Now Teddy Is On Drugs
Virgin Mars
Richard Branson says he’s 6 months from going to space — but Mars belongs to Elon Musk
by Tom Turula
Richard Branson’s private space program Virgin Galactic has long promised to democratize space travel.
After thirteen years of development and setbacks — including a fatal crash, technical difficulties and frequent delays — Richard Branson’s private space program, Virgin Galactic, is soon ready for live action, at least according to Branson himself.
“We are hopefully about three months before we are in space, maybe six months before I’m in space,” the founder of Virgin Galactic, which is part of Virgin Group, told an audience at Nordic Business Forum in Helsinki, Finland last week.
When he received an audience question about who will reach Mars first, he or Elon Musk, Branson made clear he is not as keen on the red star as SpaceX and Tesla’s founder.
“I’m not as passionate about Mars as Elon is. My love for space is about how much it can do for people back here on earth, and that’s what Virgin Galactic is pushing towards.”
Kubrick’s Right-hand
Stanley Kubrick’s Right-Hand Man Speaks: The Personal Toll of Working With a Genius
Leon Vitali’s career spent working alongside Stanley Kubrick is a case study of both selfless devotion and self-destructive mania. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
by NICK SCHAGER
Every serious cinephile is aware of Stanley Kubrick, but far fewer are familiar with Leon Vitali, the English co-star of Kubrick’s Barry Lyndon who, following that performance, became the auteur’s steadfast right-hand man. Doing everything asked of him by the legendarily meticulous filmmaker—from taking notes, creating marketing materials, and color-coding prints, to casting, rehearsing with stars, and acting himself—Vitali was the irreplaceable assistant who helped shepherd to the screen The Shining, Full Metal Jacketand Eyes Wide Shut, even as his vital role in those projects remained largely hidden from the public.
That situation is justly rectified by Tony Zierra’s Filmworker, a superb documentary about Vitali’s career alongside Kubrick that serves as a case study of both selfless devotion and self-destructive mania—as well as a much-deserved celebration of a true artist-behind-the-artist. And according to its subject, it certainly doesn’t overstate how uniquely demanding it was to work with one of cinema’s true geniuses.
“Balance is a word that rarely came into my vocabulary throughout my whole time, whether I was working with Stanley or not,” Vitali chuckles when speaking to me from Los Angeles, two days before Filmworker’s premiere (this Tuesday) at the New York Film Festival. “I’m just one of those people who gets quite emotional once they got locked into something. And some things take on proportions of life and death.” Though he found watching himself on screen in this form “a little bit weird,” he confesses, “I can honestly say it didn’t exaggerate, in any stretch of the imagination, how fraught or tense it could be. Or how time intensive.”
Red-Right 88
BOB FREY
Hey Everybody,
Below is a newly recorded version of my 20-minute (!!) ode to the Cleveland Browns “Red-Right 88”. It first appeared on my record “Tape From Minnesota” (2004). I decided to re-record this song, started from scratch and, in addition to new vocals and guitar, I have added, with a little help from my friends, some tasty keys & percussion. This is a work-in-progress, and I hope to have some violin on there soon. But, as another Browns season begins, I thought I’d get this version out there. Enjoy! Hope everybody doing well and, Go Browns!! B
P.S. And- Good Luck to our baseball boys as they chase their record-setting 22nd win in a row! Jonathan and I have watched just about every game from our comfy Mpls basement. Cherished Father & Son times… kinda like those described in “Red Right 88”, except Cleveland is winning! B
Luca Stricagnoli
AIM Gone
AIM Was Perfect, and Now It Will Die
A eulogy for the chatting service, which will shut down on December 15
Axel Heimken / AP
You kids don’t understand. You could never understand.
You walk around in habitats of text, pop-up cathedrals of social language whose cornerstone is the rectangle in your pocket. The words and the alert sounds swirl around you and you know how to read them and hear them because our culture—that we made—taught you how. We were the first generation to spend two hours typing at our closest friends instead of finishing our homework, parsing and analyzing and worrying over “u were so funny in class today” or “nah lol youre pretty cool.”
That thing you know how to do, that cerebellum-wracking attentiveness to every character of the text message and what it might mean—we invented that. But when we invented it, we didn’t have text messages, we didn’t have Snapchat, we didn’t have group chats or Instagram DMs or school-provided Gmail accounts. We had AIM. We had AOL Instant Messenger.
