Not on this topic -- the NYTimes op-ed section has been on the "women, get back in the kitchen, you know you want to!" train for a while now. Irritates me no end.

In timely fashion the San Francisco Chronicle had two articles today refuting these type of articles, specifically taking the NY Times to ask.

What's wrong with trend articles.

The past year has seen the resurgence of two trend stories that will be familiar to news readers of the '80s: the sad fate of high-achieving women who have climbed too high to find a suitable mate, and the exodus of career women from the labor market to rear children. Their treatment in the press is an interesting study in how far a trend story without solid social science can go.

How trend articles moved from women's magazines to newspapers.

Wasn't it "Won't Get Fooled Again"?

Pretty sure it was Baba O'Riley, because my thought process went "Huh, why are they playing Teenage Wasteland? Oh, wait..."

We need to get DX in here to confirm or deny.

Yeah, I'd love to know the answer to Jess's Roomba question. Because I wants one, my precioussss.

ETA: x-post, heh.

Fingerprint matching, which I think is called AFIS? It always looked like the technician marked a certain type of characteristic on the fingerprint and those points are matched against the database. Anyone know how that works? I watch those forensic shows and am left wondering.

Telephone operators?

Voice recognition is in enormously widespread use, and it's definitely an AI technology.

See, I don't think of those as AI because I hate them, and although it's cheaper, often less effective for me as the consumer.

I mean, I thought I was call-avoidant, but as soon as I hear that phone option tree coming, I'm hammering 0 as hard as possible to get to someone who understands what I want. Never mind the phone applications that want me to talk to them instead of hit keys. Even worse.

It's still pretending, for me.

All those things still sound like a lot of figuring, quickly, though. Isn't AI supposed to be more?

Keeping with the robot theme, today's featured gadget at CNN online is the Scooba! Considering how much I detest washing my kitchen and bathroom floors, this is something I must get.

BTW- I love your tagline, Dana.

eta: oop. I might have posted that in the wrong thread. Sometimes "read new" is dangerous.

Fingerprint matching, which I think is called AFIS? It always looked like the technician marked a certain type of characteristic on the fingerprint and those points are matched against the database. Anyone know how that works? I watch those forensic shows and am left wondering.

magic.

Doug Henning in a warehouse somewhere hooked up to wires and shit.

See, I don't think of those as AI because I hate them, and although it's cheaper, often less effective for me as the consumer.

I don't mean customer service, I mean the actual switching. Which used to be done by people, and is now completely automated. (It's not "intelligent" persay, but it is a human job that is now done by machines.)