Irina Bock is a Silicon Valley-based designer known for creating the Google Android logo. During this pandemic period she started drawing cartoons that highlight how our lives have changed during the pandemic and shared them on Instagram. For those of us who don’t have that social channel, you can find a collection of some of her cartoons here. Here is a sample of one of the cartoon. Take a morning break and enjoy her insights and creativity.
Today I celebrated the Rite of Committal for a US Marine Corp veteran. Given our proximity to the Quantico National Cemetery, we are called upon several times a week to assist families with the committal of their loved ones – most often retired service members or their spouses. Sadly, we also serve when an active duty member is interned. They are mostly connected to the Marine Corp, but the hallowed grounds honor members from all branches of the military. Continue reading
Chaos Theory is often misunderstood, misrepresented, and spoken of by lots of folks who toss around a term to convey the idea of complete randomness of this or that. The study of chaos is branch of mathematics that looks at apparently random states of disorder and irregularities that are actually governed by underlying patterns and deterministic laws. Those patterns and law might not be readily apparent, they are just highly sensitive to initial conditions.
But chaos as always been confusing and had many different meanings. The Greeks understood chaos as the primordial void. For the Roman poet Ovid, chaos was an unformed mass, where all the elements were jumbled up together in a shapeless heap. “Chaos” is held as a synonym of anarchy. Chaos (“19521 Chaos” to be precise) is also the name of trans-Neptunian planet out there in the Kuiper-belt. Just thought you would want to know.
Pope Francis has declared his year to be the “Year of St. Joseph.” It is a celebration of the 150th Anniversary of the proclamation of St. Joseph a Patron of the Universal Church. Today is the Solemnity of St. Joseph. Pope Francis, in honor of this year, has provided the Apostolic Letter Patris Corde – With a Father’s Heart. It is a wonderful reflection of the attributes and characteristics of fatherhood – and also understands that St. Joseph serves as a model, not just for fathers, but for all who care for others. The Pope makes a special connection to all the front line, critical care, and essential workers who labor far from the limelight, especially so in this year of pandemic.
From Pope Francis’ Apostolic Letter, Patris Code: WITH A FATHER’S HEART: that is how Joseph loved Jesus, whom all four Gospels refer to as “the son of Joseph”. Continue reading
One of the wonderful things about the Gospel of John is the Book of Signs a name commonly given to the first main section of the Gospel of John, from 1:19 to the end of Chapter 12. Included within this section are the seven signs of the reign of God as evidence, as witness, to a new creation. The seven signs are
Several days ago I posted an article about Artificial Intelligence (AI). In this morning’s New York Times there is fascinating/disturbing article about facial recognition – something not foreign to many users of smart phones that use the technology to unlock phones and open software. But the article by Kashmir Hill is about a company, Clearview AI, that provides advanced facial recognition software to law enforcement agencies, private companies, and public concerns.
Today is the Feast of St. Patrick which has optional readings you can find here.
The scene in the gospel is familiar – “oh sure, I’ve heard this before, Jesus is calling his disciples to be fishers of men” – perhaps too familiar. As with most scriptures, there is more than meets the eye.
The account begins with a wide-angle view with Jesus in a natural amphitheater with a large crowd. Having Simon Peter take him in the boat just a little offshore, Jesus can take in the breadth of the crowd as he teaches. There among in the crowd are people who have heard of the great things he has done in Nazareth and Capernaum, as well as Pharisees, scribes and officials from Jerusalem. There too are the ones who will become his disciples and follow him.
Today’s readings are a combination of the well-known (the Gospel) and the “what’s-going-on” (Ezekiel). The former is the familiar story of the man, afflicted for 38 years, who encounters Jesus, is healed and has hope restored. The latter is a grand vision of living waters flowing from the Temple into all the land bring abundance and life.
The Ezekiel reading is the follow-on to the “dry bones’ vision the prophet had just proclaimed. In his vision, the prophet finds himself standing in a valley full of dry human bones. Before him, the bones begin to move and assemble into human figures, skeletons rising and begin to stand. Almost as in modern computer-generated visual effect, the skeletons begin to receive layers of living flesh: tendons, muscles, organs and skin. They then arise, standing upright, alive and vital. These are the Israelites living in exile who are returning to Jerusalem.
Today’s readings are a combination of the well-known (the Gospel) and the “what’s-going-on” (Ezekiel). The former is the familiar story of the man, afflicted for 38 years, who encounters Jesus and is heal and has hope restored. The latter is a grand vision of living waters flowing from the Temple into all the land bring abundance and life.
The Ezekiel reading is the epilogue to the “dry bones’ vision the prophet had just proclaimed. In his vision, the prophet finds himself standing in a valley full of dry human bones. Before him, the bones begin to move and assemble into human figures, skeletons rising and standing in the valley. Almost as in modern computer-generated visual effect, the skeletons begin to receive layers of living flesh: tendons, muscles, organs and skin. They then arise, standing upright, alive and vital. These are the Israelites living in exile who are returning to Jerusalem.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has always been a staple of science fiction writing. Isaac Asimov used AI as part of his writing, introducing the robot R. Daneel Olivaw as an investigating partner to NYC detective Elijah Bailey in the 1954 novel “Caves of Steel” – famously revealing the Three Laws of Robotics. But across the full breadth of the “Robot Series” of short stories and novels, R. Daneel Olivaw grows, develops and, in a way, becomes a better human than human. The hope and promise of AI.
AI is broad category of research and application that includes neural networks, machine learning, and more. The field of AI research was born at a workshop at Dartmouth College in 1956, where the term “Artificial Intelligence” was coined by John McCarthy to distinguish the field from cybernetics. The basic trajectory of the research continues the classic Church-Turing idea of whether a machine can exhibit human behavior – the most basic of which is learning. Which implies it has a teacher who provides an environment and information. In other words, show a neural network enough pictures of a cat, tell it “this is a cat” and the AI learns to identify new pictures as “cat” without being told. It just needed enough information and adequate processing power.
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