AlphaGo

Weiqi, better known in the west by its Japanese name, Go, is the oldest game of pure skill in existence and is older by far than all variants of chess. Though it's been years since chess players could stand a chance against computer chess programs — World Champion Garry Kasparov lost to IBM's Deep Blue in 1997 —  it's only recently that computer programs have begun to establish dominance in Go.

Dumphik Wakes Up One Morning

What I worry about is this: Dumphik wakes up one morning on the wrong side of a twitter feed.

Melania looks at him funny. She calls him Trumpledumple and pulls his ears. He tells her to go get a name change, since Melania reminds him of melanoma, which, if she didn't know it, due to the bimbo effect known to afflict Slovenian ex-models, is the kind of bad cancer you can get from the sun. Donwald likes the sun. He'd like to own if not the sun than at least a share, a slice, a solar flare. He'd like to build a casino for all the planets to see.

Against Impeachment.

About Trump being impeached, let me say, strategically thinking, I'm opposed. Let's keep Dumpf where he is, contending with his own shit and endlessly, helplessly generating more of it.

A Kiosk

There's meeting tonight — 5/11/17 — ­at Cambridge City Hall in which a petition will be presented to the city council pushing for landmark designation for the Harvard Square Kiosk.

I won't be at that meeting. To put it bluntly, long-term Cambridge resident that I am, I don't much care what happens to the kiosk. Some years back, Out of Town News, which has been housed in the kiosk, was an essential stopping point for getting periodicals from all over the world, on all sorts of topics. These days, that function is superseded by the Internet.

Thank You Paul Krugman

It turns me on that Paul Krugman says the following in his most recent NY Times op-ed ("What's the Matter With Europe?" 5/5/17):

On Sunday France will hold its presidential runoff. Most observers expect Emmanuel Macron, a centrist, to defeat Marine Le Pen, the white nationalist -- please, let's stop dignifying this stuff by calling it "populism."

Thank you Paul Krugman for refusing to cede without  argument the term "populism" to what may be a noxious mix of revanchism, racism, misbegotten protectionism, misogyny, woeful ignorance, and yes, rank nationalism. I said, may be. But thank you Paul Krugman for bringing it up.

And thank you NY Times for continuing to give the invaluable Paul Krugman his platform. I know that many people think the Times putting climate change denier/doubter Bret Stephens on the editorial page is a shame. About that, I agree. But some go on from there to assert the entire Times editorial page is a sham.

How ignorant, silly and wrong.