My eleven favorite songs, according to iTunes.

1.) "That's How I Escaped My Certain Fate," Mission of Burma
2.) "Grass," Animal Collective
3.) "Naked As We Came," Iron & Wine
4.) "Slippi," Animal Collective
5.) "Neighborhood #2 (Laika)," The Arcade Fire
6.) "Neighborhood #2 (Power Out)," The Arcade Fire
7.) "My Dog," The Fiery Furnaces
8.) "We Can't Predict The Future," The Flaming Lips
9.) "Go Find Your Saint," Frank Black
10.) "Lion's Mane," Iron & Wine
11.) "The Dead of Night," Mount Eerie

Robot Demonstrates Self Awareness

Really? I'm not sure what to make of this story, which popped up in the Boing Boing feed today. The gist of it is that the robot can distinguish between a reflection of itself in a mirror and an identical robot, but how is only fuzzily explored. That is, there's basically nothing in the way of technical detail. Not that the presence of such detail would necessarily help me. When it comes to robotics and AI I have all the expertise of someone who read a few novels with robots in them. When it comes to philosophy of mind I climb up the ladder a rung or two, to the level of interested (yet lazy and thus not widely-read) layman.

Anyway, while the exact mechanics behind its implementation could be very complicated indeed, the code for, essentially, "observe X, do X" does not seem particularly complex, nor does it seem like a very good model for what we seem to talk about when we talk about consciousness.

This is one of those times when I wish I knew a roboticist.

And as a head-scratching bonus, also from Boing Boing: Britain will be first country to monitor every car journey

Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years.
...
Already there are plans to extend the database by increasing the storage period to five years and by linking thousands of additional cameras so that details of up to 100 million number plates can be fed each day into the central databank.

Now, granted, there is some particular irony today in being an American and being worried about potential civil liberty violations in other countries, but it is the sheer scope of this program, and the seemingly casual rollout that give me pause. It isn't so much the idea of privacy rights at all as it is the futureshock. Hey, what if we track every car in the country at all times? Sure, we can do that, give us a few months.

Read this story paired with this Bruce Sterling interview about what he terms the "internet of things."

Buried deep in Pitchfork's story of the Decemberists bid for mainstream success with Capitol Records is this extremely exciting news:

Meloy and Decemberists drummer John Moen also appear on the forthcoming self-titled Minus Five album, due February 7 on Yep Roc. Meloy sings on the song "Cemetery Row". "I've been a Young Fresh Fellows fan from eons ago," Meloy said, referring to Minus Five leader Scott McCaughey's former band. "It was really exciting to meet him. Right before we left on this last tour, I just went over to Scott's house, sat in his living room and recorded the song.

It is very possible that the Minus 5 are my favorite band.

And while I'm posting, here's an extremely twenty-first century moment as reported in the New York Times:

An insurgent group, the Victorious Army Group, has extended a deadline for a Web design contest, according to an Internet posting. The group has set a Jan. 15 deadline for submissions of a design "worthy of the group's reputation and the reputation of the jihad and the mujahedeen," according to a translation provided by the SITE Institute, which monitors jihadist messages.

The winner is promised "God's blessings" and the opportunity to fire three long-range rockets at an American military base.