rapter

Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

The X-18 is even older, Even the Nutzies, I mean the Nazi's had a plan for one. Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

What some women will do to get out of a date,...... was that in poor taste? Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

Now there's a great T-shirt, the one of "Cowboys Caravan" inverted with jumpers jumping out of it, haven't seen one in years Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

Yeah, but Bender is a pig. reminds me of some of my skydiving friends Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

If you're younger than 35, you'll probably live long enough to put David Levy's prediction to the test. Levy says that by 2050 we'll be creating robots so lifelike, so imbued with human-seeming intelligence and emotions, as to be nearly indistinguishable from real people. And we'll have sex with these robots. Some of us will even marry them. And it will all be good. Levy lays out his vision of a Brave New Carnal World in Love and Sex With Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships, which, despite its extended riffs on sex toys through the ages, is a snigger-free book. Levy's no Al Goldstein. Rather he's a 62-year-old British chess master turned artificial-intelligence expert persuaded that robot sex can brighten the lives of many, many unhappy people. "Great sex on tap for everyone, 24/7,'' he writes on the final page of the book. What's not to like? "Chess'' and "sex'' aren't words that normally share the same sentence, but in Levy's case, the one led to the other. A keen chessman since boyhood, by the time he got to St. Andrews University he played at the international level. At the university he got interested in computers and the challenge of programming machines to play chess. Eventually he earned international recognition for his work on chess-playing computers and natural-language software, and in the mid '90s headed a team that won the Loebner Prize, widely regarded as the world championship of conversational software. Today he owns a firm that develops electronic hand-held brain games. Designing computers that talk like humans naturally led to the larger question of how humans interact with robots, which are nothing more than computers with arms and legs and a head. The Japanese have taken the lead in developing "partner robots,'' machines that, for example, might do household tasks for elderly people. But if you could invent a robot that serves cocktails, could you not invent a robot that would make a superior bedmate? It sounds like a mighty tall order. A machine with skin that feels like ours? With our physical dexterity? And, most important, with a mind like ours - imperfectly rational, sometimes emotionally intelligent, sometimes emotionally dumb? "I think it's a reasonable assumption,'' Levy said in a telephone interview from his home in London. He lays out his case in a voice that's calm, rational, almost flat, more geeky than goatish. "If one looks at the advances in technology in the last, say, 40 or 50 years, they've been immense, and the more we learn about the science and the technology, the quicker it will be to discover even more within that science." Smart money never bets against technological advances, but it helps if you stack the deck. "The automaton simulates man when man has been defined in an automaton's way," literary critic Hugh Kenner wrote. Is that what Levy does? "I take a pragmatic point of view," he said, "partly because in my original field, computer chess, that was how the problem was solved." Not by making machines that thought like chess masters but by making machines that beat chess masters. Similarly, Levy thinks, robots need only "simulate" human intelligence and emotions "to the point that they are absolutely convincing." If you can't tell whether the thing is man or machine, what difference does it make? You'll treat it as if it were alive. The rest is philosophical hairsplitting. So who will avail themselves of 21st-century sexbots? Sad cases, for one, people so physically unattractive or anti-social or isolated or emotionally crippled that they have trouble finding human romance. People who love their computers more than their fellows. Hey, they're out there already. "They're lonely; they're miserable," Levy said. "I think society will be a much better place when they have an alternative that satisfies them without doing any harm to other people." Add in those who have a satisfying sexual relationship but are simply curious and somewhere between 20 percent and 50 percent of the population will experience man-machine mating at least occasionally, Levy predicts. He respects the fact that plenty of people, out of moral or religious conviction, will contemplate this with horror. "But by and large," he said, "it will be very good for society, very beneficial, and I think that will be the majority view within a relatively short space of time." Sexbots may put prostitutes out of business, he notes. Near the end of the book Levy alludes to a set of vexing questions. If robots become utterly humanlike, must we not treat them as more than machines? So if you marry a robot, can it inherit your estate? If you catch it boffing the mail carrier, can you toss it out with heavy trash? If your robot pops your neighbor in the mouth, who does your neighbor sue? Levy admits he doesn't know the answers. "There are lot of questions here that need a great deal of discussion and consideration from people who are much wiser than I am in the field of ethics, philosophy and law. Clearly the law makers and the lawyers are going to have a field day debating these issues." He expects the impetus for creating sexbots to come from the sex-toy industry rather than, say, MIT. Already a Japanese sex-doll manufacturer has announced plans to market a doll with electronics in it, and Levy has read that Japanese companies are working to produce sex robots for people living in outlying fishing villages. "I think the Japanese are probably working on this more than one would realize from the little that's been published so far," he said. Levy has been amazed at the publicity the Love and Sex With Robots has generated since its release last month. He's done a dozen radio interviews and a TV interview. Howard Stern raved about the book. So far, no hate mail. Would Levy himself have sex with a robot? He doesn't have to ponder the question. "If there was a robot of the sort I describe in the book, I would certainly want to experience using it for sex, and I wouldn't regard it as anything untoward," he said. "I would do it out of curiosity. Not that I have a need for a new sex partner. I'm happily married." And the wife would be OK with this? "Yes, yes, and if she wanted to try one I wouldn't have a problem with that. I would regard it as genuine scientific curiosity." fritz.lanham@chron.com Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

