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Homedaily blogGLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM
GLITCHES IN THE MATRIX . . . AND HOW TO FIX THEM
March 2, 2003 by Peter B. Lloyd
Why, exactly, do the rebels have to enter the Matrix via the phone system (which after all doesn't physically exist)? And what really happens when Neo takes the red pill (which also doesn't really exist)? And how does the Matrix know what fried chicken tastes like? Technologist and philosopher Peter Lloyd answers these questions and more.
To be published in Taking the Red Pill: Science, Philosophy and Religion in The Matrix (Ben Bella Books, April 2003). Published on KurzweilAI.net March 3, 2003.
As the essays throughout this book demonstrate, the Wachowski Brothers designed The Matrix to work at many levels. They carefully thought through the film's philosophical underpinnings, religious symbolism, and scientific speculations. But there are a few riddles in The Matrix, aspects of the film that seem nonsensical or defy the laws of science. These apparent glitches include:
• The Bioport—how can a socket in your head control your senses? How can it be inserted without killing you?
• The Red Pill—since the pill is virtual, how can it throw Neo out of the Matrix?
• The Power Plant—can people really be an energy source?
• Entering and Exiting the Matrix—why do the rebels need telephones to come and go?
• The Bugbot—what's the purpose of the bugbot?
• Perceptions in the Matrix—how do the machines know what fried chicken tastes like?
• Neo's Mastery of the Avatar—how can Neo fly?
• Consciousness and the Matrix—are the machines in the Matrix alive and conscious? Or are they only machines, intelligent but mindless?
This essay addresses these questions and shows how these seeming glitches can be resolved.
THE BIOPORT
Can the machines really create a virtual world through a bioport? And how does it work? The bioport is a way of giving the Matrix computers full access to the information channels of the brain. It is located at the back of the neck—probably between the occipital bone at the base of the skull, and the first neck vertebra. Wiring would best enter through the soft cartilage that cushions the skull on the spinal column, and pass up through the natural opening that lets the spinal cord into the skull. This avoids drilling through bone, and maintains the mechanical and biological integrity of the skull's protection. A baby fitted with a bioport can easily survive the operation.
The bioport terminates in a forest of electrodes spanning the volume of the brain. In a newborn, the sheathed mass of wire filaments is pushed into the head through the bioport. On reaching the skull cavity, the sheath would be released, and the filaments spread out like a dandelion, gently permeating the developing cortex. Nested sheaths would release a branching structure of filamentary electrodes. As each sheathed wire approaches the surface of the brain, it releases thousands of smaller electrodes. In the neonate, brain cells have few synaptic connections, so the slender electrodes can penetrate harmlessly.
With its electrodes distributed throughout the brain, the Matrix could deliver its sensory signals in either of two places: at the sensory portals or deep inside the brain's labyrinth. For example, vision could be driven by electrodes on the optic nerves where they enter the brain. Artificial signals would then pass into the visual cortex at the back of the brain, which would handle them as if they had come from the eyes. Correspondingly, outgoing motor nerves would also have electrodes at the boundary of brain and skull. This simple design mirrors the natural state of the brain most closely. It is not, however, the only possibility. Electrodes could alternatively be attached in the depths of the brain, beyond the first stages of the visual cortex. This would greatly simplify the data processing. In normal perception, most of the incoming information isn't processed; information you aren't paying attention to is filtered out. If the Matrix were to deliver information directly to the output axons from the sensory cortex—as opposed to the input to the cortex—then it would save itself the job of filling in all those details.
One scene tells us which method the Matrix uses. When Neo wakes and finds himself in a vat, he pulls out the oxygen and food tubes, drags himself out of the gelatinous fluid, and—perceives the world. The fact that he can see and hear proves that the visual and auditory cortices of his brain are working. This wouldn't be possible if the Matrix had put its sensory data into the deeper centers of his brain. For then his sensory cortex would have been bypassed: it would never have received any stimulation, and would have wasted away. In that case, Neo would wake from his vat and find himself blind and deaf, with no sense of smell or taste, no feeling of touch or heat in his skin, no awareness of whether he was vertical or horizontal, or where his arms or legs were. The Matrix must have input its visual data just where the optic nerve from the eyeball passes into the skull, rather than in the midst of the brain's vision processing. Likewise, Neo's ability to walk and use his arms shows that the motor cortex is also developed and functioning. Indeed, even the cerebellum, which controls balance, must be working. So, the Matrix must be capturing its motor signals from the brain's efferent nerves after they have finished with the last stage of cortical processing, but before the nerves pass out of the skull.
The rebels use the bioport to load new skills into their colleagues' brains—writing directly into permanent memory. The Matrix itself never implants skills in this way; folks in the virtual world learn things in the usual manner by reading books and going to college. So, why did the architects of the Matrix build into the bioport this capability to download skills? It is actually a byproduct of how the bioport is installed. They could have attached electrodes to just the sensory and motor nerve fibers. That, though, is difficult: the installer must predict where each nerve fiber will be anchored, which is hard to do reliably, given the plasticity of the neonate brain; and it must navigate through the brain tissue to find these sites. A more robust and adaptable method is to lay a carpet of electrodes throughout the whole brain, and let the software locate the sensory and motor channels by monitoring the data flows on the lines.
That spare capacity remains available for others to exploit, and the rebels use it to download kung-fu expertise into Neo's brain and to implant helicopter piloting skills into Trinity's. If the Matrix ever learned this technique, it could create havoc for the rebels, implanting impulses to serve its own ends.
Morpheus offers Neo the choice of his lifetime, in the form of the famous red and blue pills. But what can a virtual pill do to a real brain? We have seen that the Matrix interacts with the brain only in the sensory and motor nerve fibers. It does not affect the inner workings of the brain, where a real psychoactive chemical would have to act. Minor analgesics such as aspirin would work by having their effect outside the brain centers, canceling out pain inputs from the avatar software.
The blue pill is probably a placebo. Morpheus says only, "You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and you believe whatever you want to believe." We never know what, if anything, the blue one would do.
So, how does the active pill, the red one, work? Since virtual aspirin can work as a painkiller, the avatar's software module must be able to accept instructions to cancel out any given sensory input. Evidently, the red pill gives the avatar a blanket command to cancel all such input. It thereby obliterates Neo's perception of the virtual world, which the Matrix has been feeding to him throughout his life. Instead of sitting on a chair in a hotel room, Neo sees and feels for the first time that he is immersed in a fluid. The perception of this filters through into his perceptions of the Matrix's own imagery. Neo touches a mirror, and finds it a viscous fluid that clings to his finger and then seeps along his arm, covering his chest and slithering down his throat. A blend of bodily perceptions and mental imagery is typical of what happens when you wake from a dream; external perceptions are distorted to fit the contents of the dream. Your dream of falling off a cliff might fade into falling out of bed. In the film, the liquefied mirror is seen only by Neo, not the others in the room. His real bodily sensations are, for the first time, sweeping into his brain, which struggles to integrate them into the stable narrative he has lived in up to that moment.
Another route out of the Matrix, besides the red pill, would be meditation. The Buddhist practice of vipassa1 gives adepts penetrating insights into their own mental processes. It rolls back the barrier between conscious awareness and the subconscious. An adept of vipassana, living in the Matrix, would discover the interface between the Matrix's electrodes and the brain's wetware. The expert practitioner could override the Matrix's stream of imagery, and see reality. Morpheus mentions that someone did break free from the Matrix. Perhaps meditation was the key. To attain that expertise, however, would take years of effort. Leading other people to the truth would require a school of meditation to train new recruits for years, to pursue what one individual claimed was the truth, but everyone else dismissed as fantasy. No doubt this is what the Oracle is gently encouraging. But it is not surprising that the red pill was invented as a fast-track route.
Morpheus's team monitors Neo's progress. As he realizes that he is immersed in fluid, Neo panics, and his instinct to escape drowning compels him to drag the tubes out of his mouth. Like waking out of a dream, Neo finds the sensible world rushing in on him, and it is remarkable that his manual coordination has been so well preserved by the Matrix system. He grabs the tubes and yanks them out, using weak hands that had never before grasped anything.
When Neo's exit from the Matrix is detected, a robot inspects him and flushes him out of his pod. Too weak to swim, he must be pulled out of the wastewater pool without delay. How are the rebels to find him? In a power plant vast enough to house the human race, there would be thousands of effluent drains. As Morpheus mentions to Neo, "the pill you took is part of a trace program." Besides canceling Neo's sensory inputs, the red pill also puts a unique reference signal onto the Matrix network. When the Nebuchadnezzar's computer locates that signal, it can work out Neo's physical location and order the hovercraft to the appropriate chute. In the tense moment before that reference signal is located, the worried Morpheus says, "We're going to need the signal soon," and Trinity exclaims that Neo's heart is fibrillating as the panic threatens to bring on a heart attack. Apoc finds the reference signal just in time, before Neo's brain disengages from the Matrix network and the signal vanishes.
During the armchair scene, we have what is probably the most criticized element in The Matrix story line. Morpheus claims that the human race is imprisoned in a power station, where human bodies are used as a source of bioelectricity. This is engineering nonsense; it violates the fundamental law of energy conservation. The humans would have to be fed, and the laws of physics demand that the energy consumed as food must be greater than the energy generated by the human body. That Morpheus has misunderstood what is going on is underscored by his mention in the same speech of the machines' discovery of a new form of nuclear fusion. Evidently, the fusion is the real source of energy that the machines use. So what are humans doing in the power plant? Controlled fusion is a subtle and complex process, requiring constant monitoring and micromanaging. The human brain, on the other hand, is a superb parallel computer. Most likely, the machines are harnessing the spare brainpower of the human race as a colossal distributed processor for controlling the nuclear fusion reactions. (Sawyer comes to a similar conclusion elsewhere in this volume—Ed.)
ENTERING AND EXITING THE MATRIX
The virtual world of the Matrix is not bound by physical laws as we know them, but for the virtual world to be consistently realistic, the laws of physics must be followed where they can be observed by humans. Access into and out of a virtual world is a problem, because materializing and dematerializing violate the conservation of mass and energy. Furthermore, whatever was previously in the space occupied by the materializing body must be pushed out of the way; and would be pushed with explosive speed if the materialization is instantaneous. Conversely, on dematerialization, the surrounding air would rush in to the vacated space with equal implosive force. There are no such explosions and implosions in The Matrix, so how do the rebels do it?
In the Matrix computer, software modules represent the observable objects in the virtual world, and these modules interact by means of predefined messages. One such message issued by a virtual human body, or "avatar," is, "What do I see when I look in the direction V?" A module whose object lies on the line of sight along V will respond with a message specifying the color, luminosity, and texture that the human should see in that direction. If a rebel's avatar is to be visible to other people who are immersed in the Matrix world, the Nebuchadnezzar's computer must pick up those "What-do-I-see" requests and reply with its own "You-see-this" message.
A virtual human body does not send "What-do-I-see?" message to all other modules in the Matrix, or else it would overload the network. It refers to "registers" of modules, which record the virtual objects' shape, size, and position. Simple geometry then tells it which modules to target. For efficiency, each visible volume of space, such as the room of a building, has its own register.
The key step in materializing a body in a given space is for its module to be inserted into that space's register. For dematerializing, it is deleted from the register. Once it is registered, anyone looking in that direction will see that module's virtual body. The Matrix cannot let a software module insert itself arbitrarily into a register, since that could violate the conservation of mass if it led to an object's materializing in an area that has a conscious observer.
Registers for unobserved spaces are not constrained in this way. If nobody is watching a room and its entrances, then a body can safely materialize in it without observably breaking the simulated laws of physics.
This does not mean that the laws of physics break down as soon as all observers leave a room. The table and chair do not start to float around against the law of gravity when nobody is looking. Rather, the Matrix simply does not bother to run the simulation for a room that nobody is looking at. In its register, it retains details of where each object is, but the room is no longer rendered as visual and tactual imagery.
So, when the Nebuchadnezzar's computer wants to materialize a rebel, it must find some unobserved room, and insert the data module for the rebel's body into the register for that room. Subsequently, if someone else enters the room, he will see the rebel just like any other object in the room. And the rebel can walk out of the room into any other part of the Matrix world in the normal manner. This is how rebels materialize in the Matrix without causing explosions or breaching the integrity of the simulation.
