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Food Porn in Science
Tuesday, July 18th, 2006 07:16 amMore excerpts from The Best American Science Writing 2005 (ed. Alan Lightman), this time from Ellen Ullman's Dining with Robots.
"When the software engineer and writer Ellen Ullman decides to make a recipe from Julia Child's Art of French Cooking, she winds up contemplating the pleasures a robot cannot experience--and worries that even humans may be losing contact with those pleasures..." (Lightman)
Ullman starts out by explaining that in her first programming class, the instructor said programming was like creating a recipe. YOu list the ingredients first, then break it down into steps, culminating in 'cool, slice and serve.' Fast forward 25 years, where she encounters a 'certain filet of beef' in San Francisco's Ferry Building food hall.
Who would have expected such luscious passages of food porn in an article about artificial intelligence? Certainly not me, but this made my day.
"When the software engineer and writer Ellen Ullman decides to make a recipe from Julia Child's Art of French Cooking, she winds up contemplating the pleasures a robot cannot experience--and worries that even humans may be losing contact with those pleasures..." (Lightman)
Ullman starts out by explaining that in her first programming class, the instructor said programming was like creating a recipe. YOu list the ingredients first, then break it down into steps, culminating in 'cool, slice and serve.' Fast forward 25 years, where she encounters a 'certain filet of beef' in San Francisco's Ferry Building food hall.
( The Beouf )
( The Dinner Party )
Who would have expected such luscious passages of food porn in an article about artificial intelligence? Certainly not me, but this made my day.
