saving the stories for later. (more…)