When a rebel exits, the module that simulates her body is deleted from the register. This must happen only when the body is not being observed. There is, however, an intermediate state, "imperception," which effectively takes the body out of the virtual world even while the data module is still in the register. This is an emergency procedure that the Nebuchadnezzar's software uses for fast escapes.
Although the Matrix software cannot insert or delete a module while its object is being observed, it does allow any module to change its appearance. The agents use it whenever they enter the world. An agent never materializes or dematerializes, but changes the appearance of another person's avatar to match the personal qualities of the agent.
To make a rebel imperceptible, the Nebuchadnezzar's computer changes the body's visible appearance to be transparent; and the body's mechanical resistance to that of the air. From an observer's perspective, the body has melted into air. From a software perspective, the data module is still on the register but simulating a body indistinguishable from thin air. Later, when the scene is no longer being observed by anybody, the module will be deleted.
We see this happen only once, when Morpheus leaves the subway. Once the Nebuchadnezzar's computer has located his avatar, it sends an instruction to make it invisible. This does not affect the whole avatar at once: the module has to calibrate its appearance to match exactly its surroundings. The first part of the body to receive the instruction is the nervous tissue of the ear, and this at first glows bright white, before settling down to a state of transparency. The rest of the body follows. Its appearance oscillates around whatever is visible in the background, settling down to transparency: where the Morpheus stood, we see the background shimmer momentarily. The solidity of the body then fades: moments after Morpheus's body has become invisible, the telephone handset that had rested in his hand drops, slowly at first, toward the ground. The observed sequence is consistent not with the sudden deletion of the body's module, but rather with its changing its appearance.
HARD LINES
Telephones play a key role in entering and leaving the Matrix. But the rebels do not travel through the telephone lines as energy pulses. There is no device at the end of the telephone for reconstructing a human body from data: all you would get is noise in the earpiece. Furthermore, the bandwidth of a telephone line is too narrow to ship an entire human being. Finally, nothing at all ever really travels along the lines in the Matrix world, as they are only virtual.
Instead of being a conduit for transporting dematerialized rebels, the telephone line is a means of navigation. It pinpoints where a rebel is to enter or leave the Matrix.
To enter the vast Matrix requires specifying where the avatar is to materialize. To get an avatar into the Matrix world, the rebels must use some strictly physical navigation. This is done with the telephone network, which has penetrated every corner of the inhabited world with electronic devices, each of which has a unique, electronically determined label. Without knowing anything of human society and its conventions, the physics modules of the Matrix can determine where any given telephone number terminates.
How are the rebels to give a telephone number to the Matrix? They must dial it, but they cannot simply pick up a handset and make a call to a number inside the Matrix world, for any handset in the Nebuchadnezzar is connected to the real world telephone network, not the Matrix's virtual network. Inside the Matrix, a call must be placed subtly, without observably breaching the simulated laws of electromechanics.
To see how this can be done, we need to know something of the infrastructure of the Matrix. Monolithic computer systems are unreliable, so the Matrix is instead an assemblage of independent modules, each having a unique "network address." For a module to communicate with another, it will put a data message on the network with the address of the intended destination. Neither module need know where the other one is inside the electronic hardware of the Matrix computer. They might be inches apart, or a mile away.
This scheme is robust and flexible. There is no central hub, and individual modules can be plugged into, or taken out of, the network without disturbance. Conversely, the rebels can easily hack into it. Once they are linked into the network, their equipment can simply pretend to be another module. It can place data messages onto the system, which will be routed just like authentic messages, and be received and read by the addressed module. So, to initiate a telephone call, the crew will place a data message on the network, addressed to any module that simulates an aerial for receiving calls from cell phones. Some such node will pick up and read the counterfeit data message just as if the message had been sent by a bona fide source. On getting this message, the aerial module will carry out its role in handling a telephone call.
The Nebuchadnezzar's operator maintains contact with rebels who are in the Matrix even while the hovercraft is moving, so they must use radioports onto the network. The rebels might have installed their own rogue radio receiver—mechanically securing it in some dark corner, and plugging its data cable into a spare socket of a router. More likely, the Matrix itself uses radio as part of its network infrastructure, and the rebels broadcast their counterfeit messages on the same frequency.
Materializing or dematerializing, however, needs a network address, which is gotten as follows. When the Nebuchadnezzar makes a "phone call" into the Matrix, it places on the network a packet saying "Place this call for (212) 123-4567″ or whatever the telephone number is, together with the Nebuchadnezzar's own network address as a return label, such as 9.54.296.42. When the call is picked up, the Matrix will return a data packet, addressed to the Nebuchadnezzar, saying "Message for 9.54.296.42: call connected to telephone (212) 123-4567." All the Nebuchadnezzar's computer has to do is listen out for its own address, and it will find attached to it the network address of the telephone equipment.
As soon as the answering machine picks up the incoming call, the Nebuchadnezzar will get the network address of that destination.
Essentially the same job must be done when a rebel leaves the Matrix world. In order to disengage the rebel from his or her avatar, the Nebuchadnezzar's computer must again get a fix on the avatar's location within the virtual world. As before, it is not enough to locate the avatar's virtual body in terms that relate to human culture. It is no use to say that Neo is at 56th and Lexington. Rather, it needs a network address that the Matrix's operating system can follow. Of course, the Nebuchadnezzar gets it by calling a telephone in the Matrix world, which must be answered for the network address to be passed back to the Nebuchadnezzar. Once that has happened, the avatar's module can be deleted from the register for that location.
Why don't the crew navigate their exits with the stylish cell phones that all the rebels carry? Why hunt for a land line (called a "hard line" in the film) under hot pursuit from the agents? The answer is that the cell phones are not part of the Matrix world and do not have network addresses known to the Matrix software. The cell phone is projected into the Matrix world by the Nebuchadnezzar's computer, 114 peter b. lloyd along with the avatar's body and clothes—and the weapons that Neo and Trinity eventually bring in with them. The software that simulates the cell phones is running inside the Nebuchadnezzar's computer, not the Matrix's computer, so the rebels must find a land line—which are somewhat scarce in an era when everyone has a cell phone.
THE BUGBOT
Before Neo is taken to meet Morpheus, the agents insert a robotic bug into him. Trinity extricates the bugbot before it can do any harm. But what was the bugbot for? Given that it operates inside the human body, the bugbot should be as small as possible. Yet, it is clearly much bigger than a miniature radio beeper needed for tracking Neo's whereabouts. Trinity says that Neo is "dangerous" to them before he is cleaned. We can infer that the bugbot is actually a munition, probably a semtex device that will detonate when it hears Morpheus's voice, killing both Neo and Morpheus and everyone else in the room.
Just before it is implanted, the bugbot takes on the appearance of an animate creature, with claws writhing. Yet, after Trinity has jettisoned it out of the car window, it returns to an inert form. It is another illustration of the agents' limited use of the shapeshifting loophole in the Matrix software, that lets an object transform its properties under programmed commands.
PERCEPTIONS IN THE MATRIX
At dinner on the Nebuchadnezzar, Mouse ponders how the Matrix decided how chicken meat should taste, and wonders whether the machines got it wrong because the machines are unable to experience tastes.
A nonconscious machine cannot experience color any more than taste. A computer can store information about colored light, such as a digitized photograph, but it does so without a glimmer of awareness of the conscious experience of color. The digitized picture will evoke conscious colors only when someone looks at it. All other sensations that you can be conscious of will elude the digital computer.
The feel of silk, the texture of the crust of a piece of toast, feelings of nausea or giddiness: these are all unavailable to insentient machines. This being so, Mouse could have doubted whether the Matrix would know what anything should taste, smell, look, sound, or feel like.
But the Matrix doesn't need to experience the perceptual qualities to get them right. As we have seen, the Matrix feeds its signals into the incoming nerves where they enter the brain, not into the deeper nerve centers. So when you eat (virtual) fried chicken inside the Matrix, the Matrix will activate nerves from the tongue and nose, and the brain will interpret them as taste sensations. What the Matrix puts in will be a copy of the train of electrical impulses that would actually be produced if you were eating meat. Because of the way that the Matrix has been wired into the brain, it has less freedom than Mouse assumed. Whilst the Matrix cannot know tastes itself, it can nonetheless know which chemosensory cells in a human's nose and mouth yield the requisite smell and taste.
NEO'S MASTERY OF THE AVATAR
For purists of science-fiction plausibility, Neo's superhuman control over his avatar body is a troubling element in the film. The final triumphal scene, where Neo flies like Superman, has especially come under criticism. But is it completely at odds with what we have inferred about the Matrix? And how does Neo transcend his human limits?
The Matrix interacts with the brain, but the brain in turn affects the body. When Neo is hurt in training, he finds blood in his mouth. He asks Morpheus, "If you are killed in the Matrix, you die here?" and gets the cryptic reply: "The body cannot live without the mind." But it cuts both ways; ultimately, Neo's avatar is killed inside the Matrix, causing the vital functions to cease in his real body.
Mental states and beliefs can affect the body in several ways. In the placebo effect, the belief that a pill is a medicine can cure an illness; in hypnosis, imagining a flame on the wrist can induce blisters. In total virtuality, the mind accepts completely what is presented. If the Matrix signals that the avatar's body has died, then the mind will shut down the basic organs of the heart and lungs. Actual death will inevitably ensue, unless fast action is taken to get the heart pumping again.
In the climactic scene, Agent Smith kills Neo's avatar within the Matrix. Neo's brain accepts this fate: it stops his heart and loses conscious awareness. His real brain, however, retains enough oxygenated blood to keep it functioning for approximately three minutes, after which it would begin to suffer irreversible damage and, a few minutes later, brain-death. During this time, the auditory cortex keeps on working and digests what Trinity says, albeit unconsciously. Trinity's message is comprehended by Neo's subconscious mind, and a deep realization that the Matrix world is illusory crystallizes in his mind. At an intellectual level, Neo already believed this, but now he knows it at the visceral level of the mind, the level that interfaces with his physiology. Empowered by the insight that his avatar's death is not his death, Neo regains control of his avatar —not only resurrecting it but attaining superhuman powers: the avatar can stop bullets, and fly into the air.
Neo's new powers contrast with the rigid compliance with simulated physical laws that the Matrix generally adheres to. It reveals that Neo has gained direct access to the software modules that simulate his avatar body. That raises two questions: Why does the avatar software accept commands to transform itself, when normally it strictly follows a physical simulation? And, how can Neo's brain issue such commands, which are obviously outside the scope of the normal muscular signals?
The software that simulates the avatar must have a special port, intended for use only by agents, which accepts commands to change the internal properties of the avatar's body. Agents use this facility to embody themselves in human avatars. Like all software, the avatar will obey such commands wherever they originate, provided that they are correctly formulated. We saw earlier how the Nebuchadnezzar's computer used this transformative power to make Morpheus disappear from the subway station. Now Neo's brain is directly using the same command port.
Commands to transform the body cannot travel on the wires that carry the regular muscular signals from the brain to the avatar module. So, they use some of the many other, seemingly redundant, data lines that terminate throughout the rest of the brain. That those lines are hooked up at all on the Matrix end is a spin-off from the Matrix architect's use of general-purpose interfaces. When a newborn human baby is connected to the software module that runs its avatar, there is no way to predetermine which wires carry which data streams. So, at the Matrix end, each line is free to connect to any data port of the avatar module. Some data ports emit simulated signals from virtual eyes and other sense organs, and they will connect with the brain's sensory cortex; others will accept motor commands to carry out simulated contractions of virtual muscles, and they will link up with the motor cortex. In a feedback process that mirrors how the natural plasticity of the brain is molded to its function, useful connections are strengthened and the useless are weakened. As a baby grows into an infant, it gains feedback through using the simulated senses and muscles of the avatar, and therefore its brain builds up the normal strong connections to the conventional input and output channels. But it lacks the abstract concepts needed to use the special port that accepts transformation commands. So the brain's connection with those lines atrophies. Nevertheless, the hardware for that potential connection remains in place. In Neo's kung fu training, his brain rediscovers the abandoned data lines, and he starts to issue rudimentary transformations, giving his avatar's muscles superhuman strength. Only with the deep insight that he gains from being woken after his avatar's death, does he acquire the mental attitude needed to harness that transformative function fully.
The existence of the transformational back door into the avatar software is a security hole that the architects of the Matrix never imagined would be used by mere humans—but now it threatens the very existence of the Matrix, as Neo exploits the power it gives him.
CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE MATRIX
The last question I will address in this essay is a complex one, and one that continues to be explored and debated in scientific and philosophical circles. Can machines be conscious? In everyday life, the 118 peter b. lloyd machines are so dumb that we can ignore this question, and so we do not have an established criterion for judging whether the intelligent machines of science fiction are conscious. How similar must a machine be to a human for it to be conscious? Humans have a cluster of properties that always hang together: they have conscious perceptions and emotional feelings, they have opinions and beliefs, intuition and intelligence, they use language, and they are alive and warm-blooded, and have a biological brain. We do not, in everyday life, have to separate out those concepts and decide which ones are necessary and sufficient for sentience. The properties all come as a package. In contrast, the lower animals are like us but do not use language and are not as intelligent as we are. So, it is believed that the higher animals probably have basic conscious perceptions—such as colors and sounds, heat and cold—much as we do, but they lack the superstructure of thought. But what about machines that are intelligent and use language, but are not made of biological tissue? Could they be conscious? To respond rationally to this emotive challenge, we need to be clear about the ideas that are involved. The commonest and most damaging conflation is that of "intelligence" and "consciousness." Alan Turing, in his celebrated paper that introduced the Turing Test, used the terms interchangeably—but mathematicians are notorious for playing fast and loose with their terms. Philosophers, whose trademark is the careful delineation of concepts, have always insisted on maintaining the distinction. Intelligence is the capacity to solve problems, while consciousness is the capacity for the subjective experience of qualities.
As we shall see, intelligence can be attained without consciousness.2 A digital computer can be programmed to perform intelligent tasks such as playing chess and understanding language by welldefined deterministic processes, without any need to introduce enigmatic conscious experiences into the software. On the other hand, a conscious being can have subjective experiences—such as seeing the color red, or feeling anger—with needing to use intelligence to solve any problems. An android could be vastly more intelligent than any human and still lack any glimmer of interior mental life. On the other hand, a creature might be profoundly stupid and still have subjective experiences.
Agent Smith is an example of a machine that manifests humanlike behavior—which, if you witnessed such words and gestures in a human, you would immediately regard them as showing conscious emotions and volitions. Indeed, it is the immediacy of the interpretation that is deceptive. When you see someone laugh with joy, or scream in pain, you do not knowingly infer the person's mental state from those outward signs. Rather, it is as if you see the emotions directly. Yet, we know from accomplished actors that these signs of emotions can be faked. Therefore, you are indeed making an inference, albeit an automatic one. It is a job of philosophy to scrutinize such automatic inference. When you see another human being emoting, your inference is not based wholly on what you see, but also on background information (such as whether the person is acting on the stage). More fundamentally, you are relying on the reasonable assumption that the person's behavior arises from a biological brain just as yours does. Whenever those premises are undermined, you inevitably revise any inferences you have made from the emoting. If the emoting stops and people around you clap, you realize it was a piece of street theatre, and the person was only acting out those emotions. Or, if the person has a nasty car accident that breaks open his head, revealing electronic circuitry instead of a brain, you realize that it was only an android and you may conclude that it was only simulating emotions.
A key step in the inference is the premise that the emotion plays a role in the causal loop that produces the outward words and gestures. If, instead, we have established that the observed words and gestures are wholly explained in some other way, without involving those emotions—then the inference collapses. The exterior emoting behavior then ceases to count as evidence for an interior emotional experience. If we know that an actor's words and gestures are scripted, then we cease to regard them as evidence for an inward mental state. Likewise, if we know that the words and gestures of an android or avatar are programmed, then they too cease to support any inference of a mental state.
In an android, or in a software simulation of a human such as an agent, words and gestures are produced by millions of lines of programmed software. The software advances from instruction to instruction in a deterministic manner. Some instructions move pieces of information around inside memory, others execute calculations, others send motor signals to actuators in the body. Each line of code references objective memory locations and ports in the physical hardware. It may do so symbolically, and it may do so via sophisticated data structures, for example, using the tag "vision-field" to reference the stabilized and edge-enhanced data from the eye cams. Nevertheless, nowhere in the software suite does the code break out of that objective environment and refer to the enigmatic contents of consciousness. Nor could the programmer ever do so, since she would need an objective, third-person pointer to the conscious experience—which, being a subjective, first-person thing, cannot be labeled with such a pointer.
Everything that the android says and does is fully accounted for by its software. There is no explanatory gap left for machine consciousness to fill. When the android says, "I see colors and feel emotions just as humans do," we know that those words are produced by deterministic lines of software that functions perfectly well without any involvement of consciousness. It is because of this that the android's emoting does not provide an iota of evidence for any interior mental life. All the outward signs are faked, and the programmer knows in comprehensive detail how they are faked.
This point is systematically ignored by the mathematicians and engineers who enthuse about artificial intelligence. You have to go next door, to the philosophy department, to find people who accord due importance to it. Even if, by some unknown means, the android possessed consciousness, it could never tell us about it. As we have seen, everything the android says is determined by the software. Even if, somewhere in the depths of its circuit boards, there was a ghostly glimmer of conscious awareness or volition, it could never influence what the android says and does.
Could it be that the information in the computer just is the conscious experience? This argument is popular with information engineers, as it seems to allow them to gloss over the whole mind-body problem. It is flawed because information and conscious experience have different logical structures. Namely, information exists only as an artifact of interpretation; but experience does not stand in need of interpretation in order for you to be aware of it. If I give you a disk holding numerical data (21, 250, 11, 47; 22, 250, 15, 39. etc), those numbers could mean anything. In one program, they are meteorological measurements—temperature, humidity, rainfall. In another, they are medical—pulse rate, blood pressure, body fat. The interpretation has no independent reality; the numbers have no inherent meaning by themselves. In contrast, conscious experience is fundamentally different. If you jam your thumb in a door, your sensation does not need first to be interpreted by you as pain. It immediately presents as pain. Nor can you reinterpret it as some other sensation, such as the scent of a rose. Conscious experiences have real, subjectively witnessed qualities that do not depend for their existence on being interpreted this way or that. They intrinsically involve some quality over and above mere information.
Another popular argument is to appeal to "emergence." Higherlevel systems are said to "emerge" from lower-level systems. The simple classic example is that of thermodynamic properties, such as heat and temperature, which emerge from the statistical behavior of ensembles of molecules. Yet the concept of "temperature" just does not exist for an isolated molecule, although billions of those molecules collectively do have a temperature. In like manner, it has been suggested, consciousness emerges from the collective behavior of billions of neurons, which individually could never be conscious on their own. But emergent properties are, in fact, artifacts of how we describe the world, and have no objective existence outside of mathematical theories. An ensemble of molecules may be described in terms of either the trajectories of individual molecules or their aggregate properties, but the latter are invented by human observers for the sake of simplifications. The external reality comprises only the molecules: the statistical properties, such as average kinetic energy, exist only in the mind of the physicist. Likewise, any dynamic features of the aggregate behavior of brain cells exist only in the models of the neuroscientists. The external reality comprises only the brain cells. Yet, as you know, when you jam your humb in the door, the pain is real and present in the moment; it is not a theoretical construct of a brain scientist.
So there are good reasons for believing that machines are not conscious. But—wouldn't these arguments apply equally to brains? Surely a brain is just a bioelectrochemical machine? It obeys deterministic programs that are encoded in the genetic and neural wiring of the brain. Yet, if our argument that machines are not conscious can also apply equally to brains, then the argument must be flawed— since we know that our own brains are indeed conscious!
The answer is that there are certain processes in brain tissue that involve nondeterministic quantum-mechanical events. And, working through the chaotic dynamics of the brain, those minute phenomena can be amplified into overt behavior. The nondeterminism opens a gateway for consciousness to take effect in the workings of the brain.
As we saw earlier, you can report only the conscious experiences that are in the causal loop that gives rise to the speech acts. If you can report that you are in pain, then the pain sensation must exert a causal influence somewhere in the chain of neural events that governs what you say and write. A step that is physically nondeterministic provides a window of opportunity for consciousness to enter into that causal chain. Since we, as humans, know that we do express our conscious perceptions, we can infer that there must be some such nondeterminism somewhere in the brain. So far, quantum-mechanical events constitute the only known candidate for this. For example, Roger Penrose and Stuart Hammeroff have formulated a detailed theory of how quantum actions in the microtubules of brain cells could play this role. The jury is still out on whether the microtubules really are the locus at which consciousness enters the chain of cause and event.
A conventional, deterministic computer has no such gateway into consciousness. So androids, and virtual avatars, that are driven by computers of that kind, cannot express conscious awareness and their behavior therefore can never be evidence for consciousness. But, if a machine were to be built that used quantum computation in the same way that the brain does, then there is no philosophical reason why that machine could not have the same gateway to consciousness that a living being does. This is not because the quantum module lets the machine carry out computations that a classical computer cannot do. Whatever the quantum computer can do, a classical one can also do, albeit more slowly. Rather, it is the specific implementation of the quantum computer that provides the bridge into conscious processes.
In The Matrix, there is no reason to think that the machines are equipped with the kind of quantum computation needed to access consciousness. Quantum computation is not mentioned in the film, and there is circumstantial evidence that the Matrix and its agents are devoid of conscious thought.
Therefore the agents—which are software modules within the Matrix—are intelligent but mindless automata. For the most part, the agents behave unimaginatively, and we might naively think that this corroborates their lack of awareness. Yet, Agent Smith exhibits initiative and seems, in his speech to Morpheus, to evince a conscious dislike of the human world. But is he genuinely conscious, or only mimicking humans? In fact, Smith gives himself away when he says about the human world, "It's the smell, if there is such a thing . . . I can taste your stink and every time I do, I fear that I've somehow been infected by it." Smith's own logical integrity obliges him to doubt the existence of that noncomputable quality that humans talk about: the conscious experience of smell. When Smith says, ". . . the smell, if there is such a thing," he is exhibiting the mark of the automaton. This is corroborated when he then tells Morpheus that he can "taste your stink," revealing that Smith simply does not understand the differentiation of senses in the human mind. For a computer, data are interchangeable, but for a human, tastes, smells, colors, sounds, and feels, are irreducibly different. This fact eludes Agent Smith.
Smith is mimicking human behavior as a tactic to trick Morpheus into cooperation. As the interrogation is getting nowhere, Brown suggests, "Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions." So Smith pretends to talk like a human, to gain Morpheus's empathy. Needless to say, the tactic fails completely.
1. In the oldest form of Buddhism, Theravada, the two major forms of meditation are Vipassana (the Pali word for "insight") and its complement Samatha ("tranquility"). Vipassana consists in systematically attending to the individual elements that make up the contents of consciousness. It involves persistently turning away from the ceaselessly arising tide of chatter in the mind. Over time, the chatter subsides, and preconscious activity becomes more readily observed. Laboratory data support claims that long-term practitioners acquire a conscious awareness of brain microprocesses, possibly down to the cellular level. See Shinzeng Young's works.
2. For an alternative perspective, see Kurzweil's essay in this volume. —Ed.
© 2003 BenBella Books. Published on KurzweilAI.net with permission.
Topics: Quantum | Social Networking/Web | VR/Augmented Reality/Computer Graphics
© 2019 Kurzweil Network | accelerating intelligence —
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text:
Dunfermline West war ein Wahlkreis für das Schottische Parlament. Er wurde 1999 als einer von neun Wahlkreisen der Wahlregion Mid Scotland and Fife eingeführt, die im Zuge der Revision der Wahlkreise im Jahre 2011 neu zugeschnitten wurde und weiterhin neun Wahlkreise umfasst. Hierbei wurde der Wahlkreis Dunfermline West abgeschafft. Er umfasste die Stadt Dunfermline sowie die westlichen Gebiete der Council Area Fife. Die Gebiete des ehemaligen Wahlkreises sind weitgehend in dem neuen Wahlkreis Dunfermline aufgegangen. Bei Zensuserhebung 2001 lebten insgesamt 68.184 Personen innerhalb seiner Grenzen. Es wurde ein Abgeordneter entsandt.