“How did AIM work?” you ask. It was like Gchat or iMessage, but you could only do it from a desktop computer. (Since we didn’t have smartphones back then, its desktop-delimited-ness was self-explanatory.) You could set lengthy status messages with animated icons in them. And iconic alert noises played at certain actions: the door-opening squeak when someone logged on, the door-closing clickwhen they logged off, the boodleoop for every new message.
The Hooker Ripping It Up In Detroit
Kim Gets Screwed Again
Supreme Court Declines to Hear Kim Dotcom’s Civil Asset Forfeiture Appeal
by Tom McKay
Former Megaupload chief Kim Dotcom’s long, wild ride through the courts crashed into another setback Monday, with the Supreme Court declining to hear an appeal in the 2012 seizure of his assets in New Zealand.
US prosecutors had charged Dotcom with crimes including racketeering and money laundering related to Megaupload, the file-hosting service they said he operated as a thinly veiled piracy site. In January 2012, New Zealand authorities armed with rifles and tactical gear and accompanied by police helicopters raided his rented mansion at the behest of the US, seizing millions of dollars in property and freezing Dotcom’s overseas bank accounts.
The US government has been trying to get its hands on $40 million of those assets since 2014, saying Dotcom’s web empire profited by $175 million at the cost of some $500 million in stolen intellectual property from the entertainment industry. In 2016, an appeals court ruled the civil forfeiture could move forward because Dotcom never came to the US to contest it—thus making himself subject to “fugitive disentitlement.” That more or less means US courts consider him to have become a fugitive and thus unable to contest the seizures.
Paglia on Hefner
Camille Paglia on Hugh Hefner’s Legacy, Trump’s Masculinity and Feminism’s Sex Phobia
by
With the death of Playboy founder Hugh Hefner on Sept. 27, cultural historian and contrarian feminist Camille Paglia spoke to The Hollywood Reporter in an exclusive interview on topics ranging from what Hef’s choice of the bunny costume revealed about him to the current “dreary” state of relationships between the sexes.
Have you ever been to a party at the Playboy Mansion?
No, I’m not a partygoer! (Laughs.)
So let me just ask: Was Hugh Hefner a misogynist?
Absolutely not! The central theme of my wing of pro-sex feminism is that all celebrations of the sexual human body are positive. Second-wave feminism went off the rails when it was totally unable to deal with erotic imagery, which has been a central feature of the entire history of Western art ever since Greek nudes.
So let’s dig in a little — what would you say was Playboy’s cultural impact?
Hugh Hefner absolutely revolutionized the persona of the American male. In the post-World War II era, men’s magazines were about hunting and fishing or the military, or they were like Esquire, erotic magazines with a kind of European flair.
Hefner reimagined the American male as a connoisseur in the continental manner, a man who enjoyed all the fine pleasures of life, including sex. Hefner brilliantly put sex into a continuum of appreciative response to jazz, to art, to ideas, to fine food. This was something brand new. Enjoying fine cuisine had always been considered unmanly in America. Hefner updated and revitalized the image of the British gentleman, a man of leisure who is deft at conversation — in which American men have never distinguished themselves — and the art of seduction, which was a sport refined by the French.
Hefner’s new vision of American masculinity was part of his desperate revision of his own Puritan heritage. On his father’s side, he descended directly from William Bradford, who came over on the Mayflower and was governor of Plymouth Colony, the major settlement of New England Puritans.
But Hefner’s worldview was already dated by the explosion of the psychedelic 1960s. The anything-goes, free-love atmosphere — illustrated by all that hedonistic rolling around in the mud at Woodstock in 1969 — made the suave Hefner style seem old-fashioned and buttoned up. Nevertheless, I have always taken the position that the men’s magazines — from the glossiest and most sophisticated to the rawest and raunchiest — represent the brute reality of sexuality. Pornography is not a distortion. It is not a sexist twisting of the facts of life but a kind of peephole into the roiling, primitive animal energies that are at the heart of sexual attraction and desire.
Sun & Peng’s ‘Dogs That Cannot Touch Each Other’
Monty Hall Gone
Monty Hall Dies; ‘Let’s Make A Deal’ Host Was 96
by Bruce Haring
TV game show host and creator Monty Hall, the man who took Let’s Make A Deal from a daytime staple into prime time, has died of heart failure in Beverly Hills. He was 96 and died at home. His daughter, Joanna Gleason, confirmed his death to the New York Times.
