Don't worry, the machines won't take over, there isn't time.

Today we are going to discuss artificial intelligence. It is a term that carries a lot of freight. Fiction is rife with examples of AI going sour.  HAL in 2001 A Space Odyssey not only decides to kill his human shipmates he also wipes up the chess board with one of them. Not cool Hal, not cool.

And who can forget Ash from Alien?  He tried to kill Sigourney Weaver, one of the toughest, most handsome, female space trucking conglomerate employees of all time. He probably would have succeeded too, had it not been for the timely intervention of Yaphet Kotto (who is, believe it or not, 75 years old this year (2015)). Thank you, Yaphet, you really saved the movie, there. Yes, we know Ash also tried to bring that awful alien thing back to Earth, but he was just doing his job, just following orders, nothing he could really do about that. It's a living and we all have to eat.  Besides, it turns out Predators had already stocked the Polar Ice Cap with hundreds of the damn things. Predators really are jerks, you know?

Skynet from terminator, another example of AI gone a little too far.  All those robots from I Robot, they got a little carried away, who knows what would have happened had it not been for Will Smith. This was after he helped save us from those creepy alien capitalists in Independence Day. That guy deserves some sort of award.

Has Artificial Intelligence received a lot of bad press, or are we all doomed to be strangled in our sleep by the the charger cables that give life to our phones, our preciousses?  We don't know.

We programmed a learning algorithm into our new computer, (a Microsoft Surface Pro 3, with attached keyboard) added the personality traits from one of the teachers at the local high school, and ran simulations using the latest issues of several magazines reporting on computers and electronics.  We focused mostly on "Nuts, and Volts" and "Maximum PC" because they had the coolest names.

After running multiple scenarios for several days, comparing the results, adjusting for every conceivable variable, and comparing the results using parameters weighted by probability it came to an answer.

It made us sit in the front row, and comb our hair, then said.  "Look around the world, it is a mess. You should be so lucky to have to worry about a machine revolution."

Then it made us spit out our gum, sit up straight, and stay after school and write "I will not destroy the planet" fifty times on the chalkboard.

Now that we have an answer we can all sleep a lot easier.  As soon as detention is over.

Aliens, Predators, Elected Officials, and Rock and Roll.

Recently I was watching Predator with my son.  I think it was the first time he had seen this modern classic.  My sister loaned him Alien vs. Predator when he was young and it had a profound affect on him.  He wanted to be a Predator when he grew up.

He asked me, after watching the aliens battle the predator, which I thought was better.  I told him the aliens were obviously better, they only killed as a method of advancing the species.  True, they were monstrous, destructive, salivating nightmares, but it was a biological imperative that drove them to their behavior.  While the predator killed because he could, just for fun.

Being a child he was not impressed by Darwinian reasoning.  He was impressed by the extravagant, sophisticated weaponry that the predator carried.  When I explained to him that despite bristling with an advanced, technical armory the predator could defeat neither Arnold Schwarzenegger, (Should I call him Governor Schwarzenegger) nor Danny Glover (though, in all fairness he did manage to kill Gary Busey, pre-accident version, but so did Mel Gibson), he was unmoved.

But, that is not what I am here to talk about today.  I am here to discuss the real star of the first Predator movie.  Little Richard.  When the helicopter was flying low, through the jungle, and Jesse Ventura, (should I call him Governor Ventura?) was rocking out with "Long Tall Sally" you knew the movie deserved some sort of award.  Maybe, best Jungle Helicopter Flight Soundtrack.

So, I toast the Alien, the Predator, the Governors, but mostly you, Little Richard, you are a rock and roller in the finest sense of the word.  By the way, you can get the "Very Best of Little Richard" on Amazon.com for only $5.99.

Here you go, dig it, daddy.

Even the Predator loves Little Richard.

Good news, maybe.

Here is something that is very difficult to catalog.  Should this be filed under "Good News," or "Bad News."  It is a little like finding out the Monster Under the Bed ate the Monster From the Closet, while it is true that there is one less monster in the room, now there is a monster under the bed that is able to eat other monsters.  

According to one highly placed source in the shipping department, (who requested anonymity, as he thinks this blog is a huge waste of time) "this is not good news, because I never have any bats bothering me, but, there are always a bunch of spiders creeping around."

It might be time to seriously consider colonizing space.

Unless you're in Antarctica, you may have seen none other than a bat-eating spider. (Yes, that's right folks!) A new study released on March 13 that surveyed scientific journals, blogs and even Flickr accounts for them showed that they're a growing phenomenon across every continent, except for the aforementioned, Antarctica. Fifty-two incidents, to be exact, were found of spiders munching on bats-an animal with few other natural enemies, and researchers are concluding that spiders consume bats more frequently than previously thought.

According to UPI.com, while most incidents involved web-building spiders in the tropics and warmer climates, the scientists also reported an "attempt by a large fishing spider Dolomedes triton (Pisauridae) to kill a bat pup...below a bridge in Indiana."

In other incidences, orb-weaving spiders have been known to block the entrances to bat caves in southeast Asia and the tropics.

Huntsmans and tarantulas -- spiders that hunt for their prey rather than waiting for them to fly into a web -- have been spotted eating small bats that have fallen to the ground.

Spiders (order Araneae) are air-breathing arthropods that have eight legs and chelicerae with fangs that inject venom. They are the largest order of arachnids and rank seventh in total species diversity among all other groups of organisms.^[1] Spiders are found worldwide on every continent except for Antarctica, and have become established in nearly every habitat with the exception of air and sea colonization.

Save when you can!