Wahlergebnisse

Parlamentswahl 1999

Parlamentswahl 2003

Parlamentswahl 2007

Einzelnachweise

Ehemaliger Wahlkreis für das schottische Parlament
Wahlkreis (Fife)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


As part of her "12 Days of Giveaways," Ellen DeGeneres decided to do a quick review of actual Thanksgiving recipes from real cookbooks that no one should ever make, including Frozen Cheese Salad, The Shrimp Tree, White Mystery Fruit Cake, and a Candle Salad (i.e. the dirtiest looking dessert ever).
Her main tip? "Never eat anything with the word "mystery" in it." Wise words, Ellen.
Check out her review, and please, unless you hate your family, don't serve them candle salad.


text:
#region copyright

/* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */
/* Carl Zeiss IMT (IZfM Dresden)                   */
/* Softwaresystem PiWeb                            */
/* (c) Carl Zeiss 2016                             */
/* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */

#endregion

namespace Zeiss.PiWeb.Api.Rest.HttpClient.RawData.Filter.Generators
{
	#region usings

	using System;
	using System.Collections.Generic;
	using JetBrains.Annotations;
	using Zeiss.PiWeb.Api.Rest.HttpClient.RawData.Filter.Conditions;

	#endregion

	public class StringConditionGenerator
	{
		#region members

		private readonly StringAttributes _StringAttribute;

		#endregion

		#region constructors

		/// <summary>
		/// Initializes a new instance of the <see cref="StringConditionGenerator"/> class.
		/// </summary>
		public StringConditionGenerator( StringAttributes stringAttribute )
		{
			_StringAttribute = stringAttribute;
		}

