-On August 21, 1830, famed Italian violin virtuoso Niccolò Paganini played before a packed audience at La Scala in Milan. So incredible was his skill, so passionate was his performance, that women began fainting by the dozen. Many men were moved to tears, others to madness. Paganini’s interpretation of one concerto in particular sparked an intense debate between the fourth and fifth balconies, and several duels erupted throughout the theater. It is said that a number of children were conceived during the performance, such was the virtuoso’s power. Paganini swept the crowd into a roiling frenzy before concluding to thunderous applause, then made love to a beautiful woman right there on the stage. Historians agree that this was pretty much a typical Saturday night in 19th century Milan.

-On August 23, 1997, Deep Blue called Gary Kasparov a “temperamental sack of shit.” IBM engineers were astonished, given that the machine had no audio capacity and was not plugged in at the time. That was more or less when they decided it was probably best to dismantle it.

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Good ideas are like building blocks. Pretty much everything worthwhile, from a fun weekend to a breakthrough in medicine, begins when someone puts a good idea out there into the ether. Often the idea stands alone, a self-sustaining entity. Other times it is met in kind with other good ideas, stacking upon one other, an endless bucket of Lincoln Logs.

For the most part, good ideas are instantly recognizable:

Hey, I’ve got an idea, let’s get a puppy. — Good.
Hey, I’ve got an idea, let’s try putting some cheese on that burger. — Good.
Hey, I’ve got an idea, let’s wash our hands before we operate on people. — Good.
Hey, I’ve got an idea, let’s play ping-pong. — Good. Excellent, actually.
Hey, I’ve got an idea, let’s watch birds and then write down what birds we see. — Good? I guess?
Hey, I’ve got an idea, let’s have sex and eat candy. — Depends on several variables, but probably good.
Hey, I’ve got an idea, let’s build a swarm of robots. — Good. Wait, hang on, bad.
Yeah! And we can design the robots to re-program themselves, and assemble more robots on their own. — Whoah! Stop right there, definitely bad.
Then we can launch them throughout the solar system. — What th- Are you fucking kidding me? Mother of mercy, bad! Very, very bad!

Alas, that particular sequence of ideas is on its way towards reality.

The basic thought process at work here is not entirely crazy. Say you build a complex robot that can do a number of tasks. If it gets damaged, you’re shit out of luck, especially if you just spent three years and hundreds of millions of dollars flying the thing to another planet. However, if you build a swarm of wee little robots, when one gets damaged it’s no big deal.

The thing is, every time you need to update their programming, you’d have to go one by one through the whole swarm, and no matter how many interns you have at your disposal, that’s going to eat up some serious time. (Plus, the interns will screw it up. You know they will.) So instead, imagine if the robots could re-program themselves to adapt to the situation. Encounter a problem, solve it, and move on. To further minimize the need for human intern labor, the robots would be able to replenish their number by building more of each other.

Which is fine.

Except that it involves, wait for it …

… building a swarm of problem-solving, self-propagating robots.

At some point, shouldn’t certain word combinations send red flags cascading through the air? I really feel like I shouldn’t have to be pointing this out. The instant “swarm” and “robots” appeared in tandem, someone in the room should have suggested that they all take a walk around the block — stretch the ol’ legs, maybe get a smoothie or something.

Look, I understand that there are marvelous applications for such a (shudder) swarm. The example given in the article is to send them into a collapsed building, where they can divide themselves into groups to search for survivors and check for further dangers.

It’s just that, as project leader Klaus-Peter Zauner puts it, “with swarm robots, even if a percentage of them fails, they’ll still be able to achieve their goal.” Leaving aside for a moment the fact that I’m pretty sure someone named “Dr. Zauner” fought Green Lantern for several issues in the mid-70s, he basically just told us that the swarm will be unstoppable. As in, unable to be stopped.

The pièce de résistance in this Fellini-show of logic is that, naturally, swarm robots would be a great way to explore Mars. A lot of Mars missions have petered out because the rover went glitchy, but with a swarm? No problem.

Okay. You know how sometimes parents will send a kid off to college, and the kid comes back for Thanksgiving spouting off about their new world-view and complaining about the oppressive colonial tradition silently perpetuated by roasting a turkey, which oh by the way is a barbarous practice? Meanwhile the parents just want to smack the kid upside the head and eat pie?

Well think of Mars as college, only when the robot swarm comes home with some funny ideas about who’s in charge, they won’t have a head to smack and we won’t be able to shut them off.

And there will be no pie.

Anyway, check out the video embedded in the article. I have to admit, when the little robots team up to drag away the bigger robot, it really is pretty cool.

It’ll be a bummer when they figure out how to do the same thing to me.

