SKYNET EXISTS. AND ITS NAME IS CADIE

Introducing CADIE

Research group switches on world's first "artificial intelligence" tasked-array system.

For several years now a small research group has been working on some challenging problems in the areas of neural networking, natural language and autonomous problem-solving. Last fall this group achieved a significant breakthrough: a powerful new technique for solving reinforcement learning problems, resulting in the first functional global-scale neuro-evolutionary learning cluster.

Read more at: http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/cadie/index.html

Visit CADIE's website - http://cadiesingularity.blogspot.com/

In news not related to creepy April 1st messages, I bought the following records today:

Syreeta - self titled
The Temptations - Sing Smokey
Curtis Mayfield - Back to the World
Eddie Kendricks - self titled
Jackson 5 - Diana Ross presents the Jackson 5

Yesterday was quite the memorable day. I promise there's media related content.

Started the day at PBS, doing my intern related duties. I had a guestlist spot +1 for the The Builders and the Butchers show at the Crocodile, so was prepped and ready to go for that, but had to work a shift at Piecora's first.

I hit up Piecora's, and many "firsts" occurred. Trained a new driver, had my first near-death experience, my first racist customer, and my first "bird flip" from another driver. Some dumb girl, smoking a cigarette, and on her cell phone decided to blaze through an intersection to a flurry of brake screeching, loud "OH SHIT!!"s, and a less than a foot away collision.

Then I'm delivering to a family in the most hard to find house on the planet, with all kinds of winding dirt roads and unmarked streets. The father invites me in, has me place the pizza goods on the kitchen counter, offers me a cookie. As I make my way out the door, one of his grade school aged sons starts goading me "NO SPEAK ENGLRISH! NO SPEAK ENGRISH!". I have the cookie in my mouth, and take it out and say "That's extremely rude little man", and close the door. I'm walking to my car and he's in the window now still yelling "NO SPEAK ENGRISH!". Incredible shit, incredible.

Oh and then earlier, some dude in front of me is making horrible driving decisions, so I'm in my car waving my hands in indignation and verbalizing "what the hell are you doing?". Apparently he saw this in his rearview mirror and as I pass and look at him, he's flipping the bird. It made me feel good inside that I could induce such a response, haha.

So then it's about that time to get off work; Craig is in town from Oregon, on his spring break, so we decide to go to the Butchers and Builders show, since we got 2 free spots. We get there, and of course, Belltown on a Friday night is absolute chaos. By some wonderful act of God, we find a parking space right across the street from the Crocodile. We go up to the door, and Craig forgot his wallet in his car, which is in Cap Hill. We shamefully enter the car again to go and get it, cuz the doormen will have none of that "I don't have an ID, but I'm clearly 30 years old" reasoning. So I speedily make my way back to Cap Hill, which was a horrible horrible decision; the speedily part. Cuz then I got pulled over by a cop right on Denny and Broadway, when I "ran a red light". This took another 20 mins or so, but we got off with a warning. I credit this to positive racial stereotyping; it is a sociological phenomenon that exists for us Asian Americans; us "model minorities". Bwahahhaa.

Anyhoo, we successfully grab the wallet/ID in question and make our way back to the Croc, where in an even better act of God, we get a CLOSER parking spot. Literally, right in front of the doors of the Crocodile.

So then we celebrated our victory with expensive beer in plastic cups and the wonderful "if the Decemberists had balls" sound of The Builders and the Butchers.

Good times!

music? tv? tv music? music tv?

Normally, I'm not one to use all capitalized letters to garner attention from your eyes, but I got goosebumps when I saw this today.

Stevie Wonder is the latest recipient of the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, aka one of the most bad-ass mofos to ever to live on the planet. In honor of this achievement, he's performing at the White House tomorrow for an hour, with President Obama presenting the award to The 8th Wonder of the World after the concert.

"Over the years Wonder has delivered 32 No. 1 R&B and Pop singles, 49 Top 40 R&B and Pop singles, and garnered 25 Grammy Awards, as well as the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996. He collected an Academy Award for the 1984 hit “I Just Called to Say I Love You” from the film The Woman in Red. In 1989, he was inducted into the Rock’n’Roll Hall of Fame. In 1999, Wonder became the youngest honoree of the Kennedy Center Honors. He was inducted into the Songwriters’ Hall of Fame in 2002, and in 2004 he won the Johnny Mercer Award in recognition of a lifetime of outstanding creative work. In 2005, the Library of Congress added Wonder’s 1976 double album “Songs in the Key of Life” to the National Recording Registry, which recognizes recordings that are “culturally, historically or aesthetically important, and/or inform or reflect life in the United States.”"

*TANGENT*
Which also cements another reason for my love of Obama, bringing the soul into the White House. Seriously, what artists performed for Bush? Michael Buble? F*** that, I want the funk. I mean, I knew I wanted Obama to be Prez when I saw his speech back in 2004 at the DNC, but the moment I started to donate money to his campaign was when I heard "Signed Sealed Delivered" on his campaign trail. And then I gave even more money when I saw the Wonderlove perform at a campaign stop. Well okay, I'm not that shallow, but I will feign shallowness to magnify my love for Stevie.

*CONTINUED BLOG POST*

Thursday, February 26, 2009, at 8 p.m. PT/ET on PBS is when it airs, so for you Seattle-ites, tune in to KCTS9 tomorrow. I'll be camped out on my couch with my Stevie shirt, and albums in arms length distance.