		#endregion

		#region methods

		public FilterCondition IsEqual( string value )
		{
			return new StringCompareFilterCondition( _StringAttribute, CompareOperation.Equal, value );
		}

		public FilterCondition IsNotEqual( string value )
		{
			return new StringCompareFilterCondition( _StringAttribute, CompareOperation.NotEqual, value );
		}

		public FilterCondition IsGreater( string value )
		{
			return new StringCompareFilterCondition( _StringAttribute, CompareOperation.Greater, value );
		}

		public FilterCondition IsGreaterOrEqual( string value )
		{
			return new StringCompareFilterCondition( _StringAttribute, CompareOperation.GreaterOrEqual, value );
		}

		public FilterCondition IsLess( string value )
		{
			return new StringCompareFilterCondition( _StringAttribute, CompareOperation.Less, value );
		}

		public FilterCondition IsLessOrEqual( string value )
		{
			return new StringCompareFilterCondition( _StringAttribute, CompareOperation.LessOrEqual, value );
		}

		public FilterCondition IsLike( string value )
		{
			return new LikeFilterCondition( _StringAttribute, value );
		}

		/// <exception cref="ArgumentNullException"><paramref name="values"/> is <see langword="null" />.</exception>
		public FilterCondition IsIn( [NotNull] params string[] values )
		{
			if( values == null )
				throw new ArgumentNullException( nameof( values ) );

			return new StringListFilterCondition( _StringAttribute, ListOperation.In, values );
		}

		/// <exception cref="ArgumentNullException"><paramref name="values"/> is <see langword="null" />.</exception>
		public FilterCondition IsIn( [NotNull] IEnumerable<string> values )
		{
			if( values == null )
				throw new ArgumentNullException( nameof( values ) );

			return new StringListFilterCondition( _StringAttribute, ListOperation.In, values );
		}

		/// <exception cref="ArgumentNullException"><paramref name="values"/> is <see langword="null" />.</exception>
		public FilterCondition IsNotIn( [NotNull] params string[] values )
		{
			if( values == null )
				throw new ArgumentNullException( nameof( values ) );

			return new StringListFilterCondition( _StringAttribute, ListOperation.NotIn, values );
		}

		/// <exception cref="ArgumentNullException"><paramref name="values"/> is <see langword="null" />.</exception>
		public FilterCondition IsNotIn( [NotNull] IEnumerable<string> values )
		{
			if( values == null )
				throw new ArgumentNullException( nameof( values ) );

			return new StringListFilterCondition( _StringAttribute, ListOperation.NotIn, values );
		}

		#endregion
	}
}

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


Curriculum Manager for Computing and Digital Communications City of Bristol College, Soundwell Centre (formerly Soundwell College). Nigel joined the staff at Soundwell in September 1996. Originally trained as an Electronics Engineer, Nigel has been associated with Further Education since 1977. In that time he has also performed a variety of different roles in the Computing Industry. These have included developing database software and a long-term consultancy for the motor trade, software for Rolls Royce Aero Engines Patents Executive and children's school library software. For several years in the early '80s he was a Systems Engineer with ICL and worked on LEO and 2900 mainframe computer systems. More recently he has been involved in the JISC/HEFC Internet bibliographic database JournalsOnline. Nigel has also been a network manager and and UNIX systems administrator and has acted as a networking and IT consultant for a number of organisations., work which he continues to do when time allows.
Nigel was a full-time Lecturer at Brunel College of Arts and Technology (now City of Bristol College) for 13 years, and has taught at South Bristol College and Weston-Super-Mare College.
He does have other interests, including a collection of elderly vhicles and playing the guitar. He likes to write on subjects that interest him, particularly music and transport history, and has written magazine articles and contributions for software design text books. Nigel has recently completed a book on Thomas Tilling for Venture Publications, due to be published in Spring 2007.


text:
Q: Cannot assign "'75f37671bac8'": "Results.patient" must be a "Patient" instance
I'm trying to add a patient to my result form, but it says Cannot assign "'75f37671bac8'": "Results.patient" must be a "Patient" instance.
I tried everything but it seems not change, I'll really appreciate some help. Thanks for your help in advance.
Models.py
class Patient(models.Model):
    uniqueId = models.CharField(null=True, blank=True, max_length=100)
    slug = models.SlugField(max_length=500, unique=True, blank=True, null=True)
    date_created = models.DateTimeField(blank=True, null=True)
    last_updated = models.DateTimeField(blank=True, null=True)

class Results(models.Model):
    title = models.CharField(null=True, blank=True, max_length=100)
    number = models.CharField(null=True, blank=True, max_length=100)
    dueDate = models.DateField(null=True, blank=True)
    status = models.CharField(choices=STATUS, default='CURRENT', max_length=100)
    notes = models.TextField(null=True, blank=True)

    #RELATED fields
    patient = models.ForeignKey(Patient, blank=True, null=True, on_delete=models.SET_NULL)

views.py
if request.method == 'POST':
        doc_form  = DoctorForm(request.POST)
        inv_form = ResultsForm(request.POST, instance=results)
        patients_form = PatientSelectForm(request.POST, initial_patient=results.patient, instance=results)

        if doc_form.is_valid():
            obj = doc_form.save(commit=False)
            obj.results = results
            obj.save()

            messages.success(request, "Results Doctor added succesfully")
            return redirect('create-build-results', slug=slug)
        elif inv_form.is_valid and 'paymentTerms' in request.POST:
            inv_form.save()

            messages.success(request, "Results updated succesfully")
            return redirect('create-build-results', slug=slug)
        elif patients_form.is_valid() and 'patient' in request.POST:

            patients_form.save()
            messages.success(request, "Client added to Results succesfully")
            return redirect('create-build-results', slug=slug)

forms.py
class PatientSelectForm(forms.ModelForm):

    def __init__(self,*args,**kwargs):
        self.initial_patient = kwargs.pop('initial_patient')
        self.PATIENT_LIST = Prescription.objects.all()
        self.PATIENT_CHOICES = [('-----', '--Select a Patient--')]
        for patient in self.PATIENT_LIST:
            d_t = (patient.uniqueId, patient.first_name)
            self.PATIENT_CHOICES.append(d_t)
        super(PatientSelectForm,self).__init__(*args,**kwargs)

        self.fields['patient'] = forms.ChoiceField(
                                        label='Choose a related patient',
                                        choices = self.PATIENT_CHOICES,
                                        widget=forms.Select(attrs={'class': 'form-control mb-3'}),)

    class Meta:
        model = Results
        fields = ['patient']

traceback line
elif patients_form.is_valid() and 'patient' in request.POST:

A: Patient is a related field to Results, when you build your form you are selecting from a drop-down the following:
d_t = (patient.uniqueId, patient.first_name)
This is selecting the uniqueId of the patient, not an actual Patient instance. You need an extra step to create the Patient instance from the uniqueId. So add this code to your form:
    def clean_patient(self):
        c_patient = self.cleaned_data['patient']
        if c_patient == '':
            return None
        else:
            return Patient.objects.get(uniqueId=c_patient)

You need to add it after the class meta, like so:
class Meta:
    model = Results
    fields = ['patient']

def clean_patient(self):
        c_patient = self.cleaned_data['patient']
        if c_patient == '':
            return None
        else:
            return Patient.objects.get(uniqueId=c_patient)

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


We were anxious to see and/or hear how coyotes might respond to the solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 and this wonderful video provides us great insight. It was taken by Rob Keehner near Mt. Jefferson, Oregon at the time of totality. We received a report of similar coyote behavior occurring near Johns Mountain, Georgia. If you heard coyotes howling during the solar eclipse, please let us know about it!


Home » Articles » Bossy: What's Gender Got to Do with It?
The word "bossy" and its link to leadership has been heavily discussed lately due to the Ban Bossy campaign, founded by Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg and backed by world renowned women leaders and luminaries. The campaign argues that from a young age, girls are trained to be quiet and submissive, and when they break these gender norms, they are often criticized, disliked, and called "bossy" — a word that can discourage girls from growing up to be leaders.
In light of this trend and growing interest in the word's impacts, we conducted research on the role of the word in the workplace.
The term isn't a synonym for assertiveness, or other positive executive leadership skills.
Women are called bossy in the workplace more often than men are.
Bossy coworkers are described as unpopular and unlikely to be successful in the future, and bossy women coworkers are seen as more unpopular and less successful compared to bossy men coworkers.
When we look at bossy behaviors — without the label — men are just as likely as women to exhibit bossiness in the workplace.
Acting bossy is related to being seen as less promotable by bosses for both men and women. However, the relationship was stronger for women. Altogether, our results show a consistent trend that bossiness in the workplace has negative consequences, and those consequences are particularly harsh for women.
We found that 33% of women and 17% of men reported that they have received feedback that they are bossy at work. In other words, women were twice as likely to be branded as bossy in the workplace.
Yet, when leaders were asked to recall a time they worked with someone else whom they considered bossy, they were about equally likely to describe a man (48%) or a woman (52%). Men were more likely to describe bossy men coworkers, while women were more likely to describe women coworkers.
Neither bossy women nor men are seen as superstars in their organizations, according to our survey participants. Bossiness damages men's reputations as well as women's reputations, yet we found that it hurts women more.
Do Women Act Bossier than Men Do?
Contrary to what some might believe, we found women don't act bossier than men; this is true whether we look at self-report ratings of bossiness or those reported by direct reports or bosses.
This supports the campaign's argument that women are called bossy for doing the same behaviors as men. Even though women are twice as likely to be called bossy at work, they are not more likely to act that way.
This shows that exhibiting these behaviors is not a feminine trait. If anything, the data showed that men actually exhibited slightly more bossy behaviors compared to women.
For both men and women, bossiness was related to being seen as less promotable by one's boss. Men and women are punished for bossiness in the workplace, but the link between bossiness and being unpromotable was stronger for women.
This means that when women act bossy in the workplace, it has more serious consequences than when men do. This pattern is consistent across our 20 years of data.
In fact, looking at this trend across time, the gender gap is actually widening. Twenty years ago, the relationship between bossiness and not being promotable was about the same for men and women. Today, the relationship is significantly stronger for women than it is for men.
Leaders should make an effort to avoid being bossy at work regardless of gender.
Leaders should be cautious about using the word "bossy" in the workplace.
It's important for leaders to learn and develop strong interpersonal skills.
Men need to focus on their behavior and perception just as much as women do in order to become more effective, and more promotable, leaders.
Dig deeper into our research findings by downloading the full white paper below.
Julia Fernando is an intern in Research, Innovation and Product Development at CCL. Recently graduating from an undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Surrey, UK, Julia is embarking on a career in research in the hopes of entering onto a postdoctoral program in the near future. She has a background in clinical psychology, having worked at Great Ormond Street Hospital for children in London as an assistant psychologist in neurodisability.
Christine Crumbacher did her post-doctoral work serving as an evaluator for CCL's Leadership Beyond Boundaries Program, with a concentration in early leadership development projects such as Ravenscroft School and the Golden LEAF Foundation. She contributed as a design and survey developer as well as champion for youth leadership development. Prior to CCL, Christine worked in the statistics lab housed in the Gladys W. and David H. Patton College of Education at Ohio University.


