The AAAI site offers a layman's introduction to AI, at . Good books for this purpose include David Stork's "Hal's Legacy," with nontechnical essays by luminaries such as Ray Kurzweil, Roger Schank, Douglas Lenat, Azriel Rosenfeld, Donald Norman, Rosalind Picard, and Daniel Dennett. Other inspiring books include "Robo Sapiens" and "Godel, Escher, Bach." [Vincent J. Perricelli and David Finton , comp.ai, 01Nov00.]

For a good survey of existing architectures for intelligence, see R.W. Pew and A.S. Mavor, "Modeling Human and Organizational Behavior: Application to military simulations" (National Academy Press, 1998). [Randy Jones , comp.ai.games, 27Sep00.]

Dimiter Dobrev has written a short paper on the formal definition of AI, at . It is more mathematical than philosophical. [, comp.ai, 23Nov00.]

The UK's Royal Institution (dating back to the 17th Century) has chosen AI scientist Kevin Warwick of Reading U. to give its Science Christmas lectures for young audiences. Prof. Warwick is known for "articles in the popular press about how robots will take over the world in the near future, and more recently for implanting the chip off a smart card into his upper arm..." His series of five lectures is titled 'Robots, Cyborgs: The future for humans?". The series will be televised. . [Ruth Aylett , comp.ai, 29Sep00.]

----- "Contrary to popular belief, Barnum's great discovery was not how easy it was to deceive the public, but rather, how much the public enjoyed being deceived." -- Daniel J. Boorstin. -----

Lernout & Hauspie, a leader in speech recognition, has filed for bankruptcy (due to accounting irregularities, esp. with regard to its Korean numbers). IBM, Microsoft, and Philips are other major suppliers of speech software. Voice recognition software is expected to become an $8B market in three years, starting in mobile computing. [Financial Times, 01Dec00. Edupage.] (Don't forget Nuance! Their stock -- which I hold -- plunged with the rest of the NASDAQ, from a recent-IPO high of $180 to a low of about $32. It now seems to be bobbing back up (above $60), possibly because it can do well no matter who becomes President. Their closest competitor, SpeechWorks, is doing much the same. Dragon Systems is owned by L&H, and there's no word yet on what will happen to their technology -- or to Microsoft's projects with L&H.)

MacSpeech has released iListen 1.0, a $99 continuous dictation program for the Mac. . (Its competition is discussed in TidBITS #544, .) There is a $30 rebate offer for owners of IBM's ViaVoice. Recommended microphone/headset units are $53 or $57 at . [TidBITS, 27Nov00.]

Alexander Gross says that dictation and machine translation programs haven't made much progress since his Oct86 suggestion in BYTE Magazine that voicewriters be tested on the following: "Cap Ten and my caftan," kept on crying the Captain, "Cap Ten!" Of numbered caps Cap Ten suited the Captain. He had numbered them as the numb bird landed. "Land dead ahead!" called out the Mate to cawing from the numb bird. Would its gnaw tickle? It cawed, but it was caught on the carpet. "Correction!" the Captain would carp pettily, "Your nautical law has no tickle. We've three types of wreck here: surface, deeper, core. Sir, fuss deeper, weave, hear the screw's deep purr. This ship's an old seesaw!" The Captain capped an epigram: "Old sea saw: Correction! Core wreck shun. Cap Ten and my caftan! I as a Copenhagen Captain coped on a capstan and kept on coping!" Gross would like to see fewer than five errors in transcription (and notes that Sino-Tibetan languages are even more difficult than English). [, comp.ai.nat-lang, 01Dec00.]

----- "Warren Buffet was right again. Cash flow, profitability and earnings matter. Launch parties and sock puppets don't." -- Michael Dell. [SNS, 15Nov00.] -----

Unisys is changing its focus from computer hardware to software and services for e-businesses. [AP. Washington Post, 07Dec00. NewsScan.]

Vanderbilt U. has received $1M to launch their eLab Infrastructure Project to study e-commerce technology. They are recruiting new faculty and seeking postdocs (at $50K-$60K). . [NewsScan, 06Dec00.]

