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The New York Times Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By March 13, 2008 Joseph Weizenbaum, Famed Programmer, Is Dead at 85 By JOHN MARKOFF Joseph Weizenbaum, whose famed conversational computer program, Eliza, foreshadowed the potential of artificial intelligence, but who grew skeptical about the potential for technology to improve the human condition, died on March 5 in Gröben, Germany. He was 85. The cause was complications of cancer, said his daughter Sharon Weizenbaum. Eliza, written while Mr. Weizenbaum was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1964 and 1965 and named after Eliza Doolittle, who learned proper English in “Pygmalion” and “My Fair Lady,” was a groundbreaking experiment in the study of human interaction with machines. The program made it possible for a person typing in plain English at a computer terminal to interact with a machine in a semblance of a normal conversation. To dispense with the need for a large real-world database of information, the software parodied the part of a Rogerian therapist, frequently reframing a client’s statements as questions. In fact, the responsiveness of the conversation was an illusion, because Eliza was programmed simply to respond to certain key words and phrases. That would lead to wild non sequiturs and bizarre detours, but Mr. Weizenbaum later said that he was stunned to discover that his students and others became deeply engrossed in conversations with the program, occasionally revealing intimate personal details. “It was amazing the extent that people did not understand they were talking to a computer,” said Robert Fano, emeritus professor of electrical engineering and computer science at M.I.T. In the wake of the creation of Eliza, which was described in a technical paper in January 1966, a group of M.I.T. scientists, including Claude Shannon, a pioneer in the field of cybernetics, met in Concord, Mass., to discuss the social implications of the phenomenon, Mr. Fano said. The seductiveness of the conversations alarmed Mr. Weizenbaum, who came to believe that an obsessive reliance on technology was indicative of a moral failing in society, an observation rooted in his experiences as a child growing up in Nazi Germany. In 1976, he sketched out a humanist critique of computer technology in his book “Computer Power and Human Reason: From Judgment to Calculation.” The book did not argue against the possibility of artificial intelligence but rather was a passionate criticism of systems that substituted automated decision-making for the human mind. In the book, he argued that computing served as a conservative force in society by propping up bureaucracies as well as by redefining the world in a reductionist sense, by restricting the potential of human relationships. “He raised questions about what kinds of relationships we want to have with machines very early,” said Sherry Turkle, a professor in the program in science, technology and society at M.I.T. who taught courses with Mr. Weizenbaum on the social implications of technology. Mr. Weizenbaum also believed that there were transcendent qualities in the human experience that could not be duplicated in interactions with machines. He described it in his book as “the wordless glance that a father and mother share over the bed of their sleeping child,” Ms. Turkle said. The book drove a wedge between Mr. Weizenbaum and other members of the artificial intelligence research community. In his later years he said he came to take pride in his self-described status as a “heretic,” estranged from the insular community of elite computer researchers. Joseph Weizenbaum was born on Jan. 8, 1923, in Berlin. He was the second son of Jechiel Weizenbaum, a furrier, and his wife, Henrietta. The family was forced to leave Berlin in 1935 when the Nazis enacted anti-Semitic legislation, and they emigrated the next year from Bremen, Germany, to the United States. He began studies in mathematics at Wayne State University in Detroit in 1941, but left the next year to join the Army Air Corps, in which he served as a meteorologist. After the war he returned to complete his studies at the mathematics department, where he worked on the development and programming of the first large computers. In 1952, he went into industry, working on an early General Electric computer development project for the Bank of America. In 1962, he was invited to become a visiting professor at M.I.T. and in 1970 became a professor of computer science at the school. Attracted by his childhood experiences and the German language, Mr. Weizenbaum decided to return to Germany in 1996. His social criticism of computing technology was warmly received by a younger generation there. Much honored in German, he spoke frequently on the political and social consequences of technology. His marriage to Ruth Manes Weizenbaum ended in divorce. Besides his daughter Sharon, of Amherst, Mass., he is survived by three other daughters: Miriam, of Providence, R.I.; Naomi, of Gröben; and Pm, of Seattle. Home

