I think its odd that Microsoft has decided to spend significant marketing dollars to spread two ideas most people already know. Their first big advertisement, not counting those odd little blurbs between Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates, was showing lots and lots of people, and famous people, proclaiming “I’m a PC”.  The second, which features a girl named Lauren on a venture to find a new computer for less than $1000, tells us that Macs are more expensive that PC’s. Both ideas, (1) lots of people use PC’s and (2) Macs are more expensive, seem to me to be concepts that most people understand already.

Who would argue with either of these ideas? Without getting caught up in the idea that “PC” has nothing to do, necessarily, with Windows or Microsoft (a PC can run any operating system), I think its bizarre that marketing people would think that “I’m a PC” would have any effect on peoples’ computer choices. Similarly, telling people what they already know about Macs and their prices will probably also communicate the idea that if you want a quality product you’ll have to pay for it. Hence, a Mac is the better option.

Yes, I’m a Mac user, but I also use Windows XP on an HP notebook (like most of corporate America, we have not upgraded to Vista nor do we have plans to do so). I think I’m about 5-10% more productive on a Mac but Windows is a perfectly good operating system for doing what I need to do. I’m not a “fanboy” (whatever that means) for either operating system but I do have one opinion about the upside of Apple hardware and their cost of ownership. I have an old Apple Powerbook, the black one, from 1997. It has the current Mac OS installed on it and it runs great. Show me one PC that’s over ten years old and still running like my Powerbook and I’ll bet its running Linux. Put simply, Macs last longer. Is that what you’re going to tell us next Microsoft?

This is the first of an ongoing series of Philosophy Stories. They will be short excerpts and explanations of topics within contemporary philosophy or important moments in the history of ideas.

In chapter 2 of Minds, Brains and Science, John Searle tells a tale that severely diminishes the plausibility of a theory of mind known as functionalism:

The booth of the clairvoyant Jun was one of the most popular in Beijing. What made Jun stand out was not the accuracy of her observations, but the fact that she was deaf and mute. She would insist on sitting behind a screen and communicating by scribbled notes, passed through a curtain.

Jun was attracting the customers of a rival, Shing, who became convinced that Jun’s deafness and muteness were affectations, designed to make her stand out from a crowd. So one day, he paid her a visit, in order to expose her.

After a few routine questions, Shing started to challenge Jun’s inability to talk. Jun showed no signs of being disturbed by this. Her replies came at the same speed, the handwriting remained the same. In the end, a frustrated Shing tore the curtain down and pushed the barrier aside. And there he saw, not Jun, but a man he would later find out was called John, sitting in front of a computer, typing in the last message he had passed through. Shing screamed at the man to explain himself.

“Don’t hassle me, dude,” replied John. “I don’t understand a word you’re saying. No speak Chinese, comprende?”

In the philosophy of mind, functionalism is the theory that mental states (beliefs, ideas, desires) are constituted solely by their causal relations to other mental states, sensory inputs, and behavioral outputs. Instead of asking what makes a belief a true belief or how a thought originates, a functionalist will say that it only matters the role a thought plays in the total system of other thoughts, feelings, experiences, etc. It’s role is what it is, nothing more. The upside of a functionalist theory is that a system of mental states does not require a biological organ, such as a brain, and can be transferred to a non-biological system such as a computer. To have a mind is to be able to perform the functions of minds.

We may doubt that the person behind the curtain can see the future, is really deaf or mute, but everyone would surely agree that whoever is there understands the Chinese messages that are being passed. Messages are being relayed and meaningful answers are passed back. Therefore, according to functionalism, there is understanding of Chinese going on.

The story of John and Jun says that there isn’t an understanding going on and throws doubt on the theory of functionalism. The question is raises: if its not enough to perform the functions of mind to have a mind, what else does it require? Even further: Does the computer have an understanding of Chinese? How will we ever know if the requirement is that it just acts like it does?

This is my favorite app on the iPhone.

I took this picture of Liam the other day and thought I’d share it. This shirt has cycled through all my kids. Don’t know who The Faction were? Go here.

The Faction shirt

Published with my iPhone and Wordpress application.

I love my new iPhone 3G. I also really like Wordpress for blogging and content management. So when I heard about a new Wordpress for iPhone app, I quickly downloaded it and was about to do the obligatory “Here’s my first post with my iPhone” post here on dW31.com.

Its a great little app. It easily installs and, like most apps on the iPhone, its very intuitive and easy to use. The problem is I can’t get it to post to the blog. I either get a message about ill-formed XML or it says that the post-id is already taken. Well, its not. I’ve checked.

I have the required version of Wordpress. The support site does say that “Intermittent crashes when saving posts for some users” is a known issue. I can save a post just fine, its publishing that doesn’t work. I guess I’ll just keep trying…

Any suggestions?

UPDATE: I upgraded Wordpress from version 2.5.1 (the minimum required) to version 2.6 and it seems to be working. At least I was able to save a draft post and update this post with my iphone.

Its been quite awhile since I’ve posted or updated the site. This new design has been in development for almost 3 months; I’ve been working on it as much as I can. I decided to go ahead with it, even though it’s still got some kinks to be worked out.

I had been putting my Tweets right into the blog as posts but now that I’ve implemented a sidebar element with a Twitter box, I won’t be doing that anymore. My first priority is to clean up some of the Tweets/posts that don’t look right. The second bug to fix is that some of the posts with embedded videos aren’t formatted correctly. Something happens in Wordpress that messes up the html.

Lastly, the photos section needs some enhancements. I’ll be working on those and including some new photos.

The future looks bright: Diaby signs new long-term contract and Flamini is looking forward to a new contract. The spine of the team is young, experienced, and looking ahead: Adebayor, Flamini, Fabregas, and Diaby!

A demonstration of the Skyfire mobile browser in action, including its capability to present server-rendered Flash video, plus its local capability to zoom into localized regions of the page using a stylus control. The device used here is a Windows Mobile device connected to the Sprint network via 1x EV-DO.

BetaNews | New mobile browser enables Flash video through server-side rendering

I was looking around for information on Jawbox, one of my favorite bands from the late 80’s, early 90’s. I got to see them live a couple of times when they came out to the west coast. The lead singer, guitar player, and founding member was J. Robbins who was also the bass player for Goverment Issue. Anyhoo, I came across this page on DeSoto records, their label, about J.’s son Callum, DeSoto Records: For the Benefit of Cal Robbins.

Check it out.

It should be easy to integrate Tumblr with Wordpress. Right? What I have in mind is something like what Alex King has done with Twitter Tools but for Tumblr. I’m posting this with Quick Post. It shouldn’t be too hard to add in access to the Tumblr API.