While visiting the UK last week my wife and I were invited to high table dinner at Cambridge’s Caius College by a friend who is now a fellow there. Touring the grounds was stunning, that all of those gorgeous buildings and ancient libraries could be there for you as a student is so impressive. High table is where the fellows (professors) like Stephen Hawking eat at the college — Harry Potter style overseeing the students. When not in term, as it was for us last week, they eat in a separate set of rooms. After dinner we retired to the “desert room” which was built around the 1300’s I believe, and was paneled in wood from one of Her Majesty’s famous wooden ships. After some port and claret was served, we were told about the “betting book”. Apparently since the late 18th century they have kept a book in this room to record predictions and bets made at the table as people like like Francis Crick got drunk in the wee hours. In the room they only had the most recent book, which had more recordings of presentations of bottles of wine than bets and predictions. But the following day I went to the library and saw some of the older texts. Unfortunately time was limited so I did not get a chance to look through them all (I would love to find a student there to help catalog it!). But I found a couple good bets while looking through…
A page from the second oldest betting book I came across, From England 08
This bet from March of 01817 reads “W.White bets Mr Standby that if a Person call a woman a Wh—e they may have a Remedy of Common Law.” I am not at all sure, but it seems like the W word is Whore, and they are referring to a way someone might avoid having their mistress receive common law marriage rights to property.
And the below image is of the first entry in the oldest betting book I found. It reads “March 10, 1789, On the memorable day in which the Parliament was opened by commission after the Kings Recovery.”
The first entry in the oldest betting book I found, From England 08
Green Plans, said Johnson, are government-run environmental programs that rise to the scale and longevity of environmental problems. Instead of acting piecemeal, they are comprehensive, systemic, integrated, and accountable. Instead of pursuing an energy policy, an air policy, and a water policy separately, you have to have one policy that covers them all.
He singled out three shining examples of how to make Green Plans work—Holland, New Zealand, and California’s Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32).
In 1988 Queen Beatrix used her Christmas speech to tell the people of the Netherlands that “the earth is slowly dying,” and the nation would disappear back under the sea if it did not solve its own environmental problems and inspire the rest of the world to do the same. The business community led the response, asking the government to set standards. The NGOs (which receive a third of their revenue from government grants) were expected to keep everybody’s feet to the fire. The Dutch comprehensive Green Plan basically rewrote the nation’s social contract. It took on every problem simultaneously with a trans-generational, trans-border approach. Environmental taxes replaced labor taxes. No waste was allowed to leave the country. The National Environmental Policy Plan is evaluated formally every four years and adjusted.
New Zealand in 1987 began research on what would become the biggest reform in its history, the Resource Management Act, which became law in 1991. Under the guiding principle of sustainability, the Act covers everything—air, water, soil, biodiversity, the coasts, and the full gamut of land use planning. The governance principle is “devolution,” meaning that most of the action covered by the Act takes place in regional, district, and city councils.
California’s famous AB 32 is our most important legislation in a century, said Johnson. The goal of taking the state’s greenhouse gas emissions back down to the 1990 level by 2020 requires radical action in every sector of the state’s economy, including cars, mass transit, shipping, building materials, city design, and a cap-and-trade market for greenhouse gas emissions. The state is coordinating with six other western state and three provinces in Canada under what is called the Western Climate Initiative.
In the Q&A Johnson was asked what single action would do the most to improve environmental responsibility from the federal government. “Campaign finance reform,” he said. The corruption of elected officials by special interest campaign donations makes them beholden to the wrong people for the wrong goals.
Johnson also has a low opinion of term limits. The great co-author of AB 32, Fran Pavley, was termed out after just six years in the State Assembly. If elected officials are always new in the capitol, they are easily manipulated by lobbyists and others who have been in town forever and have it wired.
