• Miss California 2009 loses what would have been her crown because she "[believes] that marriage should be between a man and a woman".  Not only does she lose the crown, she also becomes the scorn of society.
• Grad student Julia Ward was expelled from Eastern Michigan University's graduate counseling program because she would not affirm that homosexual behavior was acceptable.  (Instead, she had referred the client to another counselor who "did not have a conscience issue with the very matter to be discussed", as advised by her professor.)

This is likely to be me this summer:

Why is it so impossible to change the color of the side bars to something other than green?  So much for a college degree.

So in AI, one of the philosophical questions is how to tell if a machine has achieved "Artificial Intelligence."  Can intelligence be observed solely from a behavioral perspective?  i.e. if a machine is programmed to act intelligently, is it necessarily intelligent?  On the other side of the spectrum, what do we do with a machine that is claimed "intelligent" but can't do anything?  Perhaps a balance between the two schools of thought?  And why are we trying to create something equivalent to (if not better than) the human again?  Who exactly do we think we are?  hmm....

Anyway, point of the following comic IS: Alan Turing proposed the Turing Test: a human interrogator asks the machine questions (through a wall, screen, whatever), and if the interrogator cannot tell by the response if it is a machine or human behind the wall, then it is intelligent (enough)!

I have been updating a lot more than usual.  Guess that only means one thing.

--edited--

Today a friend called me the `epitome of nerdiness'.  Wow, epitome is a strong word.  Let's think on this one for a moment.  For one, I like to think that I have some social skills.  (Others may beg to differ, as long as I don't hear about it!)  I'm also not a guy.  I'm also not a Best Buy clerk who adores Linux, hates Windows with a passion, mutters -- to himself and others -- in a different language (e.g. C++), and plays video games at every waking moment (*ahem* Michelle haha).  So, epitome, eh?  I think I have just redefined what it means to be a `nerd'. 

In all seriousness, I like to think that's a good thing.  Computer science communities across the board are scrambling (and reasonably so) to get more girls interested in the field.  It seems that one of the major reasons that girls don't go into computer science is because of stereotypes (like the ones aforementioned).  Studies have shown that people generally associate computer science with `nerds' who have no social skills and no life outside of computers.  Such an injustice to computer science.  Why don't we associate biology or criminology with these stereotypes?  Whatever the stereotypes/trends may be, they don't define what computer science IS and it's sad that they do so much to turn people away from CS.  Tremendous efforts have gone to exposing girls to computer science early -- BEFORE they even begin to associate the subject with `nerds'.

So though you think I'm nerdy (and of course, I am to some degree), I am unfortunately not the epitome of the `nerd' as society defines it.  If I were, gender ratios wouldn't be as much of a problem and the computer science community could focus more on computer science, and less on the fact that the gender ratios in computer science are so out of whack.  My ACM subscriptions would have more about algorithms than "how to get women interested".

Anyway, that phrase has a lot more implications than people may realize.

<edit #2>

Rest assured that I don't take offense when my friends point out my "nerdiness" - I never have.  Actually, for some strange reason, I take such comments as compliments...  For most of you, your definition of `nerd' is not a negative thing (I hope).  But society doesn't agree with you and these stereotypes are having a direct impact on a targeted field of study!  SO SAD.  Fine, no one cares... well YOU SHOULD.

</edit #2>

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On a different note, sometimes you can't do the right thing without taking a step of faith.

"Electrons smoke a lot of pot." -professor