Podcast appearances and mentions of gary kasparov

We're back on the wellness beat with Nicole Kidman in Nine Perfect Strangers season 2 on Prime (1:16:15), Facing off against a machine with chess wizard Gary Kasparov in Rematch on Disney+ (1:26:03), and re-examining the Lockerbie disaster with The Bombing Of Pan Am 103 on BBC1 (1:06:32). Plus Rian Johnson drops by to discuss Poker Face (36:44-53:00) and we even manage to slip some Star Wars questions in there as well. (Episode 337)Note: time stamps are approximate as the ads throw them out, so are only meant as a guide. If you want to avoid this and would like the podcast entirely ad-free (as well as 17 hours early, with a second weekly show and spoiler specials) then sign up to Pilot+!

« La “coalition des volontaires“, pointe Le Monde à Paris, c'est le nom de l'initiative franco-britannique qui doit réunir, aujourd'hui, une trentaine de pays alliés prêts à aider davantage l'Ukraine et à sécuriser un éventuel cessez-le-feu entre Kiev et Moscou, alors que l'administration Trump a engagé de laborieuses négociations avec la Russie, sans les Européens ».Le quotidien ukrainien Kyiv Independent s'interroge : « l'Europe, et la France en tant que l'un de ses leaders, peuvent-elles maintenir Kiev à flot alors que les États-Unis se retirent ? (…) À l'heure actuelle, les efforts diplomatiques déployés par Emmanuel Macron n'ont pas encore porté leurs fruits, le continent n'étant pas en mesure d'élaborer un plan concret sur le réarmement, les forces de maintien de la paix en Ukraine et une position unifiée à l'égard des États-Unis, de plus en plus agressifs. (…) Pour tenir les nombreuses promesses faites à l'Ukraine et à d'autres États européens et révolutionner la défense européenne avant les élections présidentielles françaises de 2027, Emmanuel Macron devra mobiliser encore les volontés et trouver plus de financement ».Incertitude…Le New York Times renchérit : « on ne sait toujours pas qui est prêt à faire quoi dans cette coalition, surtout à un moment où la faible croissance et la dette élevée compliquent l'équation pour les pays européens qui essaient de dépenser plus pour leurs armées. Le plus grand point d'interrogation est l'idée d'une éventuelle “force de réassurance“, constituée de troupes européennes qui seraient stationnées en Ukraine une fois le conflit terminé, afin d'empêcher la Russie de répéter son invasion de 2022. La Grande-Bretagne et la France ont lancé l'idée, mais jusqu'à présent, aucun autre pays n'a annoncé vouloir engager de troupes dans une telle force, qui reste largement à définir, donc, et que la Russie a qualifiée d'“inacceptable“ ».Exemple de cette incertitude : en Espagne, le Parlement traine des pieds pour augmenter les dépenses en matière de défense. Ce que déplore El Pais à Madrid : « avec une guerre aux portes de l'Europe qui dure déjà depuis trois ans, la menace expansionniste de la Russie d'envahir l'Ukraine et le virage anti-européen de la Maison Blanche, (…) il faut parvenir à des accords entre les partis. Nous avons besoin de clarté dans l'incertitude et d'une classe politique entière à la hauteur du défi ».La sécurité ou l'honneur ?Pour le Times à Londres, « l'Europe est dans une situation difficile », avec « un accord de paix bâclé » voulu par les États-Unis… Le Times qui lance cet avertissement : « nous, Européens – Britanniques, Ukrainiens et tous les autres – sommes désormais tous dans le même bateau, mal équipés et mal approvisionnés, ballottés entre Washington et Moscou. Les vœux pieux l'emportent souvent sur le réalisme, mais à mesure que la prise de conscience de notre situation critique se fait jour, la révolte se profile. Confrontés au choix entre un rapprochement lucratif avec la Russie, mené par les États-Unis, et la confrontation périlleuse qu'implique le maintien de la loyauté envers l'Ukraine, de nombreux pays pourraient privilégier la sécurité à l'honneur. À long terme, soupire le Times, ils perdront les deux ».« L'Europe doit être prête à faire la guerre »Enfin, dans une tribune publiée par Die Welt à Berlin, l'ancien champion du monde d'échec et opposant notoire à Poutine, Gary Kasparov estime que « l'Europe doit être prête à faire la guerre ».Kasparov formule plusieurs exigences en direction des chefs d'État européens : « former un bloc de défense européen totalement indépendant – une Otan parallèle qui pourrait fonctionner sans le leadership mondial des États-Unis », « exclure immédiatement la Hongrie du droit de vote et de l'aide financière de l'Union européenne », « mettre fin à l'exportation de pétrole russe via des flottes fantômes », ou encore « introduire la conscription pour le recrutement militaire ».

Zelensky speaks for the first time since President Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated him for the world to see. Russian dissident and chess champion Gary Kasparov joins along with Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) who met with Zelensky today.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Die 18-jarige Gukesh Dommaraju het geskiedenis gemaak toe hy die jongste klassieke skaak-wêreldkampioen ooit geword het. Hy het Ding Liren van China in die eindronde in Singapoer geklop. Die tiener van Indië neem die titel van jongste skaakkampioen oor by die Rus, Gary Kasparov, wat 22 was toe hy byna vier dekades gelede die jongste kampioen geword het. Gukesh sê sy oorwinning is die beste oomblik van sy lewe:

Il avait choisi de prendre les armes contre son propre pays pour défendre l'Ukraine. Et sa mort sur le front, dans la région de Kharkiv, a suscité une immense émotion dans les rangs de l'opposition russe. Ildar Dadin était en effet une figure emblématique de la lutte contre Vladimir Poutine, des premières manifestations contre les fraudes électorales au refus de la guerre en Ukraine. Mort les armes à la main contre les soldats de son propre pays, Ildar Dadine était devenu un symbole de l'opposition russe bien des années auparavant. En 2015, il fut le premier à être condamné à une peine de prison ferme simplement pour avoir manifesté dans les rues de Moscou. Deux ans et demi de prison en vertu d'un article du code criminel russe adopté sous la pression de Vladimir Poutine. L'arrestation et la condamnation d'Ildar Dadine sera le signe avant-coureur de la machine répressive qui allait progressivement broyer l'opposition russe.« Ildar Dadine était un militant acharné contre l'injustice et pour la défense des droits et des libertés en Russie », témoigne Olga Prokopieva, présidente de l'association Russie-Libertés. « Et pour avoir manifesté à plusieurs reprises il a été condamné à plusieurs années de prison. Pour nous, il incarnait la résistance non-violente face à fraudes électorales et à la dérive répressive du régime poutinien. » Le symbole est tel que l'article 212.1 qui permet à la justice de condamner un individu pour avoir manifesté à plusieurs reprises sans autorisation préalable sera surnommé « loi Dadin » par les opposants et les médias russes.Menaces de viol et simulacre de noyadeNé en avril 1982 dans la région de Moscou, Ildar Dadine devient agent de sécurité après son service militaire et se met à militer au début des années 2010. Comme il le raconte lui-même dans un entretien accordé des années plus tard à l'ONG russe OVD-Info, ce sont les fraudes électorales qui le poussent à s'engager. « J'ai manifesté pour la première fois sur la place Bolotnaya à Moscou, en décembre 2011… J'étais indigné par la victoire frauduleuse de Russie Unie, le parti de Vladimir Poutine, et j'avais réalisé que nous étions trompés par le pouvoir ».  Cet engagement le conduit en prison où il sera battu et torturé – simulations de noyade et menaces de viol, des sévices qu'il dénoncera publiquement. « À cette époque-là, les mauvais traitements s'appliquaient surtout aux prisonniers de droit commun, qui avaient peu accès à des avocats et encore moins aux médias », explique Anne Le Huérou, maîtresse de conférence à l'Université de Nanterre, et spécialiste de la Russie. « Ildar Dadine, lui, était déjà un petit peu connu, il savait que des organisations existaient qu'ils pouvaient solliciter, comme le Comité contre la torture… Il n'a pas eu peur, il a réussi à rendre visible son cas et à décrire de manière très précise tout ce dont il a été victime ».« Tuer le tueur »Sa détention et les sévices qui lui ont été infligés ne brisent pas sa détermination et sa volonté de résister au régime poutinien. Et il continuera de militer et de manifester dans les années qui suivent sa libération. Puis, le 24 février 2022, Vladimir Poutine lance l'invasion à grande échelle de l'Ukraine. Comme nombre d'opposants à la guerre, sur lesquels plane désormais le risque d'une condamnation à plusieurs années de prison, il se résout à fuir la Russie. Il passe par la Pologne puis se rend en Ukraine où il s'engage, sous le pseudonyme « Ghandi », dans les bataillons de volontaires russes.« Il a pris les armes tout en disant qu'il était pacifiste, qu'il détestait l'idée de tuer quelqu'un, mais qu'il devait s'opposer de la façon la plus efficace possible à un mal aussi immense que celui représenté par la Russie lorsqu'elle attaque l'Ukraine, pointe Cécile Vaissié, professeure en études russes à l'Université de Rennes-II. « Et il avait cette phrase : "la seule façon que je vois de s'opposer aux crimes commis par la Russie, c'est malheureusement de tuer le tueur"… Il aurait pu rester tranquillement dans l'immigration, il aurait pu rester à Varsovie comme d'autres le font encore maintenant. Mais il a dit qu'il se devait de prendre la défense du plus faible, y compris quand il s'agit de se battre contre les troupes de son propre État ».Divergences stratégiquesPour se battre, Ildar Dadine rejoint le Bataillon de Sibérie puis il intègre la Légion liberté de la Russie, un groupe de volontaires russes qui veut défendre l'Ukraine bien sûr mais qui veut également préparer la chute de Vladimir Poutine. À leurs yeux, seule une défaite militaire de la Russie pourra permettre de renverser le président russe et son régime – et la guerre en Ukraine ne serait de ce point de vue que le prélude à cette lutte armée sur le sol russe. Une stratégie qui suscite un vif débat au sein de l'opposition en exil – ce qui ajoute aux divisions qui contribuent à l'affaiblir. « Certains leaders de l'opposition se sont positionnés pour un soutien à cette lutte armée - y compris financièrement pour ceux qui en auraient les moyens – et c'est le sens de l'appel lancé récemment par Gary Kasparov, décrypte Anne Le Huérou, de l'Université de Nanterre. « Mais d'autres sont résolument contre, et estiment qu'il n'y aurait rien de pire que d'ajouter une guerre civile à cette guerre d'agression que mène la Russie. Ceux-là considèrent que ce n'est tout simplement pas possible aujourd'hui de vaincre le régime de Vladimir Poutine par une résistance armée ».C'est le cas notamment, des partisans d'Alexeï Navalny. Mort en prison en février 2024 l'opposant avait toujours refusé de lancer des appels à l'action violente et prônait une contestation pacifique du pouvoir en place. Loin des débats et des dissensions qui agitent aujourd'hui l'opposition russe en exil, Ildar Dadine avait choisi d'agir, au péril de sa vie. Son itinéraire de militant l'aura conduit des rassemblements pacifiques de l'hiver 2011-2012 aux tranchées de la guerre en Ukraine – un raccourci tragique et emblématique de ce qu'auront vécu, en moins d'une décennie, les militants russes de l'opposition anti-Poutine.À lire aussiGuerre en Ukraine: mort de l'opposant russe Ildar Dadine qui combattait auprès des forces de Kiev

On vous en avait déjà parlé en mars lors du festival Séries Mania où Rematch était présentée en avant-première, la série internationale débarque enfin sur arte.tv. Rematch, c'est une histoire de parties d'échecs. Mais pas n'importe quelles parties, mais de celles jouées entre Gary Kasparov, le grand maître d'échecs russe considéré comme le meilleur joueur du monde, et la machine d'IBM Deep Blue. Ce fait divers avait défrayé la chronique dans les années 90 comme un match homme VS machine. On vous laisse découvrir le résultat en regardant la mini-série en six épisodes trépidante d'Arte qui va vous happer. https://youtu.be/5uD-sejxiz0?si=OTNiKJUBgMt8WwTk La première partie avait été remportée par Kasparov et IBM a donc demandé une revanche comme l'indique la bande-annonce. C'est sur cette revanche que va s'attarder la série où le fameux Kasparov est campé par Christian Cooke. Face à lui dans l'équipe d'IBM, on retrouvera Sarah Bolger en Helen Brock, la responsable de la recherche et du développement chez IBM qui a flairé le coup du siècle, ainsi que Orion Lee qui interprète PC le codeur de Deep Blue, et enfin Tom Austen en Paul Nelson qui apprendra l'échec à l'ordinateur. Tous sauf Helen sont de véritables personnes qui ont existé. https://dai.ly/kf7P7SeZB5udTwBz4e8 Cette production internationale mélangeant des créateurs canadiens avec un producteur français ayant tourné avec des acteurs anglais en Hongrie et au Canada reflète une qualité d'écriture et de réalisation tel un drame prestigieux. Les décors sont léchés et les acteurs jouent sans fausse note. [bs_show url="rematch"] Après Le jeu de la dame, les échecs n'ont pas dit leur dernier mot, et clairement, une discipline qui ne semble pas être des plus effrénées, réussit à devenir le cœur de séries à suspens. Rematch est à voir sur Arte.tv dès le 2 octobre.

On vous en avait déjà parlé en mars lors du festival Séries Mania où Rematch était présentée en avant-première, la série internationale débarque enfin sur arte.tv. Rematch, c'est une histoire de parties d'échecs. Mais pas n'importe quelles parties, mais de celles jouées entre Gary Kasparov, le grand maître d'échecs russe considéré comme le meilleur joueur du monde, et la machine d'IBM Deep Blue. Ce fait divers avait défrayé la chronique dans les années 90 comme un match homme VS machine. On vous laisse découvrir le résultat en regardant la mini-série en six épisodes trépidante d'Arte qui va vous happer. https://youtu.be/5uD-sejxiz0?si=OTNiKJUBgMt8WwTk La première partie avait été remportée par Kasparov et IBM a donc demandé une revanche comme l'indique la bande-annonce. C'est sur cette revanche que va s'attarder la série où le fameux Kasparov est campé par Christian Cooke. Face à lui dans l'équipe d'IBM, on retrouvera Sarah Bolger en Helen Brock, la responsable de la recherche et du développement chez IBM qui a flairé le coup du siècle, ainsi que Orion Lee qui interprète PC le codeur de Deep Blue, et enfin Tom Austen en Paul Nelson qui apprendra l'échec à l'ordinateur. Tous sauf Helen sont de véritables personnes qui ont existé. https://dai.ly/kf7P7SeZB5udTwBz4e8 Cette production internationale mélangeant des créateurs canadiens avec un producteur français ayant tourné avec des acteurs anglais en Hongrie et au Canada reflète une qualité d'écriture et de réalisation tel un drame prestigieux. Les décors sont léchés et les acteurs jouent sans fausse note. [bs_show url="rematch"] Après Le jeu de la dame, les échecs n'ont pas dit leur dernier mot, et clairement, une discipline qui ne semble pas être des plus effrénées, réussit à devenir le cœur de séries à suspens. Rematch est à voir sur Arte.tv dès le 2 octobre.

Dr. Alok Aggarwal received his bachelor's in technology from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi in 1980. In 1984, he received his Ph. D. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University. He worked at IBM's T. J. Watson Research Center in New York between 1984-2000. During 1987 and 1989 Fall Terms, he took a sabbatical from IBM to teach two courses and supervise two Ph.D. students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Between 1993-1995, along with others, he built and sold a "Supply Chain Management Solution" for paper mills and steel mills, which was the first commercial Artificial Intelligence based solution of its kind. By optimizing paper machines, trimmers, winders, warehouses, transportation, and the loading of trucks and railroad cars, their solution saved paper mills substantially in the mills' operating costs. In 1993, Madison Paper Company in the United States was the first to buy this solution. And the company used this solution until 2017, when it was sold to a Norwegian paper company. Between 1996-1997, Dr. Aggarwal joined the Strategy Department of IBM Research Division, which was then greatly involved in strategizing and organizing chess matches between Deep Blue and Gary Kasparov. In July 1997, IBM Research Division announced the formation of “IBM's India Research Laboratory” (IRL). Dr. Aggarwal “founded” IRL inside IIT Delhi on April 1, 1998. By August 2000, he had grown it from "ground zero" to a 60-member team (with 30 PhDs and 30 people with master's in computer science and related areas). In January 2001, he co-founded Evalueserve (www.evalueserve.com ), which currently has more than 4,500 employees and provides various kinds of research, analytics, and consulting services to clients worldwide. In 2003, he wrote the first article regarding “Knowledge Process Outsourcing (KPO),” which estimated the amount of such work that would be outsourced from high-wage countries (like the United States) to low-wage countries (like India). Today, KPO is a well-known term in the outsourcing industry and is considered a sector on its own with more than 300 KPO companies in India alone. In February 2014, Dr. Aggarwal founded Scry Analytics (now “Scry AI”) that performs research and development (R&D) in Artificial Intelligence, Data Science, and related areas. Scry AI ( www.scryai.com ) also has five product groups and a distributed platform for Internet of Things. These improve efficiency of business workflows regarding quality, timeliness, revenue, cost, customer experience, compliance, and operational risks. Scry AI has its primary center in San Jose, California. And it has three other centers in Gurgaon, Pune, and Hyderabad, India. He has published 120 research articles, has been granted 8 patents from the US Patents and Trademark Office, and has been an editor of several academic journals in Computer Science. Furthermore, between 1998-2000, he was a member of Executive Committee on Information Technology of the Confederation of the Indian Industry (CII) and the Telecom Committee of Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI). During 2002 and 2005, he was on the executive board of TiE's (The Indus Entrepreneur). In 2008, Dr. Aggarwal received Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Delhi. In December 2000, he published a book titled, “The Fourth Industrial Revolution & 100 Years of AI (1950-2050)”, which is available on Amazon and other book stores. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/crypto-hipster-podcast/support

How can you leverage the principles of physics to grow your business? In this episode, Rich sits down with Bob Rogers, CEO of Oii.ai and a PhD in physics who studied supermassive black holes. They discuss how Bob's background as a scientist informs how he thinks about business, how to know when to pivot in a startup, and how cross-pollinating ideas from different domains leads to innovation for customers and patent-worthy ideas. ---------Key Quotes:“It's literally just finding the right level of granularity and detail to tell your story effectively. And that's a physics concept, but it's also a storytelling concept, and it's a business concept for me.”“I've seen a couple of organizations just, we're putting AI into this, this, this, and this. And it's like, ooh, it's a huge mistake. Because you really want to think of it as just another tool. It's not like, oh, let's go hammer everything and see what happens, you wouldn't do that just because you got a new hammer, right?” “The main thing is, every single person in your organization has patents inside them. That's the starting point. Start with that mindset. Everybody has patents inside them.”“Here's the tricky thing about the pivot. When you're building a business, a bullseye is a two dimensional object, like X axis and Y axis. But in business, it's a multidimensional space. So you're pivoting two degrees in an unknown direction. You've got to figure out the orientation and the angle, which is why it's not simple.”Practice Makes Profit segment: How to use a prioritization matrix.The League of Strategic Minds segment [listener question]: What is the difference between strategic thinking and strategic planning? Winsight: Idea for Advantage segment:  Gary Kasparov, the  world chess champion from 1985 to 200, said, “What separates a winner from a loser at the grandmaster level is a willingness to do the unthinkable. A brilliant strategy is certainly a matter of intelligence, but intelligence without audacity is not enough. You must have the guts to explode the game, to upend your opponent's thinking, and in doing so, unnerve them.” What are you doing to explode the game in your field? What are you doing? That's innovative. That's different. And that's going to upend  your opponent's thinking.---------Time stamps:(00:42) Deep Dive Interview with Bob Rogers(49:54)  Practice Makes Profit(52:05) The League of Strategic Minds (53:50) Winsights, Ideas for Advantage  ---------Links:Submit a question for Rich to the League of Strategic Minds Bob Rogers LinkedInOii.aiRich Horwath on LinkedInRich Horwath on YouTubeRich Horwath on InstagramStrategic Thinking Institute WebsiteInc. Magazine's Top 4 book for 2024: STRATEGIC  BookNew executive development platform: Strategic Fitness System Sign up for Rich's free Strategic Thinker Newsletter[Subscribe to the Podcast] On Apple PodcastsOn Spotify---------

Séries Mania : on vous présente deux coups de coeur, en compagnie de Niels Schneider(variante : Une enquête à la Twin Peaks, l'homme face à la machine : on vous présente deux coups de coeur de Séries Mania, en compagnie de Niels Schneider)AlloCiné vous fait vivre l'édition 2024 du festival Séries Mania, qui se tient du 15 au 22 mars.L'homme contre la machine ! Tel est le sujet de "Rematch", qui revient sur la partie d'échecs entre Gary Kasparov et un ordinateur à la fin des années 90. Et illustre bien la manière dont l'intelligence artificielle est l'un des sujets le plus en vogue de l'édition 2024 de Séries Mania.La Rédac AlloCiné revient sur cette problématique et cette série d'Arte… et se penche ensuite sur "Le Monde n'existe pas". Une série policière sombre, étrange et décalée, adaptation du roman de Fabrice Humbert où il est question de réécrire se propre histoire et de confronter fiction et réalité. Et on reçoit, pour en parler, son acteur principal Niels Schneider.N'hésitez pas à partager, noter, commenter l'émission et à vous abonner à AlloCiné Podcasts sur Spotify, Deezer, Apple, Acast ou votre appli préférée. Journalistes : Mégane Choquet et Maximilien PierretteRéalisation et montage : Arthur Tourneret

This week on The Open Door (January 24th) we virtually visit Norway. What's going on with Christian Democracy there and in nearby Sweden? What sources do our Scandinavian friends draw on to build a creative alternative to politics as usual? What sources do we in the US share with them? Our welcome and special guest is Eilev Hegstad. He is working on a PhD with the title "The role of ethics committees and moral experts in democracy". Hegstad has a master's degree in political science from the University of Oslo. His professional interests are the role of knowledge and expertise in politics, ethics committees, democratic theory, and political ideologies. He has done research at Oxford University. In 2023, the book "Kristendemokrati" which he edited came out. We'll be asking him the following questions.How did Christian Democracy come to the Nordic countries?In what ways has its development been distinctive? The core principles of Christian Democratic thought include subsidiarity, solidarity, social market economy, and popularism. Could you explain them to us? Could you please introduce us to some of the major Scandinavian proponents of Christian Democracy? There's an old line that an expert is someone from 20 miles away. But surely there's more involved than that. What's required to be, say, a moral expert? There's another old line that dismisses a poorly written document as the work of a committee. What's the task of an ethics committee and how can we tell if it's achieved?Democracy is not without its puzzles. When if ever is pure democracy feasible?What do you make of the Anscombe Paradox, namely that in a majority of instances the majority might be in the minority? Does political authority rest on convention, contract, consent, or something other than these?A bonus question: Do you think that Magnus Carlsen's chess brilliance would lend itself to political analysis? After all, Gary Kasparov might serve as his mentor!