"The concert takes place February 25 and will include performances by Wonder himself and Tony Bennett, Diana Krall, Martina McBride, Esperanza Spalding, Will.i.am, and the gospel duo Mary Mary, among others." - PBS News

Set your TiVos, VCRs, DVRs, eyeballs to tomorrow at 5pm.

Check out http://www.pbs.org/inperformanceatthewhitehouse/ for a promo video, and check back there later; I think they will be putting performance footage on the site after it airs.

*TANGENT*
Being an intern at KCTS9, I can get DVD copies of the show for anyone that wants it, which should be everyone...

Television commercials and catchy music have been hand in hand since TV ads made their debut in the 1940s. But since the 1980s, the use of popular music in advertisements has become an increasingly prevalent method in influencing the viewing public into buying products.

February is an especially big month in television and commercials. Three of the biggest events are on the air: the Super Bowl, the Grammy Awards, and the Academy Awards. This is when the advertisers unleash their latest ad campaigns. Take this ad from Crystal Light, which features a song by Grammy awarded artist Estelle, commissioned especially for the commercial.



Catchphrases like “money back guarantee”, “recommended by 4 out of 5 doctors”, have a new brother in “exclusive download”. Estelle’s reputation as a Grammy award winning singer is being used to sell a powdered sugar beverage. The line between art and commerce has become indistinguishable. Which begs me to ask, where do we draw the line between art and commerce?



John Lennon would no doubt be rolling in his grave if he knew his song about political and social upheaval during the 1960’s was being used to sell shoes. Especially a shoe company that has heavily contributed to the controversial use of sweatshops labor, who's workers could definitely use a revolution. Memorable music in commercials is used to empower the persuasiveness of the advertisement. A public relations firm inserts a popular song into a commercial, and the unconscious emotional feelings we have toward that song are transferred into the product they are selling. And if we watch enough times, much like Pavlov's dog, we are conditioned to believe that the emotional response we are feeling comes from the need and desire to buy that product. I’m uncomfortable with the idea that every time I hear Revolution by The Beatles, I might think about how “revolutionary” Nike’s shoes are rather than the cultural revolutions of the past.

The widely acknowledged father of public relations, Edward Bernays, nephew of Dr. Sigmund Freud, founded the practices of PR in attempt to manipulate public opinion using the subconscious. Bernays is responsible for getting bacon and eggs cemented as the “American breakfast.” He also masterminded breaking the taboo of women smokers, by hiring models to smoke in front of the cameras at a women’s rights rally. He openly used his uncle Sigmund’s psychoanalytic ideas for the benefit of commerce, arguing that the manipulation of public opinion was an essential element of democracy. So in essence, that’s the point of advertising and public relations; to use our cultural and social history to invoke an emotional response toward a commercial product, even if that product has no relevance or has not made a contribution to that part of our cultural history.


Observe a classic Pepsi commercial, and examples of their latest ad campaign:





I shamefully admit that at one point, I have sung “you’re the next generation”, rather than “Billie Jean is not my lover”; the commercial is legitimately that memorable and persuasive, with some obvious help from the King of Pop. The joy and nostalgia you feel watching the new ad campaign provokes equally positive and powerful emotional responses, all thanks to our friends at Pepsi, a soda pop company.

When it comes to using arts and culture as a means of financial gain, I feel particularly blessed to avoid this moral ambiguity at KCTS9. PBS and its affiliates do not air commercial advertisements. Instead, we feature the underwriters and funders of our programs before and after our programs; non-profit foundations, local organizations, and others, whose direct contributions to the station (including yours) allow us to give the viewing public, commercial free viewing and unfiltered content that you care about.

When you watch PBS for long periods of time, and then switch over to commercial television stations, you can feel the stark difference between PBS and the bombardment by the plethora of corporations wanting your attention, your loyalty to their brand, and your money. But when you’re a paying member of KCTS, you not only pay for the quality programming that you come to rely on day after day, but you also pay for the omission of advertising.

Hey all, I made a blog post at KCTS about the reopening of the Crocodile Cafe. check it out, leave a comment!

http://www.kcts9.org/blog

"The Crocodile Cafe, the iconic Seattle rock venue that abruptly closed down in 2007 to a chorus of disappointed and shocked music fans and artists, is coming back."

Seattle P-I put up for sale

It was announced a little after noon today, when the P-I staff was having their noon meeting. Basically from here, it means the complete end of the print edition of the P-I, and slim chance of reduced staff web only presence. KING-TV broke the story yesterday; I had a friend that was in an art gallery yesterday and saw the P-I Arts Critic proclaiming the end of her job and the oldest Seattle institution (since 1863. Chief Seattle was still alive, Lincoln hadn't been assassinated yet, the Civil War would still go on for another 2 years). I also listened to David Horsey, the P-I's editorial cartoonist talk on Weekday with Steve Scher this morning, professing fear and lack of information over the situation.

The death of old media is harsh. More analysis later; I'm still at work.

2009 has been a tumultuous year so far for Seattle.
-Death threats sent to Cap Hill gay bars
-4,500 to be layed off from Boeing
-More frequent violent crime and murder
1.Chop Suey concert shooting
2.Miles Murphy
3.Pioneer Square
-Massive flooding across the state
-Budget cuts for all kinds of government services and schools; schools are also closing

So Film Addict has a little utility that let's you see the percentage of how many films you've seen in IMdB's Top 250 films of all time (based on a 10 point scale rating from users).

I've seen 75.2% of the films on the list. I feel disgust and glory simultaneously. Disgust that I haven't seen the other 25%!
You can find out how much of a film addict you are and compare your score with mine by following this link:
http://plutor.org/filmaddict/?f=v711bztv