The show premiered in 1963 and, with some interruptions, continues to run. Contestants in outrageous costumes try to guess prices and see “what’s behind Door No. 1,” a line that bled into the popular culture.
Taco Bell Garb
Taco Bell Is Launching a Clothing Line with Forever 21
RELATED: The Most Outrageous Taco Bell Menu Items of All Time
You’ll soon be able to wear your fast food pride on your sleeve—literally.
Taco Bell is teaming up with Forever 21 to launch a fashion line which they promise to be “hotter than Diablo Sauce.” We would be frauds (FRAUDS!) if we didn’t admit to kind of loving bargain clothing that displays a love of tacos.
The line, which comes out on October 11, includes a millennial pink pullover sweatshirt with the “Live Mas” logo embroidered on it and a tank top inspired by a fire sauce packet.
So far, the only items we’ve seen are those two pieces—modeled by Brittany Creech and Andrew McBurnie, super fans who you may remember bucked tradition and shot their senior portraits at Taco Bell.
Ass Gold
Sri Lankan arrested for trying to smuggle 1kg of gold in his rectum
Customs officials find gold inside 45-year-old man after noticing his ‘suspicious movements’ at Colombo airport
A Sri Lankan man who raised suspicion by the way he kept looking around in an airport departure lounge was found to be carrying nearly 1kg (2.2lb) of gold stashed in his rectum.
The 45-year-old, who was headed for India, was arrested at Colombo airport on Sunday after customs officials noticed “suspicious movements”, said customs spokesman Sunil Jayarathne.
The man was carrying 904.77g of gold worth 4.5m rupees (£22,000), but was freed after a payment of 100,000 rupees, he said. Such methods of smuggling were not unusual, he said.
“The gold was wrapped in plastic bags inserted in to his rectum,” Jayarathne said, adding that there were four bags.
“This is not the first such detection and this is a common method of smuggling.”
Baa Baa Land
A Giant, Armed Military Nervous System. Cool
The Future the US Military is Constructing: a Giant, Armed Nervous System
BY PATRICK TUCKER
Service chiefs are converging on a single strategy for military dominance: connect everything to everything.
Leaders of the Air Force, Navy, Army and Marines are converging on a vision of the future military: connecting every asset on the global battlefield.
That means everything from F-35 jets overhead to the destroyers on the sea to the armor of the tanks crawling over the land to the multiplying devices in every troops’ pockets. Every weapon, vehicle, and device connected, sharing data, constantly aware of the presence and state of every other node in a truly global network. The effect: an unimaginably large cephapoloidal nervous system armed with the world’s most sophisticated weaponry.
In recent months, the Joint Chiefs of Staff put together the newest version of their National Military Strategy. Unlike previous ones, it is classified. But executing a strategy requiring buy-in and collaboration across the services. In recent months, at least two of the service chiefs talked openly about the strikingly similar direction that they are taking their forces. Standing before a sea of dark- blue uniforms at a September Air Force Association event in Maryland, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. David Goldfein said he had “refined” his plans for the Air Force after discussions with the Joint Chiefs “as part of the creation of the classified military strategy.”
The future for the Air Force? The service needed to be more like a certain electric-car manufacturer.
End Of The World Maybe Later
Doomsday Rescheduled: ‘Researcher’ Moves End Of The World To October
CBS Local — After Sept. 23 came and went without a rogue planet crashing into the Earth, some might think Christian numerologist David Meade would be out of the doomsday prediction
Meade predicted that a rogue planet named Nibiru would slam into the Earth on Sept. 23 and bring about a global apocalypse. NASA had publicly debunked the “Planet X” conspiracy theory in 2012, but it didn’t stop the self-published author from writing and speaking about the doomsday prediction.
Now that the fateful Saturday has passed, Meade has reportedly revised his schedule for the planet’s last day. The controversial doomsayer claims his Sept. 23 prediction was misinterpreted and that the world will actually end at some point starting in October. Meade now believes the new date will begin a seven-year period of world-ending events.
“That’s when the action starts. Hold on and watch—wait until the middle of October and I don’t believe you’ll be disappointed,” he wrote on his website. The former student of astronomy at the University of Louisville says his predictions come from deciphering codes in the Bible as well as other ancient markers like the Great Pyramids.