Educating professionals and effectively using AI tools can enhance various aspects, not just diagnostics and communication. Dr. Julien Labruyère from VetCT joins Shawn and Ivan to emphasize the need for educating veterinary professionals about AI's workflow and clinical benefits.   Artificial Intelligence in Veterinary Medicine. Learn more about Dr. Julien Labruyère at vet-ct.com. Dr. Julien recommends Gary Kasparov's TED talk "Don't Fear Intelligent Machines, Work with Them".

On this week's episode, television veteran Michael Burger (Family Feud, Price is Right, Mike and Maty, and many many more) talks about his showbiz career. He looks back on memories from working on cruise ships as well as being able to work with some of his idols.SHOW NOTESMichael Burger's IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0121221/Michael Burger's Website: https://www.michaelburger.com/Free Writing Webinar - https://michaeljamin.com/op/webinar-registration/Michael's Online Screenwriting Course - https://michaeljamin.com/courseFree Screenwriting Lesson - https://michaeljamin.com/freeJoin My Watchlist - https://michaeljamin.com/watchlistAUTOGENERATED TRANSCRIPTSMichael Jamin:So when you shoot a multi-camera sitcom the audience, they bring in an audience and it could take, I dunno, it could easily take five hours to shoot a half hour of television.Michael Burger:22 minutes. Five and a half. Yeah. Five hours to shoot. 22.Michael Jamin:And so what's the audience doing while they're resetting the scenes or the actors are changing?Michael Burger:Well, I've got a lot of stories. Some. I had a guy die once. What? And I just thought he was taking a nap. Yeah. I kept looking up going, God, I don't, A comic wants everybody engaged. Right? And he's just, and at the end, he's not leaving every, the bus is gone and they card him out and he died on the way to the hospital. I guess they revived him, then he died.Michael Jamin:You're listening to Screenwriters. Need to hear this with Michael. Hey everyone, welcome back to Screenwriters. Need to hear this. I'm Michael. I got a cool guest today. So as many of you know, my very first comedy writing job in Hollywood, I was a joke writer on a morning TV show on a b C called the Mike and Maddie Show. And my next guest is Michael Berger, the host of Mike and Mad Mike, thank you so much for joining me here. A areMichael Burger:You nice to see and reconnect with you again? It's been a fewMichael Jamin:And you are this, I know you're not quite a screenwriter, but I think have a lot to, I don't know, just a lot to add to the conversation because you're a professional talk show host and you posted so much. I'm going to blow through some of your credits real fast just so people, but don'tMichael Burger:Blow through 'em. I want you to land on 'em and marinate on 'em for a while.Michael Jamin:Let's linger on them unnecessarily for a long time. So obviously Mike and Maddie, but the Home and Family Feud, the live version as well as the Price is right, the live version, thousand Dollars Pyramid Match Game, iron Chef Personals, the Late Night Dating Show Straight to the Heart, not to mention your long history as a standup comedian on cruise ships, and then later doing warmup. I want for audiences for sitcom audiences, which I know you've, we've been on any of the same shows, which is, that's a whole nother level of comedy. I want to talk about that. But first I want to talk about where you began. It was, how did you become a comedian for cruise ships?Michael Burger:Well, a lot of these entries into showbiz come in through the side door. And this was certainly the case. I was a big fan of Steve Martin and back in the late seventies, there was a contest where they were looking for a Steve Martin lookalike and the payoff, the winner got a spot on the Tonight Show with Carson. So I figured this is my entry in, so I figured that I win this contest and I get my own show. Well,Michael Jamin:And you didMichael Burger:Well. You had to submit a cassette tape, audio cassette tape of you doing Steve Martin. No video cameras just a cassette. And they wanted that in theory, in front of a live audience while I had, I hadn't done any standup. There's no live audience, but my audience in the day was my classroom. So I went back to my high school and said, can I borrow the classroom and just do Steve Martin's material and I'll take my best cut from that. So I went to five teachers. I did five minute sets, and I submitted that tape with the best of the five to the radio station who said, yeah, great. Come on up to the tower records parking lot on Sunset, where there's 25 of us dressed like Steve Martin doing. You're a wild and crazy guy. I win that and go to San Francisco and I meet the western Halfie of the United States at the boarding house, and I win that. And the finals are at the Comedy store with the entire country represented. I'm one of six. Steve Martin is there, Carl Reiner is there. And the winner, the payoff is the Tonight Show spot. And I do, my thing and my twist on it was I came out white suit arrow through the head, no pants with boxers that said a B, C news brief.So I figured I'd add my joke and the guy I was up against that I thought was my competition, played banjo so well and looked like Steve. I thought, there's no way. Right. He does his bit, I do my bit. It's a tie between me and this guy from Nashville that looked like Steve. Steve Martin comes on stage and he's holding our wrists like a ref in a boxing match. And he holds up the other guy's hand. Okay, that guy wins. I lose, three months later I'm watching The Tonight Show and Johnny goes, oh, we have a guest tonight. And Steve Martin comes out and he's out for about 30 seconds and you realize it's not Steve. The real Steve comes out bound and gagged yelling, this guy's an imposter. That guy goes away. We never hear from him again. And that was my first taste at showbiz.Michael Jamin:And you were like, what? 20 something?Michael Burger:Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I was 27, 28. But what would you, somebody saw that and said, Hey, can you do that on a cruise ship? Can you do standup on a ship?Michael Jamin:But wait, what would've you done if you had won this? Because then you would've been on the Tonight Show, but you didn't have an act.Michael Burger:Well, I would do kind of what that kid did. The whole bit was to pay Steve Martin's movie off The Jerk that was coming out. And it was just a sight gag, but I certainly would've come up with something. And then, so what I wound up doing initially after that, and this is in the height of all the singing comedy telegrams, remember back in the day, dancing bears and roller skates? Yeah. So I did a Steve Martin lookalike Soundalike Comedy Telegram where Michael would hire me to make fun of somebody, and I would get all the information and I would go wherever they are, a bank, an office. I actually stopped a wedding once as Steve Martin air through the head white suit, hold on, I don't think this is right. And do a little Steve Martin thing. And there was a guy in the audience at a restaurant who came over after I just did this Rickles kind of riff. And he goes, that's very funny. Can you do ships? And I said, sure. And that's how I got on a cruise ship. And then I'd come on as Steve, and then I'd do my whole act after that, which I developed over time.Michael Jamin:But your act was basically kind of making fun of Steve, or was it all playingMichael Burger:Well, no, you quickly. No, I had some comedy ideas, but what I realized as soon as I got on the ship, 70% of the material comes from being on the ship. Right. I dunno if you've ever worked ships, but No. Oh, there's so much material. It's such a ripe group. And thenMichael Jamin:It's so interesting, you never even did the comedy clubs. You really came up your own way.Michael Burger:I really did. I did a few because of that little bit of notoriety, but the cruise ships were a better paying gig. You got to see the world and you really felt like you were in the business. You had a band behind you generally. There was an opening act. The only downside was if you didn't do well, you'd have to see these people for the next three days, four days, seven days.Michael Jamin:But howMichael Burger:Many I loved it.Michael Jamin:How many shows would you do on a, so you were like, let's say it was a seven day tour. How many shows would you do?Michael Burger:Two.Michael Jamin:That's it really?Michael Burger:Yeah. Yeah. I would do the three and four day cruises down to Ensenada and back. And so I would do welcome aboard show, I would be the headliner. I'd come out and do my hour, and then they said, you can do anything you want on Sunday night. So I'd go in the back lounge and then just try stuff. And that's really where you kind of learned what's funny, what's not. So I got to do, my God, for anybody listening that remembers the Catskills in those old days where you just work well clubs today, you go out and work material, I could go in that back room and I would go on at midnight and the buffet would start at midnight. And my goal as a performer was if I could keep people from getting up and leaving my show to go eat again, then I realized I had some pretty good material. So I would do an hour and a half, two hours in the back room.Michael Jamin:ButMichael Burger:The moment that really, maybe this is where you're headed, that launched my career was in the middle of the cruise. They had a passenger talent show. And on one of these cruises, the cruise director came up to me and said, Hey, can you fill in and host the Passenger Talent Show? I have other things to do. And he meant that as a verb. I mean, this guy was, he was all over the ship just right,Michael Jamin:Yeah. GoingMichael Burger:After whatever moved, you know what I mean? And I said, well, what do I do? And he goes, well, these people sign up throughout the week and then we turn 'em loose at midnight and they do whatever they do. Think America's Got Talent. And I said, well, what would you like me? Wait, introduce 'em, put a little show together, go at 11 o'clock at night, get with the piano player and you figure out maybe an order. I said, well, okay. It sounds like fun. So I did that. And I'm telling you, Michael, I had more fun doing that than any standup really. I had a chance to talk to somebody, where are you from? What do you do? And then you turn 'em loose. But because, and it's not unlike warmup where someone else is the star where someone else has the focus. You just set 'em up and turn 'em loose. Yeah. I had an 85 year old woman, get up and tap dance to the Lord's Prayer. You don't need to top that.Michael Jamin:Yeah. How do you, right.Michael Burger:I mean, I had everything. Right. So I started doing this and about at the same time, I was doing warmup for a game show. We're going to go way back now, a dance show called Dance Fever.Michael Jamin:Yes. WhichMichael Burger:Is again, these dancing shows, but way back, right.Michael Jamin:It was solid Gold and Dance Fever, those two shows. That'sMichael Burger:It. And they had three celebrity judges and they would judge the dancers. And the Cue card woman comes up to me on a commercial break and she goes, N B C is going to do a morning game show. And they want somebody new, somebody unknown, someone that no one's heard of. I said, that's me. I, I'm in the middle of the ocean. No one knows me. She goes, do you have a tape? I said, nah, I got a tape. Sure. I got a tape, I got no tape. So the very next cruise I go back on, I put 2,500 bucks on my credit card and I go buy that two piece video system where you had to buy the base unit, the head unit. And I brought that on the ship. I put it on a tripod, I put it back by the soundboard, and I pushed record and I videotaped every one of these passenger talent shows that I hosted and then cut everybody out.And it just kept my moment. My first demo tape was six minutes of me doing that. Right. So this woman at Dance Fever says, get me that tape. I'll get it to N B C. The two people in charge were Jake Talbert and Brian Franz. They were the presidents of daytime television, N B C. So she sends in the tape and I get a call, my agent and I come in, I have an agent at this point, and they go, do you know why you're here? And I said, yeah, Mary Steck was nice enough. I said, no, it's the guy at the end. I said, what do you mean the old guy? Yeah. What about him? Well, there's this charming old man that I'm introducing and playing with, and he grabs the mic out of my hand and goes, you must be saying something very funny, but I don't get it. Well, it's a huge laugh. And the N B C exec said the fact that that guy got the laugh and you let him have his moment and you didn't come back over with one more ad lib of your own tells me you got a sense of how to host. It's about making someone else shine. He said, we can teach you how to host a game show, but we can't teach you as the instinct to make someone else look better. Were youMichael Jamin:Aware of that though? I mean, we,Michael Burger:Not really. Yeah. I mean, I got better at it and I realized the sneaky joy of this is that if you get a laugh and get out of the way, put the onus back on them when you do a talk show. But when theyMichael Jamin:Said this to you, you're like, oh my God, I, I've been doing this all along and I didn't realize this. Or were you consciously doing that?Michael Burger:I think there was sort of a Midwest polite mentality, kind of how I was raised, don't interrupt, all that kind of stuff. It kind of goes part and parcel just being, I don't know, polite iss the perfect word. My dad was from Missouri, my mom was from Minnesota. We kind of raised in a polite family. I just thought that was the right thing. But I also realized that boy, you could use this to your advantage, 'em shine. And that I work at it to this day trying to be a better listener and try to be better at picking my moments. That's how it started. That's literally how my career started out at sea. AndMichael Jamin:Then so then what happened with that audition then?Michael Burger:So I got the pilot. I got the pilot for N B C Morning Talk show. My very first time on a lot is at N B C. And I'm parked six spots down from Johnny Carson. It's got a white Corvette. His license plate said 360 Guy thought that was a clever license plate all around Guy. Yeah. I'm six spots down from Carson. I just got off the boat. I am so far from showbiz. I'm walking on the set. We shoot the pilot at the same time. They're just about finished with a Tonight Show. We shot across the hall, very little security back in the eighties. I open the door and I walk in and I sit next to Gregory Peck. Colonel Michael going shelf is so easy. Yeah. He goes on, he comes out, I say, hi, Carson walks by, gives me one of these. Everybody walks out and we all go home. Kicker. The story is Pilot did not get picked up, but the production company, reg Grundy, who did all of those shows back in the day, sail of the Century and Scrabble, liked what I did and put me on retainer for a year to develop something else.Michael Jamin:But did they, and I never even asked you about Mike and Maddie did like Yeah. Did they coach you at all before you start doing this? Did they rehearse you or is it like, well, this is who we hired, let him do his thing?Michael Burger:It's a good question. In the game show world, when we were getting ready to do a game show, they would remind me that the first half of the game is fun and q and a and get some joy out of these contestants and root for 'em. And then when it shifts to the bonus round, there really needs to be a shift in tone. This money is serious money and this can change someone's life and this is not the place to go for a joke. Let's kind of shift the focus and really be there for 'em and root for 'em and console them if they lose and be happy for 'em when they win. So there was a little bit of that. Some of it, it's, most of it's just learning where your beats are, getting in and getting out.Michael Jamin:What about Mike in the game show world or home family, same kind of thing?Michael Burger:Well, Mike and Maddie was a whole nother league that was morning network everywhere in the country. And I was working with someone, which I had never done. So I came in for the audition and did well. And the woman I had auditioned with, they had a deal to put in place to put her on the air. And as I was driving home, my agent called and said, I don't know what happened in there, but they now want to do the show with you. And they're letting her go. Said, oh, well don't give her my address.Michael Jamin:AndMichael Burger:He said, we now have to find a woman to pair up with you for this morning talk show. And I thought, well, how do we do that? I said, well, Disney will set it all up. This is a dizzy production. And I auditioned and I audition's not even the right word. I sat down with 85 women and just said, how you doing? How you doing? And we just tried to see if there was any chemistry. It's like dating somebody. Is there there a connection? Maddie?Michael Jamin:This I had? No, I, I'm sorry, I have to interrupt. But this I had no idea about becauseMichael Burger:Yeah,Michael Jamin:It seems like they sell a show to A, B, C, they go, it's going to beMichael Burger:Morning show. We know, actually, let me back up. This show is going to be in syndication for Disney, which they could syndicate across the country and do anything. ABC's not involved at thisMichael Jamin:Moment.Michael Burger:So they had a development deal with this woman. They passed on, they put me in the spot. Now they got to pair me up. They pair me up, Maddie and I had instant chemistry. And about an hour after her audition, they say, we love you both. Let's do it. So we shot a pilot right at K H J on Melrose, a $40,000 pilot, right? I mean, that's about as cheap as you can get. And they took that pilot out and tested it and it tested as high as Oprah tested back in the day, right? A, B, C got wind of this and said, forget syndication, we'll put you on the air now. And three months later, Maddy and I hit the ground running, not knowing each other really. And what began a two year, 535 episode run with someone I got to know every day. We shot literally every, well, five days a week, Monday through Friday.Michael Jamin:So that's interesting.Michael Burger:We got to know each other. Got to learn the whole thing.Michael Jamin:I didn't know that was the origin of, because they're basically saying, okay, we're selling a morning TV show. We don't know who's in it yet, but if you like the idea of a morning TV show, we're going to audition this.Michael Burger:Back in the day, they were handing out these, they were handing these talk shows out pretty regularly. It was kind of the thing fairly inexpensive to produce, I guess. Although we had quite a budget. This was Morning Network. This was a big official show that we traveled and there was a nice budget for a big beautiful set. And everybody got what they needed to pull this off. And then celebrities would catch on and come on. And we had our favorites. And you got to sit down there with your idols. And yeah, there was a little pushback. The fact, I want to talk to you about this, because A, B, C was adamant that this show was not a comedy show in the morning. That you're taking people's time away from them and you got to give them something. They got to feel they haven't wasted their morning. So there's always a recipe, there's always something to learn from. And I came in kind of hot with this idea of comedy and they're going, no, people don't want to laugh in the morning. And I went, well, I got to disagree with you there, but Max Mutchnick and Max and who? Max and Dave, right?Michael Jamin:David Colleen, yeah.Michael Burger:Who created a little show calledMichael Jamin:Will and Grace.Michael Burger:So they were the first writers on Mike and Mad. And it was just overkill. We didn't need that much horsepower from them. They were so talented. They went on and did what they did. But I think because they brought me on, they certainly liked my sense of humor and thought this would be a nice way to wake up in the morning. So eventually they embraced the humor as long as he balanced it with information.Michael Jamin:And that show, it was Tamara Raw, Tamara, she was the producerMichael Burger:Started it.Michael Jamin:She started it. And I guess her vision was Letterman in the morning. But Letterman had a show in the morning. And so that's whereMichael Burger:You don't want to go down that path. And that kind of scared so, and part of this was wise that you, let's not waste people's time in the morning. Let's find that balance of being entertaining and give them a takeaway. And we realized that, I certainly found that balance. Maddie and I started to feel our own beats there on where we could jump in and we each got our own segments where we could shine. Yeah. Maddie was the greatest at locking in on a guest. And Carol Burnett came on and Maddie just started crying. That was, that's how she started the interview. It's because Maddie learned English having come from Cuba on one of the last Freedom Flights out. And now the show that she watched to learn English by the Carol Burnett Show. She's sitting there and she starts crying. Well, that's a great host showing her emotion, being interested. So yeah, I love working withMichael Jamin:Her. Yeah, she's delightful. Yeah, I remember, I remember taking, going to your dressing room with index cards versus jokes here, what about this?Michael Burger:And I wanted that so much to me that felt like Letterman and that felt like The Tonight Show. I was aching for that. I don't remember the conversation we had or what I fought for. I wanted Jonathan Winters on the show, and I had done warmup on his sitcom and they said, no, that's not our audience. And I went, what's not our audience? Funny. So I pushed, six months later, Jonathan came on and I got to sit with him and I got to do what Johnny Carson did with him, which was give him a hat and then do a character. And I thought, this is, I'm in heaven.Michael Jamin:ThisMichael Burger:Is as good as it gets. But it took some pushing because they thought, who wants Johnny in the morning? Yeah. So wait a minute.Michael Jamin:WhoMichael Burger:Doesn't want to laugh in the morningMichael Jamin:And be, but before that, you were still also doing warm before warm up. And then how did, so just so people know, so when you shoot a multi-camera sitcom, the audience, they bring in an audience and it could take, I dunno, it could easily take five hours to shoot a half hour of television.Michael Burger:22, 2 minutes, five and a half. Five hours to shoot 22.Michael Jamin:And so what's the audience doing while they're resetting the scenes or the actors are changing?Michael Burger:Well, I've got a lot of stories. Some had a guy die once. What? And I just thought he was taking a nap. Yeah. I kept looking up going, God, I, a comic wants everybodyMichael Jamin:Engaged.Michael Burger:And he's just, and at the end, he's not leaving every, the bus is gone and they car him out and he died on the way to the hospital. I guess they revived him, then he died. WhatMichael Jamin:Show was this?Michael Burger:Women in Prison?Michael Jamin:I don't remember. Don't remember. Women in Prison. Sure,Michael Burger:Sure you do. It was a sitcom with Wendy, Joe Sperber and Peggy Cass, an all star lineup. Blake Clark played the Warden and it was a sitcom about women in prison. I know. And I was the warmup. And then I did all of those types of sit. I mean, I did big ones, I did shows, you'd know. Yeah. Gosh, Mr. Belvedere is where I started.Michael Jamin:Remember one. AndMichael Burger:That's really where you learn, I don't know a comic that's got five hours, unless you're talking maybe Leno, but you know, do your act. But then you have to figure something else out. And that's where these hosting chops came in and yeah, you're like a surgeon on call. The moment the bell stops, then I start talking to the audience and then they're ready to go again. Could be right in the middle of a joke, you're telling, it doesn't matter, I'm here to serve. And they would do, again, for those uninitiated, maybe 15 scenes in a sitcom of 50 pages, 60 pages. They'll do each scene two or three or four times. The actors want another shot at the scene. Maybe they've got another joke laid in, or maybe they want another angle. And each time they do it, that audience has to be geared up, not only reminded, Hey, where were we? Right. And sometimes literally reminded because a lens went down and we have a 30 minute stop between scenes seven and eight. Yeah, that's happened. So you keep them entertained. And it's actually, I think that was the greatest training for me anyway.Michael Jamin:It must've actually a really important job because as a TV writer, we want the audience to have, they need the energy. They got to keep giving it to the audience. And it's the warmups job to keep them engaged and not wanting to leave and get bored and zoned out. Well, I'mMichael Burger:Glad you said that becauseMichael Jamin:Oh, very important.Michael Burger:The writers will come to me and say, how's the audience tonight? Or if the show's not going well, they'll going, Hey, can't you do anything your fault? I'll certainly try sometimes it just wasn't that funny. Or the reverse is true. Right. I have a Dick Van Dyke story that is painful. He did a sitcom with his son called Van Dyken Company. And Walter Barnett produced and they brought me in. I had a nice reputation of being the warmup guy. So I came in and did the pilot and it's like taking candy from baby, I'm killing. And Walter Barnett walks up to the rail about three feet up audience, and without stopping, he says, just pull it back a little bit and then keeps walking. And a couple scenes later, more laughs, he goes Less. Just less. Okay. Now we're like five seeds in. And he pulls me up and he goes, stop telling jokes.I'll tell you why. Later. I went, oh my God. So now I'm just talking to the audience and I happen to get one guy in the audience that was a mortician. I go, what do you do for a living? Mortician big laugh. He looks at me, what are you doing? People are dying to get in. I go, well, it's not, he's doing it. At the end of the show. He goes, I got to let you go. Dick is not happy. Dick, Dick van Dyke's not happy. Yeah. Yeah. Show's just not coming together. He had hoped, and there's a lot of laughter when we're not shooting, so I'll keep you posted. So the next week they bring somebody else in and it's awful. So they bring me back. But he said, okay, you can come back, but you can't do the puppet bit and you can't do these three jokes. I had some killer bits that I know I could rely on. So I finished the six episodes I did when I did five of them. ButMichael Jamin:It, it's, it's actually, warmup is a pretty high paying job. It's a pretty desirable job.Michael Burger:It was crazy. I'd never seen that kind of money for one night. I'm not doing the clubs. I'm not on tour, and I'm not only in town. I'm getting union money. So now I'm getting my sag guard and I, but that's a union job. Then they tried try to take it away from usMichael Jamin:That that's a union. That's a union chop. IMichael Burger:Didn't know that. It was after I fought for it, it was then a bunch of us got together and went to the union and said, Hey, we're a pretty important part of this production. They agreed, actors stood up for us and spoke on our behalf, and we wound up getting union money, which is how I got vested. But I mean, don't think I'm speaking out of school. Warmups could range. Back in the day was 800 for the night and five or 6,000 a night was not uncommon at the end. Yeah,Michael Jamin:I know that for sure. And then,Michael Burger:So you knock out a couple of those a week and all of a sudden you're going, IMichael Jamin:I'm rich ShowMichael Burger:Business. Well, show business is great, but you're also not on camera. And you're thinking, I remember having shows on the air and then going back and doing warmup and candidly thinking kind of a step back. And a producer said to me, I wouldn't look at it that way. He said, do you like doing it? And I said, I love doing it. He goes, you're good at it. I said, well, okay. And he said, that carries a lot of weight. If people are going to see you work 'em, see you doing what you do. Well. And I kind of reframed that and got back into the warmup and wound up doing a little show with people that you probably, or one actress that was probably everyone's favorite or has been. And that was Betty White. Yeah, sure. And I came back and did Hot in Cleveland and did 135 episodes. I spent 135 Friday nights with Betty White.Michael Jamin:Yeah, she's lovely. Yeah. I worked with her on an animated show. She couldn't be, she was so lovely.Michael Burger:Sweet. Right? Yeah. And gives you everything you'd hope.Michael Jamin:Oh, for such a pro. I remember I've told this story, I was doing an animated show. So I was directing her and she was, I don't know, maybe 15 feet in front of me. I'm at a table, I got my script. I'm giving her notes and she's delivering. She's great. But after a take, I'd give her a note, can you try like this? Like that? And she was very pleasant. But after a few sec or a minutes, she stops and she goes, I'm sorry, dear, but you're going to have to yell. My hearing isn't as good as it used to be. And I said, if you think I'm yelling at Betty White, you're out of your fucking mind. And she just lost it. She loved that. She was so far, I mean, she's like, she was so sweet whenMichael Burger:You would see her on the set, the room changed. Everybody was aware. It was like the Pope walked in and the little ad libs that she would throw off to the side, which having done 135 of 'em, I realized she had a lot to go to. But the first time I heard a couple of these, for instance, cameras rolling, awkward pause. Betty looks up and goes, if no one's saying anything, it's probably my turn. Yeah, that kills. Director goes, we have to go back. Betty goes, how far the pilot? So she got about 50 of these ready to go. And there was a scene where they, once a season, they would pair the girls up, Wendy Mallick, Jane leaves, Valerie Tonelli. They're all single as Betty was. So they would have a date show where all the women got paired up and the girls paired each other up with dates. So they picked Carl Reiner as Betty's love interest. And there's a scene where she and Carl KissAnd crowd goes Nuts. And then we stop. And Carl's 15 feet from me. And I had worked, interviewed Carl on Mike and Maddie. In fact, I, Carl, I let had him cut my tie, which is an old Johnny Carson thing I'll get back to in a minute. But I said, Hey Carl, you just kissed Betty. What was that like? And he goes, without missing a beat. Oh, it was unbelievable. She has her original teeth and all and her, she goes all of her own teeth and her original tongue recess. That right at 90 without missing a beat. And you saw these two connecting, right? As the old guards of the business,Michael Jamin:Some legends. But how did you get that first warmup job? I mean, walking into that is not, is hard.Michael Burger:It was. Or even gettingMichael Jamin:The opportunity to do it as hard.Michael Burger:Yeah, I go back to the cruise ship. I was doing warmup on the ship and a producer for Jeopardy was on who worked for Merck Griffin, and they were doing this dance show. And she goes, can you get me a tape? Then by that time I had, and so the very first warmup I did was Dance Fever. And one of the celebrity judges, it was Christopher Hewitt, who said to me on a break, oh dear Ladd, you should come do our show. And I did, did that show for seven years.Michael Jamin:Wow.Michael Burger:And then that kind of mushroomed into other warmupsMichael Jamin:Because you've had a really unconventional path into Hollywood, I would think.Michael Burger:Yeah, yeah. But my sights were set early on. I saw that Carson did a game show and then a talk show. And I went, well, that works for me. So lemme see if I can get a game show. Let's see if I can get a talk show. And I've accomplished those. IMichael Jamin:Certainly, but you were never a weatherman.Michael Burger:No, I never, I never, what happened? Do I look the part,Michael Jamin:Was that a slam? It's a quietMichael Burger:Slam.Michael Jamin:Letterman was a Well, weather. He was, yeah. I mean, seems like that's another, as long as you're in front of the camera, I'd think. Well,Michael Burger:In the LA market, you couldn't get past Fritz Coleman.