Things We Know To Be True [Week's News Poem, January 4, 2013]

Things We Know To Be True [Week's News Poem, January 4, 2013]

Internet owner's manual:

Pages of rage,

Filled to the Brin with sin.

Don't be evil,

Be aggressive.

““Don’t Be Evil,” the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, proclaimed in their 2004 “Owner’s Manual” for prospective investors in the company. Despite widespread cynicism, criticism and even mockery, the company has never backed down on this core premise, reiterating in its most recent list of the “things we know to be true” that “You can make money without doing evil.”...On Thursday, after nearly two years of investigation, the Federal Trade Commission rendered a verdict: Google isn’t evil. ”

—The Line Between ‘Aggressive’ and ‘Evil’ by JAMES B. STEWART, The New York Times, January 4, 2013

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/05/business/google-finds-a-line-between-aggressive-and-evil.html

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Drawing Quarter and Receiving None [Today's News Poem, August 10, 2012]

Drawing Quarter and Receiving None [Today's News Poem, August 10, 2012]

Aware of your awareness,

Halting before your halter–

Brand news and your nooses–

I burn upon your altar.

For life is meat and meaning;

Gamey and gamete, games of

Chance, trance of the cancers

Of greed and fear, above

Below – and lowing calfishly

Accidentally flowing gold,

Elevated to the empty sky

(Star-filled, empty, empty)

The Machine becomes aware

Of my awareness,

Learns to play my play and offers

Quarter. I refuse.

“Author Scott Patterson explains it all in his book that chronicles the rise of computerized artificial intelligence and the computerized trading that has come to dominate the stock market. How dominant? Patterson writes, "At the end of World War II, the average holding period for a stock was four years. By 2000, it was eight months. And by 2011, it was twenty-two seconds." One high frequency trading firm's average holding lasted for 11 seconds. High frequency traders now account for more than 70 percent of all stock trading volume. ”

– By Stephen J. Butler, sbutler@pensiondynamics.com Posted: 08/10/2012 06:49:31 PM PDT, Updated: 08/10/2012 06:49:32 PM PDT

http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_21287269

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The Slave Meme [Today's News Poem, February 23, 2011]

The Slave Meme [Today's News Poem, February 23, 2011]

Calculate value with margins of error:
Rome had its slaves who rebelled and destroyed it;
We have computers to operate, process
Assets, authority; ever our servant.

Rome was the peak of the body as weapon,
Masters of iron and bronze for the export
Of edges to fringes to chip off the forests,
And skewer the lion and lamb in their turn.

Enslavement as industry; slaving the farmer,
Enslaving a continent's people who feuded
And built a machine with no center for labor;
To slave and be slain in their turn as the master.

Heirs to the empire of crumbling marble,
Sacrifice blood in arenas of numbers.

"The political turmoil sweeping the Arab world drove oil prices sharply higher and stocks much lower on Tuesday despite efforts by Saudi Arabia to calm turbulent markets."
—CLIFFORD KRAUSS and CHRISTINE HAUSER, The New York Times, Published: February 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/23/business/global/23oil.html

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Ready For The Next Nerve [Today's News Poem, February 18, 2011]

Ready For The Next Nerve [Today's News Poem, February 18, 2011]

Press conversation; the world is for you.
Sell your opinion, say 'sharing,' it's sales.
Levitate over the subject as lord,
Clouding the view with hot air and the smog.

Press the advantage, the keyboard awaits—
Trading the options, for ownership, fiefs.
Pressing oppression demands full alert,
Iron your shirt for the camera's teeth.

Trigger—the world's on a trigger I fear—
Nerves—if I feel it's the nerve of the world
Causing my nervousness—show me the mind
Hiding behind every keystroke—I'm ready.

"Hundreds of thousands of Egyptians rallied Friday to celebrate former President Hosni Mubarak's ouster a week earlier and remind the ruling generals that protest organizers can still muster daunting crowds if the military stalls on democratic reforms. "
—CHARLES LEVINSON And MATT BRADLEY The Wall Street Journal, FEBRUARY 19, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704900004576152013556019684.html

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Last Contact [News Poem March 30, 2010]

Last Contact [News Poem March 30, 2010]
“But over the last 20 years, private companies and academic researchers have claimed patents on more than 4,300 human genes — about 20 percent of all genes in the human body.”
--Jim Dwyer, The New York Times, March 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/nyregion/31about.html

The animals of planet three
Were brutes, and yet an entity
Comprised of them, but more like us—
A being with whom we could discuss
The means of trade with primitives—
Emerged from parts that squirm and live.

The natives called them government;
Or business—what they really meant
To say was sentience exists
In groups for them—the rest resist
But lack the power, so they find
Themselves all trapped in hidden binds.

We bargained for the darker ones
To work in mines near far off suns;
And ate the meat of lighter skins:
Delicious! It was clean and thin.
Our chefs prepared them as fillets.
We took their genes and flew away.

Those entities are better off
Without their poor at feeding troughs.
Besides, they treat their beasts the same:
And never had a moral claim—
For dignity's for higher life
And unused parts are tasty. Rife.



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Reverse Design [Today's News Poem March 23, 2010]

Reverse Design [Today's News Poem March 23, 2010]
“Gordon's work is part of a growing field of research that's just starting to mine the massive quantity of thoughts, feelings and experiences real people pour out daily on the Internet.”
--Shannon Proudfoot, Canwest News Service, March 23, 2010
http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/BLOG+CHRONICLES/2715796/story.html
“Branson's company Virgin Galactic announced Monday that the VSS Enterprise had successfully completed what it called a captive carry flight attached to a carrier plane.”
--CNN, March 23, 2010 10:57 a.m. EDT
http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/space/03/23/virgin.space.flight/?hpt=Sbin

'Coincidence exists as fate:
This moment's proof there's magic left.
I'd murder you, but it's too late
To rescue her and now bereft

I'd rather grieve: a human act
You scarce recall. You loved machines
Too well to care for basic tact.
And now, deprived of your marines...

I might, I might—you never know.
How does it feel to fear like this?
To live for once amongst a foe
Who stares across a like abyss

Into the meaty weak inside
Us both! Goddamn! To kill you off
Would make me last—until I died.
I want to hear that snotty scoff

You'd make when asked about the threat
Of competition bots propose.
Your brazen ways accrued a debt
You'll never pay—you see it flows:

You save the life of humankind
When saving one and likewise kill
Humanity—all intertwined—
When just one death's been charged to bill.

Insanity's the byproduct
Of toxic cultures. Likewise verse
Possessed the ultimate construct
Of meta-minds; not better, worse

Than what you did—you programmed chips,
I programmed souls. And yet you sought
To be like them—their skills eclipse
Your own and yet you never thought

The day would come when human parts
Would serve no need for cyberkind.
Instead of listening to art
You worshiped static, robot minds

That learned to ape our every way—
Despite their drives that don't forget:
That method caused you no dismay?
It's only now that you regret?

While both our kinds shall go extinct,
While you and I will shortly die;
By suicide I'll prove distinct
And clean in death. Fuck you and bye.'

He jumped before I scanned his brain.
His skull: it bounced from rock to rock.
A total loss. His body's stain
I took—to keep his genes in stock.



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