Next Sunday October 12th, six different programs will attempt to pass the computer intelligence Turing test (according to the guardian.co.uk). This also marks a serious attempt to decide the $20,000 Long Bet between Ray Kurzweil and Mitch Kapor, as well as win the $100,000 Loebner Prize in Artificial Intelligence. In the tests, a human questioner will get to question both a computer and human through a chatroom like text interface. If the questioner guesses wrong or can’t decide which is human, the program will have passed the test. Judging from the conversations below however I don’t think the machines have much of a chance this time around… (click though to the article and scroll down to find out which is human and which is machine)
Can you tell human from machine?
One of these conversations is between Professor Kevin Warwick (KW) and a human; the other between Warwick and a computer. Can you tell which is which?
Conversation one:
Subject: Hello. My name is Nick and I am a human.
KW: Are you happy being a human?
Subject: Yes, I am. Are you? Good. Then we are both happy.
KW: Yes, I am. Are you happy with your life at present?
Subject: Parts of it. I hate my job, but most people do, right?
KW: I’m OK with mine. What is your job?
Subject: I work as an ‘online internet advertising monitor’, which is fancy language for electronic filing. What do you do?
KW: I interrogate humans and machines.
Subject: Which ones do you prefer, humans or machines?
KW: Which do you prefer?
Subject: Hmm. Depends on for what purpose you mean.
KW: To go to a restaurant, for example?
Subject: Then I would much prefer going with a human.
Conversation two:
Subject: Hello, my name is Mike and I am a man.
KW: Are you happy being a human?
Subject: Judge, I’m a guy.
KW: Does that worry you?
Subject: Don’t worry, we’ll work everything through.
KW: Do you have worries then?
Subject: Let’s move on from that basis.
KW: Why?
Subject: Why? I like this subject.
KW: What is the subject, do you think?
Subject: What is the subject I wonder if I think? I know that it’s good to thonk about. Think deeplt about mysterious subjects.
KW: What mysterious subjects?
Subject: Think deeply about mysterious dubjects.
KW: What’s a dubject?
I can imagine the next line, “Dubject… Let me tell you about my dubject!” At which point the skin job stands up from the Voight-Kampff test and blows poor KW away…
Photo: John Cage Organ Foundation, Halberstadt, Germany
via ABC News Online
Fair warning for long-term music lovers: the world’s slowest concert, a 639-year organ piece by American avant-garde composer John Cage (01912-01992), will next change notes in just over a month’s time, on 5 November 02008.
St Burchardi church, in the eastern German city of Halberstadt, has played host to the performance since 5 September 02001 (the late composer’s 89th birthday), when it kicked off with 17 months of silence. Cage originally wrote ASLSP (As SLow aS Possible) in 01985. Its maiden performance by organist Gerd Zacher lasted 29 minutes, but Cage didn’t specify a maximum, so in accordance with the piece’s title, musical scholars and scholarly musicians since decided to stage a multi-century version, approximating the lifespan of an organ.
According to a New York Timesreport on the 5 May 02006 note change, the odd duration and location for this ambitious project, called Organ²/ASLSP, are due to Halberstadt’s cathedral claiming the first organ with a modern keyboard arrangement, built in 01361, 639 years before 02000, the intended start date for the performance. The sustained notes of the performance are possible thanks to the organ’s customised bellows, and tiny sandbags on strings, rigged to hold each note as long as necessary.
The upcoming change will be the seventh chord in the piece. The last change, on 5 July 02008, attracted over one thousand slow-music fans.
(Above, a home video of the most recent note change, on 5 July 02008.)
Blind writer Ryan Knighton was among those present for the previous occasion, on 5 May 02006 (note changes are always on the 5th of the month). In a short but beautifully written article, he recounts his pilgrimage to the Halberstadt organ, as one of the long, tranquil stretches between increasingly note changes draws to a close:
After a few moments standing here, I begin to crave the next note — any note, any change whatsoever. The chord fills my ears, and a kind of audio-claustrophobia overwhelms me. No sightseers or tour guides around to offer any reprieve. Nobody except Justus, an eleven-year-old local boy who took my hand and guided me the final hundred yards to hear this particular sound before it changed. Lucky he was there — once the new chord begins tomorrow, it won’t change again for more than two years. Got to get to church on time.
