Davinci Pilot Newsletter of the U.S.S
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DaVinci Pilot Newsletter of the U.S.S. DaVinci Columbus, Georgia Volume 15 Number 12 JULY 2010 USS DAVINCI STAFF ROSTER FROM THE CENTER SEAT Commanding Officer After a much long delay, each member of the USS VADM Freddy Heller (706) 562-TREK DaVinci will soon be the proud owner of a Executive Officer membership card. Connie has been working on a COMM Russell Ruhland (334) 298-3998 nice design and after I sign all the cards she will Operations Officer have them laminated! The cards will come in handy COMM Joe Perry (706) 327-5888 when we meet at CiCi’s pizza for the July Night Finance Officer COMM Connie Heller (706) 562-8735 Out. The last time I went in there with the family the Community Service Officer VACANT manager gave us our free drinks but wanted to see Publications Officer something to prove we were DaVinci members. VADM Freddy Heller (706) 562-TREK Although I did not have a membership card he did Science Officer accept my DaVinci business card as proof. The ENS Lech Mazur (706) 596-9542 cards should be ready by the 4 th of July cookout. Counselor I am scheduling a clean up of our Adopt-A- LTJG Diane Ruhland (334) 298-3998 Highway for 17 July beginning at 8:00 AM. It is Computer Science Officer early but it is also best to beat the heat. It has been ENS Leiko Koone (706) 616-5885 quite a while since we last picked up trash and we Morale Officer need to start again or we may lose it. We will meet ENS Dutch Cummings (706) 407-9945 Medical Officer at the corner of Blackmon road and the access to COMM Jeff Kirkland (770) 253-6474 East 80 (J. R. Allen Parkway). If we finish early Engineering Officer VACANT enough we can go out for breakfast! It should not Communications Officer take more than 1 to 1-1/2 hours depending on the LTJG Randy Dunn (334) 291-0150 number of folks that show up. Quartermaster VACANT Check out this article from Trek Today: Records Officer VACANT Amongst the items delivered by the Discovery Security Chief VACANT space shuttle to the International Space Station Cadet Corps Commander VACANT earlier today, was a patch with a Star Trek Senior Chief Petty Officer VACANT connection. The acronym for the NASA patch for the Window Observational Research Facility, a UPCOMING EVENTS science equipment rack that will enable astronaut- **03 July; Annual 4 th of July Cookout; 3:00 PM. tended and remote-controlled Earth-observation Sign up to bring a covered dish; email or call Freddy experiments, is the same as the name of LTCMDR **17 July; Adopt-A-Highway clean up; 8:00 AM. Worf, the Klingon seen on Star Trek: The Next Meet at corner of Blackmon Road and East 80. Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. When **19 July; Night Out at CiCi’s Pizza; 7:00 PM the patch’s creator, Tony Boatright, realized this, he decided to use Worf’s Klingon language on the patch, after first checking with Rick Berman ’s office to make sure that he “wouldn’t violate any Star Trek In 2010, we're still a long way off from warp-drive canon.” engines, having not yet solved simple problems such as avoiding space debris or sending astronauts to nearby Mars . Yet despite this slow progress, the silver screen is consistently portraying less fiction and more prediction. Starting with Georges Méliès' Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon) in 1902, science-fiction films have a tradition of taking contemporary science and extending it to logical conclusions. Modern developments are bringing us closer to that predicted future, but there is still a gulf between reality and Hollywood's artistic license. We've looked at some of our favorite science fiction films to see how they reflect the reality of our times. Here are six kinds of technologies that sci-fi movies have long relied on, and how we're approaching or diverging from those fictional applications. Artificial Intelligence (AI) At the movies: The war against the machine Here is the WORF patch! resumed as John Connor leads a band of humans in the post-Judgment Day fight to save the future in Getting the go-ahead, the next task was to decide Terminator Salvation . Their opponent is a sentient what to write in Klingon. “We agreed on the machine that, after being given control of the U.S.'s Klingon Klinshai, or Mandel, script that had nuclear arsenal, decided that Earth would be better appeared in The U.S.S. Enterprise Officer’s Manual off without humanity. to spell out the name W-O-R-F,” said Boatright. Terminator 's Skynet (1984-2009) has not