I think that one of the best ways for a fan to express themselves is through a personal license plate. I have an Isaac Asimov themed plate, and my wife has one dedicated to The Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan. Yesterday my mother-in-law was riding in her car when her husband spotted one of the coolest license plates ever with a decal above it to match. AT-AT is the perfect license plate befitting a true Star Wars fan. She promptly posted it on her blog, which was forwarded to me by my wife via StumbleUpon. I had to get the full story from the source, and when I did she said she’d send me all 3 pictures. Here they are…
Back in 2000, I heard of a new Star Wars MMORPG that would come out sometime in the new future. I knew immediately that I would play the game, soon to be called Star Wars Galaxies. I was accepted into Beta 3 and played from that time until I quit at the end of 2005 following the New Game Enhancements “upgrade.” Sometime around 2005 or a little after, there were rumors of a new Star Wars MMO. This was to eventually become Star Wars: The Old Republic by Bioware, announced in 2008. I was not ready for a new MMO but nevertheless I signed up for the news. I’ve been following it rather loosely ever since.
I managed to get into the beta stress test last weekend and played two different characters. First off, the game intro movie was awesome. It was very well done and I have to say it gave me some of the same chills as the original movies did. There is also an additional movie depending on whether or not you pick the Sith Empire or Galactic Republic. Here is a mashup of all 3 videos.
Tonight with my wife, I watched an interesting episode of Nova titled “The World’s Smartest Machine.” Romantic, right? You can tell we are a couple of geeks at heart. Being a huge fan of Asimov and his robot creations, I am continually amazed at the progress of robotics and artificial intelligence. As a kid I was playing chess as early as the 3rd grade. I’ve always thought of myself as a pretty good chess player. When I heard about a computer that supposedly could beat a world champion chess player, I was intrigued. Garry Kasparov battled IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer in 1996 and won, however he eventually lost a rematch in 1997. Well, IBM is back at it, this time taking on Jeopardy. Nova takes us behind the scenes with the developers of “Watson,” the next step in AI. I was disappointed when the episode ended and it didn’t say who won. I didn’t realize until logging on PBS.org that the contest actually was taking place while I was watching Nova (on my media center PC). After some frantic Google searches, I eventually came across a Twitter feed with a link to a Youtube posting of the episode. This was not quite 2 hours after the episode aired! Isn’t technology great? I expect the Youtube post to be served a DMCA take down, so watch it soon if you plan on it. In addition to the episode at the end of this post, I’ve embedded the Nova preview and an humorous parody of the challenges Watson overcame during his development. I suggest watching the Nova episode first. If you are at all interested in AI, you must check these out!
There are two more nights to the match, airing Tuesday February 15th, and Wednesday the 16th. Be sure to check them out, along with some live blogging on PBS.org. I find myself rooting for Watson, not because I want to see humans defeated, but because I want to see humans capable of making something smart enough to do it. Who do you think will win? Who do you want to win?
First of all, I’ve never read the novel this movie is based on, so this review only refers to the movie. I might do a comparison when I read the book some time in the future. From what I’ve read, this version is just a reflection of what is in the book. With that said, I really did enjoy the movie. (more…)