text:
Jamie McKeogh
Jamie McKeogh grew up in Durrow near Tullamore, Co. Offaly. From a very young age he had a keen in interest in music having been strongly influenced by his mother, a music teacher.
He began taking tuition on guitar and fiddle at five years of age and progressed to playing the banjo and mandolin.
A winner of four All Ireland Titles at Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann, Jamie has also been a member of the Comhaltas tour of Ireland and the UK.
Graduating with a B.Sc. in Physiotherapy from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Jamie has now chosen to pursue a career in music. Along with being a member of JigJam, he has toured worldwide with various groups such as Celtic Legends.
Jamie is well known for his rhythmic guitar playing, vocal versatility and accomplished banjo solos. His influences include John Doyle, Chris Thile and Gerry O'Connor.
Daithi Melia
Daithi Melia hailing from Co. Offaly is a multiinstrumentalist who studied Contemporary Music Performance at the Ballyfermot College of Further Education, During this time he explored various styles and genres of music and honed his skill on the guitar and the 5 string banjo. He performed with many bands of various genres in popular venues throughout Ireland and has since toured around the world with several acts.
Daithi is also a seasoned session musician featuring on various artists' records and has been highly involved in the arrangement and writing process of other singer-songwriter projects. He has created his own unique style of 5 string banjo playing, forging the different stylistic approaches of traditional Irish and Bluegrass music together, while also still adding his own contemporary influences along with jazz and blues.
Cathal Guinan
Cathal Guinan is a fiddle player from a small village in Co. Offaly called Ballyboy. He comes from a musical family that is steeped in Irish traditional music.
Having developed a passion for the music at the young age of four on tin whistle, Cathal's desire moved towards the fiddle and other genres including classical, bluegrass and Americana music.
In addition to playing the fiddle, Cathal has added the guitar, banjo, piano and bass to his repertoire.
Qualified in music production and sound engineering, he has won many accolades over the years including many All-Ireland titles at Fleadh Ceoil na hÉireann. Cathal has shared the stage and performed with artists such as Zoe Conway, Gaelic Storm, Socks in the Frying Pan Sharon Shannon, We Banjo 3, Goitse and many more.
Gavin Strappe
Gavin Strappe was born in South Tipperary and began playing the Tenor Banjo at the age of ten. It was at this stage that Gavin developed a huge passion for Irish music and also began to play Mandolin and Tenor Guitar. This resulted in Gavin enjoying much success at Fleadh Cheol competitions with him winning numerous competitions at county, provincial and All-Ireland level.
At the age of eighteen he became Senior All-Ireland champion on both Mandolin and Tenor Guitar.
In 2009 he commenced a Bachelor of Music degree at DIT National Conservatoire of Music and Drama, graduating in 2013 with First-Class Honours in Music Performance. In 2014 he completed his Post Graduate studies at the University of Limerick and graduated with an honours degree in Music Education.
Gavin has toured extensively around the world with numerous bands and ensembles including shows such as Brú Ború and Celtic Legends as well as headlining numerous North American festivals with JigJam.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


When you walk in, the check-in desk is to your right. There's also a sports bar located on the premise, across the lobby from the front desk. When Crystal and I were checking in, we were greeted with friendly staff. We were also picked (for an unknown reason) as one of their "guests of the day." We got a gift basket as an award (below).
We also happened to stay on a Wine Down Wednesday, which meant they were giving out complimentary glasses of wine in the lobby. It was lovely! Needless to say, Crystal and I took full advantage.
We stayed in one of their Executive King rooms. I booked it the morning of the stay over the phone with little trouble. It cost $115 a night. We stayed one night. And I got over 2,000 IHG Rewards Club points for the stay.
They were in the middle of upgrading some rooms/floors during our stay. I don't know how long the construction will last, but the noise began in the mid-to-late morning and lasted most of the business day.
The hotel has a lovely looking pool. Unfortunately, Crystal and I didn't get a chance to try it out. We'll have to give it a whirl the next time around.
Not only is the hotel in a great spot for driving to different parts of Southwest Florida, it is also within walking distance to several restaurants and bars in the area.
Our stay, though short, was lovely and I'd stay here again. The staff was lovely and easy to deal with, the room was clean, the location was great, and the rate was reasonable. If you're in the Fort Myers area, this should certainly be on your list of potential hotel stays.
Have you ever stayed at this hotel? If so, what did you think?


From patio cooling to poolside cooling, we can help with your outdoor cooling needs. Our outdoor misting systems work wonders in providing gentle relief in warm weather. Using an evaporative cooling system, patio misting systems produce a fine mist of water that cools and refreshes. Evaporative cooling also helps clean the air of harmful pollutants, increasing breathability. Plus, patio misting systems are simple to install, easy to maintain and kind to your budget.
A small spray of water can help lower temperatures of your backyard, sidewalk or barn by as much as 35 degrees. If you're looking for an outdoor cooling system, contact us to find out how one of our many high-quality patio misting systems for sale can serve your patio cooling needs.


Aztec tattoo sign has shown devotion to the nature God for peace and prosperity. It also states the rebirth and afterlife. People ink the Aztec tattoo sign on basically chest, wrist, and stomach to give prayers to the Almighty, the Sun god, considered as the greatest power of all.
It is a contemporary art form, besides its being as fashion symbol. The present Aztec tattoo sign as a face inside the orb is a pictorial depiction of Sun.
It is a humanized tattoo, geometrical in shape with simple and obviously,wonderful visual appeal. The bold lines hold the honest search of divinity behind the figure.


The camp will be staffed by drummer Matt Wilson, trumpeter Michael Philip Mossman, and saxophonist Adam Larson and will be centered around small group performance, composition, and arranging as well as improvisation and general musicianship.
Incoming 8th-12th graders are eligible, and the fee is $200 for Webster Groves students and $275 for those not attending Webster schools.
Thursday night faculty combo concert at 7 pm at Highway 61 Roadhouse in Webster Groves.
Friday night student concert at 7 pm at the Roadhouse.
Students will have the opportunity to work in small-group settings to work with staff, ask questions, and play with fellow students and professionals. Students will be placed into small groups of appropriate ability and have the opportunity to create original compositions and arrangements with staff to be performed at Friday night's concert.


UPDATE #1: This event is an opportunity for us to meet and network with those heading up graduate school programs. As such, the plan for the event is what QS World Grad School Tour (the host of the event) has on the agenda. They approached me with this offer, and I felt it would be a good thing to pass along to our members who might be interested. Just a reminder, I'll be at the entrance of the event with the red flag (1 foot x 1 foot in size) with the word "ACK" on it, from 4:30 – 5:30pm to greet people. Don't forget, to receive free admission, you must follow the instructions listed at the bottom of the event posting!


Cannot write template songs to your music folder.
Make sure your music folder is correctly set up. No template songs will be available in this session.
Set up another folder, could be a permission - write issue.
Now you should see all your Reason Song Templates, if not make new Templates and save them to the Templates folder. Now they will show up in the list in Reason and you can open them up. If you have some how lost all the default Templates let me know and I will upload them for you to download into your Templates folder.
I get the operation could not be completed because of a write problem when looking for this file. Creating new template did not work unless I did it in wrong location?
You can just set up your template (devices etc you wanna start off with) and save it as a normal file in any location. Then just go into reasons preferences and set up your file as the start up template.
Ive never ever saved anything in reasons folder, everything always has been on seperate hd's, including templates and patches.
folks I know there is a way I can store template songs somewhere else but would like to stop this error message from appearing everytime I load reason. Also when I go to file / template songs to get rid of the write error message. Any further tips greatly appreciated.
Why not just reinstall Reason?
The reason you are getting that message is because you have Reason to start with a Template song. Goto Reason/Preferences/Default Song and change it to Empty Song. Then once you have setup your Template Song folder you can than choose one of them to start with.
even doing this I can't get to the template song folder as I get the message "Write Problem - The operation could not be completed because of a write problem"
reported this to Propellerhead a few days ago and they still haven't got back to me and received more support here lol. Tried all suggestions so far unless I'm doing something wrong so appreciate any ideas to stop these error messages?
Finally got a reply back from Propellerheads. Had to phone head office and there support section were not receiving my online communication - hmmm. Email advises I check my music folder located in either my pc or my documents and check if it is not write protected. Not confident that's the answer but will let you know later if that's what causing the problem.
Cool keep us posted. This is the first I have ever heard of this problem.
In the my music folder on the C hard drive I needed to unwrite protect it and this resolved the problem. Thank you to all those that tried to help.
Glad to hear you solved it, thanks for posting how you did it. Now go make some great music and be sure to share it.........that is what it is all about!


