The Internet has Convinced Me it's Human: featuring Spiritual Machines, Celtic Pride and the Best Blogs of 2008

"The year is 2029. The machines will convince us that they are conscious, that they have their own agenda worthy of our respect. They will embody human qualities. They will convince us that they are human. And we'll believe them."

The above quote from Ray Kurzweil's "The Age of Spiritual Machines" and Our Lady Peace's 2000 CD of essentially the same name, is the inspiration for the title of this post, which I would like to make a daily thing. Much like BDL's "The Internets are Alive" where they post interesting basketball news stories from around the world, I figure I might as well do the same thing just with a random assortment of topics as the features. My internet is indeed human, and it has proven itself a worthy counterpart:

1. An honorable mention, and a movie that had I remembered it, might have made its may to the middle of my Favorite Basketball Movies list:
Celtic Pride

How did I forget about this movie? Plus it has total relevance again since the Celts just won their 17th Banner and are a NBA leading 23-2 this season.

2. From the desk of totally-random-but-totally-awesome basketball merchandise: A Washington Wizards inspired Christmas Card.

3. This happened 3 days ago, and O.J. Mayo probably still can't get his toes uncrossed, or feel the minor push-off the Flash gave him.



4. This Day in History: Beethoven is Born, and eventually influences the length of current day CDs.

5. I took my Age of Dinosaurs final yesterday. Volcanism was on it. This article came out 6 hours later.

6. Stereogum readers voted BrooklynVegan the best Music Blog of 2008

7. I'm in college and I love Free Shit. Especially when it's the Cool Kids.

8. The Best? Who knows. But here are what users have voted as some of the best blogs of 2008. Via The Bloggies and Time.

I leave you with one of Ray Kurzweil's predictions:
In 2029, Computers are now capable of learning and creating new knowledge entirely on their own and with no human help. By scanning the enormous content of the Internet, some computers "know" literally every single piece of public information (every scientific discovery, every book and movie, every public statement, etc.) generated by human beings.