Real Football
The Invisible Arrow
MIGHT ONLY EXIST IN YOUR HEAD. AND EVERYONE ELSE’S
by
WIRED
Past. Present. Future.
In physics, they are all the same thing. But to you, me, and everyone else, time moves in one direction: from expectation, through experience, and into memory. This linearity is called the arrow of time, and some physicists believe it only progresses that way because humans, and other beings with similar neurological wiring, exist to observe its passing.
The question of time’s arrow is an old one. And to be clear, it’s not whether time exists, but what direction it moves. Many physicists believe it emerges when enough tiny particles—individually governed by the weird rules of quantum mechanics— interact, and start displaying behavior that can be explained using classical physics. But two scientists argue, in a paper published today in Annalen der physik—the same journal that published Einstein’s seminal articles on special and general relativity—that gravity isn’t strong enough to force every object in the universe to follow the same past»present»future direction. Instead, time’s arrow emerges from observers.
This all goes back to one of the biggest problems in physics, knitting together quantum and classical mechanics. In quantum mechanics, particles can have superposition. That is, one electron might exist in either of two places, and nobody can say for sure which until it is observed. Where that electron might be is represented by probability. Experimentally, this checks out.
However, the rules change when electrons start interacting with many objects—like a bunch of air molecules—or decohere into things like dust particles, airplanes, and baseballs. Classical mechanics take over, and gravity becomes important. “The position of electron, each atom, is governed by a probability,” says Yasunori Nomura, a physicist at UC Berkeley. But once they interact with larger objects, or become things like baseballs, those individual probabilities combine, and the odds of all those collective electrons having superposition decreases. That’s why you never see a baseball simultaneously disappear into the left fielder’s mitt while also soaring into the upper deck.
That moment when particle physics merge with classical mechanics is called decoherence. In terms of physics, it is when time’s direction becomes mathematically important. And so, most physicists believe time’s arrow emerges from decoherence.
Asteroid Chasing
NASA’s asteroid chaser swings by Earth on way to space rock
By MARCIA DUNN
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — NASA’s asteroid-chasing spacecraft swung by Earth on Friday on its way to a space rock.
Launched a year ago, Osiris-Rex passed within 10,711 miles (17,237 kilometers) of the home planet early Friday afternoon — above Antarctica. It used Earth’s gravity as a slingshot to put it on a path toward the asteroid Bennu.
Osiris-Rex should reach the small, roundish asteroid next year and, in 2020, collect some of its gravel for return to Earth. If all goes well, scientists should get the samples in 2023.
Friday’s flyby was a quick hello: The spacecraft zoomed by at about 19,000 mph (31,000 kph). NASA took precautions to ensure Osiris-Rex — about the size of an SUV — did not slam into any satellites.
Grace
FIVE MINUTES WITH THE LEGENDARY GRACE JONES
In an early scene of the new documentary Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami, the ferocious songstress and boundary-smashing model—whose prior silver screen highlights include portraying an Eiffel Tower-scaling Bond henchwoman and a centuries-old vampire stripper—signs autographs for fans huddled behind a barricade. One of them asks if she’d ever act in another movie, to which she commandingly answers, “My own!” This sets in motion a globetrotting journey a full decade in the making, acquainting us with Jones’ loved ones while peeling away her enigmatic, larger-than-life persona.
Director Sophie Fiennes is with the avant-pop legend when she delivers powerhouse performances in a Dublin theatre, attends church with her mother and revisits her Pentecostal upbringing in Jamaica, sips Cristal in her hotel room in a fur coat and reconnects with her former co-conspirator (and father to her son) Jean-Paul Goude in Paris. Over the course of the film, the subversive 69-year-old performer—who reminds us men should be penetrated at least once “so they know what it’s like to receive”—reveals herself like she seldom has before. Judging by the outpouring of praise during a post-screening Q&A at the Toronto International Film Festival last week, audiences were relieved that the ageless diva—who once threw her baby shower at the legendary Paradise Garage dressed as a toy soldier—has lost none of her bite or risk-taking spirit.
When Interview meets her the following evening for an expeditious five-minute chat in the dining room of an opulent Yorkville hotel, Jones is feasting on a hearty meal of steak frites. “I have to eat and talk, darling, so I’m afraid you’ll hear my munching on your recorder.” And with that said, Jones proceeded, her wit unimpaired and her laughter as rip-roaring as ever.