Join us for our 4th annual 5-K Boo run. $100.00 to the person that can beat 2016's 1st place run time! The trail run starts in the Campground and goes through the wooded trails. Bring your sunscreen and running shoes! Early entry fee is $30, day of event is $35 and start time is 10:30 am. Every paid entry will receive a tush towel! Enjoy the run and stay all day for one fee! There will be a potluck dinner and music in the evening. Bring your tent or camper and enjoy the resort. Limited rentals are available but will fill up fast so please call 850-910-1494 to make your reservation early.
Nov. 10-12 free resort admission for all U.S. & Canadian veterans and active or reserve military. Fundraiser for Tampa Crossroads Athena House aiding homeless female veterans. Veterans' parade and honor ceremony on Saturday Veterans' Day. Live music Friday thru Sunday. Charity Silent Auction Saturday and Sunday. Charity Golf Scramble Sunday. Vendors.


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Building a Strong Solar Industry to Power America
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JACKSON, MS and WASHINGTON, D.C. — Yesterday, the Mississippi Public Service Commission (PSC) released its updated Net Metering and Interconnection Rules. The new rules expand the net metering program, improve total compensation rates for solar customers, and prioritize solar adoption for low-to-moderate income (LMI) customers.
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Carbon Nation – Mine's A Guinness!
SC – Okay. We're a few days in now. Obviously there's a lot longer to go. How's it going so far?
Wes – Good! Just a lot of concentration.
SC – More so than when you were doing the Deadwing shows?
Wes – Yeah and I thought the Deadwing stuff required a lot of concentration, but this seems to require even more! I know personally I'm trying to do some things that I wasn't doing the last time we played a bunch of this material so I'm kind of pushing myself, getting more sounds, trying to do some singing and playing things that I didn't do last time. Just really pushing it. So for me the concentration factor is way up.
SC – Eight months ago you did play virtually all of the new stuff. In a way I'd have thought it would have been slightly easier?
Wes – There's one really tough new track and then the amount of material that we worked up just seems to be taking a toll on the memory banks a bit. We actually worked up more than we're doing and we're rotating it in and out. Like I said on each track I'm really trying to do more and be really be more efficient, just do more.
SC – Cover more ground?
Wes – Cover more ground yeah. Really trying to do that with everything so the concentration level goes way up. It's tough. I don't find any point in the show where I really relax. Every minute is just real concentration.
SC – Which are the hardest songs to play?
Wes – Well physically none of it. Physically all of it is very achievable, but when I start introducing some new sound changes that I wouldn't have taken a chance on last tour, combined with maybe a vocal part here and there that I wouldn't have done last tour, then that combination makes it tough, but the guitar playing itself there's nothing that I'm doing that is challenging. Well it's all challenging, but there's nothing that I'm doing that isn't do-able. There's nothing tougher than anything else. Just a lot of concentration and playing more in tune and more in time. Where it becomes difficult is when I try and push it to a level of, not perfection because you can't really achieve perfection, but I really try and push the envelope on how good it can be and combine all the elements. Then they all become really tough. Every song I look at and it's like, you know, that's just as tough, if not tougher, than the one before. It's personal more than anything.
Wes – …and unfortunately when you set yourself up like that every now and then you trip a bit, but if you're not pushing yourself you're complacent. I'm trying a lot. I'm taping myself every night. I've got an MP3 recorder that sits in front of my guitar amp. I'm taping myself. I'm going over the shows every night trying to fix things that I don't like, tweak sounds, tweak issues and keep a log of the areas that I was struggling with. These are things that no-one's going to notice except me. These are things that I notice so I want it to be a certain level. For me this tour is all the way round a lot more concentration oriented just because I'm just trying to push it.
SC – You seem to have drawn the short straw in tackling Alex Lifeson's solo in Anesthetize. Is that a tricky one to play?
Wes – It is. I love it. I was just really glad when I got it because he gave me some real hooks to play with. The two chord changes that happen only appear in one mode, the A harmonic minor thing, they only really appear in that key and he comes blasting out with the A harmonic minor tag right in the opening riff. The challenge is after he's come out with that tag is to keep it somewhat interesting and reference that throughout the solo and then sometimes you can treat the D minor as its own key and try, but when you get to that E you've got to play the A harmonic minor riff. The trick for me is to make it interesting and not give away the juice of that A harmonic minor riff. I think night to night it's been pretty consistent. It's different every night, but I think the consistency is there.
SC – How did those sessions go? Where you happy to be involved?
Wes – Oh I was thrilled to be involved with it. Steve came over and he didn't bring a guitar. He said, "you've got guitars" and I said "yes I do!" I got to set up my dream amp rig, all my favourite combination of amps, pedal board, all the guitars and it was smooth as silk. Mark was engineering, he's really fast. Steve knows what he wants so he would tell me what he wanted and then I would dial it in on the amps and the effects and pick the guitars and he would say yes or no and it was sooth, really smooth and fun.
SC – So you were 'guitar production'?
Wes – Absolutely. Hence the way it is credited on the record. It was fantastic. We got done a day early.
SC – How long did it take?
Wes – Four days of guitar tracking and then we did an afternoon of vocal tracking.
SC – You're credited with vocals on the album. Which tracks are you featured on?
Wes – That's a good question! I'm all over. We just banged out a bunch of them. So what actually got used and what didn't I don't know.
SC – I'll have to give the 5.1 another listen because it expands it out a bit.
Wes – They're very layered and also when I do background vocals I really try and get as close to his voice as I can. Basically I think a lot of the parts I do live I did on the record, but you never know. Steve gets in there and you know he'll hear something we might have done or might have not done, he'll make a change on it and then the line that I might have sang against won't work any more and so he will have re-done it. I did a lot. A day's worth of vocal tracking.
SC – It's coool that you're involved in the recording process as well.
Wes – It was a blast. I really enjoyed it and we had a good time. It was such a relaxed atmosphere 'cos Mark, Steve and I have worked together before when Steve mixed Shiver and we just have a blast. I think that's one of the reasons why Steve came to Florida to do it. He gets the sounds he likes and the atmosphere he likes.
SC – I believe you've been over on the West Coast studying guitar recently. What's this all about?
Wes – Yeah. I did a college degree in guitar and I graduated in 1984, but it was mostly classical and I didn't get the depth of guitar knowledge that I really wanted. So throughout my whole career I've always taken lessons and always wanted to go to The Musician's Institute of Los Angeles. I wanted to go there since I was like 16 years old. During the last tour my wife and I were at the LA show and we walked down the street and all of a sudden there it was. We both looked up at it and I was like "wooooh" and she goest "this is the place you always wanted to go to isn't it?" and I said "yeah". And then we wondered on a bit and we were having a coffee across the street from it and she said "why don't you just call them and see if they do a little programme" and I said "well they do do 3 month things" so I gave them a call and they were like "we've got one running from January to March" and we just decided within a week that it was something we wanted to do. I just wanted to take my playing to a new level, a new place. You know will it be obvious on a gig like this, I don't know, but you know personally it's already way obvious. It was huge. It was a fantastic experience. Some of the teachers there are just amazing. I go the whole LA experience. I did a lot of writing with some people. I mean it went way better than I could have expected. It was just positive on every front. Which also leads me to trying to push myself more on stage.
SC – So you lived out there for 3 months?
Wes – Yeah. Becka came out with me and she worked from the apartment, 'cos as long as she has a computer on-line she can work.
SC – Was it good to get out of your normal environment?
Wes – Absolutely. It was fantastic. It was just an immensely qualitative experience.
SC – When I first heard about it I thought he knows how to play guitar is this somebody winding me up!
Wes – Well you know the teachers at the school, the majority of them are LA session guys. You're going to find these guys on some commercials, some of them play with some of your favourite artists, and some of them are just amazing players so it was really a great experience.
SC – I don't think we've ever asked you this before – who are your influences as a guitarist?
Wes – First and foremost it would be like Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton. Eric Clapton was my first real guitar influence. I think I was 13 or 14 when I stumbled on a couple of Cream records in a garage sale and that was huge. Then I got Eric Clapton's Greatest Hits and it had Bell Bottom Blues on it and that just blew me away. Then I went through a big Steve Howe phase. All through college it was Steve Howe and then after that it was Jeff Beck, Dave Gilmour.
SC – All the Brits really!
Wes – Yeah. God, that's crazy! When I was 15 it was Ace Frehely from Kiss. I grew out of that pretty quick! Discovered Eric and it was like Ace who? I never really got into the shredders that much. It's not that I don't respect them, but don't really listen to it.
SC – Is there anyone around who you rate currently?
Wes – All kinds of people. Kenny Wayne Shepherd's amazing. My favourite right now without a doubt is Warren Haynes from Gov't Mule. Warren Haynes is one of the most musical players out there right now. If there's one guitar player I listen to more than anyone right now it's Warren Haynes. Actually it's kind of funny but I've been transcribing some Hendrix and the Allman Bros Live at the Filmore. I've got this programme on my computer that allows me to slow down tunes and really get in there and figure out some of the riffs. That's who I've been transcribing lately.
SC – Now I recently saw on MySpace that you've been out riding motorbikes with Neil Peart.
Wes – That would have been his site! Actually I did just put a picture up on mine. That was fun.
SC – How did that all come about?
Wes – Well Becka and I ride and when I was out touring with Marillion as the opening act on the Marbles tour, I met a guy who was to become the editor for Motorcycles Magazine, Brian Catterson, who had also ridden and written a feature article on Neil as a rider. Brian introduced me to Michael who is the security team leader for Rush and Neil's riding partner. Michael loves Porcupine Tree and he's a drummer and he loves Gavin's playing and the whole band and him and I just hit it off and so we always talked about riding together and for about a year it just never happened. One day I just got a phone call from Michael saying "we're going Thursday, tell Brian to get you a bike!" So I called Brian and as Brian is the editor of the biggest motorcycle magazine in the States he had a whole pen full of bikes! He said "I've got a couple of KTM's downstairs, brand new test bikes, let's take them for a ride". So we met Neil and Michael and another friend of Neil's down on the Pacific Coast highway and we went riding on some of the most amazing roads in the Santa Monica hills. It was fantastic. It was just a great day. We talked less about music and more about bikes!
SC – So what about future releases? When are we going to hear another album?
Wes – You know it'll be early next year. I wrote a lot of songs in LA. Whether I use any of them or not, but the writing process got cranked up again in LA. I hadn't been writing for a long time, just ben concentrating on other things and something in LA triggered it and I was writing for other artists. I was writing for myself, so I wrote 10 tunes when I was in LA. You know that really started the process again.
SC – So how's that going to emerge in the future. Are you going to do download or get some CDs pressed up?
Wes – I will always have CDs pressed up I think. You can do it fairly inexpensively. Some people really like to have it. But I'll do it on my own. I won't do it with an advance from a record company. Just do it independently and try and get some distribution. There's a company in New York that'll distribute it for me. I just need to put it together and do it and hopefully I can get Steve on board to mix again 'cos as a mixing producer or whatever he just has some of the best and most honest ears of anyone I've ever worked with. He really looks at the song and brings the elements within the song to life. It's great. I was really happy with the way he approached Shiver and I hope we can do it again.
SC – We'll look out for that. I notice you've alway got a Guinness on stage with you. Is this your first choice of beer?!
Wes – It is my absolute first choice of beer!
SC – Did you drink that back home before you started touring over in Europe?
Wes – No, when I was touring with Fish I developed a taste for it.
Wes – Funny heh?! I developed a taste for it with the Fish gang. He got me into the 70 Shilling when we were in Scotland and then it got into heavier beers and then wen I'm in Germany I love the Weissen beer. It's hard to get that on stage though. The Guinness is easier. Every now and again Colin and I will go in search of a Weissen beer in Germany. Hefeweissen. I love that and then at home I drink Guinness almost exclusively. I hunt it down.
SC – Ideally then you'd be looking for a sponsorship deal with Guinness!
Wes – Absolutely! May be get them to wrap the bus! That's what we want and a free crate. It's funny 'cos I only drink one during the gig and I might bring a second out for the encores and then I might have one at the end of the night, so it's never a lot, but it's nice to have one during the show. I really like a drink during the show.