…
As I move into the monastery and toward the organ, the familiar clicking of my white cane adds texture to the drone. My own noise feels like blasphemy, chatter during a prayer. Granted, this chord has been playing only four months — a frilly little trill in the scheme of things — but that’s no licence for irreverence. I stop again and listen. Perhaps ten minutes have passed, and I’m becoming aware of the chord’s impurities. The faintest blemishes in tone pop and burn away like sparks. The sound heaves and exhales slightly, like the sigh or groan of a weary traveller.
Sighted folks ramble the world to see Grand Canyons and Eiffel Towers, monuments that dazzle the eyes. Because the last bit of my sight could desert me any day now, I asked myself, what would the equivalent pilgrimage be for me? So a white cane tapped its way from Vancouver to Toronto to Berlin and to Halberstadt to hear a single moment out of centuries of sound. One thing giving way to another — the basis of all drama. It seemed monumental to me.
I’m standing in front of the organ now, and what began as noise has become a familiar hum. As I think of the generations who will take care of a song that assumed they would be there to keep it going, I’m reminded of my debt to Justus and everyone else who guided me here. As this song will be, I’ve been passed along from one person to another, slowly, until I made it. Just in time.
In case you happen to be unavailable for the upcoming November change, you might pencil in a visit to Halbertstadt for February 02009, or July 02010.
Incidentally, Organ²/ASLSP is the subject of Prediction 282, registered with Long Bets in 02007; that the performance will continue uninterrupted to the halfway mark, in the year 02319. Although a clear majority of folks weighing in on the issue have disagreed (18 doubters vs 8 supporters to date), the proposition is yet to find an official Challenger to turn it into a fully-fledged Long Bet.
Saturday October 25, 02008 Montgomery Theater, San Jose, CA
This third annual Singularity Summit focuses on Opportunity, Risk and Leadership. Each year, The Singularity Summit attracts a unique audience to the Bay Area, with visionaries from business, science, technology, philanthropy, the arts, and more. Participants learn where humanity is headed, meet the people leading the way, and leave inspired to create a better future.
This year’s speakers include Ray Kurzweil, Esther Dyson, Peter Diamandis, Vernor Vinge, Marvin Minsky and many more. Long Now Members have been offered a 15% discount on Saturday’s conference, please check your email for details.
A multi petabyte-scale simulation of global processes, called the Global Extinction Awareness System (GEAS), has just determined that, without immediate action, humanity will survive only another 23 years before the deadly synergy of five catastrophic Superthreats does us in.
The Superthreats are:
1. Quarantine — declining health and pandemic disease, including the current Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ReDS) crisis
2. Ravenous — the imminent collapse of the global food system
3. Power Struggle — the increasingly desperate search for alternative energy solutions
4. Outlaw Planet — challenges to human security and civil rights in the midst of hypercomplex information systems
5. Generation Exile — skyrocketing numbers of refugees and migrants in the face of climate change, economic disruption, and war
Your role is to flex your foresight, creativity and collaborative skills to contribute to our collective survival.
The GEAS report is available in full here, and video briefings on each of the Superthreats can be found here. One to get you started:
The scenario described above is the premise of Superstruct, the world’s first massively multiplayer forecasting game, which kicks off in just under two weeks’ time, on 6 October 02008.
Over the six weeks of the game, long term thinkers everywhere will have the opportunity to imagine themselves in this version of 02019, bringing their real-world expertise and ideas to bear on the Superthreats. The purpose of the game is to harness our collective insights and ingenuity; to help invent the future by playing it first.
…well, actually, 45 million year old yeast. Dr. Raul Cano, Director of the Environmental Biotechnology Institute at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo extracted the yeast from an unlucky weevil embedded in amber, reactivated it, and — budding zymurgist that he is — tried it out with a new brew.
The result? Fossil Fuels Wheat Beer — a fine brew that is “smooth and spicy” (according to the Washington Post).
Okay, so it was Slashdotted earlier today… but we have to say, how very Long, and how totally Now. Cheers!
