After seeing some Buffy in the background of chores and such this weekend, I looked up what Xander’s deal is. Intriguing (to me):

• He was arrested for being drunk and disorderly last year
• There was a “Buffy fan convention” in Cleveland, Ohio in 2004
• He has a twin
• He still seems to be working on Tv, here and there, but not on anything I’ve seen.
• He has a restraining order from Allison Hannigan. 

That last one is not true. But it would be intriguing.

In my last post I mentioned how powerful it is that computers are interacting with the world in the same manner as humans. There is an iPhone app that can take text in a live image and TRANSLATE it. Doesn’t it seem like a computer could pretty easily OCR a URI and take you there? In short — QR codes suck. Give up on them already.

The whole Watson thing was fascinating to me. There were some ninja algorithms for understanding the Jeopardy “answers” in natural language, and similar too-bright-for-me programming to process, index, access and correlate the huge corpora of knowledge — books and periodicals and news and whatnot — which are just fun to think about. But there are other algorithms that might be a little more straightforward, like strategy for choosing an answer or wagering for Daily Doubles or Final Jeopardy, and I’m very curious about those (Jennings alludes to some strategy in his post).

What I find to be the biggest game-changer in this is that Watson does understand the questions as they’re written for humans, and formulates its answers from information that is written for humans. The power and flexibility that results from computers processing info without it being formatted for their use, and responding without queries formatted specifically for the databases is going to result in new and unexpected ways computers can help us.

However, this quantum leap will force us to adjust how we think about computers. Up to now most systems are predictable, and their successes and errors are determinant. As witnessed from Watson, these results are going to become probabilistic and while the rate of success will surely be better than it is with humans, most people expect computers to be either correct correctable. But while we can take a Jeopardy response or a search result that is erroneous, what happens when that is a diagnosis? Watson was wildly incorrect in Final Jeopardy the first day (answering “Toronto” under a category of “U.S. Cities”). How does a major corporation roll out a medical decision support system with such a liability? Malpractice is a difficult, emotional issue with human fallibility. No one is going to take “human error” into account with a computer — or maybe the next generation will simply understand better than I can that computers get it wrong sometimes, too. 

I need to hit up Moxie, Michaelangelo’s, Superior Pho, Sokolowski’s, and Sergio’s to run the table.

Go vote, it’s quick and easy, and gives props to Cole and our under-appreciated Vikings

Google tells me it’s Edison’s birthday. This was printed in the Cleveland Plain Dealer on 12/08/1883.

This is from the awesome archive of the Plain Dealer, 1845-1991, freely available to members of the Cleveland Public Library.

Santy Clor is coming

I recall seeing this series on PBS in high school. It’s pretty awesome stuff for a geek with an historical bent.

This is a real thing, I swear. They have it at the Save-a-lot near my house. For a sense of scale, each weiner is probably 5 inches long, which is bratwurst-sized but I can’t imagine you’d want to eat one on a bun… and I don’t know if it’s in a brine or a pickle or what.

If you have ever driven Cleveland’s version of Martin Luther King Boulevard, from the highway into University Circle, you know there’s an intriguing array of greenspace and sculpture along the route.

In the last ten years there has been a lot of work done, some new ethnic gardens dedicated and built, and I believe it has made great strides in safety and security.

I just found a great list of all the ethnic gardens at the link above. It appears the rule for inclusion is that you have at least one solid representation in the sausage ranks, and perhaps a starchy dumpling gets you some extra square footage. It’s a little odd that gardens 1, 2 and 4 have gone missing, hopefully not an example of ethnic garden cleansing.

With my current situation, including the fact my newly relocated company is partially subsidizing parking, that I can get parking or bus passes pre-tax, and that gas is at $2.85 and my mileage at 27mpg, it is basically a wash for me to take the bus versus drive downtown.

If I took the parking, I would also be able to use the space downtown when not working and I’m certain it takes longer to commute by bus (due to stops and waiting).

Basically, though, I’d feel like a bit of a jerk driving in a short 3 mile commute. If I took the opportunity to dump a car, this calculator estimates I would save over $5k per year.

This is the most entertaining and lightly informative grammar discussion I’ve read in a while…

How does one get in front of the planning commision for a city planning idea?

I think Cleveland should create a space for food truck parking, foot traffic to and from the trucks, and some outdoor and all-weather tables for eating. It could be something used daily in or near public square, or perhaps near the mall with the new Med Mart, and should also be something convenient to tailgating for Browns or other sporting events.

With Dim and Den Sum gracing the front page of the Plain Dealer last week, I’m sure more trucks are on the way. The city should look to enhance our growing reputation as a food destination and helping this intitiaitive fight the difficulties mobile trucks can face (parking and weather) seems like a good idea.

Perhaps individual neighborhoods should consider single truck bays, a couple picnic tables and a shelter?

Did you know Dungeness, famed crab-home, was in England. I didn’t. Did you know they have acoustic mirrors? Me either.

Cleveland. Sausage. yeah