[ExI] hey dr, bugger

[spike]

-----Original Message-----
From: extropy-chat [mailto:extropy-chat-bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of BillK
Sent: Saturday, December 31, 2016 8:43 AM
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Subject: Re: [ExI] hey dr, bugger

On 31 December 2016 at 15:41, spike wrote:
>> Wouldn’t it be cool if I could pull out my phone and Hey Dr. Bugger...

>...NEW - For bird ID from a photo
http://merlin.allaboutbirds.org/


Oooh this is cool.  How do you hipsters find all this cool stuff?  I am eager to go try out this Merlin bird software as soon as I get it downloaded and running.


>... They are more like guides that you have to look through yourself...

Ja like a field guide to birds, only automated and containing enough information that would take 50 pounds of paper books.  Really way better than 50 pounds of field guides, because I don't just want to know the name of the bird and its habitat; I want to know waaaaay more than that, way more, such as gory details of how it makes its living, the branch of its evolutionary tree, all the stuff that the really hardcore bird people  memorize.  I want all that, but I want it externalized, stored outside my very limited brain, accessible but not part of my bio-RAM until I actually see it.  I don't care much about species I can never see personally in the wild.


>...Of course, I hear that insects are fairly plentiful, so you would need a big database.  :)  BillK

_______________________________________________

Ja!  What I learned after I wrote the initial post is that the bug in question is probably closely related to Diabrotica undecimpunctata, common enough in this part of the world that if I had never seen one, I apparently haven't been looking closely enough or don't grow vegetables in a home garden.  I was thrown off by the lack of spots on the pronotum, but the internet tells me these guys don't have them, and some of them are green.  There are just too many beetles to even start to learn them.

Where I am going with this isn't even about bugs or birds but rather software tools which are voice activated.  I want to be able to create specialized personal access (or arcane-interest group access) databases, perhaps even classified or restricted access.  Example, local parolee serves 1 of his 3-year term for patronizing the neighborhood 15 yr old harlot.  Perhaps he is a reformed man, but... I don't trust him.  I would like to have some means of noting when and where I see the sleaze-bag.

I might want something like Adrian's Field Trip app which notes when one is near a point of historical interest, but it has to be user-specialized historical interest.  I don't care about what Spanish missionary slew and Christianized the surviving indigenous people.  I care about the elementary school of the guy who invented the integrated circuit, or the site of the local bar which was the hangout for the team which invented the liquid crystal display (we have that one right here in town.)  It has to be user-controlled in what it contains and what it doesn't contain, has to be voice activated.

I haven't studied Field Trip enough to know if it meets all the specs, so feel free to scold me if it does.

spike