You know what's a funny word? Pollster. Pollster's a funny word. It sounds like you got up this morning and you couldn't find your vowels. Maybe you left them in bayou.

Steve filled me in on an important truth yesterday: not all towels are the same. It turns out that they differ in absorption, softness, shrinkage, durability... This is a lesson for bachelors on par with "clean as you cook" and "milk tastes better in a glass". After buying some sucky towels at Bed Bath and Your Mom, he spent a minute and a half on Google and found a comparison article at iVillage. The winner? Supima Elite from Land's End. Today I bought the 6-piece set (two each of bath towels, hand towels, and washcloths).

Steve filled me in on an important truth yesterday: not all towels are the same. It turns out that they differ in absorption, softness, shrinkage, durability... This is a lesson for bachelors on par with "clean as you cook" and "milk tastes better in a glass". After buying some sucky towels at Bed Bath and Your Mom, he spent a minute and a half on Google and found a comparison article at iVillage. The winner? Supima Elite from Land's End. Today I bought the 6-piece set (two each of bath towels, hand towels, and washcloths).

Actually posted [9/23/2001 10:12:59 AM | Alex Chaffee]

I just looked up the definition for jeopardy. Turns out it's derived from jeu parti, which means "even game" -- that is, a game that has even odds for each player (like the card game "war" or rock-paper-scissors). Interesting that a game where the odds are merely even is the metaphor for extreme hazard and risk. We are risk-averse.

I've been reading the Clicker List (on using operant conditioning, a/k/a "clicker training," to teach behaviors to animals), and got referred to an episode of Scientific American Frontiers (with Alan Alda) where he interviews a researcher at M.I.T. Media Lab named Bruce Blumberg. Bruce has created a simulated dog that runs around a simulated world and learns real tricks.

The video of the entire segment is available at pbs.org - click on the "Virtual Pet Training" link and choose the appropriate video for your system.

Bruce et al.'s latest paper is fascinating and describes the cognitive model they used to build the brains of the dog, sheep, and shepherd. Artificial Intelligence is finally getting smart!

(other papers by the Synthetic Characters group)