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Michael Burger:Right. Did that for 40 years who also did standup. And I never wanted to do that. And the opportunity to act had come up a number of times. And with all humility, I just said, no, I don't think I would be good enough. I knew what I liked. I knew I liked talking to people, basically.Michael Jamin:But you've done some actingMichael Burger:And I figured I'd just stay in my lane.Michael Jamin:But you've done acting. I know you have, in an episode that I wrote, you're an episode, episode of Lowes and Clark.Michael Burger:Yeah. I don't, that's not on the resume. I just don't, those got handed to you because you were on the air doing something else. Right. I got to present at the Emmy's because we were on the air, and Maddy and I handed Oprah, her Emmy award, and we're going down the elevator with Oprah, and she's singing our theme song. And turns out she was a fan of the show, kind of, yeah. Was our godmother. Because when Mike and Maddie went across the country, we aired in Chicago after her. So she was on at nine, we were on at 10:00 AM and we were an instant hit because we followed Oprah. And so much so that Oprah became a fan of the show and invited us to everything. I went to the Oscars with Oprah. I sat at dinner at Spago with Oprah. I mean, she, now, were there any call guests? No, she does not call now.Michael Jamin:Were there any, because you had a lot of great guests on Mike and Matt there. Anything that you in touch with that you kind of became friends with?Michael Burger:Yeah, George Hamilton, Robert Wagner. Robert Wagner is about as cool as anybody gets. Yeah. And he asked me to mc the charity event that he was doing. It was a Jimmy Stewart Relay race. It was a celebrity race in Griffith Park. I said, I'd be happy to. And he goes, do you want to play golf? And I went, well, I don't. I can play hack around, but he's like a member at Bel Air. And I said, well, yeah, maybe that would be nice. And I'm just pushing him off. I didn't want to embarrass myself. So the next year I do the event again. And he goes, are you still playing golf? And I went, yeah. And he goes, are we going to play? And I went, he goes, do I have to send a car for you? And I went, no. RJ is what he wanted to be called. I said, I just didn't feel like I could play right when I first met him, this is So Robert Wagner, I, I'm standing there with a buddy of mine and I see him coming, and we have to go to the stage and he comes up and he takes his arm and he puts it through mine and goes, Michael, walk with me. I mean, so old school, right, Michael?Michael Jamin:Right,Michael Burger:Gloria, my friend. I'm good. Thank you. Rj. Yeah. They were idols. I got a chance to meet. God, I met President Carter, had retired, but I got to do Habitat humanity with him and sit down and build a house and talk to him about life. And every musician you ever heard of. How about the artist? Jewel made her first appearance on Mike and Mad. We put her on there. I did notMichael Jamin:Know that. I remember James Brown. I remember walking past James Brown.Michael Burger:James the Sure. Leanne Rime made her first appearance with us.Michael Jamin:Really? Well, I mean, I wasn't there for that, or I don't know. Yeah. That's so funny. Wow. So that's amazing.Michael Burger:Yeah. James Brown do. So you were there for James?Michael Jamin:Yeah. Yeah.Michael Burger:And he sat down and he said something, and that wound up on entertainment tonight. That night he said, the music is funded by drug money.Michael Jamin:EverybodyMichael Burger:Went, did he just say that? And all of a sudden, now we're hard news reporters. We felt like, I don't know. I don't Charlie Rose or something. We got a scoop.Michael Jamin:I don't remember that. WeMichael Burger:Just stumbledMichael Jamin:Into it. And then what was it like? Just rolling? I mean, I know you had must have talking points on when you're interviewing guests, butMichael Burger:Oh boy, you, you're so right. A celebrity gets interviewed the night before, and then they have bullet points. And the next day you kind of spit out those questions so they could comment on what they were pre-interviewed about. But in conversation, sometimes things go another way. But as you know, the producer's job is to keep you the host on track. And we had God bless her, Kathy Paulino, Kathy, I think her name was.Michael Jamin:Yes. Yes. Is that her name?Michael Burger:IMichael Jamin:Don't remember. I Kathy interview. Yeah.Michael Burger:She, I interviewed Robert Gole the night before, and she had this list of questions, and she's just behind camera with this, and she's doing this, and I see her, and I'm ignoring her because something better is happening. And we get to the, and she goes, Michael, you did not ask any of those questions. What happened? What's wrong? And I said, did you hear what Robert Gullet was saying? She goes, no. Well, I said, the interview took a path down a different road. He had mentioned his father, and I noticed he'd paused almost if he was going to tear up. And I thought, there's something more to explore there. And I said, what about your dad? And he said, on his deathbed, his dad said, Robert, come here. And Robert comes in, and he goes, son, you're meant to sing. Go do that. Well, I mean, I got chill.I got tills hearing that. Now, that was not on the cards. It was following the arc of a conversation. And sometimes these producers feel, maybe they're not doing their job. We didn't ask those questions, but interviewing people is really about a conversation. So we had those moments where we went off the card and I think made some friends there, had some great, some great interviews. I'm very proud of. Patty LaBelle sat down with us and admitted that her three sisters had all died of cancer. And she wasn't sure she was going to see 50. And she starts to tear up and we're going, she goes, I must like you guys, we're six minutes in. Yeah. Talk shows. You get six minutes, seven minutes, maybe two segments, maybe 15 minutes. And I think we did some nice work and met some people in a very finite amount of time.Michael Jamin:Hey, it's Michael Jamin. If you like my videos and you want me to email them to you for free, join my watch list. Every Friday I send out my top three videos. These are for writers, actors, creative types. You can unsubscribe whenever you want. I'm not going to spam you, and it's absolutely free. Just go to michaeljammin.com/watchlist.I remember those morning meetings. We talk about the show, and I remember sitting in the back, because I'm young, it's my first real writing job, and they call me a producer because that way they wouldn't have to pay me writer's skill. So they said, you're a producer. But I'm like, I'm not a producer. I can write stuff. But I remember thinking, how does everyone here know what to do? I really had no idea was I was in awe of the whole thing. How does everyone here know what to do?Michael Burger:But as the more you hung around, it kind of demystifies itself after a while, right?Michael Jamin:Yeah. But there was also, and to some degree, yes, but it was also like you only get one shot. It wasn't like you get to rehearse. It was like, you better get this right. We're on live tv. We're not live, but we're on TV and live detect. Yeah. We're not doing again. We're not doing it again. SoMichael Burger:Yeah, that was, if you concentrated on that, it would paralyze you. What I found starting to do this was that how in the world can we talk to somebody for six minutes and get anything out of it that seems too short? Yes. And you learn to ask. There's a great quote by Blaze Pascal, he's a French philosopher, and the quote is, if I had more time, I would've written a shorter letter.Michael Jamin:Right?Michael Burger:And it talks about the science of the art of being brief. Then you learn that in the talk show world where you need to be concise and you take away all the stuff in the same way. Jerry Seinfeld would take out a word that doesn't work in a joke. A good interview is become very, there's no Sophie's choice there. You know, start cutting things away, not going to make it. And you stick with what works at that moment. So you be, become careful, you be good editors of yourself as you interview. But I found how it was so, it was so phe and so I compared it to cotton candy. You would do it, and it was gone. And then the next day we had to do it all over again. Yes.Michael Jamin:Right, right. Yeah.Michael Burger:The sheer volume Yes. Of cranking out an hour a day for two years was mind boggling to me. But yeah, I didn't have to do it myself. I had help.Michael Jamin:Yeah. And IMichael Burger:Had to show up refreshed,Michael Jamin:The minute recorded. I remember thinking all the producers, well, you're screwed. You got to do this. You're done. All that work you did is over now, and you have to do more. I mean, yeah, it doesn't end.Michael Burger:And we went live to tape. We wouldn't stop unless there was something drastic happening. And once in a while, we would tape two shows on a Thursday so we could travel on a Friday to go to another town and maybe do something live there. Unlike the show I did with Christina Ferrari, which was two hour, two hours live a day there. There's no stopping. I mean, what goes wrong? You see? Which was a whole nother level of fun because,Michael Jamin:But there's aMichael Burger:Too late,Michael Jamin:There's an art though, to getting people to be vulnerable. Like you're saying on television right now, you have six minutes, and then sometimes you'll see it where an interviewer, just like they're reading the questions, they're just waiting to get the next question. They're not really in it.Michael Burger:True. Were you there for Charlie Shaneen?Michael Jamin:I probably would'veMichael Burger:Remembered. Charlie comes on and he's nervous, and he's sitting there and he's looking around. I go, what's wrong, Charlie? Because I don't know, no one's given me anything to say. So what do you need? A cup of coffee would be nice. So I went over, we had a big set. We had a working kitchen. So I got him a cup of coffee, and we sat down and go, anything else? He goes, well, cream would be nice. I went back and got him.Michael Jamin:Great.Michael Burger:That was such a fun interview because he really was authentic and he really was nervous. And we just played it where you had some other guests that were, shall we say, just a little more controlled and didn't want to open up. And they were there to promote something. That's what a talk show does, is we promote you doing whatever you're doing.Michael Jamin:And what were you thinking when you're like, oh, I'm just tanking here. This isMichael Burger:Going with No, the opposite. Oh no, I'm thinking, let's do more of this now. I felt, oh, now we're doing Letterman. Now we're doing a talk show where things are off the rails and there's nothing, and the big camera has to whip out of the way. No one had planned that. I lived those moments where something went wrong, butMichael Jamin:When someone wasn't comfortable on care. What about that? Well, whereMichael Burger:It wasn't scripted, heavily scripted, where you would get something that wasn't planned. No, that'sMichael Jamin:Fine. I mean, when a guest is clearly not engaging, they're just, they're struggling.Michael Burger:Well, you'd see the producer going, let's jump ahead. JumpMichael Jamin:Ahead to, what do IMichael Burger:Jump to? Well, we could tighten it up and then the next guest can go longer. We had a little bit of an accordion, you know, find a way a to get in there somehow, some way. But they're not all, some are better talk show guests than others.Michael Jamin:AndMichael Burger:Some come in, we had, comedians had Richard Jenny on who I went to his dressing room and I go, what do you need? And he gave me five setups, hotdog, car, couch, whatever it was. So he knew all the jokes he'd go to when you just laid 'em in there.Michael Jamin:Would you write those down or on a card, or you just No,Michael Burger:That kind of stuff was just, yeah, they certainly had 'em on a card. But when we got a comic on, I really felt, oh my God, I got to kick up my game here because this is really what I want to be. I mean, this is, I idolize you, you men and women that had come on.Michael Jamin:There really is. SoMichael Burger:Carl Reiner comes on, and there's a very famous episode of The Tonight Show where Carl Reiner comes on and says to Johnny, I never make the best of the Tonight Show. I never make it. And he goes, I, I'd like to be part of those eclipse at the end of the year. And cars going like, okay. And he goes, you're a great dresser. Johnny goes, oh, thank you. And he goes, stand up if you don't mind. And he goes, okay. So Carson's standing up and he's looking at his tie, and he goes, the tie's not right, however, and he pulls out a pair of scissors and he cuts off Johnny's tie. Right. Johnny didn't know it. Fred Decoda had said to Johnny, Hey, just don't wear your best clothes tonight. That's all I'm missing. SayMichael Jamin:God.Michael Burger:So he cuts the tie rightAt the end of our interview with Carl, I said, Hey, there's a moment you had with Carson and I would just be thrilled if we could recreate this. And he doesn't know where I'm, he doesn't know where I'm going with this. I said, there was a moment where you cut Johnny's tie. And he goes, yes, I remember that. And I said, can I? And he goes, oh, no, no, no. My wife gave me. And I went, no, no, I don't want to cut your tie. Right. Would you cut my, he goes, I'd love to cut your tie. And he stands up and makes a production and cuts my tie. Right. And I have that tie cut with an autograph framed in my office. Wow. Wow. It was my moment of, I mean, those are the big moments, right. Meeting your idols. Yeah. Like Jonathan Winters, I assume people listening know Johnny. Remember Johnny the greatest improv artist ever? And Robin Williams was a fan of his. Yep. So I get to do warmup on a sitcom called Davis Rules. Remember that? With Bonnie Hunt? No. Yeah. How do he won an Emmy for that? Okay. Jonathan Winters did. So Jonathan Winters, Bonnie Hunt, the kid Giovanni.Michael Jamin:Yep. Wow.Michael Burger:So they would have a script, John enters kitchen.dot pop on couch because he, yeah. Whatcha going to do with this maniac? So he would start, he'd go off roars of laughter, but he, Jonathan loved audience. So he comes up to me, maybe we're a half hour in, I'd never met Jonathan Winters. And he walks by the rail and without stopping, says to me, Bing, how's your golf swing? And he keeps going. And as he's about eight feet away, I go, Bing, how's your golf swing? And he goes, whoa, whoa, whoa. And he does Bing Crosby. Well, at the end of the show, I go up and say, Hey, I can't believe you're even here, and I can't believe I got to meet you. And he goes, Hey. He goes, that was fun. He goes, I love doing that kind of stuff. He goes, anytime you want to throw me something, let's do it.So this is taking a pitch from Kershaw. This is the best of the best, the best. So the next week it's a sitcom, the format, it's going to be a four hour night, it's going to be stops and starts. And Jonathan is just sitting there like a little kid waiting to play. He does it, the acting he can do in his sleep, but it's the improv that he loves. So I'd catch his eye and go, excuse me. Yeah. Did you not invent lettuce? Is that you? Yes. I invented lettuce. God, for 10 minutes. That happened for a year and a half. So I got to play with him for, I don't know what it was, 52 episodes.Michael Jamin:Wow.Michael Burger:That's meeting your idols and being even more impressed than you could possibly imagine.Michael Jamin:Yeah. But how gracious of him, I mean, that's veryMichael Burger:Much fun. But that's him, him, he loved the audience. And Bonnie Hunt was so great at navigating him back to the script without even seeing it. But the show was funniest when it was off the rails because Jonathan Giovanni eei, the actor would look at him and he had a line, and then there'd be this pause and they'd going, Giovanni, that's your line. He goes, where? What's my line? Because it's so far past what was written in the script. What'sMichael Jamin:My line?Michael Burger:Yeah. Because Johnny had taken it out to the parking lot and then made a left down Ventura. Yeah.Michael Jamin:That's so funny. SoMichael Burger:Those warmup days I loved. And when I got out of it and then got a chance to come back into it, my ego aside that I'm not on the camera, I'm behind it. Well,Michael Jamin:Let's talk. I end up working that though. I mean about that must have been difficult for you, but I don't know. You did it anyway.Michael Burger:Well, it, yeah, it took about 10 minutes to get over myself, and then I'm standing in front of an audience, getting a laugh, and I went, wow, this is pretty cool. Right.Michael Jamin:But did it, I mean, that'sMichael Burger:Felt right back in the mix. That'sMichael Jamin:The Hollywood rollercoaster. I mean, you're up, you're down. You're up and down. I mean,Michael Burger:Yeah, I naively thought one pilot, I'm on my way. I've got a TV show. That very first thing I did for N B C didn't get picked up. And I went, oh, that, that's show bz. Yeah. I, that's the up and low. That's you thought. Right. So you learn to discipline yourself and be grateful for what comes your way, which I think I've done. And I also wound up with some side hustles along the way, flipping homes. And I got my real estate license and did that stuff on the side. Right. Not thinking I'd ever want to, boy, here's something revealing.Michael Jamin:Yeah,Michael Burger:It's probably five years ago, Catholic church. Sunday morning, I'm sitting there and there's a woman in front of me with her husband. The husband looked like he had been beaten down. What's the old joke? Where they've taken the spine out? He's just been beaten so many years by being to this woman. She's eight o'clock black dress Pearls, Mrs. Kravitz from Bewi. Does that help you? This is who I'm dealing with and looking around. And she owns the room and it's church. So the priest says, halfway through, turn to the person next to you or behind you and say, peace be with you. So I'm right behind her. So she turns and goes, what happened to you? And turns around, excuse me, what happened to you? Yeah. You used to be on tv, turn around. This is mess. Listen to Padre there. She couldn't fathom the fact that I wasn't on the air and wanted to know how my life not seeing me on Mike and Maddie anymore. And I said, no, I, I'm, I'm fine. Okay. Things are good. Just turn around. But she needed, I didn't have the time to deep dive into the complexities and the ups and downs of this business inMichael Jamin:Church. But did it hurt though when she said that?Michael Burger:No, I actually thought it was wildly funny because I've told this story now for 20 years or five years. Yeah. But yeah, no, I loved being on the air and certainly miss it. The skillset set is still there. I think it's gotten better. You learn, hosting is cumulative. Everything you do adds one more layer. But I've certainly made peace with it and understand the business that, I mean, I've got a wonderful life because of all the ups and downs. Right?Michael Jamin:Yeah. One of the things that people say to me, because I post a lot on social media, and they go, well, you seem so humble. I'm like, because I've been in the business for 25 years. That's why, I mean, do you not, you're every step of the way you're getting humbled. IMichael Burger:Mean, how about, is there any bitterness in your journey?Michael Jamin:Not really, because I never really thought I was going to get this far.Michael Burger:Oh, that's interesting.Michael Jamin:I thought it was never my goal to my, it never my goal to have my own show and my own Norman Lee Empire. I just wanted to be as aMichael Burger:Writer, showrunner producer, you mean?Michael Jamin:Yeah. No, I just wanted to write on TV show. I wanted to write on cheers, to be honest. AndMichael Burger:OhMichael Jamin:Wow. But when I broke into the business, cheers. It was already well done. But I wound up writing with many writers from who wrote on Cheers. And I wound up shooting a show that was shot on the cheer sound stage. And so in my mind, I made it like it. But certainly,Michael Burger:Well, what demons do you have as a writer? Or what holds you back as a writer, whether you're working or not, and is it amplified when you're not working?Michael Jamin:It's easy to look at other people. Here's what it is. I had a friend I was writing on King of the Hill and one of the other writers signed a big deal or something, and I was very jealous. And my brother friend, he was older on King of the Hill, and he said, he gave me a great piece of advice. He said, there will always be someone younger than you, less talented than you, making more money than you. Oh. I go, well, there it is. That, there it is. And that really, I hung onto that for a long time. I feel like. Okay, so it's easy to compare your career to somebody else, but to honest. I'm so far, I'm so lucky that I have what I have. So I'm not bitter at, because youMichael Burger:Got this far, but I don't want to put words in your mouth. But it hasn't taken away the desire to do this again and work more, or be where someone else is at this moment?Michael Jamin:No, I'm happy. As long as I get to keep working, I'm happy. I really am. Yeah, and it's really, it's funny when you're talking about doing warmup for these multi-camera shows, there are no multi-camera shows anymore. It's true. If you wanted that job today, good luck getting it. There are no shows. So how do you get that?Michael Burger:Good luck in a couple of ways. I have a friend of mine, you probably know Ron Pearson.Michael Jamin:Yeah, Ron, what about him? Ron'sMichael Burger:One of the best out there, hands down, a great comic and a great warmup. But he said the stuff he was doing 3, 4, 5 years ago in front of an audience, he couldn't do nowMichael Jamin:ReallyMichael Burger:The sensitivities of what you can and cannot say. BecauseMichael Jamin:He was prettyMichael Burger:In front of a crowd.Michael Jamin:He was pretty wholesome. I remember I worked with him.Michael Burger:Very wholesome. It's just some things you can't say. I got another buddy of mine, Ross Schaeffer, who was a corporate keynote speaker who says, even in the corporate world, there's some things you can't say. There was some reference to women speak more than men on a daily basis. They, there's more of verbose. Right. Because I was told by the person hiring me, well, I wouldn't say that he was using it as a way women really control the marketplace. A woman will decide what you're ultimately going to buy that flat screen TV you got in your house. Yeah. You got that because your wife said it's okay. Right. But that's actually sensitive to say now.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Michael Burger:Well, didn't even occur to me.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Michael Burger:Here's what some show is up for me. And this happened here in Long Beach, a great little restaurant in Belmont Shore on Thursday nights. They had a jazz piano player. It's this little French cafe and then go in for a bite to eat, and this guy's playing in the corner and there's maybe in a restaurant that seats 80, there's probably seven. And he would play and it'd be nothing. So I'd give him a little something, something, right. We're all performers and you're feeling for this guy, and I know when a song ends. So I gave him a little more and he takes this break and he comes over and sits next to me and he goes, Hey, thanks for trying to make that happen. I said, of course. He said, buy you a drink. Sure. And we get to talk and he goes, lemme tell you my favorite story about supporting another actor or performer. He goes, I'm working a club down in LA and it's the same thing. Nobody's there. It's quiet. And I finish, I don't know, I'm 30, 40 minutes in and I finish a song and I hear, and he looks up to finally thank this one person that's acknowledging his talent. And it was a woman taking a cigarette out of a pack.Michael Jamin:Oh my God. Oh myMichael Burger:God. Try to get the the tobacco into the filter. Yeah. He goes, boy, that if that isn't showbiz rightMichael Jamin:There. Yeah. That is Show biz, just what youMichael Burger:Think. You made it at any level, you're going to get humbled one moreMichael Jamin:Time. Time you're going to get humbled. Right.Michael Burger:Yeah. Yeah. I think it's a humility is a great trait anyway, I think. Yeah.Michael Jamin:Yeah.Michael Burger:As an interviewer, as a host, as anything, anybody in the business, gratitude and humility will serve you a long way, I think. Yeah,Michael Jamin:Right. Yeah. You got to enjoy the ride. And I was told that over and over, enjoy the ride. I didn't really quite what it meant. Yeah. But then whenMichael Burger:We did Match game, match game 98, and we shot at CCB ss, we shot on the same set that they do. The price is right. They just turned it around for us. And I would go in early and I'd leave late and I'd drive in and I'd see that c b s sign lit up and I said, I don't want to leave, and I know this is going to be over. I know it's over because we're airing against Oprah at 3:00 PM on C B Ss. That's why I know it's over. And we did our 135 and it went away. But I never for a moment, took that for granted. I loved every second of that knowing, Hey, you know what? You could worry about it being over, but ultimately, hey, like you said, just enjoy this ride. I had my best friend did the warmup on it. It was the announcer in the warmup, and we laughed ourselves silly, and we shot seven a day. Game shows you shoot a bunch. So we would shoot four, take a lunch break and do three, did 135 episodes.Michael Jamin:Have you seen that movie Babylon yet with Brad Pitt?Michael Burger:I couldn't get through it.Michael Jamin:Oh really? OhMichael Burger:Yeah, about 20 minutes down. I went, yeah, no.Michael Jamin:Oh, you might want to revisit it. I love it. Oh yeah, it was about that. It was about knowing when your time is over and it was so, it was so crushing. I thought it was beautiful. But yeah, I could see, yeah, you need to stick with it a little bit, but I love that.Michael Burger:Where do you think you are in the arc of your career?Michael Jamin:I think, well, I mean, think all of us. I think you hit a certain age in Hollywood, and if I haven't already approached it, I'm getting very close.Michael Burger:It's funny, when you leave your demo, you have a birthday and you leave your demo.Michael Jamin:There was an article, this is a couple, this is many years ago, probably 10 or 15 years ago, and I was my partner and we were taking over for a show. We're running a show. It was Michael Eisner's show, and there's an article in the trades and in a variety, whatever, and it said veteran TV writers, Michael Jamon, Steve Clare, and it was an article about us. And then I go, wow, I become a veteran. And then, oh wow. One of the writers sitting next to me, he goes, that's not a good sign. It means your career's coming toMichael Burger:An edge. Yeah. Veteran was not a compliment. He'sMichael Jamin:Not a compliment.Michael Burger:I remember sitting, I had just turned 40 and I was sitting in an office with an executive at Tele Pictures, I believe it was, and I was sitting there with my agent, Richard Lawrence, who has since retired. I've outlasted my agent. That's not good. And this woman who's in charge of production says, look, Michael, I know who you are and we're fans, but here's the thing. Oh boy. She goes, we're going to hire the person that looks like the person we want watching us. Yeah. I went, well, okay, that can be a lot of things, but I can't be an 18 year old woman. Right. Yeah. Whatever the demo was, they were searching. So that stuck with me that there are things, there are times things you just can't change. I fit a certain demo and a seasoned host would be the category. And if that comes back then great. There's a show coming up this fall where they're bringing back the Bachelor, but it's called the Golden Bachelor. Have you heard about this? No. So it's the Bachelor produced by the same people, but it's for 60 and up. So the contestants will be 60 and up,Michael Jamin:Right.Michael Burger:Called the Golden Bachelor. Right Now the thought is, well, maybe people will value a more seasoned looking picture there, and maybe the host will come along with that. I don't know.Michael Jamin:So what do you know? Probably not. It's going to be hosted by a 20 year old.Michael Burger:It's going to, no, it's going to be hosted by the same guy that's doing the younger version. So I think they're getting it both ways. Right. They're going to get a younger host and an older demo. That's fine. You know, Saja stepping down with Wheel of Fortune that there's a lot of talk about who might slip in there. And that ranges from his daughter. Pat Sajak has a daughter that could certainly do it. Vanna could do it. Ryan Seacrest is, there's talk. Yeah, Whoopi said she wants it. Oh wow. Tom Bergson's name has been tossed around. Right. Mine's been tossed around, but it's tossing it. I'm tossing the name around.Michael Jamin:Yeah. Right. Hey, what about this guy?Michael Burger:I did Wheel of Fortune in Vegas. Harry Friedman, who produced it, right, came up with a live version of Wheel of Fortune. So back in 2000, we went to the M G M, they took over the lounge, which used to be Catch a Rising Star renamed at the Wheel of Fortune lounge, and you got a chance to come in. Oh wow. And play Wheel of Fortune and win prizes. Catch and prizes. So it was just like the TV show, but it was not airing, but it was live. Right. What made the show so fun is that unlike the TV show where you're screened for intelligence and the ability to play the game, this is a bingo ball that's pulled, and now you're on stage. So we have three contestants that could be, well, you name it. In this case, it was a woman who'd had a little bit, a guy who didn't speak the language, and it was as wild and as funny as you'd hoped it would be, because they didn't understand the concept and the letters, and some did didn't. We had this poor gal had the puzzle almost revealed, and the answer was cassette deck. And every letter was turned. Everything was revealed except the C. And she's staring at it and she goes a set deck. And the woman next to her goes cassette deck, you idiot turned her.Which you'd never see on tv, right?Michael Jamin:No.Michael Burger:Oh my God. Gosh, that was fun. We did a half a year of that right now. We did three shows a day for six months.Michael Jamin:And so it's the, it's interesting. Yeah. So it's about, I don't know. Ye