The New York Times Printer Friendly Format Sponsored By March 9, 2008 Op-Ed Contributor And the Band Played Badly By ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH WHY should real musicians — the ones who can actually play their instruments — have all the fun? Some years ago, a group of frustrated people in Scotland decided that the pleasure of playing in an orchestra should not be limited to those who are good enough to do so, but should be available to the rankest of amateurs. So we founded the Really Terrible Orchestra, an inclusive orchestra for those who really want to play, but who cannot do so very well. Or cannot do so at all, in some cases. My own playing set the standard. I play the bassoon, even if not quite the whole bassoon. I have never quite mastered C-sharp, and I am weak on the notes above the high D. In general, I leave these out if they crop up, and I find that the effect is not unpleasant. I am not entirely untutored, of course, having had a course of lessons in the instrument from a music student who looked quietly appalled while I played. Most of the players in the orchestra are rather like this; they have learned their instruments at some point in their lives, but have not learned them very well. Now such people have their second chance with the Really Terrible Orchestra. The announcement of the orchestra’s founding led to a great wave of applications to join. Our suspicion that there were many people yearning to play in an orchestra but who were too frightened or too ashamed to do anything about it, proved correct. There was no audition, of course, although we had toyed with the idea of a negative audition in which those who were too good would be excluded. This proved to be unnecessary. Nobody like that applied to join. Some of the members were very marginal musicians, indeed. One of the clarinet players, now retired from the orchestra for a period of re-evaluation, stopped at the middle B-flat, before the instrument’s natural break. He could go no higher, which was awkward, as that left him very few notes down below. Another, a cellist, was unfortunately very hard of hearing and was also hazy on the tuning of the strings. As an aide-mémoire, he had very sensibly written the names of the notes in pencil on the bridge. This did not appear to help. At the outset, we employed a professional conductor, which is a must for anybody who is reading this and who is already planning to start a similar orchestra. Find somebody who is tolerant and has a sense of humor. The conductor also has to be sufficiently confident to be associated with something called the Really Terrible Orchestra; after all, it does go on the résumé. Our initial efforts were dire, but we were not discouraged. Once we had mastered a few pieces — if mastered is the word — we staged a public concert. We debated whether to charge for admission, but wisely decided against this. That would be going too far. So should we go to the other extreme and pay people to come? There was some support for this, but we decided against it. Instead, we would give the audience several free glasses of wine before the concert. That, it transpired, helped a great deal. We need not have worried. Our first concert was packed, and not just with friends and relations. People were intrigued by the sheer honesty of the orchestra’s name and came to see who we were. They were delighted. Emboldened by the rapturous applause, we held more concerts, and our loyal audience grew. Nowadays, when we give our annual concert at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the hall is full to capacity with hundreds of music-lovers. Standing ovations are two-a-penny. “How these people presume to play in public is quite beyond me,” wrote one critic in The Scotsman newspaper. And another one simply said “dire.” Well, that may be so, but we never claimed to be anything other than what we are. And we know that we are dire; there’s no need to state the obvious. How jejune these critics can be! Even greater heights were scaled. We made a CD and to our astonishment people bought it. An established composer was commissioned to write a piece for us. We performed this and recorded it at a world premiere, conducted by the astonished composer himself. He closed his eyes. Perhaps he heard the music in his head, as it should have been. This would have made it easier for him. There is now no stopping us. We have become no better, but we plow on regardless. This is music as therapy, and many of us feel the better for trying. We remain really terrible, but what fun it is. It does not matter, in our view, that we sound irretrievably out of tune. It does not matter that on more than one occasion members of the orchestra have actually been discovered to be playing different pieces of music, by different composers, at the same time. I, for one, am not ashamed of those difficulties with C-sharp. We persist. After all, we are the Really Terrible Orchestra, and we shall go on and on. Amateurs arise — make a noise. Alexander McCall Smith is the author of the forthcoming novel “The Miracle at Speedy Motors.” Home * World * U.S. * N.Y. / Region * Business * Technology * Science * Health * Sports * Opinion * Arts * Style * Travel * Jobs * Real Estate * Automobiles * Back to Top Copyright 2008 The New York Times Company * Privacy Policy * Search * Corrections * RSS * First Look * Help * Contact Us * Work for Us * Site Map

I have a vague recollection of hearing Frank on an Atlantic album, which he maybe shared with Dave Remington? I remember Norman Murphy and Marty Marsala shared trumpet chores. Anyone know this album?

