On the way towards Newell WV to the Homer Laughlin China Company riverside factory.

Fiesta Ware, along with other potteries, used uranium and depleted uranium for brilliant glaze colorings. 1973 was the last year Fiesta produced pottery containing uranium. This photo contains some ‘retired’ radioactive Fiesta Ware pieces containing uranium.

“…on the basis of the conjecture that every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it”, John McCarthy wrote in his funding proposal for the 1956 Summer Program on Artificial Intelligence held at Dartmouth College in Hanover NH. No one knew at the time that this gathering of industry, academic and student researchers would lead to a new field of research. No one knew at the time that machine intelligence would prove so difficult to obtain.

Five of the original conference participants were present for AI 50, The Dartmouth Artificial Intelligence Conference: The Next Fifty Years. Program PDF. Pictured left to right are John McCarthy, Oliver Selfridge, Marvin Minsky, Trenchard More, and Ray Solomonoff.

I was so lucky to get involved doing historical research on the ‘56 Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence. In addition to contacting libraries and archives across the country, I traveled to Pittsburgh’s CMU to go through the papers of Herbert Simon and Alan Newell, the two ‘hits’ of the ‘56 Summer Project. This photo is after a long day pouring through boxes of papers in the CMU University Archives.

Stay tuned for “Mind in the Machine – The Discovery of Artificial Intelligence”, a video documentary by Wendy Conquest, Bob Drake, and Dan Rockmore.

See also Meg Houston Maker’s blog for detailed notes she blogged during the conference, AI@50 Wikipedia entry by Meg Houston Maker, Complexity Blog, and New Hampshire Public Radio interview on AI MP3

Best bet is the Jumbo Char Dog 3.99
Toppings for a traditional Chicago style dog include 1. Yellow Mustard 2. Green Relish 3. Fresh Chopped Onions 4. Two Tomato Wedges 5. A Kosher Pickle Spear 6. Two Hot Peppers (careful!) 7. Sauerkraut 8. A Dash of Celery Salt.

Notice the absence of Ketchup. Sorry Pittsburgh, Heinz Ketchup does not belong on a Chicago Hotdog. If you ask for everything including ketchup, you just might give yourself away as a tourist.

Oak on vacation in Tamworth NH.

Pittsburgh Gray

I spell gray with an A
to try and cheer things up.
Fat chance, skinny chance, any
chance at all.
Yesterday was the shortest day
of the year. Today’s supposed to be
longer. We’ll see.
The sensor on my flood lights
says it’s still dark
though it’s noon.
I’m starting my night-time brood
a little early today. I didn’t shave
to give me five more minutes.
Oh, make no mistake, I love it
here. The sky’s the color
of my whites circling in the dryer.
I charitably call them ‘’whites’’
to make them feel better.
I wear them outside as camouflage.
If I was naming crayons
I’d call one Pittsburgh Gray.
I’d press on it hard.
I’d make a set of twelve,
one for each month:
the Pittsburgh Gray set.
July would be almost blue.

Jim Daniels (posted with permission)