Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Two Great FinalesWow. Tonight had some great TV shows. The Season Finale of American Idol was really good. In addition to seeing all the previous winners of American Idol on stage (except Fantasia who is working on Broadway), they had Tony Bennett, Gladys Night, Smokie Robinson, Bette Midler, Gwen Stefani, Green Day, Joe Perry among others. There were some really fun bits including a beat box duet between Blake Lewis and Doug E Fresh. All 12 of the finalists this season were also on stage. It was great to see some of them again. The show ended with a really nice Beatles medley starting all the past winners and the current top 12. Of course, Jordin won. No one was surprised there. But I’m sure a lot fo talent this year will get CDs.
Carrie Underwood got a lot of face time. She has become the most successful Idol to date, apparently. The good news is Taylor’s CD went platinum and Chris Daughtry’s CD sold 3 million units so far. Katherine McPhee’s has done well, also.They didn’t even mention Bucky an Kellie’s CDs, which have also been a success.
I can’t say I wanted to see Sanjaya’s solo (I’d rather hear that Bush Baby dude sing), nor did I care much for Kelly Clarkson’s new single, which sounds lie an attempt at “You Oughta Know” by Alanis Morrisette. But boy, did Smokey Robinson have good plastic surgery or what? I guess botox works for some people.
Gladys Knight sounded great. It was nice to see her hug Melinda at the end. Melinda is a big fan. Frankly, the Knight medley was excellent from beginning to end.
And Lost, man did they turn in a good episode. It was full of great twists and turns with a powerful surprise ending. They really pulled this show out of the doldrums in the last six or seven episodes. 24 writers, take note! My only complaint is, Charlie could have shut the hatch door behind him. He didn’t have to stay inside.
Now I wonder what happens next. I have a feeling the rescue might be something else entirely. Will the next season have them back home with flashbacks to the island? Hmm.
Global Warming-Pffft!
Hopw about Terminator Robots on the rampage. That’s more of a threat!
Science fiction has portrayed machines capable of thinking and acting for themselves with a mixture of both anticipation and dread, but what was once the realm of fiction has yet again become the subject of serious debate as robots become more intelligent.
In 1981, Kenji Urada hopped a safety fence at a Kawasaki plant to carry out maintenance work on a robot. While working on the machine, the robot reached out and pushed 37-year-old Japanese factory worker into a grinder with its powerful hydraulic arm.
Urada’s death is often said to mark the first recorded victim to die at the hands of a robot, although Robert Williams was killed by a robot two years earlier. Since both deaths, and despite the introduction of improved safety mechanisms, there have been many more gruesome industrial fatalities involving robots crushing humans, smashing their heads and even pouring molten aluminum over them. And as robots emerge from the factory floor into homes and workplaces, and develop to a point where they can make their own decisions, there are growing demands that they should be bound by ethical laws.
South Korea, which spends about $80 million a year to develop robots, predicts there will be a robot in every household in little more than a decade. This is not necessarily worth writing home about — robot vacuum cleaners, which can “decide” for themselves when to move from room to room, as well as robotic toys and lawnmowers, are already in many households — except that the country’s Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy’s robot team also predicts these robots would develop “strong intelligence.”
Indeed, the creation of a superhumanly intelligent artificial intelligence (AI) system could be possible within 10 years, with an “AI Manhattan Project,” Dr. Ben Goertzel, CEO and Chief Scientist of AI firm Novamente LLC and bioinformatics firm Biomind LLC, recently wrote.
Of course, they biggest threat they pose is to illegal immigrants. They would eventually replace manual laborers.
The War is Real
On at 11:30 PST
Tammy Bruce is having me on her radio show at 11:30 AM PST today to talk about the American Idol finale.
The Deep, Deep Sea
In case you missed it, Time did a story with pics of deep ocean creatures. This one is called a “Dumbo Octopus”. He looks funny from the side, too.
And to think, there are thousands, probably millions of creatures we still haven’t discovered. We discover new creatures all the time.
UFO of the Day
This is a super clear picture of what looks to be a very strange experimental aircraft of some kind. If this is real, then it is probably terrestrial. But, boy, is it funky!