That's because they don't want you to know.

Why are you changing the subject? What are you trying to hide?

Done.

I thought it might be interesting if this thread went in this forum but then again I should have expected this kind of vile filth. Will one of the mods place this thread where it belongs so that all the other liberal haters can shit on the memory of a great man without my having to read it? Thank you in advance. Should everything that offends you be moved to some "doesn't offend Dan Gould" folder? There was no vile filth, just one guy's assessment of what a public figure was all about. Doesn't mean that I'd put it in those terms, but there was nothing vile or filthy about it. Of course not. He was talking about republicans. How could that possibly offend anyone? I was talking about "movement" conservatives, who have infested a once great political party. I consider this an important distinction, though you apparently don't.

The above post is a good example of what is being referred to in bold in the following post from another board Ah yes, things were so much more elevated back in the good old days: As commentators for ABC News at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago, where the police went on a headbanging rampage against hippies and Yippies amid clouds of tear-gas, Vidal and his conservative rival William F. Buckley Jr blew their own fuses and made television history. When Vidal called Buckley a ‘crypto-Nazi’ (he meant to say ‘crypto-fascist’ but words for once failed him), Buckley responded: ‘Now, listen, you queer! Stop calling me a crypto-Nazi or I’ll sock you in your goddam face and you’ll stay plastered.’ Yipes; the technicians in the control booth nearly popped their headphones. As Kaplan records, Buckley’s angry use of the word ‘queer’ was so jolting and unprecedented that ABC cancelled the time-delayed West Coast feed of the telecast and used static to obscure the offending word on its archival tape. Like spit on the sidewalk, this spat would have evaporated had Buckley not decided to revive the incident in the pages of Esquire, semi-absolving himself of fag-bashing before offering Vidal an apology as warm and sincere as a dead-fish handshake. Unmoved, Vidal composed a withering rebuttal, exposing some allegedly anti-semitic hijinks by the Buckley clan, and Buckley whistled for his lawyers. Years of litigation followed as the case turned into a tar baby to which everyone was stuck. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v22/n03/wolc01_.html

Mr. Buckley departs the scene, the political movement he championed now almost universally recognized as an umbrella group of grafters, war profiteers, social misfits, science deniers, religious wackos, chicken hawks, liars, thieves, child molesters, and the mentally disordered. Nice legacy, Bill.

I clicked. It opened a window I could not close without rebooting. There was music, but I had my speakers muted. It might have sounded like a choir of angels, but probably not.

Although I have a soft spot for Seaver, the best I ever saw was Koufax.

The New York times invites its readers to select the greatest baseball pitcher of all time. Warren Spahn, Sandy Koufax, Walter Johnson, Bob Gibson are the names most commonly mentioned, but Nolan Ryan, Tom Seaver, Pedro Martinez, Christy Mathewson, Cy Young, Bob Feller, and a dozen others are also championed by the fans. Conspicuous by a near-total absence of support is Roger Clemens. http://community.nytimes.com/article/comme...l/24koufax.html