Junaid Mubeen holds a PhD in maths from Oxford and a Masters in Education from Harvard. He has spent over a decade working on innovative learning technologies, including as Head of Product and Director of Education at Whizz Education, and as Chief Operating Officer at Write the World.Junaid is the author of the book “Mathematical Intelligence”, which explores the role that creativity plays in maths, and the edge this currently gives human mathematicians over artificial intelligence. He's also working with acclaimed science communicator, Simon Singh, in developing the world's largest online maths community. And, as a cherry on top, Junaid once earned fleeting fame as a winner of the TV game show series, Countdown.In this conversation we dive deep into the latest developments in generative AI and how this may impact education. We discuss* AI in chess and other games* AI performance on standardised tests* Problems with the education system and the role AI might play in alleviating these troubles* Risks in the use of AI in tutors and teachers… and other topicsJunaid's links:* Book: Mathematical Intelligence (UK version, US version)* Website: www.fjmubeen.com* Substack: PODCAST INFO:- Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3IVDF2W- Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3oEZYmJ- Google Podcasts: https://bit.ly/paradigm-on-google- YouTube: https://bit.ly/paradigm-on-youtube- RSS: https://api.substack.com/feed/podcast/1656558/s/65176.rssSUPPORT & CONNECT:- Follow and leave a 5-star review- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewgeleta/- Twitter: https://twitter.com/MatthewGeleta- Donate: https://bit.ly/donate-to-paradigmTimestamps:0:00 Intro1:24 Gary Kasparov & artificial intelligence in chess5:32 GPT4 performance on standardised tests11:21 Ken Robinson & risks of AI in traditional education17:03 Khan Academy and advancements in EdTech38:19 Government regulation of educational AIs44:20 Will AIs replace teachers and tutors? 55:55 Big picture view of AI in education1:02:49 Identifying high-potential young mathematicians1:11:04 Junaid's work with Simon Singh1:16:06 Advice for young ambitious people1:19:44 Book recommendations1:23:14 Who should represent humanity to a superintelligent AI?1:25:05 Thanks and wrap-up Get full access to Paradigm at paradigmpodcast.substack.com/subscribe

Are you ever too old to get better at chess? Join me as I sit down with National Master, top podcaster, successful entrepreneur, and best-selling author James Altucher, who is on a thrilling journey to regain a rating of 2200. Despite being in his 50s, James is determined to prove that age is just a number when it comes to mental capacity and improvement. From discussing strategies of the game to understanding the importance of physical and mental health, our conversation is full of insights that will leave you eager to push your own boundaries, no matter your age. James shares both the joys and challenges he's encountered as an adult player, including meeting and learning from top players like Magnus Carlson and Gary Kasparov. He also opens up about the memory techniques he learned from the World Memory Champion, and how these methods have significantly improved his game.The crux of our conversation centers around a question that has intrigued many chess players: Do adults "age out" of improvement? James takes us on a deep exploration of how raw calculation ability and memory start to decline in our 30s and 40s, but how wisdom improves with age, allowing us to recognize patterns and connect the dots between them. Tune in to our enlightening discussion to discover James' practical tips/strategies, and how he applies life lessons to the game he loves. Whether you're a chess enthusiast or just someone looking to challenge your own limitations, this conversation is one you won't want to miss.Chapters:00:00 Intro.00:36 Announcements05:58 Thoughts On Playing Kids08:06 James' Study Regimen15:54 Taking Byes at Weekend Events22:06 Chess Coaching25:06 Chess Improvement and Memory34:57 James' Professional Experience40:18 Handling Losses and Tilt43:25 The Third Door for Improvement49:28 OutroReferenced:Skip the Line (Amazon)The Third Door (Amazon)Links for James Altucher:Website Twitter

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Get 20% Off and Free Shipping with the code ROSE at https://www.Manscaped.com Sign up for Draftkings Sportsbook with code ROSE and get $200 in free bets after you place a $5 wager Cincinnati Reds first baseman Joey Votto talks about playing in chess league, meeting Gary Kasparov, traveling to Brazil for a tattoo, almost going to the World Cup, his shoulder surgery, his interaction with fans, taking in a Reds game from the stands and more!

This podcast is about big ideas on how technology is making life better for people with vision loss. In 1997, Gary Kasparov lost an epic chess rematch to IBM's supercomputer Deep Blue, but since then, artificial intelligence has become humanity's life-saving collaborator. This episode explores how AI will revolutionize vision technology and, beyond that, all of medicine. Karthik Kannan, co-founder of AI vision-tech company Envision, explains the difference between natural intelligence and artificial intelligence by imagining a restaurant recognizer. He describes how he would design the model and train it with positive or negative feedback through multiple “epochs” — the same process he used to build Envision. Envision uses AI to identify the world for a blind or visually-impaired user using only smartphones and smart glasses. Beyond vision tech, AI enables faster and more effective ophthalmic diagnosis and treatment. Dr. Ranya Habash, CEO of Lifelong Vision and a world-renowned eye surgeon, and her former colleagues at Bascom Palmer, together with Microsoft, built the Multi-Disease Retinal Algorithm, which uses AI to diagnose glaucoma and diabetic retinopathy from just a photograph. She acquired for Bascom Palmer a prototype of the new Kernal device, a wearable headset that records brain wave activity. Doctors use the device to apply algorithms to brainwave activity, in order to stage glaucoma, for example, or identify the most effective treatments for pain. Finally, AI revolutionizes drug discovery. Christina Cheddar Berk of CNBC reports that thanks to AI, Pfizer developed its COVID-19 treatment, Paxlovid, in just four months. Precision medicine, targeted to a patient's genetic information, is one more way AI will make drugs more effective. These AI-reliant innovations will certainly lower drug costs, but the value to patients of having additional, targeted, and effective therapies will be priceless.   The Big Takeaways: Natural vs. artificial intelligence, and the “restaurant recognizer.” Karthik Kannan, CEO and co-founder of Envision explains the difference between natural and artificial intelligence by describing how humans recognize restaurants in a foreign city and comparing that to how he'd train a “restaurant recognizing algorithm.” Here's a hint: the algorithm needs a lot more data. Sensor fusion AI. AI developers are interested in using different types of sensors together to give the algorithms a sense of the world closer to human intelligence. One example is the use of LiDAR in the Envision app, in addition to the phone camera. Transhumanism. Humans don't have LiDAR. Does that mean AI will surpass human capability? Karthik offers that some radiology AI have higher accuracy than human radiologists, but he thinks it will be much more of a partnership between the human and the machine. Multi-Disease Retinal Algorithm. Dr. Ranya Habash and her colleagues at Bascom Palmer Eye Institute worked with Microsoft on an AI diagnostic tool. They fed the algorithm 86,000 images of eyes, labeled with relevant diseases, and taught the machine to diagnose eye disease with just a photograph, making remote diagnosis not just possible but inexpensive. The Brain-Machine Interface. Dr. Habash wrote a grant that earned Bascom Palmer a prototype of the Kernal device, a helmet-like device that measures brainwave activity. Doctors used this device to create a “brain-machine interface” which advances brain research on glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy, Alzheimer's, and pain management. Bias in AI. Karthik Kannan reminds us that the biggest threat that humanity faces from AI is bias encoded in the algorithms. This is a real harm that humans have already experienced, and AI engineers need to be extremely sensitive to ensure they are not encoding their own biases. AI for Drug Discovery. Christina Cheddar Berk, a reporter for CNBC, shares how the pace of drug discovery is set to speed up, thanks to AI algorithms and supercomputing power that can cycle through millions of possible chemical compounds per second to I.D. effective options. Pfizer used a similar process to develop Paxlovid, in a process that took only four months.   Tweetables: “The secret sauce is always in the data.” — Karthik Kannan, CEO and Co-Founder of Envision “Human intelligence is so holistic. We have so many sensors on our bodies. […] Whereas an AI is taught only images.” — Karthik Kannan, CEO and Co-Founder of Envision “I know what's going to work and what's not going to work within thirty seconds of seeing it. […] They need to show up with a smartphone. Then I'll take them seriously.” — Dr. Ranya Habash, CEO, Lifelong Vision “I don't think there's anything more powerful in medicine than to be able to treat a patient and get rid of a problem that is plaguing them so much.” — Dr. Ranya Habash, CEO, Lifelong Vision “If you can measure it you can control it.” — Dr. Ranya Habash, CEO, Lifelong Vision “It strongly takes over the bias of whoever is actually feeding the data […] and I think that has much, much more potential for harm than an AI taking over humanity.”  — Karthik Kannan, CEO and Co-Founder of Envision “The value for patients of having those additional therapies available; it's hard to put a price on.” — Christina Cheddar Berk, reporter, CNBC   Contact Us: Contact us at podcasts@lighthouseguild.org with your innovative new technology ideas for people with vision loss.   Pertinent Links: Lighthouse Guild Karthik Kannan Dr. Ranya Habash Zephin Livingston Christina Cheddar Berk

Today Kevin Bees interview Lawyer and Business Advisor Awin Tavakoli Awin Tavakoli was born and raised in Tehran, Iran, and is currently based in Zurich, Switzerland, Awin has more than 2 decades of an international colorful career from sports and real estate to statistics, banking and law. On a mission to make law accessible and understandable for others, Awin helps entities and individuals around the world protect and grow their businesses by providing them with tailored contracts, risk mitigation strategies, and out-of-court dispute resolution tools and techniques. She also offers consulting services for business setup and investment in Switzerland. Having gone through countless ups and downs in life and being led by the mantra “turn your adversity into your advantage”, Awin uses her voice and shares her story on international stages to inspire and empower others as an award-winning international speaker. Awin has spoken and presented in 12 countries and 4 continents, and shared stages with high-caliber personalities and industry leaders such as Randy Zuckerberg, Lisa Nichols, Vince Vaughn,  Dr. Phil, Gary Kasparov, Kevin Harrington, and many more. Always keeping up with the trends, Awin is known as one of the pioneer lawyers to enter the world of NFTs and serve the community with solid business and legal services and education worldwide.   In today's episode Awin Tavkoli shares: How she is naturally a rebel or messenger for change - and why you should embrace that. Why having a multi-faceted approach can be to your advantage (rather than getting stuck in one direction) How Awin broke out of working in corporate and became a business owner and entrepreneur. How to safeguard your business from risks; and take legal protections How to start a business in Switzerland, and create an island of stability. That 'Crisis is the mother of creativity' and that life is not about the problems, it is about our attitude to overcome problems. What is NFT and Metaverse, and how it might benefit your business? Why educating clients first is a great way to run your business. Why you should listen to Ghandi and "Be the change you want to see in the world" Her life-changing question, which must be asked with excitement: "What is next?" and how you can embrace new opportunities and new directions. You have to be present in life where the world needs you Her empowering belief: "I am born to help people" Important: Be open to change and be a passionate risk taker & take fast action What is Warren Buffet's definition of risk An important message Awin learned from Buckminster Fuller:  "You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete."   Resources mentioned in this show: Connect with Awin: https://linktr.ee/awintavakoli If you would like more insights on profit maximisation for your business visit www.ProfitHive.com.au  

Russische oppositie verzamelt zich in Litouwen Op dit moment treffen tientallen Russische tegenstanders van het Poetin-regime elkaar in Vilnius. Een bonte mengeling van ballingen en vluchtelingen, van voormalige Russische topfunctionarissen maar ook de oud-wereldkampioen schaken Gary Kasparov, komt op een geheime locatie bijeen om te praten over een Rusland na Poetin. Journalist Helga Salemon is erbij. Waar is Scholz? Niet alleen de Nederlandse coalitie kent onderlinge spanningen. Ook in Duitsland - de belangrijkste economie van de Europese Unie - is het crisistijd en worstelt de regering met flinke problemen. De grootste coalitiepartner, de sociaaldemocratische SPD, staat in de peilingen nog maar op derde plek en bondskanselier Olaf Scholz, van diezelfde partij, is niet bepaald populair. Heel zichtbaar in eigen land lijkt hij niet. Ook internationaal, bijvoorbeeld als het gaat om de oorlog in Oekraïne, zijn het tot nu toe vooral Amerika, het Verenigd Koninkrijk of Polen die de klok slaan. Kortom, de vraag is: waar blijft Scholz? We vragen het Duitslandexpert Hanco Jürgens. Buitenland Uitgelicht: Roemenië

Op dit moment treffen tientallen Russische tegenstanders van het Poetin-regime elkaar in Vilnius. Een bonte mengeling van ballingen en vluchtelingen, van voormalige Russische topfunctionarissen maar ook de oud-wereldkampioen schaken Gary Kasparov, komt op een geheime locatie bijeen om te praten over een Rusland na Poetin. Journalist Helga Salemon is erbij.

Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/2njb *** In May 1997, something happened that would change the relationships between humans and computers forever. A game of chess was played, but it wasn't just a regular game. On one side was Gary Kasparov - the undeniable Chess Master of the world. On the other side a bunch of 1's and 0's, aka Deep Blue, IBM's computer that was developed with one purpose, and one purpose only - to beat Kasparov in chess. And it happened. Deep Blue won ⅗-⅖ after a match of 6 games, and the history of computers changed forever. Cut to - almost two decades later. After a computer did the unthinkable, there was even a bigger challenge in hand - beating the Go world champion. Go is a Chinese game, which is considered to be much more complex than chess, with endless possibilities. However, eventually the computer did it again, and defeated the world champion. Cut to - Jaffa, Israel, early 2000's. Ali is sitting at home, watching his favorite Anime show, ‘Hikaro No Go'. He's inspired by the fascinating game the characters in the show are playing, and he decides to try it for himself. He goes online and starts playing. By 2009, he will be Europe's Youth Champion at Go. By 2015, he'll be the second best Go player in Europe. Today, we're honored to be joined by Ali Jabarin and hear his incredible story.

Shermer and Seth discuss: “mind” and “consciousness” in context of understanding how molecules and matter give rise to such nonmaterial processes • controlled hallucinations • the hard problem of consciousness • the self and other minds • consciousness and self-awareness as emergent properties • Where does consciousness go during general anaesthesia? After death? • Star Trek TNG episode 138 “Ship in a Bottle”: a VR inside a VR that is indistinguishable from reality • Are we living in a simulation that itself is inside a simulation? • Does Deep Blue know that it beat the great Gary Kasparov in chess? • Does Watson know that it beat the great Ken Jennings in Jeopardy!? • Is Data on Star Trek sentient, conscious, and with feelings? • Can AI systems be conscious? • free will, determinism, compatibilism, and panpsychism. Anil Seth is Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience at the University of Sussex, where he co-directs of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science. He is also Co-Director of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Program on Brain, Mind, and Consciousness, and of the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarship Programme: From Sensation and Perception to Awareness. Dr. Seth is Editor-in-Chief of Neuroscience of Consciousness (Oxford University Press) and he sits on the Editorial Board of Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B and on the Advisory Committee for 1907 Research and for Chile's Congreso Futuro. His new book is Being You: A New Science of Consciousness.

Next to the word ‘Relentless’ in the dictionary should be Masi Alinejad’s picture – the Iranian Woman who has championed daring campaigns and protests against oppression of women by the Islamic republic of Iran. As a young girl Masi refused to accept that it is illegal for women to ride bikes, sing in public or swim in the river. One day her mother taught her something that changed not just her life but that of women in Iran and around the world. Masi and i share the moments that have broken her heart and the ones that have given her the passion to keep going. You wont regret listening to her.A quick note that our regular Winter Is Here podcast with Gary Kasparov and Uriel Epshtein will resume next week. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit renewdemocracy.substack.com

News Lumis & Gillibrand's massive crypto bill (https://bitcoinmagazine.com/business/heres-whats-in-senator-lummis-bitcoin-bill) is probably not going anywhere soon but interesting: Definite Altcoin carvouts: allows altcoins to register as 'ancillary assets' (https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2022/06/07/key-us-senators-introduce-bill-outlining-sweeping-plan-for-future-crypto-rules/) CFTC Chair wants BTC to become POS (https://bitcoinmagazine.com/legal/climate-advocate-cftc-chair-wants-to-change-bitcoin) Human rights activists pen letter to congress (https://www.financialinclusion.tech/) in epic response/troll to last weeks 'concerned technologist's' letter (https://concerned.tech/) Gary Kasparov, Navalny's org, Nigerian feminists and Gladstein PayPal enables crypto payments (https://newsroom.paypal-corp.com/2022-06-07-PayPal-Users-Can-Now-Transfer-Send-and-Receive-Bitcoin-Ethereum-Bitcoin-Cash-and-Litecoin) Their explanations of 'crypto' are not terrible Head of MIT digital currency initiate (https://www.ted.com/talks/neha_narula_the_future_of_money?subtitle=en) consulted How did they decide on BTC, BCH, LTC, and ETH? BCH and LTC are not top 10 coins New York Times article questions bitcoin's decentralization (https://nyti.ms/3PX8juC) Non-peer reviewed paper makes pretty benign claims (https://arxiv.org/pdf/2206.02871.pdf) Takes simple facts about bitcoin out of context Comment section is heartening, much more sophisticated than in the past PSA: CryptoKyle identifies Cold Card bag problem/potential avenue for supplychain attack Economics US Treasury Secretary Yellen denies that fiscal policy (https://www.business-standard.com/article/international/us-faces-unacceptable-levels-of-inflation-yellen-tells-senators-122060701239_1.html?utm_source=SEO&utm_medium=SP) has driven inflation up Argument that inflation is everywhere so it couldn't be US fiscal policy alone Energy Chelan County creates rate 36 (https://decrypt.co/102420/bitcoin-miners-will-see-29-rate-hike-hydroelectric-power-washington) for cryptominers but it's not clear why (https://www.kpq.com/bitcoin-miners-to-start-paying-higher-cost-for-energy-use-in-chelan-county-in-july/) Chelan County PUD Commissioner Garry Arseneault is the new President of the Washington Public Utility Districts Association. Washington state accounted for 4% of the whole U.S. hashrate in December close by Douglas County has stopped permitting new Bitcoin miners to arrange operations there as a result of they already eat 25% of the county's obtainable vitality. Salcido can maintain his Chelan facility on the decrease, high-density vitality fee if he processes information as a substitute of mining crypto. The info processing makes use of the identical quantity of energy as crypto mining, he instructed the Wenatchee World. "Do you really want to be in the business of regulating what kind of processing happens on servers in your territory," Salcido said. Privacy Norwegian statistics burea wants to track all supermarket purchases (https://www.lifeinnorway.net/norway-to-track-all-supermarket-purchases/) Bitcoin Education A list of bitcoin privacy proposals (https://sethforprivacy.com/posts/proposed-bitcoin-privacy-improvements/) by Seth for Privacy Output descriptors (https://outputdescriptors.org/) as recomended by bitcoinlizard Feedback Remember to get in touch bitcoindadpod@protonmail.com or @bitcoindadpod on twitter Corrections None today! Value for Value Podcasting 2.0 to support an indepenent podcasting ecosystem (https://podcastindex.org/) The Fountain (https://www.fountain.fm/) podcast app Sponsors and Acknowledgements Music by Lesfm from Pixabay Self Hosted Show (https://selfhosted.show/) courtesy of Jupiter Broadcasting (https://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/)

This episode's guest is a lawyer and business advisor, international award-winning speaker, NFT enthusiast and educator, and founder and CEO at Tavakoli advisory Switzerland LLC in Zurich. Her name is Awin Tavakoli. Born and raised as a Kurd in Tehran, Iran, based in Zurich, Switzerland, with more than 2 decades of international career – in sports, real estate, statistics, banking, and law – in her backpack, Awin embodies the diversity in personal and professional life. As Switzerland's Business Protection Lawyer, Awin is on a mission to make law accessible and understandable for others. She is known as one of the pioneer lawyers to enter the world of NFTs and is serving the NFT community with solid consulting and education worldwide. Having gone through countless odds and adversities in life and being led by the mantra “turn your pain into power”, Awin uses her voice and shares her story on international stages to inspire and empower others. She has spoken and presented in 12 countries and 4 continents, and shared stages with high caliber personalities and industry leaders such as Randy Zuckerberg, Lisa Nichols, Vince Vaughn, Hugh Hilton, Dr. Phil, George Ross, Gabriel Macht, Gary Kasparov, and Moira Forbes! So what are you waiting for? Hit the subscription button, listen to this story and let's get inspired every other Wednesday.    Awin's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/awinlegal/   Awin's LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/awin-tavakoli

Navegando por twitter hoy 12 de abril de 2022, he encontrado un video de charla TED subida precisamente hoy.La exposición es de Gary Kasparov.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDmEPFO_hd0&t=900sMúsica de Bensound.comFoto de Detalle de la portada del libro de Catherine G. Katz.Artículo: Hijas de Yalta: las tres damas desconocidas que evitaron la Tercera Guerra MundialEl confidencial

L'Ukraine est aux avant-postes d'une guerre entre la liberté et la tyrannie d'après le maître des échecs et militant des droits de l'homme, Gary Kasparov. Par ce réquisitoire ardant, il esquisse l'ascension au pouvoir de Vladimir Poutine et son propre parcours depuis être devenu champion du monde d'échec jusqu'à son activisme en faveur de la démocratie en Russie. Il appelle les dirigeants du monde à s'engager en faveur de l'Ukraine, pour la vie et l'amour au lieu de la mort et de la haine. D' après lui, le prix à payer pour arrêter un dictateur augmente au fur et à mesure que le temps passe sans agir. « Traiter le mal de loin reste une victoire du mal. »

[00:10:40] Derrick Van Orden [00:18:46] Russ Vought [00:39:11] Michael Goodwin [00:55:19] Judy Kurtz [01:09:16] More to Know [01:13:47] Sen. Tom Cotton & Gen. Jack Keane (Ret.) [01:26:54] Tim Stewart [01:32:06] Robert O'Brien & Gary Kasparov [01:43:46] Stuart Varney Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Pentagon says there are indications Ukraine is now going more on the offensive, as  Ukrainian forces say they've taken back the devastated city of Makariv, a strategic point to cut off supply lines to Russian forces. That, as a Putin spokesman refuses to rule out the use of nuclear weapons if Russia faces an 'existential threat'. Plus, Supreme Court nominee Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson defends her judicial record from relentless Republican attacks on day two of her confirmation hearings. And, Russian opposition member Gary Kasparov joins to discuss top Putin critic Alexey Navalny being sentenced to nine more years in prison. Hosted by Don Lemon, live from Lviv. To learn more about how CNN protects listener privacy, visit cnn.com/privacy

More relegation movers and shakers across last night's Premier League dingdongs, as Palace continue to trust the process while they slide down the table and Brentford's Tweenies cling on. Who will make it out of The Scrap™ alive?Kate, Vish and Andy also stick some plasters over Spurs' leaky midfield and praise both Leeds and Villa, whose night out featured the reckless abandon of someone without work for a few days.Tweet us @FootballRamble and email us here: show@footballramble.com.***Please take the time to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your pods. It means a great deal to the show and will make it easier for other potential listeners to find us. Thanks!*** See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Measuring hardware overhang, published by hippke on the AI Alignment Forum. Measuring hardware overhang Summary How can we measure a potential AI or hardware overhang? For the problem of chess, modern algorithms gained two orders of magnitude in compute (or ten years in time) compared to older versions. While it took the supercomputer "Deep Blue" to win over world champion Gary Kasparov in 1997, today's Stockfish program achieves the same ELO level on a 486-DX4-100 MHz from 1994. In contrast, the scaling of neural network chess algorithms to slower hardware is worse (and more difficult to implement) compared to classical algorithms. Similarly, future algorithms will likely be able to better leverage today's hardware by 2-3 orders of magnitude. I would be interested in extending this scaling relation to AI problems other than chess to check its universality. Introduction Hardware overhang is a situation where sufficient compute is available, but the algorithms are suboptimal. It is relevant if we build AGI with large initial build, but cheaper run costs. Once built, the AGI might run on many comparably slow machines. That's a hardware overhang with a risk of exponential speed-up. This asymmetry exists for current neural networks: Creating them requires orders of magnitude more compute than running them. On the other hand, in The Bitter Lesson by Rich Sutton it is argued that the increase in computation is much more important (orders of magnitude) than clever algorithms (factor of two or less). In the following, I will examine the current state of the algorithm-art using chess as an example. The example of chess One of the most well-researched AI topics is chess. It has a long history of algorithms going back to a program on the 1956 MANIAC. It is comparatively easy to measure the quality of a player by its ELO score. As an instructive example, we examine the most symbolic event in computer chess. In 1997, the IBM supercomputer "Deep Blue" defeated the reigning world chess champion under tournament conditions. The win was taken as a sign that artificial intelligence was catching up to human intelligence. By today's standards, Deep Blue used simple algorithms. Its strength came from computing power. It was a RS/6000-based system with 30 nodes, each with a 120 MHz CPU plus 480 special purpose VLSI chess chips. For comparison, a common computer at the time was the Intel Pentium II at 300 MHz. Method: An experiment using a 2020 chess engine We may wonder: How do modern (better) chess algorithms perform on slower hardware? I tested this with Stockfish version 8 (SF8), one of the strongest classical chess engine. I simulated 10k matches of SF8 against slower versions of itself and a series of older engines for calibration, using cutechess-cli. In these benchmarks, I varied the total number of nodes to be searched during each game. I kept the RAM constant (this may be unrealistic for very old machines, see below). By assuming a fixed thinking time per game, the experiments scale out to slower machines. By cross-correlating various old benchmarks of Stockfish and other engines on older machines, I matched these ratings to units of MIPS; and finally, MIPS approximately to the calendar year. Depending on the actual release dates of the processors, the year axis has a jitter up to 2 years. I estimate the error for the compute estimates to be perhaps 20%, and certainly less than 50%. As we will see, the results measure in orders of magnitude, so that these errors are small in comparison (

Some claim that the dark ages never happened and time skipped from the 600s to 900s, all because a medieval pope wanted to celebrate the millennium.  We look at the theories of many missing time believers including Gary Kasparov.

To kick off a new season of Seneca's 100 Women to Hear, we interview the greatest female chess player of all time, Judit Polgar. Her achievements go beyond gender lines; she's beaten many of the top male players, including Gary Kasparov and Boris Spassky. A Grandmaster since age 15, Polgar stood up to naysayers who didn't think a girl could reach the heights of chess. Now she's encouraging girls and boys to get in the game. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

For this episode I was delighted to be joined by Dr. Roman Yampolskiy, a professor of Computer Engineering and Computer Science at the University of Louisville. Few scholars have devoted as much time to seriously exploring the myriad of threats potentially inhering in the development of highly intelligent artificial machinery than Dr. Yampolskiy, who established the field of AI Safety Engineering, also known simply as AI Safety. After the preliminary inquiry into his background, I asked Roman Yampolskiy to explain deep neural networks, or artificial neural networks as they are also known. One of the most important topics in AI research is what is referred to as the Alignment Problem, which my guest helped to clarify. We then moved onto his work on two other vitally significant issues in AI, namely understandability and explainability. I then asked him to provide a brief history of AI Safety, which as he revealed built on Yudkowsky's ideas of Friendly AI. We discussed whether there is an increased interest in the risks attendant to AI among researchers, the perverse incentive that exists among those in this industry to downplay the risks of their work, and how to ensure greater transparency, which as you will hear is worryingly far more difficult than many might assume based on the inherently opaque nature of how deep neural networks perform their operations. I homed in on the issue of massive job losses that increasing AI capabilities could potentially engender, as well as the perception I have that many who discuss this topic downplay the socioeconomic context within which automation occurs. After I asked my guest to define artificial general intelligence, or AGI, and super intelligence, we spent considerable time discussing the possibility of machines achieving human-level mental capabilities. This part of the interview was the most contentious and touched on neuroscience, the nature of consciousness, mind-body dualism, the dubious analogy between brains and computers that has been all to pervasive in the AI field since its inception, as well as a fascinating paper by Yampolskiy proposing to detect qualia in artificial systems that perceive the same visual illusions as humans. In the final stretch of the interview, we discussed the impressive language-based system GPT3, whether AlphaZero is the first truly intelligent artificial system, as Gary Kasparov claims, the prospects of quantum computing to potentially achieve AGI, and, lastly, what he considers to be the greatest AI risk factor, which according to my guest is “purposeful malevolent design.” While this far-ranging interview, with many concepts raised and names dropped, sometimes veered into various weeds some might deem overly specialised and/or technical, I nevertheless think there is plenty to glean about a range of fascinating, not to mention pertinent, topics for those willing to stay the course. Roman Yampolskiy's page at the University of Louisville: http://cecs.louisville.edu/ry/ Yampolskiy's papers: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=0_Rq68cAAAAJ&hl=en Roman's book, Artificial Superintelligence: A Futuristic Approach: https://www.amazon.com/Artificial-Superintelligence-Futuristic-Roman-Yampolskiy/dp/1482234432 Twitter account for Skeptically Curious: https://twitter.com/SkepticallyCur1 Patreon page for Skeptically Curious: https://www.patreon.com/skepticallycurious

Guest: Vicente Diaz,  Threat Intelligence Strategist @ VirusTotal Topics: How would you describe modern threat hunting process? Share some of the more interesting examples of attacker activities or artifacts you've seen? Do we even hunt for malware? What gets you more concerned, malware or human attackers? How do you handle the risk of attackers knowing how you perform hunting? What is the role of threat research role for hunting? Do you need research to hunt well? Does threat research power attribution? How do you tell a good YARA rule from a bad one, and a great one? What's the evolutionary journey for a YARA rule? What is your view on the future of hunting? Resources: YARA documentation "Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins" by Gary Kasparov  

This week, we listen to Robert J. Marks speaking at the launch of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence in Dallas, Texas. Robert J. Marks is the Director of the Bradley Center and Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor University. In a panel discussion at the 2019 launch of the Bradley Center, Dr. Marks… Source

This week, we listen to Robert J. Marks speaking at the launch of the Walter Bradley Center for Natural and Artificial Intelligence in Dallas, Texas. Robert J. Marks is the Director of the Bradley Center and Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Baylor University. In a panel discussion at the 2019 launch of the Bradley Center, Dr. Marks… Source

Despite the title, I tried to stick to accurate observations about actual, factual information. As I worked on this episode, I attempted to find glimpses of daylight with only intermittent success. These are dark times we are living in.   Issac Asimov- Cult of Ignorance.       The Big Lie and Liz Cheney.   Facebook.     Gary Kasparov.      No such thing as truth.   Facebook is not a credible news source.     Rumble.   A pleasing amount of misinformation.    News from advertisers.   Rage engagement.     Comfort from conspiracy.   Karl Rove on Reality.     False certainty trumps honest uncertainty.   Efficacy vs. effectiveness.     Voltaire: Doubt not pleasant.   CDC modified suggestions don't mean stop washing your hands.   Conspiracy without the theory.       No evidence; no problem.   Clown with a flamethrower.       The willfully ignorant using science to dismiss science.   Misinformation harming others.     Driving drunk without a seatbelt.   Liz Cheney, Andrew Clyde and Laura Ingraham.   Tired of being owned.

