Sunday, September 18, 2016

Sunday, September 18, 2016

Good morning world, it's a brand-new day! 

Bonnie and Roger had a great day drinking Belhaven at the Tulsa Scottish festival. 
Damn! I missed a party! LOL. I have great memories of my 2011 Scotfest with Bonnie. It looks like a very good time was had! Yes, I'm jealous! It was laundry and crafts here today for me. 

What would happen if we suddenly had a new candidate for the 2016 presidential election? Have you heard of Watson?
The Watson 2016 Foundation is an independent organization formed for the advocacy of the artificial intelligence known as Watson to run for president of the United States of America. (Really!) It is their belief that Watson's unique capabilities to assess information and make informed and transparent decisions defines it as an ideal candidate for the job responsibilities required by the president. (What? No Orange Orangatan slinging mud at Pantsuit Wonder Woman?) LOL

Who/what is Watson? Watson is a system of computer software processes used for answering questions posed in natural language, initially developed by IBM for the quiz show Jeopardy! Watson compiles information from a variety of sources into multiple terabytes of data used as reference for generating responses. The more information Watson is able to consume, the more information it's decision-making capabilities become. Watson is also capable of accepting information from any resource, allowing the possibility to analyze different perspectives and political agendas on a particular subject. 

So, Watson marks a shift in machine learning in that it was designed to compete against humans using natural language. It must possess both accuracy of answer as well as speed. It must understand a question, use key information elements in the question to analyze an immense wealth of data, and derive the top candidates for answers. This is a task all politicians undergo on a daily basis, including the president, and could be more suitably and efficiently executed by artificial intelligence. (Unfortunately, Watson is not on this year's ballot.) Haha! 

Imagine how wonderful Watson could be assisting doctors with diagnosis of deadly diseases. The University of Tokyo doctors reported that the artificial intelligence diagnosed a 60-year-old woman with a rare form of leukemia that had been incorrectly identified (by doctors) months earlier. The analytical machine took just 10 minutes to compare the patient's genetic changes with a database of 20 million cancer research papers, delivering an accurate diagnosis and leading to proper treatment! Watson also identified another rare form of leukemia in 2nd patient, the University said. 

It'll likely take a long while before Watson and other AI systems are regularly providing advice to hospitals, and it won't be all that useful in situations without readily comparable data. This diagnosis showed just how useful the technology could be in the medical world. Human doctors wouldn't have to spend ages sifting through research to identify an obscure disease! The doctor would just plug in the right data and start the healing process. (Amazing, right?) (I think we're probably a ways off from this, but Watson has proven itself over and over again.) Anyway, it's something to think about on this Sunday morning, well, other than the overnight news ... two bombs in New York and one in New Jersey, and stabbings at a Minnesota mall. >:-( Fortunately, there were no deaths in the Manhattan incident, (29 injured.) In Seaside Park, New Jersey, a Marine Corps charity run was interrupted by an explosion in a trashcan. Fortunately, no one was injured. In Minnesota, seven people were stabbed by a man, dressed in a private security company uniform, before an off-duty officer shot and killed the attacker. (Be aware of your surroundings and stay sharp!)


Mark spent his day trimming our palm trees and tidying the landscape. 

I think that's a lot of debris! He came in totally soaked ... 91 today! The Scotties found it a great day to relax inside with rawhides and ice cubes! Smart dogs!

Sue and Wayne went to Carol & Jack's for dinner tonight. Nice. We hope Jack is feeling better after a recent MRI. Fingers crossed. 

Ray Donovan is on Telly tonight. If you haven't seen it, it's rather a family documentary like the Sopranos. That's it for tonight. 

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