Month: June 2021

My daughter and I were walking a short loop trail in Hillsborough called “Poets Walk” and as we passed the remnants of ancient trees we wondered about the origin of the word “stump”. As a verb the modern meaning of stump is “to frustrate, baffle, puzzle or render at a loss”. The noun stump comes from the old German word “stumpf” referring to the remaining part of a limb or other part of the body after being amputated or severed. Yikes. We have extended this to mean the part left behind when nearly anything else has been worn down or broken off, including the main trunk of a tree — the erstwhile tree stump.

How did we arrive as these two meanings, noun and verb, for the word stump? There are a number things you can do with a tree stump. You can stand on it and give a stump speech. You could do this repeatedly as you travel about and be on the stump. But if you are like me and fail to watch where you are going you might stumble over it, losing control, arms akimbo. Leave it to Middle English (not Extreme English) to come up with a word — stumpen — meaning “to stumble, as if over a tree stump”. And there you have it.

I note with pride that my daughter is also interested in word origins, meaning that the apple hasn’t fallen far from the stump.

It can be too simple
These doubts that grow
Blurring the lines
Of history’s song;
The words of hissing rain
Ask every redbird’s name
To remind us of circles
And life not seen
But felt.

With the dark
The quiet remains
An evening path
Of seeds and leaves;
Promise and protect,
Eyes closed and head back
These memories emerge
Like fossils in sand.

Darkness can deepen,
Enfold the spirit;
A long night spawns
Despair and doubt;
But here the dawn
reveals a crimson sky,
A single note arises;
We face East and,
With quickening hope,
Ascend.

The fact that the Martian Rover Perseverance is currently moving about the surface of Mars collecting soil and air samples is incredible enough. But given that even at light-speed it takes 10-15 MINUTES to send a command signal to the rover from Earth, Perseverance must be able to make environmental and mobility decisions independent from its human controllers. The rover is thus the latest realization of increasingly sophisticated autonomous systems.

This technology results from the confluence of advanced of digital algorithms, high speed networks, super fast (and tiny) computers and the availability of massive data stores. On Earth these manifest as self-driving vehicles, automated factories, industrial robots, “smart” speakers and even the elegant little Roomba that vacuums your home, although I never fully trusted those little buggers.

None of these devices ‘think’ in the way we normally associate with human beings, but their ability to process data and make real-time decisions puts us to shame. In fact watching the industrial robots from Boston Dynamics go through their paces provides an eerie feeling that we are witnessing “intelligence”. I wonder if we are experiencing the equivalent of the “uncanny valley” as these robots move and behave in ways we recognize, or nearly so.

As these autonomous systems move from the laboratory to the human world, the potential to be a disruptive technology increases. Imagine the changes in transportation systems if the self-driving electric vehicle were to become commonplace. What if it is a self-driving car that you don’t own, like an UltraUber[tm]?

Never happen you say? We are incredibly adaptable as a species, the ultimate autonomous system. Take a person living in 1949 and magically and instantly transport them to 2021. They would be bewildered and confused at what they saw because so much would have changed in 72 years. This time-traveler would simply lack the benefit of the intervening years to help adapt.

What will the world look like in 2093?