Awful thing of the day

via Buzzfeed.

Reason number 592 that scientists need to read more science fiction

The Independent has this:

"Scientists say they've made a breakthrough in their pursuit of computers that "think" like a living thing's brain - an effort that tests the limits of technology. Even the world's most powerful supercomputers can't replicate basic aspects of the human mind. The machines can't imagine a wall painted a different colour, for instance, or picture a person's face and connect that to an emotion. If researchers can make computers operate more like a brain thinks - by reasoning and dealing with abstractions, among other things - they could unleash tremendous insights in such diverse fields as medicine and economics. And also enslave us all to use our livers as a power source. A computer with the power of a human brain is not yet near. So they want you to believe. But this week researchers from IBM are reporting that they've simulated a cat's cerebral cortex, the thinking part of the brain, using a massive supercomputer. The computer has 147,456 processors (most modern PCs have just one or two processors) and 144 terabytes of main memory - 100,000 times as much as your computer has. The scientists had previously simulated 40 per cent of a mouse's brain in 2006, a rat's full brain in 2007, and 1 per cent of a human's cerebral cortex this year, using progressively bigger supercomputers. The latest feat, being presented at a supercomputing conference in Portland, Oregon, doesn't mean the computer thinks like a cat, or that it is the progenitor of a race of robo-cats. So they want you to belive. The simulation, which runs 100 times slower than an actual cat's brain, is more about watching how thoughts are formed in the brain and how the roughly one billion neurons and 10 trillion synapses in a cat's brain work together."

If you want a science cat, this one makes more sense. And it's cuter than a robo-cat:

Today's sermon

As you all know, I like to keep up on new Bible thought and theory. Thanks to the ever-lasting glory of everythingisterrible.com, I just encountered Arnold Murray and just couldn't wait to share his wisdom.

Selma Blair is the most talented woman in the world

Boobs, bras and Dita

I can't decide if this ad for Wonderbra's new Dita von Teese line is deeply offensive or fun/campy. It's clearly too early in the week to have any kind of opinion on this sort of stuff. I'm leaning towards fun/campy, though.