Faster than a speeding robot, able to bend rebar with the whack of a sledgehammer, Woodie Flowers is on a mission to promote hands-on engineering education.
Woodie Flowers, SM '68, ME '70, PhD '72, aims to fill the world with supernerds. He's not just talking about the kids at the top of their math class. Supernerds, he says, are "people who know a lot about a lot, who think hard and creatively, who love continuing to learn." He wants them in politics and hospitals, as economists and engineers, using what they know to make educated decisions that change the world. And as someone who owns and operates a boom lift at home, studies Einstein in his spare time, and champions reforms in engineering education, Flowers sets a compelling example for them.
The Neil and Jane Pappalardo Professor Emeritus of Mechanical Engineering, Flowers is legendary for his redesign of 2.70, MIT's sophomore introduction to design course (now known as 2.007), as well as for his leadership in developing the FIRST Robotics Competition for high-school students. He has attended trapeze school, designed and built his own rig for a photographic expedition in Costa Rica, played polo, won a New England Emmy Award, and gone skydiving, hang gliding, scuba diving, and race-car driving. He and his wife paint together, taking art supplies when they travel, and they've been renovating their home in Weston, Massachusetts, for 30 years.
The son of a schoolteacher and an inventor in Jena, Louisiana, Flowers learned the power of hands-on experimentation early. When his uncle gave him a beat-up 1947 Dodge sedan in high school, he promptly told his father, Abe Flowers—a welder and repairman as well as an inventor—that he couldn't use the car in that condition. "I didn't have anything to date in," he explains.
So he told his dad he planned to make a hot rod out of it. Abe said, "Okay, Scooter, if you wanna do that, I'll help you. But if you start it, you gotta finish it." That was a "short statement that was a big lesson," Flowers recalls. By his senior year, all that was left from the original car were the back axle and part of the frame—and he had the only hot rod in town.
"I learned as much engineering from my father as I did in engineering school," he says.
Growing up poor, Flowers actually had no plans for college at first. "I was going to get a job in an oil field and buy a Corvette," he says. Instead, one of his high-school teachers steered him toward a college scholarship for handicapped students (Flowers fell out of a pecan tree in second grade and broke his elbow, and to this day his arm won't straighten). He applied, won, and decided it was an opportunity he couldn't turn down.
When he finished his degree at Louisiana Polytechnic Institute, Flowers thought it was finally time for the Corvette. But his department head suggested he apply to graduate school. He did. MIT was another opportunity he couldn't turn down, so he gave up on the Corvette again.
At MIT he got married, survived heart surgery, and dealt with his father's sudden death from a heart attack. As he was finishing his master's in mechanical engineering, he got a job offer from an oil company. By then he wanted a Porsche, he says. But his mentors egged him on. He took the PhD qualifying exam, passed, and decided to stay at MIT. When he was invited to join the MIT faculty in 1972, he took that offer, too—and today he drives a Honda Pilot.
Looking back on the first 22 years of his life, Flowers says, "The only deliberate decision I made was asking Margaret to marry me, and I nailed that one … but I think I was being swept along. Everybody was slapping me on the back saying, 'Go that way, Woodie.' " And he did.
When Flowers first dove into the 2.70 Introduction to Design class as a teaching assistant in 1970, its inaugural year, students were given "creativity kits" and told to make something useful out of things like paper clips, cardboard, screws, bolts, and bits of wire and string. But Flowers noticed that they spent almost the whole time trying to figure out what to do. Then, the night before the project was due—in "the typical MIT cram," he says—they would finally design and build their contraptions.
Flowers lobbied for a change, suggesting that the students be given a specific task so they could spend the bulk of their time actually practicing design. His wish was granted, and the next year's students were told to build something that would go down a 30° ramp in three minutes.
That project marked the genesis of the 2.70 contest, Flowers says, and it was a smashing success. He eventually took over the course and "grew up with 2.70," during which time the contest was filmed for the PBS series Discover: The World of Science. Kits became more sophisticated, with motors and gearboxes, and the assigned tasks grew more complex. The contest became so popular as a spectator sport that a 1981 letter to the editor in the Tech called for MIT's homecoming queen to be crowned at the 2.70 contest.
Another fundamental principle that grew out of the 2.70 contest, Flowers says, was the notion of "gracious professionalism." "Students would compete like crazy but treat each other nicely in the process," he explains. Although he's cautious about overusing the term, he emphatically supports the notion of sharing ideas while competing. In fact, he told one student's mother that if he'd had a daughter and she had behaved as graciously as her daughter did when she lost the final round of her 2.70 contest, he and his wife would have been proud.
That student, Krisztina "Z" Holly '89, SM '92, went on to found MIT's Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation and became vice provost for innovation at the University of Southern California and executive director of the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation. But as an undergraduate considering majoring in Course II, Holly says, "the only thing holding me back was that I was terrified of 2.70 … that I'd have to take a box of parts and turn it into a robot." She decided to close her eyes and jump in anyway. Even though she lost the contest, she won a lifelong mentor. She still meets with Flowers to develop ideas on innovation and education. "He has an amazing way of making bonds with people he believes in," she says.
In 1992, when Flowers joined forces with inventor Dean Kamen to design a contest for high-schoolers, they applied the principles of design-by-doing and gracious professionalism to create the FIRST Robotics Competition—"2.70 on steroids." Now in its 20th season, the contest has expanded from 28 teams in a high-school gym to more than 2,000 teams from nine countries. FIRST has turned a former gang member into a NASA employee, saved a Cleveland high school from being closed, and brought thousands of students and mentors together to build robots, nurturing countless future engineers and leaders in the process. "FIRST is unambiguous evidence that if you create the right environment where the right things are celebrated, you get the right stuff," Flowers says.
In his ideal world, students wouldn't sit in thermodynamics lectures at college but would be told, "Thermodynamics is really important; learn it while you're here." Flowers says, "I'm not interested in training people. If it's codified, if it's known, if it's noncontroversial … if it's written down in a hundred books, go learn it!" Students who, as he puts it, "accept the responsibility to train themselves" would study core subjects on their own time—a bit like learning Adobe Photoshop through tutorials rather than in a classroom. Then, he suggests, they could take weekly quizzes in their last two years of college to show that they've absorbed the material.
Half a century ago, Edward Lorenz, SM '43, ScD '48, overthrew the idea of the clockwork universe with his ground-breaking research on chaos. Now MIT professors are working to establish a climate research center in his name.
As an early crusader for social change, Katharine Dexter McCormick, Class of 1904, opened new opportunities for women at MIT and beyond.