Party At My Place This Saturday
The Rapture starts on Saturday as ‘Planet Nibiru’ collides with Earth — according to Christian numerologist
End times and Rapture (Photos: Screen capture and Pixabay)
The end is nigh, according to Christian numerologist David Meade.
Citing verses in Luke 21:25 through 26, Meade thinks that the recent events like the solar eclipse and Hurricane Harvey are signs of the apocalypse. To make matters worse, there’s been an uptick in meteors falling to Earth. But rather than look at the science behind the increase in severity of storms or focus on the fact that most calendar years see two solar eclipses somewhere in the world, Meade sees a sign, The Sun reports.
“There will be signs in the sun, moon and stars. On the Earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea. People will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken,” says Luke 21:25.
“Men’s hearts failing them for fear, and for looking after those things which are coming on the Earth: for the powers of heaven shall be shaken,” Luke 21:26 continues.
For Meade, that translates into the end of the world and the Rapture being predicted for this Saturday, Sept. 23, 2017. Meade says he used numerological codes in the Bible to generate a “date marker” in the pyramids of Giza in Egypt.
Nibiru is “a supposed planet discovered by the Sumerians,” according to NASA. The first time it was predicted to fly by Earth and cause troubles were May 2003. It was also linked to the end of the world prediction for 2012.
“If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye,” NASA explained.
Another passage in Revelation 12:1-2 predicts the second coming of Christ.
Schrader on The Extinction Of The Human Race
Paul Schrader on the Extinction of the Human Race and His New Film ‘First Reformed’
By Brent Lang
It’s no surprise that Paul Schrader, a filmmaker associated with such dark classics as “Taxi Driver” and “American Gigolo,” has a pessimistic streak. But it’s still bracing to hear him argue that humanity, as we know it, is unlikely to last through the next century.
In an interview at the Toronto Film Festival, Schrader said he believes that global warming is accelerating at such a rate that there’s little that can be done to arrest the ecological changes. His Cassandra-like streak informs “First Reformed,” his new drama that’s been screening to strong reviews at the fall festivals. The film grapples with issues of faith while also sounding a warning about the destruction of the natural world. It follows Ethan Hawke as a small-town priest who toys with becoming a suicide bomber in the service of a radical form of environmentalism. Schrader spoke to Variety about religion in film, working with Hawke, and why he believes the world will be well rid of the human race.
Thanks, Dad
South Park F†ckery
‘South Park’ Episode Triggers Viewers’ Amazon Alexa and Google Home
by Ryan Parker
The 21st season of South Park premiered on Wednesday and, as the show usually does, touched on multiple current topics.
The episode, “White People Renovating Houses,” mostly skewered the white nationalist movement, poking fun at members’ obsession with waving the Confederate flag.
But it was another aspect of the storyline that was messing with some viewers’ smart speakers.
Both Alexa and Google Home were featured in “White People Renovating Houses,” and the cartoon characters yelling commands at their cartoon models for 30 minutes played havoc on some actual Alexa and Home models.
Harry Dean Stanton Gone
Harry Dean Stanton dead at 91
Character actor Harry Dean Stanton, who appeared in such films as “Cool Hand Luke,” “Kelly’s Heroes,” “The Godfather Part II” and “Alien,” has died at age 91, Fox News confirmed Friday.
Stanton passed away from natural causes at Cedars-Sinai hospital in Los Angeles.
Before finding fame in Hollywood, the Kentucky native previously served in the Navy during World War II and fought in the Battle of Okinawa. After his service, Stanton pursued acting on-stage in a University of Kentucky production of “Pygmalion.”
Once Stanton moved to Los Angeles to further pursue his craft, he appeared in his first film, “Tomahawk Trail,” in 1957.
Stanton later landed roles in numerous hit films, including “Cool Hand Luke,” “The Godfather: Part II,” and “The Missouri Breaks,” which featured his lifelong friend Jack Nicholson.
Stanton’s film career continued to flourish in the ‘80s with classics, such as “Escape from New York,” “Paris, Texas,” and “Pretty in Pink.”
In 1990, he played an ill-fated private investigator in “Wild at Heart,” which was directed by David Lynch. The filmmaker went on to cast Stanton again in “Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me” in 1992 and “The Straight Story” in 1999.