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The game played out as follows: F7, F7, G4; G5, P6, K; K, 1B, DP 4-6-3; L6, F9, G4; E6, DP 6-4-3, P3; K, L8, L1; 1B, DP 3-4-1, G6; K, G3-1, P8; 1B, DP 5-4-3, L9; G1, L1, P1; K, 1B, DP 3-3; G6, G4, P7; P9, G5, P2; K, G2, L5; P8, G4, G6; 1B, DP 4-6-3, P3; K, HR, K, L9; G5, L9, P9.

Dave McNally got the win, while George Brunet took the loss. All told, they threw 78 pitches. The crowd, many of whom were still arriving, were so bewildered that most remained in their seats for almost half an hour. They started to get restless, so a mic was hastily arranged and the Angels took turns telling jokes and displaying various talents. Jim Fregosi played the banjo.

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A) Something to do on a Thursday night
B) A good way to support local theater, or
C) Oh hell, a little bit of both

Then check out … hey, wait a minute, why am I suddenly getting déjà vu?

Anyway, Point of You Productions, the theatre company I helped start in 2000, is holding a fundraiser variety show on August 21. Among the many splendid spectactles — including several women performing Mamet and a one-man tribute to John Cazale — yours truly will be onstage, performing “Big Mike and the Cavendish” live.

Details are below:

Thursday, August 21 @ 7:30pm

Gotham City Improv
48 West 21st Street, 8th Floor
New York, New York 10010
(between Fifth and Sixth Avenues)

Tickets: $25
Includes one drink and access to various snacky-foods.

Reservations: (212) 613-6138

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Where are the games being held?
Beijing, population 47,600,000. Including commuters and outlying suburbs, on any given day Beijing is home to 254,000,000. The electric company alone — the People’s Glorious Energy Concern of Beijing Prefecture (PGECBP) — has more employees than Los Angeles has people.

How are the games being given an authentic touch of China?
Chinese culture is evident throughout the event’s design, from the torch itself to the mascots, which look like they’re about to form some sort of panda-related Voltron. Acclaimed Chinese filmmaker Zhang Yimou is directing the opening ceremony. Also, medalists will feel like competing again about half an hour after winning.

How many athletes from around the world will be in attendance?
Around 500, only slightly less than an average Division I college football team roster.

What are some of the new sports featured in this Olympiad?
Bass fishing, unicycling, synchronized punting, downhill somersault, speed squatting (100m and 500m), roof hockey, bungee golf, hot saw, and canine frisbee catch.

What’s the word for something that happens every four years?
‘Quadrennial.’

It’s not ‘tetrennial?’
No.

Are you sure? Because I could’ve swo—
It’s not.

Okay fine. What are some of the controversies surrounding the Beijing Olympics?
Human rights groups have been protesting ever since China was awarded the games by the IOC in 2001. China’s record on human rights in general and towards Tibet in particular have been a lightning rod of attention as the opening ceremony approaches.

Yikes, that’s a bit of a downer. Anything more palatable?
Well, there’s the smog threatening to coat the entire event in a gray film.

Still a little dour. Keep going.
How about the attack of the green goop?

Bingo!
An aggressive algae has been spreading along the coastal waters where the sailing events will take place. The algae is so thick it makes whole swaths of the bay look like Centre Court at Wimbledon. Chinese officials dispatched thousands of soldiers to clean it up, and deputized thousands of fishermen to assist. They appear to have cleared the goop out of the racing areas … or so the goop would have us believe.

How many times are we going to hear ‘global village’ over the next two weeks?
Dozens. Perhaps hundreds if they give Costas a lot of mic time.

Hey, wait a minute, I get it! “Take a few moments to get you up to speed!” As in, like, track & field!
Yes, uh … great. Well spotted.

Remember when watching the Olympics used to be a big deal?
Indeed I do. Call it a casualty of the Digital Age. With the average person’s media use shattered into a thousand pieces and sprinkled over the day like Bac-O-Bits, there are simply too many outlets competing for attention. When Carl Lewis was breaking records in 1984, we all watched because “Webster” was in reruns. (The fact that we were waiting for new episodes of “Webster” probably says a lot about our media habits in those days too.) These days, our patience for such things has gone off its Ritalin. Hell, I can use a dashboard widget to find out who won the Japan-US soccer match without actually taking my eyes off of typing this sentence. Hey look! The US prevailed, 1-0. To its credit, the Digital Age is fighting back the best way it knows how — relentless media saturation. NBC is planning, no joke, 3,600 hours of coverage. That’s 3,216 hours more than the games themselves will last. We’ll have Olympics on eight partner networks, Olympics online, Olympics on our cell phones. And perhaps that’s the trade-off. Instead of every person watching one thing, one person can watch everything.

Where are the next Olympics?
Vancouver will host the 2010 winter games. The 2012 summer games will be in London, where they will be referred to as “bangers & mash.”

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