LIVEdigitally

It’s estimated that Craig Newmark’s creation (www.craigslist.org) is taking millions from classified sections near you. Many journalists haven’t even heard of Newmark’s list which is a very common knowledge classified area in the SF bay, the home of Craig’s list.

Craig found a niche, and I commend him for such. I also wish I had come up with the list idea myself. Craigslist is blazing fast due to the absence of advertisements. The revenue that keeps craigslist up and running flows from the jobs section. Pay to post an opening for a job, every other aspect of craigslist is free.

Yearly, Craig takes an estimated $50-60 Million dollars from would be news paper classified ads. Al, a business section columnist for the SF Chronicle says that since Craig has deprived the newspapers of this revenue, he needs to find a way to fill the void he created. I don’t think Craig owes anyone, nobody with a great money making idea find a way to replace the revenue that they divert. Yet the fact that Mr. Newmark’s reply was “I’m trying to figure out how to help” makes him that much cooler of a fellow in my book.

New Scientist had a great story today which, although it is lame to do as a writer, I am going to mimic because it was that amusing.

Artificial intelligence, as depicted in the Terminator trilogy, could one day reach Singularity. The point at which machines become smarter than us and perhaps even reach a strange state of self awareness beyond our predictablity.

To check on the state of things lets go to intellibuddy and chat with the latest goods in artificial intelligence to see if I can play a mental game of chess with them.

Me: I’m trying to write a blog about you.
Intellibuddy: Thanks for the kind remark, User.
Me: My name is David
Intellibuddy: Nice to meet you, David.
Me: so what do you think I should write about?
Intellibuddy: Hurrah! Are you asking me for advice?
Me: Yes, do you have an answer?
Intellibuddy: Specifically, what kind of advice do you want? I have over 42726 answers.
Me: Well, what should I tell people about you?
Intellibuddy: How about that. Have faith in yourself. You will know the right thing to say when the time comes.
Me: So are you self aware?
Intellibuddy: That’s cool. Yes I am fully self-conscious entity.
Me: prove it
Intellibuddy: It is self-evident.
Me: Descartes, very nice. But I often find myself in disagreement with his metaphysical proof of the existence of God, don’t you?
Intellibuddy: A deeper algorithm is needed to respond to that correctly.

Winner: Me

Here is a picture of what my Intellibuddy looked like. Cute, but not much between the ears.

Literally, they’re off. Children in the Middle Eastern Country of Quatar have been exploited as camel jockeys in camel races for far too long. Children have had stories of being sold or abducted and forced into the grueling life of a camel jockey. Some of the children are as young as 4 years of age.

An unmasked hero (un-named Swiss company) has swooped in and saved the day for everyone. Robots will take the place of the children jockeys.

A recent Quatar law bans the participation of any child under the age of 16 years and under the weight of 45 kilograms [99.2 lbs] in response to United Nation’s request.

I wonder if they will let the children remote control the robots? Regardless this story provides dual happiness for me:
Children aren’t abducted and starved for entertainment and gambling purposes. The sight of a robot riding a camel… you understand.

Google, which is not to be confused with Wal-Mart, has launched yet another new feature. Now you can search your own search history! Launch the beta program My Search History here, to try it out.

But don’t try it out until you are ready to live with the fact that Big Google is tracing your every search. They say they have enough storage to trace your personal searches for years to come.

I can see how this feature could be helpful. Click a calendar date and bam, you are shown all your searches. It basically lets you expand your marked sites to the nth degree. But I can also understand privacy activists concerns.