You want help? Go fuck an alligator. Not really a wise post. I mean that this guy really need a psychiatrist, not an alligator. I don't see any rational reasons to inflict to this guy a trial and news exposure, for a dead deer? C'mon. GEE, OFFICER KRUPKE ACTION Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke, You gotta understand, It's just our bringin' up-ke That gets us out of hand. Our mothers all are junkies, Our fathers all are drunks. Golly Moses, natcherly we're punks! ACTION AND JETS Gee, Officer Krupke, we're very upset; We never had the love that ev'ry child oughta get. We ain't no delinquents, We're misunderstood. Deep down inside us there is good! ACTION There is good! ALL There is good, there is good, There is untapped good! Like inside, the worst of us is good! SNOWBOY: (Spoken) That's a touchin' good story. ACTION: (Spoken) Lemme tell it to the world! SNOWBOY: Just tell it to the judge. ACTION Dear kindly Judge, your Honor, My parents treat me rough. With all their marijuana, They won't give me a puff. They didn't wanna have me, But somehow I was had. Leapin' lizards! That's why I'm so bad! DIESEL: (As Judge) Right! Officer Krupke, you're really a square; This boy don't need a judge, he needs an analyst's care! It's just his neurosis that oughta be curbed. He's psychologic'ly disturbed! ACTION I'm disturbed! JETS We're disturbed, we're disturbed, We're the most disturbed, Like we're psychologic'ly disturbed. DIESEL: (Spoken, as Judge) In the opinion on this court, this child is depraved on account he ain't had a normal home. ACTION: (Spoken) Hey, I'm depraved on account I'm deprived. DIESEL: So take him to a headshrinker. ACTION (Sings) My father is a bastard, My ma's an S.O.B. My grandpa's always plastered, My grandma pushes tea. My sister wears a mustache, My brother wears a dress. Goodness gracious, that's why I'm a mess! A-RAB: (As Psychiatrist) Yes! Officer Krupke, you're really a slob. This boy don't need a doctor, just a good honest job. Society's played him a terrible trick, And sociologic'ly he's sick! ACTION I am sick! ALL We are sick, we are sick, We are sick, sick, sick, Like we're sociologically sick! A-RAB: In my opinion, this child don't need to have his head shrunk at all. Juvenile delinquency is purely a social disease! ACTION: Hey, I got a social disease! A-RAB: So take him to a social worker! ACTION Dear kindly social worker, They say go earn a buck. Like be a soda jerker, Which means like be a schumck. It's not I'm anti-social, I'm only anti-work. Gloryosky! That's why I'm a jerk! BABY JOHN: (As Female Social Worker) Eek! Officer Krupke, you've done it again. This boy don't need a job, he needs a year in the pen. It ain't just a question of misunderstood; Deep down inside him, he's no good! ACTION I'm no good! ALL We're no good, we're no good! We're no earthly good, Like the best of us is no damn good! DIESEL (As Judge) The trouble is he's crazy. A-RAB (As Psychiatrist) The trouble is he drinks. BABY JOHN (As Female Social Worker) The trouble is he's lazy. DIESEL The trouble is he stinks. A-RAB The trouble is he's growing. BABY JOHN The trouble is he's grown. ALL Krupke, we got troubles of our own! Gee, Officer Krupke, We're down on our knees, 'Cause no one wants a fellow with a social disease. Gee, Officer Krupke, What are we to do? Gee, Officer Krupke, Krup you! Music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim. © 1956, 1957 Amberson Holdings LLC and Stephen Sondheim. Copyright renewed. Leonard Bernstein Music Publishing Company LLC, Publisher.

You want help? Go fuck an alligator.

You have to admit it was a lot more fun in the early days, back before ebay erected "The Wall".

And no, it wasn't me.