On 11th May, some of the interesting events that took place were: 1812: Waltz, the dance form was converted to English Ball Room Dance. 1997 : Deep Blue became the first computer to defeat Gary Kasparov in a classic chess match. Listen in to know more interesting things that happened today.  www.chimesradio.com   http://onelink.to/8uzr4g   https://www.facebook.com/chimesradio/   https://www.instagram.com/vrchimesradio/   See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In this episode Ben Graff (he's a real journalist) and I talk to Sarah Longson of the UK Chess Challenge about what it's been like running a chess business during lockdown, whether the Queen's Gambit on Netflix has boosted participation in chess tournaments, and if there is an optimum way to teach chess. And most importantly what was it like appearing on Blue Peter with Gary Kasparov - at the age of 7! https://www.delanceyukschoolschesschallenge.com/ THANKS TO OUR SUPPORTERS! Grandmaster Simon Williams (GingerGM) does super video courses on gingergm.com, and books such as Arkell's Endings. I have won many games with his ideas! Buy quality e-books from Forward Chess - for instance The Woodpecker Method or 100 Endgames You Should Know. Want to impress your friends? Cook them an amazing meal - get brilliant recipes and all the ingredients you need delivered by Gusto - get 50% off your first box and 30% off your first month! Thanks for supporting my newsletter. Premium subscribers get discounts on tournaments, more articles and regular updates on the chess world. We also have a podcast which comes out every week with interviews and analysis. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thechesscircuit/message

Dr. Matt Agnew joins us to offer his expert science opinion on our favourite sci-fi parables. Plus, how likely is it that an AI will take over the world? Listen at your own risk...Tell us your biggest robot fear at @netflixanz on Instagram and Twitter, or tag #thebigfilmbuffet.Further reading:The Mitchells vs. The Machineshttps://www.netflix.com/title/81399614The Terminator Trailerhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k64P4l2WmegMachine learning in the Cambridge Analytica data breach (The Guardian explainer)https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/mar/18/what-is-cambridge-analytica-firm-at-centre-of-facebook-data-breachEx Machina Trailerhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYGzRB4Pnq8Gary Kasparov vs. IBM's Deep Blue: The historic chess match (Washington Post)https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/12/05/kasparov-deep-blue-queens-gambit/Yuval Noah Harari — Homo Deushttps://www.ynharari.com/book/homo-deus/Her Trailerhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzV6mXIOVl42001: A Space Odyssey Trailerhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oR_e9y-bka0Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics (The Conversation)https://theconversation.com/after-75-years-isaac-asimovs-three-laws-of-robotics-need-updating-74501Roko's Basilisk (click at your own peril)https://slate.com/technology/2014/07/rokos-basilisk-the-most-terrifying-thought-experiment-of-all-time.html

In IT, there is a tremendous amount of jargon.We are constantly using acronyms and abbreviations and obfuscating meaning.And, I have to admit, I have used terms without fully understanding their meaning, even though I thought I didSometimes, the same terms can have different meanings like the term SASE, which means Secure Access Services edge, and not the Self Addressed Stamped Envelope I would send off to people advertising in the backs of comic books when I was a kid.One term that is talked about a lot today is AI/ML, as if AI and ML are interchangeable concepts.But they aren’t.AI has been around for a long time at least since 1956 when the program “Logic Theorist” was conceived by Allen Newell, Cliff Shaw, and Herbert Simon to mimic human problem solving skills.By the 1980s experts systems started to show up and in 1997 Deep Blue defeated chess champion Gary Kasparov. Around that time, we started to see speech recognition systems hitting the market.All of these things were called AI at the time, but by today’s standards they are less than.So today when we look at the panoply of AI, we see it as an onion.AI is the outer ring, the general category.ML, or Machine learning is a ring inside the onion, which uses algorithms to parse data and make predictions.Deeper into the onion is DL or Deep Learning which utilizes neural networks to perform machine learning on large data sets.We have reached the age of reasoning machines, and we look down the road to Artificial General Intelligence and Self-Aware Systems.Perhaps someday, we will become one with the machine intelligence and reach Singularity and Transcendence, but for now we have machines, that one day will seem primitive when we look back, but are doing and discovering amazing things today. And for now we should take pause and try to understand what we have built, and what it means to society and to future generations, because whatever AI really is, it is inevitable.

Hi everyone! Welcome to the podzone. Here are the topics we go on to discuss on today's mighty episode!   1. Gary Kasparov vs. Deep Blue vs. Michael Jordan 2. The Woman With the Cacti In Her Pants 3. Beer Man in Ohio 4. Horn Music From The Sea 5. Peep the Chicken at Cracker Barrell 6. Getting so drunk you lose your wallet at McMurdo Station 7. Last Week's Numbers  

Fred Waitzkin is a journalist and author of the acclaimed non-fiction bestseller SEARCHING FOR BOBBY FISCHER, as well as the books MORTAL GAMES and THE LAST MARLIN. He is the father of International Master Joshua Waitzkin, who was the prodigy and subject of Searching for the Bobby Fischer book and movie. We speak about Joshua Waitzkin's youth, his coaching from our previous podcast guest National Master Bruce Pandolfini, parallels with The Queen's Gambit, the distance between fiction and reality, chess parenting tips, overcoming setbacks, Gary Kasparov's brilliance, memoirs vs. journalism, a preview to his upcoming novel STRANGE LOVE and more.

Skol! Kirk, Maddy, and Jason are all playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and they have oh so many thoughts. The gang dive into what they like (the story! the mysteries!) and don't like (the bugs!) about Ubisoft's new Viking game. (Spoilers: It's way too long.)One More Thing:Kirk: Just King ThingsMaddy: The Queen’s GambitJason: The Devil and the Dark Water by Stuart TurtonSlate interview with Gary Kasparov about his work on Queen’s Gambit: https://slate.com/culture/2020/11/queens-gambit-garry-kasparov-interview-netflix-chess-adviser.htmlJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/Support Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/join

Five minutes of civilised calm, recorded in East London, as the capital starts to wake up. Sign up at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com With a poem by John McCrae, In Flanders Fields. "In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row..." Donate to this year's Poppy Appeal here. From the show: John 15:13 Operation Torch sees Allied forces successfully invade Vichy French territories in North Africa, 8th November, 1942 On this day: 9th November, 1985, Gary Kasparov becomes world chess champion aged just 22 On this day: 9th November, 1898, Owen Barfield, the philosopher and Inkling, friend and influence to CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien, is born in London Music to wake you up – Starting Over by Chris Stapleton Sign up to receive email alerts and show notes with links when a new episode goes live at https://marcsalmanac.substack.com Please share this with anyone who might need a touch of calm, and please keep sending in your messages and requests. You can leave a voice message at https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message. If you like Marc's Almanac please do leave a review on Apple podcasts. It really helps new listeners to find me. Have a lovely day. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/marc-sidwell/message

Durante grande parte do Século XX o Campeonato Mundial de Xadrez representou as disputas políticas do mundo. A disputa do mundial de 1972 ganhou proporções muito maiores justamente por estar vinculada a Guerra Fria. Outro ponto importante dos mundiais de xadrez aconteceu no fim dos anos 80, com disputas internas e caminhando para a sua ruptura a situação da União Soviética foi representada nas finais dos mundiais de 1984 a 1990, sempre entre Anatoly Kaspov e Gary Kasparov. Confira agora essas histórias no Lado B do Esporte! Links e informações Texto do site Aventuras na História que serviu de base para a criação do roteiro O filme “O Dono do Jogo”, título em português, também serviu como base para este episódio. Confira a ficha técnica do filme aqui. Antes da oficialização do mundial de xadrez Paul Morphy foi campeão mundial em 1858. Após a oficialização do campeonato, Wilhelm Steinitz venceu o mundial três vezes, 1889, 1891 e 1892. Apesar de ter sido campeão sob a bandeira americana, Steinitz era de origem austríaca. Dessa forma, Bobby Fischer é considerado o único americano nato campeão mundial de xadrez.

Move over Bobby Fischer and Gary Kasparov—there is a new chess prodigy on the scene; Beth Harmon, chess player extraordinaire who redefines the Queen’s Gambit, which for those of you not on the chess circuit is an opening move that has a lot of history. Netflix’s #1 show, starring Anya Taylor-Joy as the fictional Beth Harmon, provides yet another vehicle for a strong woman’s plot. Merser and Bassin walk us through the many moves that make this one of the best series of 2020. And, bringing back The List of Six that was a Hollister O’Toole centerpiece, they give us all six movies or series episodes to watch before election results start pouring in on Tuesday. Don’t miss this week’s Screen Thoughts’ episode.

With six different kinds of pieces, 64 squares to move in, and billions of possible combinations of moves, chess is a good test for a computer. The number of distinct 40-move games is far greater than the number of electrons in the visible universe. For all intents and purposes: almost infinite.Gary Kasparov is the world’s best chess player. Deep Blue is a computer. It’s humanity v machine. There’s a lot at stake and things turn controversial fast with accusations of cheating, a very human meltdown and a computer that hallucinates. Note: This episode originally aired in September 2018. Support us by supporting our sponsors! ZipRecruiter - Try it now for free at ziprecruiter.com/ai.Fundrise - Get started at fundrise.com/AI to have your first NINETY days of advisory fees waived.

PJ is maturing well with gags, puns and jokes on Gary Kasparov, Trojan Horses, rock-climbing and more!

Nikhil Kamath Co-founder, Zerodha, and I discuss markets, luck, greek philosophy, helpers high, renaissance paintings and so much more!Reach Nikhil on Instagram: @nikhilkamath586Links to significant resources mentioned in the interaction:Books:Money: Master the Game - 7 Simple Steps to Financial Freedom Market Wizards: Interviews with Top Traders Updated (Indian Reprint)The Courage To Be Disliked: How to free yourself, change your life and achieve real happinessMichelangelo: A Life in Six MasterpiecesOn the Shortness of Life (Penguin Great Ideas) By SenecaKochland - The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in AmericaMaverick: The Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual Workplace: The Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual WorkshopPS If enough of you buy from these links, Amazon India will treat me with a Thick Chocolate Shake.from Corner House!Other ResourcesBeing ethical is long term greedy- Naval RavikantKasparov's classic quote in this NewYorker articleGod Friended Me episode.Investing advise for beginners by Nikhil on Shradha Sharma's Money MattersCorrection: The quote was not by Barkha Dutt, it was by Shoba De, Link to the article***If you enjoy the podcast, would you please consider leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts/iTunes? It takes less than 60 seconds, and it really makes a difference in helping to convince hard-to-get guests. I also love reading the reviews!For show notes and past guests, please visit http://galata.meSign up for Puneeth's daily cookie-sized blogs: https://puneethsuraana.comInterested in sponsoring the podcast? Drop a note to puneethsuraana@gmail.comFollow Puneeth: Instagram: instagram.com/puneethsuraanaFacebook: facebook.com/puneethsuraana 

Are the lockdowns driving suicidal despair in young people? Gary Kasparov lauds cryptocurrency as a means to maintain financial freedom & privacy. What to do when your intellectual heroes let you down. How capitalism benefits the average person more than the wealthy. Complete show notes are here. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/loving-liberty/support

GM Vladimir Kramnik talks about AlphaZero, the evolution of chess theory, how to achieve excellence, and his journey in chess. A lot of ideas we discuss apply not only to chess but also to poker and life in general. Vladimir is one of the most talented World Chess champions of the modern era and some of his insights are invaluable.    We talk about chess engines such as StockFish, the new chess AI - AlphaZero, and how those changed the way we approach studying, and understanding chess as well as what might the future hold and we also talk about the draw-backs of blindly following the engines or poker solvers for that matter. The poker industry is experiencing the same types of changes with the rise of the poker solvers and there are many lessons we can take-away from the chess world.    Vladimir also talks about his journey in chess, the famous match against Gary Kasparov, what it takes to compete at the highest level, how does his preparation look like, his approach to the competition, how Vladimir handles the pressure, aesthetics of chess and his work on creating new exciting variants of chess.    Make sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel to stay informed about new videos https://www.youtube.com/RunchuksPoker?sub_confirmation=1   And if you'd like to receive my key takeaways from each latest podcast episode, subscribe to my newsletter https://www.runchukspodcast.com   Twitter: https://twitter.com/RunchuksP   00:00:00 Intro 00:01:42 Chess before and after chess engines 00:08:09 Custom chess engines 00:10:46 Using chess engines for preparation 00:12:04 Evolution of chess engines 00:22:15 Kasparov vs Deep Blue - The End of the Human Race 00:24:23 Vladimir Kramnik vs Deep Fritz 00:26:52 AlphaZero deep learning AI 00:33:49 AlphaZero vs Stockfish differences 00:37:25 Experiment with AlphaZero 00:38:57 AI doesn't explain why it plays a certain way 00:41:04 AlphaZero thinking pattern 00:44:29 Drawbacks of engines for top-level games 00:46:46 Keeping chess entertaining 00:50:59 No Castling Chess (a new variant of chess) 00:57:47 How long would it take to engines to solve No Castling Chess 01:02:56 Understanding aesthetics, patterns instead of memorizing 01:06:27 New arms race 01:09:42 Using a better machine as a decisive advantage 01:12:00 Vladimir's style 01:16:45 What all great players have in common 01:20:06 The human aspect of chess 01:26:59 How Vladimir Kramnik studied Gary Kasparov to become World Champion 01:29:58 Playing even better under high pressure 01:31:50 Knowing yourself and knowing your opponent 01:38:39 Slight advantage line vs chance of playing it well 01:43:51 Creating your unique style 01:46:16 Defeating Gary Kasparov without losing a single game 01:58:22 Emotions taking over 02:02:29 The impact of ego 02:08:52 Decisive career moments 02:16:17 Always be ready to learn 02:17:57 Lack of information is not the problem 02:19:25 New chess variations 02:21:26 How humans are going to use AlphaZero as a studying tool 02:23:43 Wrapping up 02:25:28 One final word of wisdom

Wendy K. Tam Cho's homepageFamiliarize yourself with Optimization Problems"How to Quantify (and Fight) Gerrymandering” - Quanta Magazine“Toward a Talismanic Redistricting Tool: A Computational Method for Identifying Extreme Redistricting Plans” - Wendy K. Tam Cho and Yan Y. LiuWendy’s reading recommendation “Deep Thinking” by Gary Kasparov"

On Technology and Society this week Twitter is working on a solution to deal with fake news, a powerful new antibiotic discovered using machine learning and chess legend Gary Kasparov reflects on AI. 

La cité internationale accueillait ce 23 janvier 2020 le 5ème congrès Entreprise du Futur...une communauté d’entrepreneurs initiée par le groupe Visiativ et son PDG Laurent Fiard Cette année le thème du congrès c’était l'achronyme HERO. Parmi les intervenants, le champion d'échecs Gary Kasparov, bien connu à Lyon, ou encore la philosophe Julia de Funès, Ines Pallot l'a rencontrée

In 1997 a chess playing computer built by IBM called Deep Blue beat the world chess champion Gary Kasparov. You […] The post https://drpepermd.com/episode/walloped-by-alphago/ (Walloped by AlphaGo) appeared first on https://drpepermd.com (Dr Peper MD).

In 1997 a chess playing computer built by IBM called Deep Blue beat the world chess champion Gary Kasparov. You […] The post Walloped by AlphaGo appeared first on Dr Peper MD.

Esforzarse mucho, en ocasiones, puede ser contraproducente para aumentar la eficiencia de nuestro trabajo y para resolver problemas. Como Alex Beard menciona en su libro "Otras formas de aprender", . En este episodio hablo del 1) epigeo lunar, 2) la partida de ajedrez de Reikiavik Rapid de Manum Carlseen vs. Gary Kasparov, 3) funcionamiento cerebral de personas con medio cerebro.

Wow! What an incredible day at Mega Success Los Angeles yesterday! We listened to such amazing celebrities including two Olympic gold medalists Steven Bradbury, Bruny Surin, Stedman Graham, Gabrielle Macht (aka Harvey Specter), the world’s best chess player Gary Kasparov and top model Kimora Lees Simmons. Incredible to meet all of them and listen to their powerful stories of success and life, and business, lessons.

What if you could create a project to quickly learn the skills to transition to a new role, project, or even profession? What if you could learn a new language, simulate a university degree program, or become good at something that seems impossible to you right now? Well then you’ll enjoy this episode with Scott Young, author of the Wall Street Journal Best Seller, ULTRALEARNING: Master Hard Skills, Outsmart the Competition, and Accelerate Your Career. Ultralearning isn’t easy, just the opposite, not only is it hard, it’s frustrating and requires stretching outside the limits of where you feel comfortable. However, the things you can accomplish make it worth the effort. Scott Young is a writer, programmer, traveler, and for more than a decade has run a business focused on productivity. Scott is an avid learner and he has created some fascinating experiments, such as:  “The MIT Challenge” where he attempted to learn MIT’s 4-year computer science curriculum without taking classes, “The Year Without English,” where he attempted to learn four languages in one year, “The 30 Day Portrait Drawing Challenge” to see how much improvement he could make in drawing faces, and most recently, and fun, “Let’s Learn Quantum Mechanics.” So in this episode we discuss these challenges and other intellectual feats and what drives Scott, and of course a deep dive into his new book, which has some amazing folks saying some impressive things: James Clear of Atomic Habits fame, who also wrote the Foreword to your book, said “Ultralearning is a fascinating and inspiring read. Scott has compiled a goldmine of actionable strategies for learning anything faster.” Chris Guillebeau said: “This book is an invaluable tool to help you master complicated skills in a short period of time. Read Ultralearning and level up your life!” Cal Newport said “Ultralearning is like a superpower in our competitive economy. Read this book! It will change your life.” Derek Sivers said “A truly great book about learning. Riveting, useful, practical, and applicable to anyone ready to learn something at their own pace. Ultralearning shows you exactly how to learn better than you thought possible.” Scott discusses some of the great case studies in the book along with his own personal challenges, including those of Eric Barone, Tristan de Montebello, and Nigel Richards. His last chapter includes the wonderful story of Judit Polgar and Gary Kasparov. Scott lives his life in full, and helps others to do so as well with his book and his website’s blog and resources, which are linked in our show notes.

Éste es el episodio 33 de 3 Cosas Que Ayer No Sabía, el del miércoles 16 de octubre de 2019. ¡Al lío! 01. El transparente ¿es un color? El usuario @miguelgomez_pro ha compartido conmigo en Twitter este reportaje de Xataka: https://www.xataka.com/investigacion/que-mona-lisa-importante-para-que-defienden-que-trasparente-color-meritos-propios Aborda un debate para mí hasta hoy desconocido: el hecho de que en el arte pictórico el transparente se considere un color. Hay expertos que llevan a favor y encontrar de este argumento desde hace décadas y precisamente quienes defienden que el transparente sí es un color utilizan como prueba el cuadro más famoso de Leonardo Da Vinci, la Mona Lisa. ¡Y está escrito por Javier Jiménez, @dronte! Ojalá volviese su podcast :( 02. IA 0 - Angry birds 1 Hoy Mixx.io, la newsletter de @somospostpc recogía esta noticia: https://fudzilla.com/news/ai/49579-humans-still-better-at-angry-birds Parece ser que hasta ahora ninguna Inteligencia Artificial ha podido ganar al Angry Birds. Según recogía la noticia, juegos como Angry Birds poseen un gran número de posibilidades de acciones y casi infinitas cantidades de posibles niveles, algo que los algoritmos simples no pueden abarcar. Y, aunque las comparaciones son odiosas, creo que no está demás recordar que fue en 1996 cuando un superordenador de IBM gano al ajedrez al entonces campeón Gary Kasparov… 03. Dias para todo Hoy casi lloro de la risa al leer en twitter con el siguiente tuit: “A la mierda el horóscopo, dime cuáles son los días internacionales que se celebran en tu cumpleaños”. Lo tuiteaba el usuario @DrSoxion que adjuntaba un post en el que se recoge un listado de todas estas efemérides. Tras reírme un rato lo siguiente que hice fue curiosear qué días se celebran en mi cumpleaños. Junto al Día del Mago, algo que ya sabía desde hacía años, descubrí que el 31 de enero se celebra además el “Día al revés” que no tengo muy claro en qué consiste y el “Día de inspirar tu corazón con arte”. Y claro, esto me ha llegado al alma Aquí puedes buscar el día de tu cumple y ver si hay alguna efemérides interesante: https://espacio6y2.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/dias-mundiales-e-internacionales-extranos/ Despedida Y con esto termina el episodio número 33 de “3 cosas que ayer no sabía”, el del miércoles 16 de octubre de 2019. Suscríbete a este podcast en cualquier plataforma y no te olvides de dejarme alguna review o comentario, ¡que siempre ayuda! A mí me encuentras en Twitter por @almajefi. Escríbeme y cuéntame qué te parece este podcast y, por qué no, enséñame cosas nuevas. Te espero mañana. Hala, con dió.

Sjakk er sett på som en spill av intellektet og noe bare de aller smarteste kunne spille. Den hellige gral i kunstige intelligens-forskningen var lenge å slå et stormester i sjakk. Gary Kasparov skulle bli den heldige taperen — den første stormesteren som tapte mot en algoritme. En ny ære i algoritmeforskningen var i gang.

Óvenjuhörð niðursveifla hefur verið í laxveiðinni í sumar - veiðin almennt verið léleg og aðstæður til veiða sums staðar mjög erfiðar. Mjög þurrt sumar á sunnan- og vestanverðu landinu hefur orðið til þess að margar ár þar eru varla svipur hjá sjón. Og þótt útlitið sé heldur skárra fyrir norðan og austan er veiðin almennt séð ekki góð. Ágúst Ólafsson fréttamaður ræddi við Jón Helga Björnsson, formann Landssambands veiðifélaga, sem segir að sífellt harðari sveiflur og meiri öfgar sjáist nú í veiðinni en áður þekktust. Fyrir 25 árum sigraði skáktölvan ChessGenius sitjandi heimsmeistara í skák, Gary Kasparov. Þetta var í fyrsta sinn sem tölva lagði heimsmeistara í skák að velli án allra tímatakmarkana. Viðureignir sem Kasparov háði við nýjar og máttugar tölvur á níunda og tíunda áratug síðustu aldar þóttu æsileg og hádramatísk einvígi. Það má því segja að sumarið 94 hafi tölvan farið fram úr manninum. Freyr Eyjólfsson sagði hlustendum frá þessum merku tímamótum í dag. Það er ekki sama kaffi og kaffi, og allra síst á þessum síðustu tímum þar sem fólk getur valið á milli óteljandi tegunda kaffis og ótal kaffidrykkja. Þetta vita kaffiþjónar sem leggja mikinn metnað í hvern bolla, enda keppa menn núorðið um titla og aðrar vegtyllur í kaffigerð. Krista Alexandersdóttir er kaffiþjónn í Kaupmannahöfn, Morgunvaktin sló á þráðinn. Tónlist: Crucify Your Mind - Rodríguez You´d Be So Nice To Come Home To - Helen Merill Killing Me Softly With His Song - The Fugees Verum í sambandi - Sprengjuhöllin Leaving on a Jet Plane - Peter, Paul and Mary One More Cup of Coffee - Bob Dylan Kaffi til Brasilíu - Stefán Hilmarsson og Milljónamæringarnir Lollipop - Viuda e Hijas de Roque Enroll

Han pasado más de 20 años desde que una máquina de Inteligencia Artificial (llamada Deep Blue) y un hombre (el campeón de ajedrez Gary Kasparov) se enfrentasen en un duelo que terminaría con la victoria de la máquina. Guste o no, la Inteligencia Artificial ha llegado a nuestras vidas para quedarse y en el episodio de hoy nos preguntamos ¿Superarán las máquinas a los humanos?