Trigonometry Revisited
Mathematical mystery of ancient Babylonian clay tablet solved
UNSW Sydney scientists have discovered the purpose of a famous 3700-year old Babylonian clay tablet, revealing it is the world’s oldest and most accurate trigonometric table, possibly used by ancient mathematical scribes to calculate how to construct palaces and temples and build canals.
The new research shows the Babylonians beat the Greeks to the invention of trigonometry – the study of triangles – by more than 1000 years, and reveals an ancient mathematical sophistication that had been hidden until now.
Known as Plimpton 322, the small tablet was discovered in the early 1900s in what is now southern Iraq by archaeologist, academic, diplomat and antiquities dealer Edgar Banks, the person on whom the fictional character Indiana Jones was based.
It has four columns and 15 rows of numbers written on it in the cuneiform script of the time using a base 60, or sexagesimal, system.
“Plimpton 322 has puzzled mathematicians for more than 70 years, since it was realised it contains a special pattern of numbers called Pythagorean triples,” says Dr Daniel Mansfield of the School of Mathematics and Statistics in the UNSW Faculty of Science.
“The huge mystery, until now, was its purpose – why the ancient scribes carried out the complex task of generating and sorting the numbers on the tablet.
“Our research reveals that Plimpton 322 describes the shapes of right-angle triangles using a novel kind of trigonometry based on ratios, not angles and circles. It is a fascinating mathematical work that demonstrates undoubted genius.
“The tablet not only contains the world’s oldest trigonometric table; it is also the only completely accurate trigonometric table, because of the very different Babylonian approach to arithmetic and geometry.
Jim Carrey Awesome
The What?
The 5, the 101, the 405: Why Southern Californians Love Saying ‘the’ Before Freeway Numbers
This 1939 plan, developed by the city of Los Angeles, refers to its proposed freeways by name rather than number. Priority parkways are highlighted in color in this 1943 reprinting of the plan from “Freeways for the Region.” Courtesy of the Metro Transportation Library and Archive.
Southern Californians have a distinctive – “Saturday Night Live’s” Fred Armisen and Kristen Wiig might say funny – way of giving directions. To get from Santa Monica to Hollywood, take the 10 to the 110 to the 101. Burbank to San Diego? The 134 to the 5. And, if you can, always avoid the 405.
Why the definite articles? After all, a resident of the Bay Area enjoys coastal drives along “101” or takes “80 east” to Sacramento. Most of North America, in fact, omits the “the” before route numbers.
The answer begins with the region’s early embrace of the freeway. Long before the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956 gave most U.S. cities their first freeways, Los Angeles had built several. These weren’t simply extensions of federal interstate highways through the city; they were local routes, engineered to carry local traffic and (partly) paid for by local funds. It only made sense that, as they opened one by one, they’d get local names, ones that succinctly denoted their route or destination. The freeway through the Cahuenga Pass thus became the Cahuenga Pass Freeway, and Angelenos knew the freeway to San Bernardino as the San Bernardino Freeway.
State highway officials did affix route numbers to these freeways. But clarity dictated that Southern Californians continue to use their descriptive names. In their early years, most Los Angeles-area freeways bore signs for multiple numbered highway routes. The Pasadena Freeway, for example, was Route 6, 66, and 99, all at once. The Harbor Freeway carried both Route 6 and Route 11. The Hollywood, Route 66 and 101. Who wouldn’t prefer the simplicity of a name over a confusing array of numbers?
Puppies Or Kitties?
Creepy.
‘Inspirational’ robots to begin replacing teachers within 10 years
by Henry Bodkin
Robots will begin replacing teachers in the classroom within the next ten years as part of a revolution in one-to-one learning, a leading educationalist has predicted.
Sir Anthony Seldon, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Buckingham, said intelligent machines that adapt to suit the learning styles of individual children will soon render traditional academic teaching all but redundant.
The former Master of Wellington College said programmes currently being developed in Silicon Valley will learn to read the brains and facial expressions of pupils, adapting the method of communication to what works best for them.
Automated teaching machines would be “extraordinarily inspirational”, Sir Anthony said.
“You’ll still have the humans there walking around during school time, but in fact the inspiration in terms of intellectual excitement will come from the lighting-up of the brain which the machines will be superbly well-geared for.
“The machines will know what it is that most excites you and gives you a natural level of challenge that is not too hard or too easy, but just right for you.”
He expected the National Union of Teachers to be “very alarmed” by the prospect.
[ click to read full article at The Telegraph ]