Robots in finance

Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. has announced plans to deploy 100 Pepper robots, made by SoftBank Group Corp., at its 80 branches in October. Pepper will explain insurance products and services, and accompany sales people on their rounds.

This will give Meiji Yasuda the highest number of humanoid robots deployed in the financial industry.

A colleague points out that in Japan robots are more often seen as friendly helpers than threats. Still--a robot insurance salesman never gets tired, never gives up, never takes a hint.

And something about that phrase "highest number of humanoid robots deployed in the financial industry" suggests deep secrets somewhere. Do you welcome our new robot overlords, comrade?

Looking for attention?

Most physics professors are not in the habit of stripping during lectures.

A few years ago there seemed to be a rash of female violinists and cellists circulating publicity photos with strategically posed instruments. I think that died out, but it suggested there was fierce competition somewhere.

Ecocriticism

A Texan99 post at Grim’s Hall led me to look up Ecocriticism. “Ecocriticism is the study of literature and environment from an interdisciplinary point of view where all sciences come together to analyze the environment and brainstorm possible solutions for the correction of the contemporary environmental situation.” I’d never contemplated the notion that string theory might have something relevant to say about the relationship of Tom Sawyer to the Saharan deforestation. There's a word for that.

Going on:

Such anthropocentrism is identified in the tragic conception of a hero whose moral struggles are more important than mere biological survival, whereas the science of animal ethology, Meeker asserts, shows that a "comic mode" of muddling through and "making love not war" has superior ecological value.

From this I gather that Meeker holds that mere biological survival is more important than any moral struggles (but isn’t that a moral statement?), and that “making love” has “superior ecological value.” I thought these folks didn’t like babies very much, though. (Bumper sticker seen yesterday: “I hope we live long and die out”)

Some are—let me just quote again: “All ecocritics share an environmentalist motivation of some sort, but whereas the majority are 'nature endorsing', some are 'nature sceptical'. In part this entails a shared sense of the ways in which 'nature' has been used to legitimise gender, sexual and racial norms” So if nature tramples on other PC pieties, even nature has to be deprecated. There's a hierarchy to be maintained.

To be accurate, the article does not mention string theory, though they take on the mantle of "the sciences", nor does it mention the ongoing ecological problems resulting from Saharan deforestation. But if they can read in meanings the author never intended, so can I.

Nature imitates art; or funny honey

Yellow/orange is so last year.

You've probably seen the pictures of the French blue and green honey produced when bees dumpster-dived M&M residue at a factory that reprocesses waste from a Mars chocolate factory. If these were clean candies and dyes that might be fine, but this is undefined waste and who knows why any particular batch was chucked. So the beekeepers can't sell the honey.

Different pollens give slightly different flavors, though it looks as though, contrary to popular myth, bees don't make intoxicating marijuana honey. Apparently the pollen doesn't have any THC, and bees allegedly don't pollinate it anyhow.

If the truth be known, I can't always easily distinguish one variety of honey from another. The note of sugar tends to overwhelm my palate. (Not that that's a bad thing...) There are subtle differences, but perhaps the fact that I don't have words or images for them makes it harder to recognize them and file them in memory.

But I think I could tell blue from red.

Hitler's son?

The Telegraph reports on a story from Le Point about the son from an affair Hitler had during WW-I with a French teenager.

Jean-Marie Loret, who died in 1985 aged 67, never met his father, but went on to fight Nazi forces during the Second World War.

Apparently Hitler was already bent early on in his life:

Miss Lobjoie later told Jean-Marie: "When your father was around, which was very rarely, he liked to take me for walks in the countryside.

"But these walks usually ended badly. In fact, your father, inspired by nature, launched into speeches which I did not really understand.

"He did not speak French, but solely ranted in German, talking to an imaginary audience

Of course Hitler-iana is a popular field for hoaxes, and this may not be true. (Remember the diaries?)

But if the story is true, his mother gave him up for adoption, and only told him about his father shortly before she died in the 50's. Jean-Marie Loret had fought the Germans during WW-II, and even joined the resistance, so this was a bit of a blow.

Mr Loret said: "In order not to get depressed, I worked non-stop, never took a holiday, and had no hobbies. For twenty years I didn't even go to the cinema."

But leave it to a lawyer to notice that:

Mr Gibault said that Mr Loret's own children might now be in a position to claim royalties from Mein Kampf ('My Struggle'), Hitler's famous book which has sold millions of copies around the world.

Pigeon shoot

If you squint, I suppose this drone looks like an oddly noisy pigeon. Of course if your eyesight is that bad you probably shouldn't be shooting.

SHARK promises to press charges against somebody if they can find out whodunnit, but I have the funny feeling that a jury might not convict. I gather from other sources that Americans aren't that keen on having government drones watching us (this isn't a war zone, thank you very kindly), and private ones are probably fair game.