Speaking of Dirty Tricks-- The New York Times February 19, 2008 Dorothy Podber, 75, Artist and Trickster, Is Dead By RANDY KENNEDY Dorothy Podber, a wild child of the New York art scene in the 1950s and ’60s who is probably best known for brandishing a pistol and putting a bullet through the forehead of Marilyn Monroe’s likenesses on a stack of Andy Warhol’s paintings, died at her apartment in the East Village on Feb. 9. She was 75. The artist Herndon Ely, her friend and caretaker for many years, said she died of natural causes. Ms. Podber was an artist in her own right and in the late ’50s and early ’60s helped to run the Nonagon Gallery in Manhattan, which showed the work of a young Yoko Ono and was known for jazz concerts by performers like Charles Mingus. But she became famous, or infamous, in the art world mostly as a muse and a co-conspirator of more prominent artists like Ray Johnson, with whom she staged impromptu happenings on Manhattan streets. In one, she and Mr. Johnson persuaded people they had just met to allow them into their apartments, where they would then play records used by speech therapists that contained samples of stuttering. “She said people were pretty nonplused, as you’d expect,” Ms. Ely said “She and Ray would also do another bit where they’d re-enact the shower scene from ‘Psycho.’ ” In a 2006 interview with the writer Joy Bergmann, Ms. Podber said: “I’ve been bad all my life. Playing dirty tricks on people is my specialty.” Certainly the most outrageous was her unsolicited contribution to a few of Warhol’s “Marilyn” silk-screen paintings. In the fall of 1964 Ms. Podber, a friend of the photographer and Warhol regular Billy Name, visited Warhol’s Factory on East 47th Street in Manhattan with her Great Dane (named Carmen Miranda or Yvonne De Carlo, depending on the account). Ms. Podber asked Warhol if she could shoot a stack of the “Marilyn” paintings; he apparently thought that she wanted to take pictures of them and consented. But she produced a pistol and fired at them, penetrating three or four. One of them, “Shot Red Marilyn,” with a repaired bullet hole over the left eyebrow, sold for $4 million in 1989, at the time setting a record at auction for a Warhol work. “After she left,” Mr. Name told Ms. Bergmann, “Andy came over to me and said: ‘Please make sure Dorothy doesn’t come over here anymore. She’s too scary.’ ” Ms. Podber grew up in the Bronx, where her father, a onetime bouncer and speak-easy employee who had lost his sight, ran a successful newsstand. Many accounts of her life chronicle heavy drinking and drug use. Ms. Ely said that Ms. Podber spoke of being in trouble with the law a few times, once for running an illegal abortion referral service from her apartment. She was thought to have been married three times, most recently to Lester Schwartz, who died in 1986. She had no children. Ms. Podber told Ms. Bergmann that when money was low, as it often was, she generally found unorthodox ways to make it. She once ran a service that dispatched maids to doctors’ offices, primarily as a way to get the keys to the doctors’ drug cabinets. “I never worked much,” she said.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...A:IT&ih=020 http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...A:IT&ih=020 Is anyone familiar with these scarce sides? Have they ever been reissued, on CD or vinyl? Does anyone know the extent of Weatherford's recording activity in India?

The New York Times February 18, 2008 John Brunious, 67, Louisiana Trumpeter, Is Dead By NATE CHINEN John Brunious, a jazz trumpeter who devoted his career to the music of his native New Orleans, leading the Preservation Hall Jazz Band for more than a dozen years, died on Tuesday in Casselberry, Fla. He was 67 and had lived in Casselberry, outside Orlando, since being displaced by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The cause was still being determined, said Lee Frank, the band’s manager. Mr. Brunious cut a dignified but spirited figure at Preservation Hall, the antique-jazz stronghold in the French Quarter: he could usually be found playing and singing traditional fare to the tourists who flocked there. He had a bright, clear sound on trumpet and a casually appealing vocal style. Like many others in New Orleans jazz circles, he came from a musical family. His brother Wendell Brunious is also a prominent trumpeter. Their father, John Brunious Sr., was a trumpeter and pianist who contributed to the traditional jazz repertory by transcribing songs by earlier musicians like the drummer Paul Barbarin. “John was at the table when they wrote ‘Bourbon Street Parade,’ ” Benjamin Jaffe, the creative director of Preservation Hall, said in an interview in New Orleans a couple of years ago. The elder Mr. Brunious transcribed Mr. Barbarin’s tune. (Mr. Jaffe, who plays tuba in the band, is the son of Allan and Sandra Jaffe, Preservation Hall’s founders.) The younger Mr. Brunious did not limit himself to playing traditional jazz. Growing up in the Seventh Ward, he gravitated toward bebop, emulating the style of Dizzy Gillespie. Later he worked as a sideman in rhythm and blues bands. But his absence will be felt most in the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, which he joined as a full-time member more than 20 years ago. Mr. Brunious is survived by his wife, Terri; a son, John Jr.; two stepdaughters; a granddaughter; and four sisters and three brothers. During the flooding after Hurricane Katrina, Mr. Brunious was rescued by boat from the roof of his apartment. He spent five days at the Ernest N. Morial Convention Center before being placed on a bus. Mr. Jaffe eventually found him through the Red Cross. Last year, Mr. Jaffe arranged the release of “Made in New Orleans,” a boxed set of music by the Preservation Hall band, which includes some material he salvaged after the flood. Mr. Brunious sings and plays on a half-dozen tracks, including a poignant version of “Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?” recorded in 2006.

Is this the same Perry Lopez that played guitar on a few jazz recordings from the early 1950s?

John Edwards on bass.