With six different kinds of pieces, 64 squares to move in, and billions of possible combinations of moves, chess is a good test for a computer. The number of distinct 40-move games is far greater than the number of electrons in the visible universe. For all intents and purposes: almost infinite.Gary Kasparov is the world’s best chess player. Deep Blue is a computer. It’s humanity v machine. There’s a lot at stake and things turn controversial fast with accusations of cheating, a very human meltdown and a computer that hallucinates.American Innovations is presented by ZipRecruiter.Try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com/AIOther sponsors include:Wix - Launch a professional-looking website in no time for your innovative ideas with total design freedom, industry-leading SEO, and advanced code capabilities at Wix.com

In my latest documentary, we describe Russian President Vladimir Putin as the most powerful man in the world. But why? After all, the United States -- and China, for that matter -- are more powerful countries than Russia. The power of a head of state is determined both by the country's strength and the capacity he or she has to exercise that power, unilaterally, unconstrained by other institutions, parties and political forces. And combining those two metrics, it's easy to see why Vladimir Putin rises to the top of list. Putin has created what he calls a "vertical of power," something unlike any we see in other great nations. As the Russian chess grandmaster Gary Kasparov -- himself a harsh critic of Putin -- has noted, the entire structure of Russian political power rests on one man. When the czar died, you knew the structure that would endure and the process by which his successor, his son, would be elevated. When the general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party died, the Standing Committee and the Politburo would select his successor. But when Putin dies -- I almost wrote if -- what will happen? No one knows. To understand Putin, you have to understand Russia. The last hundred years for that country have seen the fall of the monarchy, the collapse of democracy, the great depression, World War II with its tens of millions of Russians dead, Stalin's totalitarian brutalities, the collapse of communism, the breakup of the Soviet Union, and Boris Yeltsin's years of chaos and corruption. Then comes Vladimir Putin, who ushers in stability and, in popular perception, rising standards of living and increasing prominence and respect in the world. That respect is important. Russians have immense national pride. Russia is the largest country on the planet -- 48 times larger than Germany and encompassing 11 time zones that straddle Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Russia is also a rich country, containing some of the largest deposits of raw materials, from oil and natural gas to nickel and aluminum. Culturally, it has often thought of itself as the third Rome, preserving Christianity even as Rome and Byzantium fell to the Barbarians.

There's a lot of excitement about artificial intelligence (AI) and the potential for robots to autonomously make decisions about what gets done, how it gets done, and who does it. As the technology fast approaches the dreams of science fiction, many professionals, blue and white colour workers are beginning to fear a future where their own jobs are no more. Will you be one who is replaced, or will you be one of those who thrives? The new Luddism In a fit of rage against the machines, Ned Ludd was an apprentice textile worker who allegedly smashed two stocking frames, a mechanical knitting machine, in 1779. The act spawned the Luddite movement whose members disliked the new technological devices and the changes being brought about by the Industrial Revolution. In 1812, the Luddite movement was a small militant force, battling the British army in Middleton, Lancashire. They met at night on the moors surrounding industrial towns to practice drills and manoeuvres. The Luddites employed tactics that today we would call terrorism and they were driven by a powerful cause: to save their jobs and improve their wretched standard of living. And they blamed the new machines in large part for their suffering. Today, we face a new challenge: The rise of the robots. Technological advances in the 19th and 20th centuries mainly displaced uneducated labourers. Today, we are seeing technology increasingly threaten skilled worker's jobs as well. Today, you may well have good reason to be concerned about the rise of the robots. I realised recently, that I hadn't actually spoken to, or needed to speak to, anyone in my bank for more than two years. Financial services have been at the forefront of digital adoption and transformation and many lower-level (those less cognitvely demanding) positions have already simply disappeared. In energy and mining, AI enables companies to tap new reserves and increase extraction and production efficiency. Predictive, manual work in both industries is no longer needed and the physical skills of old, is already or will soon be redundant. In healthcare, automation and AI has already changed the interaction between patients and healthcare professionals. But the good news for carers is that demand for their services is likely to grow, but if you work the back office, it could be time to look elsewhere. Manufacturing is seeing a new wave of AI and automation further disrupting production functions in factories. Two years ago, Foxconn replaced 60,000 workers with robots in one factory. The retail sector is rapidly dying a death on the high street and jobs replaced by machines increase daily. Whether it be the self-checkout of today, or the automated RFID or similar tech of tomorrow. And who needs physical shops and humans in them anyway when Amazon can deliver later this afternoon? Real Estate Agents are unlikely to be missed by those not in the profession, but what will they do once their job is done by a 'bot? Support services in organisations are threatened too. Do you really need accountants when the rules are established? Once you have the policies and procedures in place, how many people do you need in HR? Supply chain professionals are replacing themselves rapidly**. Customer Service** has shifted to self-serve portals and voice prompts recorded once and played in evermore annoying menus of choices. True, many other jobs open up, but with completely different skill requirements. Cybersecurity seems unlikely to stop growing - indeed, half of the battle is against malevolent AI bots. Rise of the Robots (book) - Wikipedia Skill shift: Automation and the future of the workforce The good news is that we'll still need humans to manage and lead and do the more complex cognitive thinking. For now, anyway. Sure, one day AI could evolve to higher levels of quasi-cognitive functioning and make better decisions than human managers and leaders. And there are things that you can do, right now, to significantly improve your value in the workplace. Something that machines are not so adept at and that is: improve your communications skills. Warren Buffet famously told a group of MBA students that they could: immediately improve their value by 50% in the workforce if they could improve their speaking skills. And that's improving your value against other humans, let alone the machines. Gary Kasparov the World Chess Master and Champion, who in spite of famously losing to to IBM's Deep Blue super computer in 1997, is optimistic about humanity's superiority over machines: Machines have calculations we have understanding Machines have instructions we have purpose Machines have objectivity we have passion And he cautions that if we fail, it will not be because machines were too intelligent or not intelligent enough. It will be because we became complacent and didn't dream big enough. Humans can dream. Robots cannot. Your value in the workplace, whatever your role, is enhanced when you communicate well. When you can engage with clients, suppliers, peers, bosses, shareholders, community, and everyone else you impact. The rise of the robots is real. It's already happening. It may not be quite as cool as human-like avatars or as frightening as the Terminator, but it is happening. The people who will come out on top in this rise of the robots, those who enjoy meaningful work and greater success, will be those people who communicate exceptionally well. They will show their passion and have a deep understanding of their world and be able to teach and lead others aligned to a purpose that is creative, personally fulfilling and making a real difference in the world. The Luddites were eventually crushed by the Government after they took their cause to the level of destroying the machines. Refusing to embrace the new technology whilst the factory owners and the powers that be of the day, refused to share the wealth that automation created for them. AI and the rise of robots is changing the way we work today and tomorrow In short, the people who are going to thrive are the ones who are most human. And, the companies that are going to thrive are the ones that feel most human and share the wealth that the robot rise creates. Luddites have been getting a bad rap for 200 years. But, turns out, they were right Humans Need Not Apply: A Guide to Wealth and Work in the Age of Artificial Intelligence What jobs will still be around in 20 years? Read this to prepare your future How is your job impacted by the rise of the robots, AI and automation? What are you doing to improve your communication skills so that you will thrive in the new future of work?

Pour ce deuxième épisode, nous allons vous parler d’intelligence artificielle avec un pionner dans ce domaine : Jean-Philippe Desbiolles vice-président des Solutions Cognitives chez IBM France. N’hésitez pas à le partager, à le noter, le commenter, et surtout à vous y abonner. On en parle comme d’une quatrième révolution industrielle, (un terme choisi lors du Forum de Davos en 2016), d’une technologie au potentiel presque infinie. L’intelligence artificielle est devenue aujourd’hui, une réalité dans la plupart des secteurs de métier. Loin d‘être une mode, Elle va transformer en profondeur notre façon de travailler. On y parle : - Du « buzz » autour de l’intelligence artificielle - Des cas concrets de mise en œuvre de projets autour d’intelligence artificielle - De la transformation des processus métiers, et de la nécessité de s’y préparer - De l’humain et de son accompagnement IBM : Elémentaire mon cher « Watson » WATSON est le nom du programme d'intelligence artificielle qu’IBM développe depuis les années 2000. En remportant en 2011, le célèbre jeu « Jeopardy » l’équivalent de notre « Questions pour un champion » aux Etats-Unis, Watson a gagné ses lettres de noblesse. Mais IBM n’en était pas à son premier coup d’essai. En 1997 déjà, « Deep Blue » avait battu Gary Kasparov le champion du monde lors d’une partie d’échecs. Puis en 2006 « Deep Fitz » rééditait l’exploit en battant Vladimir Kramnik (Champion du monde russe). L’Intelligence artificielle n’est pas un sujet nouveau. Les premières traces de ce concept datent des années 50. Alan Turing, mathématicien et informaticien britannique propose une expérience connue sous le nom de "test de Turing". Le test est simple. Les yeux bandés, un homme parle successivement à un humain et à un ordinateur. S’il ne fait pas la différence entre l’homme et l’ordinateur, la machine a réussi le test. Mais c’est en 1956, à la conférence de Dartmouth, que l’intelligence artificielle nait en tant que domaine de recherche. Elle se développe surtout aux Etats-Unis, sous l’impulsion de John McCarthy, pionnier de l’I.A... https://www.usine-digitale.fr/article/bios-de-robots-1950-la-naissance-de-l-intelligence-artificielle.N277018 L’IA, la quatrième révolution industrielle en marche, notamment dans les services Aujourd’hui, L’I.A. est une réalité dans de nombreux secteurs, dans des domaines variés, mais notamment dans le monde des services. Langage et communication avec un humain, reconnaissance visuelle, gestion du savoir, du raisonnement et même d’empathie… Les compétences de l’IA trouvent des applications dans des environnements tels que la médecine, les assurances, les banques ou encore les télécommunications. Faut-il avoir peur de l’Intelligence artificielle ? L’enjeu de cette transformation est bien évidemment « l’humain » et son accompagnement sera fondamental. « On passe d’un monde de programmation à un monde d’apprentissage. Mais ce qui change, c’est qu’auparavant tout ce que la machine savait, l’homme lui avait appris. Aujourd’hui, les machines apprennent seules, très fort, très vite et bien mieux que l’homme ne saurait le faire. Et c’est une véritable nouveauté … Cette transformation va créer et détruire des emplois mais qui va surtout transformer l’emploi et c’est pourquoi nous devons nous y préparer » insiste Jean-Philippe Desbiolles. L’homme fort d’IBM en matière I.A. reste optimiste. « L’intelligence de la machine va apporter une dimension nouvelle, un monde augmenté où les hommes et les machines travailleront ensemble dans une réelle complémentarité. Il faudra donc y être préparé et formé ». La clé : l’éducation et la transmission du savoir. « L’être humain possède des capacités remarquables. L’intelligence artificielle sera ce que l’on en fera. Si on veut qu’elle soit au service du l’humain, elle le sera ».

Tatyana Kanzaveli has gone from a programmer to senior executive at Big 5 to founder and CEO of a startup company along her 20-year career. She is recognized as a thought leader and mentor for her ability to guide Fortune 500 and startup companies through business challenges. She's worked for major companies like PricewaterhouseCoopers and Fujitsu and startups in the early days of the Web. Tatyana has personally helped companies jump from 0 to millions in revenue, even during the toughest economic times. She has also opened new verticals and markets. Today, she is the founder and CEO of Open Health Network, a startup in a big data/artificial intelligence health care space. She is a mentor at 500Startups and Richard Branson Entrepreneurs Centre and serves on boards for private companies. She also is licensee and organizer of highly notable TEDxBayArea conferences and is a frequent speaker at United States and international conferences on innovation, entrepreneurship and digital health. Tatyana has been featured in the White House blog , spoke at the United Nations, and presented at the first White House Demo Day hosted by President Obama. She was recognized as 1 of the Top 10 Influential Women in Health IT 2015. Tatyana was USSR chess champion an played in the same team with Gary Kasparov. She loves to cook and kayak. 00:00 How data silos affect assessing patient outcomes. 04:45 “In any other industry, we actually care about experiences.” 06:30 How data silos inhibit neural networks. 09:00 How to solve for interoperability so that AI engine could use the health data. 11:00 How to integrate bi-directional interfaces quickly. 14:00 “It's not just APIs - think about content.” 14:30 How Open Health Network is creating a better answer. 16:15 How an app developer could then interact with Open Health Network. 19:50 How Open Health Network's system is user-friendly and doesn't require any coding knowledge. 21:00 Open Health Network's content strategy. 23:20 Usage data that demonstrates the improvement to patient engagement since Open Health Network's implementation of their platform. 28:00 “It's a big issue that we have too many islands of health care data.” 29:30 You can learn more by emailing contact@openhealth.cc or by going to www.openhealth.cc

In 1956, the term artificial intelligence was used at a conference at Dartmouth College, in New Hampshire, and in the years after that government, corporate and public interest had waned and risen until in 1997, IBM's Deep Blue became the first computer to beat a human at chess when it defeated world champion, Gary Kasparov. This brought to light the question of what else could we teach a computer to do? Voice-detection technology, suggestive searches, and autonomous cars are just a few of the ways that artificial intelligence has burrowed into our lives, and companies are quickly bringing AI to the next level. How is AI changing our lives and where lay the human aspects of AI? Do we really understand all the capabilities? This episode explores some of those questions with one of the top AI and Robotic experts and as part of our Women in Technology Series. Our expert is one of the leading women in the field of AI and Robotics, where women make up only around 20%.

Long before Google's AlphaGo best Lee SeDol at Go, and IBM's Deep Blue bested Gary Kasparov at chess, there was Chinook: a humble software program that set out to compete with the world's greatest checkers player. Professor Jonathan Schaeffer wrote Chinook in an attempt to use machine learning to outsmart the unbeatable checkers master, Marion Tinsley. But Schaeffer couldn't have imagined how his relationship with Tinsley would affect his program, and how the drama of their matches would change the world of artificial intelligence.

We have on our first guest, the disillusioned Leninist Evan who talks about anarchist anthropology! Evan’s had his name dropped on the show before so we figured it was time we had him on to defend himself. Matt is still in a state of nervousness about looking after a one year old because he has not read as many books as he should have. We recorded this episode in baby’s room which made Evan eyeball the crib for a post-pod nap. Phil gives us a This Day in History challenge. Matt and Evan wonder how May 11, 1820 and 1997 are connected. They had no idea. In 1820 the HMS Beagle, Charles Darwin’s ship set sail and in 1997 Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov at chess. Answer: connected to evolutionary theory, progression or one might argue regression. You gotta watch Phil, always slipping in those connections. Evan regales us with some library stories. No spoiler, but they were better than we thought! Turns out library stank sticks with you like a whopper and somehow Phil has never had a dull moment in a library. After the show Evan is planning his own treasure hunt in the film studies and gastronomy sections of the stacks to find our squirrely hiding places.   Anarchism & Anthropology (12:48) What the heck is anarchist anthropology and who is this really interesting sounding guy, David Graeber? Evan gives the ‘I know nothing’ disclaimer and a brief backgrounder. He explains the intersection of anarchism, continental philosophy and anthropology: horizontal approaches to explore ‘everyday life’. Evan came at anarchism from disillusionment with Marxist-Leninism as a youth and an interest in continental philosophy. Everyone’s understanding of Marx was made easier by working low wage, alienating jobs. Evan met Matt at one of those jobs, who was later strong-armed into Matt’s Anth-100 tutorial group. It was like having a teaching reviewer in each class. The best feedback Evan gave: Matt teaches in a chaotic, discursive style. He has since tried to bring more structure and make connections clearer (let us know if he is succeeding). Evan defines anarchism as active, a creative on the ground political action that is designed to be adaptable. David Graeber resists the label of ‘Anarchist-Anthropologist’ because it is not ‘who’ you are but ‘what you do’. Matt, Phil and Evan make Marxist connections, it being understood as an active and widely applicable philosophy. “Two Cheers for Anarchism” by James C Scott is Evan’s first recommendation. It uses a vernacular methodological approach to anthropology, which is essentially an horizontal or non-top down perspective. Examples: gardens in Guatemala, Henry Ford’s rubber plantation disaster and the worn paths at college campuses. This reminds Matt of emergent theory, trying to not impose theoretical frameworks before entering the field. The vernacular definition of anarchism seems to not match up with Evan’s definition. But where is the politics? According to Evan, experience is where politics should emerge, not the other way around. This lived, experiential approach is connected to continental philosophy. Does Graeber focus on this or is this Evan’s analysis? Evan, are you an anarchist? He is but it doesn’t make any difference. “If you are not a Utopian, you are a Schmuck” as Graeber the optimistic anarchist says. The anarchist ideal is therefore all around us, everywhere, organic and existing in our relationships.     Black Block vs. Optimistic Anarchism? Direct action is what anarchism can be boiled down to, are these actions purely symbolic or effective? Violence is more symbolic, Evan argues. Aesthetics of practicing (praxis) anarchism: Evan argues that the Black Block is dependent on peaceful protests. It scares Matt that peaceful protesters get lumped in with black block ‘extremists’ even if their violence is intended to be symbolic. Evan makes a great connection with Marcel Mauss and the Gift, a hugely influential book because it describes worlds that are alternatives. Matt connects Techniques of the Body by Mauss, Evan also appreciates this as he was a clunky body person just like Matt. Neo-Liberalism: Anarchism should be seen as a methodological alternative, relying on cooperation and collaboration in our political actions. Phil brings in Trump and his atrocious policies and the French election results, asking what Evan thinks about all this? Evan appreciated the Trotskyite Mélenchon, Matt argues that the extreme right is small but vocal and that their messaging is uncomfortable because cultural norms have changed. Evan points to the recent turn-away from market economics. Phil connects ‘anger’ and the right, which is just as legitimate as any movement from the left but Evan argues that the left is more concerned with aesthetics then direct political action. Evan talks to “Direct Action and Ethnography” by D. Graeber, set in Quebec in 2001 (please email us David…). Populism and the privileged right: Trump the anarchist, Trudeau the opportunist-anarchist? The president is ‘just like me’ and this worries Matt. Trump is selling how uncouth he is and Americans want to see this even though they are born into privilege. A Return to praxis, or the final nail in the coffin: If you want to be an anarchist, what should you do? Evan believes in further education, asking questions and making connections. Some books by Graeber to read: “Fragments of an anarchist anthropology”, “Direct Action and Ethnography”. And, “Two Cheers for Anarchism” by James C Scott. Finally, a Podcast: The Intercept by Glen Greenwald and Jeremy Scahill.   Recommendations (50:36) Astonishing Legends: a podcast that Matt describes as ‘rational conspiracy theory’ where they really dig into (pun totally intended) the research. Some notable episodes: Oak Island and the Knights of the Golden Cross. On the Media: hosted by Brooke Gladstone and Bob Garfield is a social sciency take on media analysis which is always current and always relevant. A blog by writer Sam Kriss The Hockey PDOcast: is an analytics driven hockey show produced and hosted by a Canadian Dimitri Fillipovich. That’s pretty cool there then eh? How to Write a Thesis in Three Years: A Practical Guide: a book by Stephen Harrison. Phil’s a little preoccupied by that whole thing at the moment.   Concluding thought: “Changes and progress very rarely are gifts from above. They come out of struggles from below” (Noam Chomsky, 2008).   -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Follow Semi-Intellectual Musings on Twitter: @The_SIM_Pod Email Matt & Phil: semiintellectual@gmail.com Subscribe to the podcast: https://thesim.podbean.com/feed/ For full show notes: https://thesim.podbean.com/e/anarchism-anthropology The show is now on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/semi-intellectual-musings/id1232065376 The show can also be found on Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=138244&refid=stpr Please leave us a rating and a review, it really helps the show!   Music: Song "Soul Challenger" appearing on "Cullahnary School" by Cullah Available at: http://www.cullah.com Under CC BY SA license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Gary Kasparov defeated by Deep Blue, Alexander Pushkin dies in a duel, and Shirley Temple Black…On This Day

A lot of AI applications are not really “smart”, at least not in the sense of the word as most humans might envision a true artificial intelligence. If you know how Deep Blue beat Gary Kasparov, for example, then you may not believe that Watson is a legitimate thinking machine. Our guest this week, Dr. Pei Wang, is of the belief that building a Artificial “General” Intelligence (AGI), what researchers define as an entity with human-like cognition, is a separate question from figuring out AI applications in the more narrow sense. In this episode, Dr. Wang lays out three differentiating factors that separate AGI from AI in general, and also talks about three varied and active approaches being taken to try and accomplish AGI.

On this day in 1996, the computer Deep Blue stunned chess master Gary Kasparov by beating him in the opening game of their six-game match. On today's "A Classical Day in the Life," we contemplate the music of the game of kings and explore the nonhuman works of the computer composer Emily Howell.    

In the wake of the shooting in San Bernardino, we get into the “thoughts and prayers” debate that broke out last night after the NY Daily News published its provocative front page. Then, Dinesh D'Souza joins to discuss his new book Stealing America: What My Experience with Criminal Gangs Taught Me about Obama, Hillary, and the Democratic Party and get into detail about his experiences while... Source

Focus ART dans le Lunch Show du jour avec deux co-hosts passionnés. Autour d’Angela Peauty sur le plateau, le photographe et réalisateur Hughes Lawson-Body, venu parler de son documentaire sur le joueur d’échec Gary Kasparov pour L’Equipe.fr et sa future web-série "Barber Show", et Ulrich Christian Adelaide, journaliste du blog masculine MenareDelicious.com et Luxsure.fr venu présenter son travail en tant que Consultant Brand Content. En tant que co-hosts, chacun présente leur segment d’actualité : Art avec Hughes Lawson-Body, qui vous conseille l’exposition de Philippe Halsman actuellement au Jeu de Paume, et le nouvel ouvrage fantasy de l’auteure américain Robin Hobb. Mode Luxe avec Ulrich Christian Adelaide, qui fait le point sur les fermetures des boutiques chinoises Louis Vuitton, et l’engouement des jeunes envers des marques telles que Balmain, qui sortait dernièrement sa collaboration avec l’enseigne H&M.

