AI Girlfriends

The other day I heard on the news that someone is predicting that AI girlfriends are going to be a billion dollar industry. So I googled the story and found it. And in the article it says a man is spending $10,000 a month ($120,000 a year) on his AI girlfriend. And he loves doing it. 

I remember in the 2001 movie A. I. Artificial Intelligence that a man killed his wife for having an affair with a male sexbot. But if you add AI girlfriend (or boyfriend) to a realistic robot... that's what you have.

The AI girlfriend ads I have seen on Facebook have slowed lately. Maybe they got as many suckers as the algorithm could handle.

So you could have a perfect girlfriend that never ages, never gets fat, never gets sick, never gets pregnant, and never nags or argues. And never divorces you and take half your assets. If you tire of her, you can just trade her in for a new model, sort of like a car.

And we thought the US was having fertility problems now! Once again, Futurama predicts the future.

I kind of see the appeal of an AI girlfriend but I think (at least. until sexbots are perfected), you'd miss the touch of human flesh. 

What do you think of AI girlfriends? The future of mankind or will they just appeal to some people? Let me know in the comments below.

Summer Solstice

Today is the Summer Solstice (in the Northern Hemisphere). It'll happen at 20:51 UTC (1:51 PM PST or 4:51 PM EST). 

But what is a "solstice"? Well, "sol" is Latin for the sun. The actual name of the sun is "Sol." "Stice" come from Latin to make stand, or stop. So it means "sun stopping." The same root, by the way, is used in armistice. That is, arms (weapons) standing.

The summer solstice is when the sun stops moving north. It halts its northern progress at the Tropic of Cancer. On the Summer Solstice it is directly overhead of the Tropic of Cancer. This is partially how Eratosthenes measured the circumference of the Earth in 240 BC with surprising accuracy.

This Summer Solstice is the earliest in 228 years. And over the next 72 years, the solstice will get progressively earlier every four years. This happens not because of some cosmological reason, but how we humans measure time. Our calendar does not exactly line up with astronomical events. 

Read more in depth about it here.

Some people call the Summer Solstice "the longest day." This is not exactly accurate. The day is still (pretty close to) 24 hours long. What it is is that, in the Northern Hemisphere, it is the day with the most hours of daylight. How much daylight depends on your latitude. The farther north you are, the more daylight you will have. If you are at or above the Arctic Circle, you'll have at least one day where the sun never sets. 

Some people ascribe special meaning to the solstice. But it really means nothing more than the tilt of the Earth's axis causing the seasons. On the summer solstice, the axis is leaning toward the sun at the north (and away at the south). 

Do you have any plans for the summer solstice? Let me know in the comments below.

Space Missions I'd Like to See

I'm getting older. If I live another 20 years I'll be lucky. But there is still so much to learn and see. I'd love to see some of the following space missions happen before I go. (Some of these may be actually planned; I don't keep up on all the space agencies' projects.)

A mission to Europa (moon of Jupiter) to see if there is life under the ice. Same with Encladus (moon of Saturn). Both would involve somehow drilling through layers of ice (10 to 15 miles in the case of Europa). Or maybe they could use radar to see if something is swimming under the ice. 

A mission to Titan (moon of Saturn) to see what if anything is swimming in the methane lakes. Maybe a submarine.

A manned mission to Mars (this is in the works, I know).

The launch of a fast probe to the Alpha Centauri system to look for life. Like maybe it travels at 0.1% the speed of light. I'd never see it arrive because it would take about 400 years to get there. Don't ask me where the energy will come from to propel a probe that fast. (Yes, this was inspired by 3 Body Problem.)

Are there any space missions you'd like to see? Let me know in the comments below.

Disneyland Canoes

Not Disneyland Canoes

My wife and I have twice gone to Disneyland without kids. The first time was in 1986 before we had any kids. I was in the Army stationed at the Presidio of Monterey and driving to Los Angeles wasn't a big deal. 

On that trip, we (probably me) decided to take the "Davy's Crockette's Explorer Canoes" ride. Which is the oldest ride at Disneyland. You are in a real canoe and paddling around Tom Sawyer Island. The water is dark, probably so you can't see the track that the Mark Twain Riverboat and Sailing Ship Columbia ride on. The water is called "Rivers of America." The canoes are big and hold about twenty people.

On this trip, we got in the canoe and started paddling. 

Going into the water near the start of the canoes is the rafts that take people to Tom Sawyer Island. As we paddled past where they launch into the rafts, one came toward our canoe probably because the raft driver didn't see us. The Disneyland employee in the canoe started yelling and banging his oar on the side of the canoe. A woman screamed when the raft got closer. And I thought that was a bit of an over-reaction. I started wondering how deep the Rivers of America is. It was a bit scary.

Suddenly, the driver of the raft saw us and steered away. So a fun little adventure on our adventure.

Have you had any unintentionally scary things happen at a theme park? Let me know in the comments below.