Bay Area venture capital had ended six record quarterly increases by dropping from $6.99B in 2Qtr00 to *only* $6.95B in new investment in the third quarter. That's twice what was invested in 3Qtr99, and seven times 3Qtr97. The money went to 379 companies, with few first-round deals. "We're having to feed our children a bit longer," says Noel Fenton. VCs have nearly stopped funding new e-commerce investments, but are pumping increased money into networking, equipment, and software companies. VCs aren't worried by e-business failures as long as they also have some successes in their portfolios. One study of 61 venture firms from 1985 to 1996 found that just 89 out of 1,312 funded companies paid off 25 times investment, and these accounted for 2/3 of the VC funds' growth from just $6B to $61B. Most established VCs have enough cash to last several years, but small firms may have trouble raising money. [Shawn Neidorf, SJM, 12Nov00, 1G.]

New York's Silicon Alley VCs are likewise abandoning e-commerce and content companies, instead funding "nuts and bolts" Internet infrastructure, tools, and applications companies. Still, this is only one financial quarter. Content is likely to become fashionable again. Many of the collapsed dot-coms are passing their technologies to other companies via acquisitions and mergers. What's new is the rise of software- and technology- focused companies in New York City. [Maureen Fan, SJM, 12Nov00, 1G.]

Jerry Sanders of AMD says the chip industry will make 40M transistors this year for every person on Earth. By 2010, it will be 1B per person. The dot-com industry has been having trouble, but in Silicon Valley the high-tech businesses are healthy, venture capital is available, and unemployment is negligible. [James J. Mitchell, SJM, 12Nov00, 17G.] (And analyst Mark R. Anderson has estimated that major PC/semiconductor/telecom stocks will begin recovering in 12-25Dec00.)

Bay Area rents rose by about 39% in Santa Clara County over the past year, though the increases are moderating. Occupancy rates from Monterey County all the way up to Contra Costa are 98%-99%. Average monthly rent for new occupants in complexes of 50 or more units -- perhaps 20% of the rental market -- is $984 in Monterey County, $1,271 in Santa Cruz, $1,903 in Santa Clara, $1,850 in San Mateo, $2,363 in San Francisco, $1,444 in Alameda, and $1,220 in Contra Costa. [RealFacts. Sue McAllister, SJM, 11Nov00, 1C.]

CA is creating the California Institutes for Science and Innovation, consisting of a CA Nanosystems Inst. (at UCLA, in cooperation with UC Santa Barbara); CA Inst. for Bioengineering, Biotechnology and Quantitative Biomedicine (UCSF with UCB and UC Santa Cruz); and CA Inst. for Telecommunications and Information Technology (UCSD with UC Irvine). The state will put in $300M over four years, with twice that coming from industry. Although state funding of such institutes is rare, smaller efforts include the 1990 Georgia Research Alliance (now at $242M plus $65M in industry funds) and institutes in MI, OH and WI. [John Markoff, NY Times , 08Dec00. NewsScan.]

----- "Success is not due to a fortuitous concourse of stars at our birth, but to a steady trail of sparks from the grindstone of hard work each day." -- Kenneth Hildebrand. -----

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation will give $37M to build small public high schools in California. The hope is that small schools with better-trained teachers will make better use of technology. The foundation is donating almost $16M to the Bay Area Coalition of Essential Schools, $5M to the New Technology Foundation, and $6M to the High Tech High Foundation (for 10 schools each), plus $3M to Aspire Public Schools and $7M to the National Council of La Raza. [LA Times, 16Nov00. Edupage.]

Bill Gates has been changing his philanthropy from computers for the poor to health care for the poor. He says that third-world mothers don't want to browse eBay; they want to keep their children from dying. [NY Times, 03Nov00. NewsScan.]

Almost 40% of all foundation giving comes from family foundations, of which there are at least 18,276 in the US (according to a new report from the National Center for Family Philanthropy). They give out some $7.2B per year. Often the only way to locate these charities is through tax records such as those at . The biggest endowments are the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ($5.4B); Annenberg Foundation ($3.3B); Goizueta Foundation ($780M); Walton Family Foundation ($548M); Vira Heinz Endowment ($501M); Jeffry and Barbara Picower Foundation ($357M); Albert and Bessie Kronkosky Charitable Foundation ($341M); Charles and Helen Schwab Family Foundation ($330M); Turner Foundation ($328M); and Milken Family Foundation ($286M). By law, at least 5% of this money must be given each year. [Grantseeker Tips, 18Nov00.]

A good proposal should describe how your project will continue after the grant runs out. Build a wide base of participants and ownership to carry the project onwards. "Sponsors like to pour money into a cup, not a funnel." [Grantseeker Tips, 22Oct00.]