He dominated the chess world for fifteen years. In Across The Board, Dominic Lawson interviews Gary Kasparov over a game of chess - and asks him not just about the 64 squares, but also about his life post-chess, as a staunch opponent of President Putin.

Mailbag; Gary Kasparov blasted Obama; Email from Russian listener living in Ukraine

Chris Bowlby looks at the 22-year old Norwegian chess player Magnus Carlsen. He has the highest rating in the world ever and has been called the Mozart of chess.He is currently in London playing the tournament that will determine which top player gets to challenge the reigning world champion, Vishy Anand, for that title. Carlsen has been amazing the world of chess since he was a child. He became a Grandmaster after just four years of playing, when he was thirteen. He also achieved a draw against chess legend Gary Kasparov at that age. His talent and achievements later caught the attention of the fashion world, and he was asked to model for denim brand G-Star Raw, giving the image of chess a make-over in the process. He is said to have a photographic memory, but uses it to remember sports results and trivia more than chess openings. An instinctive and fast player, he also has extraordinary staying power and can change a game five hours in, when his opponents start to flag. Can this chess wunderkind now become world champion? And what is he actually like? Lesley Curwen talks to those who know him best, from his dad and his first coach, to famous chess players like Nigel Short.Producer: Arlene Gregorius.

Bobby Fischer Against The World is a new documentary about the rise and fall of the legendary American chess player and his 1972 match with Boris Spassky. The film explores Fischer’s rapid rise to national fame and the political significance of his clash with Spassky, which attracted global media coverage as a wider Cold War confrontation between America and Russia. It then delves into the later years of his life as he effectively retired at the peak of his career and became a wandering enigma, exiled from his own country, making controversial statements after 9/11, before eventually retreating to Iceland where he died in 2008. Directed by Liz Garbus, it premiered at Sundance earlier this year and mixes rare archive footage and photos with interviews from those close to Fischer as well as figures such as Gary Kasparov and Henry Kissinger. I recently spoke to Liz in London at the offices at Dogwoof, who are releasing the film in the UK on July 15th Find out more about the film at www.bobbyfischermovie.co.ukFile Download (0:00 min / 23 MB)

Deep Blue is the legendary computer that defeated World Chess Champion, Gary Kasparov. However, this victory was not without controversy. In this show, the lead developer of Deep Blue, Dr. Feng Hsiung-Hsu, discussed the science and politics of building a super chess computer.

Niet alleen maar geldschieter Als je één keer een goed idee hebt kun je je soms de rest van je leven met schaken en kunst bezighouden. Bessel Kok is één van Nederlands meest succesvolle ondernemers, ook al is hij genationaliseerd tot Belg. Ten tijde van het marathoninterview met Ton van der Graaf bestuurde Kok het Belgische bedrijf Belgacom en had enkele jaren daarvoor de Grand Masters Association, de vakbond voor schaakgrootmeesters opgericht. Groot fan van de sport, hoewel hij zelf niet veel talent schijnt te bezitten. Luistert u naar het gesprek tussen Van der Graaf en Kok dat zij in de zomer van 1991 voerden. Biografie Bessel Kok geb. 13 december 1941 te Hilversum Een meedenker Bessel Kok werd op 13 december 1941 te Hilversum geboren. Na de oorlog verhuisde het gezin naar Amsterdam waar zijn vader BK LPG oprichtte, een autogasbedrijf. Kok studeerde economie aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam in de jaren zestig en ging dan ook helemaal op in de tijdsgeest: “Ik was een kind van de jaren zestig, linksig, lang haar en altijd op vakantie in het fijne Oost-Europa. Ik dreigde eeuwige student te worden en hield het na mijn kandidaats voor gezien.” Het briljante idee kwam in hem gevaren in 1971. Hij richtte in België Swift op (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) op: Swift regelde (en regelt) de automatisering van het internationale betalingsverkeer. Wanneer iemand geld naar het buitenland wil overmaken, moet de Swift-code gebruikt worden om banken en financiële instellingen te kunnen identificeren. Achttien jaar later, in 1989, leek het Kok mooi geweest. Hij wilde reizen. Enkele jaren later werd hij door de Belgen gevraagd om directeur van Belgacom te worden, de PTT van de zuiderburen. Voorwaarde voor de baan was wel het aannemen van de Belgische nationaliteit. Als Belgacom-directeur sponsorde hij de Brusselse voetbalclub Anderlecht en de Swift-schaaktoernooien. Daarna bleek dat iedereen met een goed idee, maar weinig geld bij Kok aan kon kloppen. Samen met Jan Mulder gaf hij de tafeltenniscarriere van Bettine Vriesekoop een doorstart. Vriesekoop: “ Vooral Bessels morele steun was belangrijk. Eindelijk had ik iemand gevonden die me hielp in plaats van tegenwerkte. Dat jaar heb ik mijn beste prestatie neergezet.” Het International Film Festival Rotterdam kon ook op financiële steun rekenen. Recent heeft hij Silvia Kristel nog geholpen met de uitgave van haar autobiografie. Kristel: “Hij helpt mensen op momenten dat ze het nodig hebben. Maar nooit zomaar met geld. Hij steunt je als je iets wilt doen.” Bovendien produceert hij ook documentaires. Eén daarvan, The Power of Good over de Britse zakenman Nicholas Winton, die in de Tweede Wereldoorlog 669 joodse kinderen uit handen van de nazi’s wist te houden, kreeg in 2002 een Emmy-award. Afgezien van zijn mecenaten staat Kok bekend om de Bourgondische feestdiners die hij veelvuldig organiseert. Willem Frederik Hermans heeft vlak voor zijn overlijden nog zo’n bacchanaal bijgewoond. Koks grote passie is het edele schaakspel. Hij richtte in 1987 tot groot afgrijzen van de wereldschaakfederatie Fide de GMA, de Grand Masters Association, op; een professionele vakbond die de rechten van topschakers behartigd. Hij werd de eerste voorzitter, Gary Kasparov werd president, Anatoli Karpov en Jan Tinman werden vice-presidenten. Van de 300 grootmeesters sloten zich 200 bij de GMA aan. De GMA organiseerde de World Cup Chess Tournaments, wat een directe provocatie aan het adres van Fide was, die het alleenrecht op de wereldtitel had. Na een akkoord tussen de GMA en de Fide stapte Kasparov uit woede op en keerde ook Kok de schaakwereld een tijd de rug toe. Jan Tinman: “Bessel vindt de schaakwereld interessant en dat is belangrijk. We hebben veel te weinig mensen die de sport verder helpen door hun organisatorisch en zakelijk talent in te zetten. Hij is zeer doortastend, maar ook een heel beminnelijk persoon.” Kan Kok zelf goed schaken? “ Hij is niet goed in het pionnenspel. Ik zeg altijd dat hij beter op de kleintjes moet letten, ook in het echte leven. Vijftien jaar geleden negeerde hij de voorzitter van de Portugese schaakbond. Zo’n man vergeet dat niet en we hebben zijn stem straks hard nodig. Maar Bessel is geen politicus. Zoals als ik hem ken, heb ik hem nog nooit op een leugen betrapt? In 1995 naar Praag vertrokken om het Tsjechische staatsbedrijf Cesky Telecom te privatiseren. Kok woont nog steeds in Praag en is enkele jaren geleden voor de derde keer getrouwd, dit keer met een Tsjechische.

Niet alleen maar geldschieter Als je één keer een goed idee hebt kun je je soms de rest van je leven met schaken en kunst bezighouden. Bessel Kok is één van Nederlands meest succesvolle ondernemers, ook al is hij genationaliseerd tot Belg. Ten tijde van het marathoninterview met Ton van der Graaf bestuurde Kok het Belgische bedrijf Belgacom en had enkele jaren daarvoor de Grand Masters Association, de vakbond voor schaakgrootmeesters opgericht. Groot fan van de sport, hoewel hij zelf niet veel talent schijnt te bezitten. Luistert u naar het gesprek tussen Van der Graaf en Kok dat zij in de zomer van 1991 voerden. Biografie Bessel Kok geb. 13 december 1941 te Hilversum Een meedenker Bessel Kok werd op 13 december 1941 te Hilversum geboren. Na de oorlog verhuisde het gezin naar Amsterdam waar zijn vader BK LPG oprichtte, een autogasbedrijf. Kok studeerde economie aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam in de jaren zestig en ging dan ook helemaal op in de tijdsgeest: “Ik was een kind van de jaren zestig, linksig, lang haar en altijd op vakantie in het fijne Oost-Europa. Ik dreigde eeuwige student te worden en hield het na mijn kandidaats voor gezien.” Het briljante idee kwam in hem gevaren in 1971. Hij richtte in België Swift op (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) op: Swift regelde (en regelt) de automatisering van het internationale betalingsverkeer. Wanneer iemand geld naar het buitenland wil overmaken, moet de Swift-code gebruikt worden om banken en financiële instellingen te kunnen identificeren. Achttien jaar later, in 1989, leek het Kok mooi geweest. Hij wilde reizen. Enkele jaren later werd hij door de Belgen gevraagd om directeur van Belgacom te worden, de PTT van de zuiderburen. Voorwaarde voor de baan was wel het aannemen van de Belgische nationaliteit. Als Belgacom-directeur sponsorde hij de Brusselse voetbalclub Anderlecht en de Swift-schaaktoernooien. Daarna bleek dat iedereen met een goed idee, maar weinig geld bij Kok aan kon kloppen. Samen met Jan Mulder gaf hij de tafeltenniscarriere van Bettine Vriesekoop een doorstart. Vriesekoop: “ Vooral Bessels morele steun was belangrijk. Eindelijk had ik iemand gevonden die me hielp in plaats van tegenwerkte. Dat jaar heb ik mijn beste prestatie neergezet.” Het International Film Festival Rotterdam kon ook op financiële steun rekenen. Recent heeft hij Silvia Kristel nog geholpen met de uitgave van haar autobiografie. Kristel: “Hij helpt mensen op momenten dat ze het nodig hebben. Maar nooit zomaar met geld. Hij steunt je als je iets wilt doen.” Bovendien produceert hij ook documentaires. Eén daarvan, The Power of Good over de Britse zakenman Nicholas Winton, die in de Tweede Wereldoorlog 669 joodse kinderen uit handen van de nazi’s wist te houden, kreeg in 2002 een Emmy-award. Afgezien van zijn mecenaten staat Kok bekend om de Bourgondische feestdiners die hij veelvuldig organiseert. Willem Frederik Hermans heeft vlak voor zijn overlijden nog zo’n bacchanaal bijgewoond. Koks grote passie is het edele schaakspel. Hij richtte in 1987 tot groot afgrijzen van de wereldschaakfederatie Fide de GMA, de Grand Masters Association, op; een professionele vakbond die de rechten van topschakers behartigd. Hij werd de eerste voorzitter, Gary Kasparov werd president, Anatoli Karpov en Jan Tinman werden vice-presidenten. Van de 300 grootmeesters sloten zich 200 bij de GMA aan. De GMA organiseerde de World Cup Chess Tournaments, wat een directe provocatie aan het adres van Fide was, die het alleenrecht op de wereldtitel had. Na een akkoord tussen de GMA en de Fide stapte Kasparov uit woede op en keerde ook Kok de schaakwereld een tijd de rug toe. Jan Tinman: “Bessel vindt de schaakwereld interessant en dat is belangrijk. We hebben veel te weinig mensen die de sport verder helpen door hun organisatorisch en zakelijk talent in te zetten. Hij is zeer doortastend, maar ook een heel beminnelijk persoon.” Kan Kok zelf goed schaken? “ Hij is niet goed in het pionnenspel. Ik zeg altijd dat hij beter op de kleintjes moet letten, ook in het echte leven. Vijftien jaar geleden negeerde hij de voorzitter van de Portugese schaakbond. Zo’n man vergeet dat niet en we hebben zijn stem straks hard nodig. Maar Bessel is geen politicus. Zoals als ik hem ken, heb ik hem nog nooit op een leugen betrapt? In 1995 naar Praag vertrokken om het Tsjechische staatsbedrijf Cesky Telecom te privatiseren. Kok woont nog steeds in Praag en is enkele jaren geleden voor de derde keer getrouwd, dit keer met een Tsjechische.

Niet alleen maar geldschieter Als je één keer een goed idee hebt kun je je soms de rest van je leven met schaken en kunst bezighouden. Bessel Kok is één van Nederlands meest succesvolle ondernemers, ook al is hij genationaliseerd tot Belg. Ten tijde van het marathoninterview met Ton van der Graaf bestuurde Kok het Belgische bedrijf Belgacom en had enkele jaren daarvoor de Grand Masters Association, de vakbond voor schaakgrootmeesters opgericht. Groot fan van de sport, hoewel hij zelf niet veel talent schijnt te bezitten. Luistert u naar het gesprek tussen Van der Graaf en Kok dat zij in de zomer van 1991 voerden. Biografie Bessel Kok geb. 13 december 1941 te Hilversum Een meedenker Bessel Kok werd op 13 december 1941 te Hilversum geboren. Na de oorlog verhuisde het gezin naar Amsterdam waar zijn vader BK LPG oprichtte, een autogasbedrijf. Kok studeerde economie aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam in de jaren zestig en ging dan ook helemaal op in de tijdsgeest: “Ik was een kind van de jaren zestig, linksig, lang haar en altijd op vakantie in het fijne Oost-Europa. Ik dreigde eeuwige student te worden en hield het na mijn kandidaats voor gezien.” Het briljante idee kwam in hem gevaren in 1971. Hij richtte in België Swift op (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) op: Swift regelde (en regelt) de automatisering van het internationale betalingsverkeer. Wanneer iemand geld naar het buitenland wil overmaken, moet de Swift-code gebruikt worden om banken en financiële instellingen te kunnen identificeren. Achttien jaar later, in 1989, leek het Kok mooi geweest. Hij wilde reizen. Enkele jaren later werd hij door de Belgen gevraagd om directeur van Belgacom te worden, de PTT van de zuiderburen. Voorwaarde voor de baan was wel het aannemen van de Belgische nationaliteit. Als Belgacom-directeur sponsorde hij de Brusselse voetbalclub Anderlecht en de Swift-schaaktoernooien. Daarna bleek dat iedereen met een goed idee, maar weinig geld bij Kok aan kon kloppen. Samen met Jan Mulder gaf hij de tafeltenniscarriere van Bettine Vriesekoop een doorstart. Vriesekoop: “ Vooral Bessels morele steun was belangrijk. Eindelijk had ik iemand gevonden die me hielp in plaats van tegenwerkte. Dat jaar heb ik mijn beste prestatie neergezet.” Het International Film Festival Rotterdam kon ook op financiële steun rekenen. Recent heeft hij Silvia Kristel nog geholpen met de uitgave van haar autobiografie. Kristel: “Hij helpt mensen op momenten dat ze het nodig hebben. Maar nooit zomaar met geld. Hij steunt je als je iets wilt doen.” Bovendien produceert hij ook documentaires. Eén daarvan, The Power of Good over de Britse zakenman Nicholas Winton, die in de Tweede Wereldoorlog 669 joodse kinderen uit handen van de nazi’s wist te houden, kreeg in 2002 een Emmy-award. Afgezien van zijn mecenaten staat Kok bekend om de Bourgondische feestdiners die hij veelvuldig organiseert. Willem Frederik Hermans heeft vlak voor zijn overlijden nog zo’n bacchanaal bijgewoond. Koks grote passie is het edele schaakspel. Hij richtte in 1987 tot groot afgrijzen van de wereldschaakfederatie Fide de GMA, de Grand Masters Association, op; een professionele vakbond die de rechten van topschakers behartigd. Hij werd de eerste voorzitter, Gary Kasparov werd president, Anatoli Karpov en Jan Tinman werden vice-presidenten. Van de 300 grootmeesters sloten zich 200 bij de GMA aan. De GMA organiseerde de World Cup Chess Tournaments, wat een directe provocatie aan het adres van Fide was, die het alleenrecht op de wereldtitel had. Na een akkoord tussen de GMA en de Fide stapte Kasparov uit woede op en keerde ook Kok de schaakwereld een tijd de rug toe. Jan Tinman: “Bessel vindt de schaakwereld interessant en dat is belangrijk. We hebben veel te weinig mensen die de sport verder helpen door hun organisatorisch en zakelijk talent in te zetten. Hij is zeer doortastend, maar ook een heel beminnelijk persoon.” Kan Kok zelf goed schaken? “ Hij is niet goed in het pionnenspel. Ik zeg altijd dat hij beter op de kleintjes moet letten, ook in het echte leven. Vijftien jaar geleden negeerde hij de voorzitter van de Portugese schaakbond. Zo’n man vergeet dat niet en we hebben zijn stem straks hard nodig. Maar Bessel is geen politicus. Zoals als ik hem ken, heb ik hem nog nooit op een leugen betrapt? In 1995 naar Praag vertrokken om het Tsjechische staatsbedrijf Cesky Telecom te privatiseren. Kok woont nog steeds in Praag en is enkele jaren geleden voor de derde keer getrouwd, dit keer met een Tsjechische.

Niet alleen maar geldschieter Als je één keer een goed idee hebt kun je je soms de rest van je leven met schaken en kunst bezighouden. Bessel Kok is één van Nederlands meest succesvolle ondernemers, ook al is hij genationaliseerd tot Belg. Ten tijde van het marathoninterview met Ton van der Graaf bestuurde Kok het Belgische bedrijf Belgacom en had enkele jaren daarvoor de Grand Masters Association, de vakbond voor schaakgrootmeesters opgericht. Groot fan van de sport, hoewel hij zelf niet veel talent schijnt te bezitten. Luistert u naar het gesprek tussen Van der Graaf en Kok dat zij in de zomer van 1991 voerden. ----------------------------------- Biografie Bessel Kok geb. 13 december 1941 te Hilversum Een meedenker Bessel Kok werd op 13 december 1941 te Hilversum geboren. Na de oorlog verhuisde het gezin naar Amsterdam waar zijn vader BK LPG oprichtte, een autogasbedrijf. Kok studeerde economie aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam in de jaren zestig en ging dan ook helemaal op in de tijdsgeest: “Ik was een kind van de jaren zestig, linksig, lang haar en altijd op vakantie in het fijne Oost-Europa. Ik dreigde eeuwige student te worden en hield het na mijn kandidaats voor gezien.” Het briljante idee kwam in hem gevaren in 1971. Hij richtte in België Swift op (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication) op: Swift regelde (en regelt) de automatisering van het internationale betalingsverkeer. Wanneer iemand geld naar het buitenland wil overmaken, moet de Swift-code gebruikt worden om banken en financiële instellingen te kunnen identificeren. Achttien jaar later, in 1989, leek het Kok mooi geweest. Hij wilde reizen. Enkele jaren later werd hij door de Belgen gevraagd om directeur van Belgacom te worden, de PTT van de zuiderburen. Voorwaarde voor de baan was wel het aannemen van de Belgische nationaliteit. Als Belgacom-directeur sponsorde hij de Brusselse voetbalclub Anderlecht en de Swift-schaaktoernooien. Daarna bleek dat iedereen met een goed idee, maar weinig geld bij Kok aan kon kloppen. Samen met Jan Mulder gaf hij de tafeltenniscarriere van Bettine Vriesekoop een doorstart. Vriesekoop: “ Vooral Bessels morele steun was belangrijk. Eindelijk had ik iemand gevonden die me hielp in plaats van tegenwerkte. Dat jaar heb ik mijn beste prestatie neergezet.” Het International Film Festival Rotterdam kon ook op financiële steun rekenen. Recent heeft hij Silvia Kristel nog geholpen met de uitgave van haar autobiografie. Kristel: “Hij helpt mensen op momenten dat ze het nodig hebben. Maar nooit zomaar met geld. Hij steunt je als je iets wilt doen.” Bovendien produceert hij ook documentaires. Eén daarvan, The Power of Good over de Britse zakenman Nicholas Winton, die in de Tweede Wereldoorlog 669 joodse kinderen uit handen van de nazi’s wist te houden, kreeg in 2002 een Emmy-award. Afgezien van zijn mecenaten staat Kok bekend om de Bourgondische feestdiners die hij veelvuldig organiseert. Willem Frederik Hermans heeft vlak voor zijn overlijden nog zo’n bacchanaal bijgewoond. Koks grote passie is het edele schaakspel. Hij richtte in 1987 tot groot afgrijzen van de wereldschaakfederatie Fide de GMA, de Grand Masters Association, op; een professionele vakbond die de rechten van topschakers behartigd. Hij werd de eerste voorzitter, Gary Kasparov werd president, Anatoli Karpov en Jan Tinman werden vice-presidenten. Van de 300 grootmeesters sloten zich 200 bij de GMA aan. De GMA organiseerde de World Cup Chess Tournaments, wat een directe provocatie aan het adres van Fide was, die het alleenrecht op de wereldtitel had. Na een akkoord tussen de GMA en de Fide stapte Kasparov uit woede op en keerde ook Kok de schaakwereld een tijd de rug toe. Jan Tinman: “Bessel vindt de schaakwereld interessant en dat is belangrijk. We hebben veel te weinig mensen die de sport verder helpen door hun organisatorisch en zakelijk talent in te zetten. Hij is zeer doortastend, maar ook een heel beminnelijk persoon.” Kan Kok zelf goed schaken? “ Hij is niet goed in het pionnenspel. Ik zeg altijd dat hij beter op de kleintjes moet letten, ook in het echte leven. Vijftien jaar geleden negeerde hij de voorzitter van de Portugese schaakbond. Zo’n man vergeet dat niet en we hebben zijn stem straks hard nodig. Maar Bessel is geen politicus. Zoals als ik hem ken, heb ik hem nog nooit op een leugen betrapt? In 1995 naar Praag vertrokken om het Tsjechische staatsbedrijf Cesky Telecom te privatiseren. Kok woont nog steeds in Praag en is enkele jaren geleden voor de derde keer getrouwd, dit keer met een Tsjechische.