Oh shit!! Poor thing. I just saw teenagers on the second one and turned it off. Me no likey teenagers. I'm sure that baby ain't too wild about them, either!~~April Hope she is ok. Ditto..she moved after she landed and thats where the clip ends..someone is coming to pick her up.~~April Kid are real tough, I've seen mine get smached and slammed around alot harder then that. Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

Lisa told me about this little game,....... My only question was,............................. why? Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

That Is Cal-City taken back in the early 80's, Jan once told me the N7500A (Our Douglas) was a survivor of "Operation Husky" where 23 C-47 & C-54s shot down by "Friendly Fire". Here's a couple pictures taken on the opening day at Skydive Apple Valley Ran By Joe and Rose Crotwell, taken in 1996, Jr. Pray was the pilot that day. Jan sold in a few years ago and it lives somewhere in the mid-west. I hear Jan is back in Norway and not doing so well, has some kind of Cancer. Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

Kill that poor deformed thing and put it out of it's misery,.....oh, My wife just told they normally look like that, who'd thunk it? Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

If your talking about the guy who smacks the tail, That is Mike Lee who just past away. Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

That Elvi looks like Pat Hemingway (or Bozo) and lands like Rick Moffett Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

My first rig, a GQ security, with a Unit III and a SAC 22 for a reserve, cost me a bundle, $ 1150 bucks. I was only making about 10 bucks and hour at the time. My last rig cost me over 4 grand. so It all come out about the same. Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

After over 30 years as a DZO it was time to retire. They sold the land around the airport and hangers, got a fair price. and will go on vacation. The Planes were bought by Van Jr. and will become part of his jump ship fleet.. Bob Sinclair open the first dropzone at Cal-City in 1962. There has been jumping there ever since then. No one has plans to open another one there. Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

Where I fit in? I am not Native American Indians, but there immigrants to this land too, somewhere between 12,000 to 20,000 years ago. My family from both sides got here in 1680 and 1720, before this was the United States of America, So I feel I can say "no, they didn't immigrate to this country". Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

US minorities don't trust each other blacks, Hispanics and Asians -- have little trust for each other and hold prejudiced views about Americans of different ethnic origins to their own, a poll showed Wednesday. "This extraordinary poll reveals some unflattering realities that exist in America today," said Sandy Close, head of new America Media (NAM) which sponsored the poll together with ethnic media groups. Forty-four percent of Hispanics and 47 percent of Asians are "afraid of African-Americans because they are responsible for most of the crime," the survey of 1,105 adults drawn from the three ethnic groups showed. More than half of black Americans polled and 46 percent of Hispanics said Asian business owners do not treat them with respect. And half of African-Americans said Latin American immigrants "are taking jobs, housing and political power away from the black community." Hispanics and Asians, whose populations are made up mainly of immigrants, were positive about the American dream, saying that those who work hard in the United States reap the rewards of their toil. In contrast, more than 60 percent of African-Americans dismissed the American dream as not working for them. All three ethnic groups viewed white Americans in a more favorable light than they did members of another minority. Sixty-one percent of Hispanics, 54 percent of Asians and 47 percent of African-Americans said they would rather do business with whites than members of the other two groups. "The poll reaffirms that while race relations between ethnic groups and whites grab the headlines, there are also serious racial problems between minority groups in America," said Sergio Bendixen, an expert on Hispanic and multilingual polling. "Blacks feel they are left out of the American Dream and are being displaced by newcomers, and each group buys into the negative stereotypes about the other two," he said. The three minority groups did agree that the United States would be a better place if blacks, Asians and Hispanics held more authoritative positions at universities, in business, media and government. They also said they believe racial tensions in the United States will ease over the next 10 years Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

Nope it's real, and you gotta put your head between them like headphone to listen. Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

A guy brought his Hawg to Cal-City a few weeks ago. Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

But look at the main gear Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

he has picked a few bad habits Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

That was Cal-City a few years ago, the bucket had MEK or something like that to soak in to catch one fire. Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

Some cats have all the luck Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

The FAA has no problem with AADs and the ruling on CO2 changed in Aug. to where it's ok. I travel on demos and has been thru all kinds of issues with my rig. I have been stopped with my rig as carry on and my buddy in the next line was let to carry it on, I carry the FAA letter to show the TSA guys the rules when stopped ( you can get a copy off USPAs web site. and I never heard of a "gas cylinders" on an ADD, WTF is that? when asked I tell then there all electric. Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

He looks so sad. After over 30 years I'm sure he is, alittle, we all were many tears at the LZ on the last load. And I think thats Yobo's first post, where's the case of beer, but he brought many by himself for years before. Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,

Cool pictures Lisa, thanks for sharing, I like the shot of the Christmas light eyed kitties Only the good die young, so I have found immortality,