been the Some of the WORF patches are currently in the only movie machine to make such decisions; The STS-131 Official Flight Kit, which is a stash of Matrix (1999-2003) and Colossus (1970) came to souvenirs that will be distributed to team members similar conclusions. But sometimes annihilation is and other organizations after Discovery’s return to not so much a result of megalomania as of faulty Earth. (posted on-line by T'Bonz - 07/04/10 at 05:04 programming, as with WarGames ' Joshua (1983) PM) and 2001 's HAL (1968). Of course, artificial intelligence is rarely VADM Freddy Heller malevolent by design. In 2008's Iron Man , multimillionaire protagonist Tony Stark was aided EXECUTIVELY SPEAKING by an unseen servant named Jarvis, a self-aware I thought I might take some time this issue to program that first resided literally within the walls discuss a little comparison between trekdom and the of Stark's mansion and was later uploaded to Stark's real-world. Enjoy! titular armored suit. Jarvis exhibited an undeniable From Computerworld: With the latest theatrical personality just by his choice of words and tone of release of Star Trek , the starship Enterprise launches voice. on its mission to seek out new life and new In reality, AI has thus far amounted to the civilizations. Gene Roddenberry's vision for the preprogramming of computers to respond to (and future was founded on hope for humanity -- but occasionally learn from) increasingly diverse and what powers his crew's ongoing trek across the stars complex sets of actions and conditions. We may is incredibly advanced technology. never create a technological equivalent of sentience, or self-awareness. Given the reality of Moore's Law and the down, but it was still manageable for me to push on. seemingly limitless growth potential of computing, I arrived in my new apartment about 10:00 PM. The some people consider true AI to be inevitable. "In Agency that I was going through for housing had a the coming decades, humanity will likely create a special lock for me to open and get in. I was glad powerful artificial intelligence," predicts The because I was beat. The next day, I arrived to Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence . The McDill Air Force Base. The line was a bit long, institute's mission is "to confront this urgent however, it was a lot faster than Fort Benning’s challenge, both the opportunity and the risk." The main gate. I finally arrived at US Central risk arises when two intelligent species refuse to Command’s area. It was totally magnificent. There coexist, which in sci-fi movies means a cybernetic was a guard at the front of the road to the area. revolt. Of course, conflict makes for better narrative, However, there were palm trees, beautiful buildings which is why there have been few films about and a short path leading toward the entrance of the peaceful relations between organic and mechanical building that I would be working in. That was a real beings. Given humanity's seeming inability to sight. I settled in and few days later I was working restrain its own innovation, we can only hope that fixing computers, working on IT issues, and the fiction in sci-fi is found not in the eventual working my Military job without fail. development of AI , but in how our future creations They have me working on 3 rd shift. Not a great view their creators. shift to work, but it is a bit easier because the More on these technologies in next month’s Pilot! demands for issues sometimes can be less compounding at night. I am learning a lot and am COMM Russell Ruhland enjoying the experience to be in Tampa. I hope to attend DragonCon for at least 1 to 2 days! That is a SCIENCE STATION high priority. But, I am hoping that I can get time off to be there, especially with all the cast including The schedules for the July astronomy night are as Brent Spiner and Marc Singer. follows. As what has been previous alleged through various 05 July, Callaway Gardens, 9:00 PM people, I did meet a native that looked promising, 10 July, FDR State Park, 9:00 PM However, I am still in awe as to when she will seek 12 July, Callaway Gardens, 9:00 PM my invitation. However, per request, I have been 19 July, Callaway Gardens, 9:00 PM periodically keeping up and going to look for her 26 July, Callaway Gardens, 9:00 PM good graces. If you are interested in attending any of these nights, The area here is really beautiful. I traveled to please give me a call and perhaps we can schedule various places within Florida that have not been hit an away mission.