----- "Because they did not see merit where they should have seen it, people, to express their regret, will go and leave a lot of money to the very people who will be the first to throw stones at the next person who has anything to say and finds a difficulty in getting a hearing." -- Samuel Butler. -----

Retirement planning is difficult, because it depends on so many variables. Although I haven't read it, I like the title of Ralph Warner's "Get a Life: You Don't Need a Million to Retire Well" (Nolo Press), . It discusses how to estimate your retirement income and expenses realistically. You win if you have enough wealth for your own needs and to care for your children; having more than enough doesn't mean a bigger win. Estate planning can help you get the most benefit out of any excess.

Estate planning is fairly easy, if you just want to divide up your assets among your heirs with a minimum of taxes, expense, and delay. Estate protection books that I have read include Denis Clifford's "Estate Planning Basics," Mary Randolph's "8 Ways to Avoid Probate," and Denis Clifford's "Make Your Own Living Trust," all from Nolo Press (, <.../0873375289/...>, and <.../0873375564/...>). Each book covers the same material, but with differing emphasis and depth of examples. The last is the most detailed and complete, but harder to grok.

I also read Harold Boucher's "California Living Trusts and Wills" (Pennoyer Press), which is not as clear and simple. Nolo books help you do your own legal documents, but Bucher recommends that you call in a professional. Maybe that's wise. In the Nolo books, only the third mentioned even in passing that income is taxed much more heavily in a child's trust than in a conservatorship under the Uniform Transfers to Minors Act. However, it doesn't point out that the child's trust can be managed to minimize undistributed income, or that UTMA trusts can't be set up for children over 18 (even where such a trust can continue until age 25). A tax professional should know that level of detail.

What it all boils down to is that simple estates can be passed via wills and beneficiary designations, larger estates should usually be held in a living trust, and very large estates need a tax lawyer. Beware seminars, self-help books, and other sources of packaged plans if your needs are at all unusual.

A chief reason for seeking estate protection is to avoid probate. Probate is when your will goes through court, taking months (or sometimes years) to settle all the claims. The executor and lawyers get a fixed fee for this, usually a large fee for very little work. Non-probate instruments simplify and speed things up, save money, and keep your estate distribution private. (However, they don't legally settle all claims that could someday arise.)

Life insurance may be passed to a beneficiary, rather than paid to your estate. That keeps the proceeds out of probate. Ditto for IRAs, 401(K)s, and other retirement accounts. Bank and brokerage accounts can usually be passed by designating a beneficiary, if you set them up that way. California and Missouri also allow cars to be transferred on death. In other situations, you may want to use joint ownership to pass property. (Setting up joint ownership may create a taxable gift. You should talk with a lawyer before creating or terminating joint tenancies.)

Real estate can be tricky, depending on what state you're in and how you hold title. You can bequeath the property in your will, but then it has to go through probate (unless it is worth very little). If the title is held jointly with right of survivorship, maybe you don't need to do anything. In other cases, it's often best to put the house into a living trust. You retain full control, but on your death(s) the property is given to your specified beneficiaries. Your spouse can continue to use the assets and any income from them until his or her death.

If you've got a living trust, it can hold and distribute pretty much anything you own. (Vehicles are typically left outside the trust for insurance reasons, and bank or checking accounts may be left outside for convenience.) The living trust can also arrange for your maintenance if you become mentally incompetent, and can include child subtrusts to manage any bequests to your children (to any specified age). You and your wife also need back-up or flow-over wills for untransferred property and to appoint a guardian and property manager for any minor children. You should also create documents that assign durable powers of attorney for finance and health care, enabling others to make decisions when you cannot.

None of the above have any effect on inheritance tax. For that you may want a marital (or AB) living trust, a QTIP (possibly within an ABC trust), or other irrevocable gift or trust. An AB trust is common for joint estates under about $2M. (The US unified gift/estate tax lifetime exclusion limit is currently $675K per spouse, but is scheduled for $1M each in 2006.) US estate tax currently starts at 37% and goes up to 55% for estates over $3M. Money given while you are alive is taxed more lightly than bequests, so the best way to shelter your estate from taxes is to give it away.

Gifts of up to $10K per year per recipient are free of gift tax, so don't count them toward your lifetime exclusion amount. You and your spouse can each give that much to someone. Bequests in your will generally do not escape gift/estate tax, unless given to a recognized charity. Taxes are lower on assets given before they appreciate than on assets that are held and then given after their value increases. (If you give to charity, neither you nor the charity has to pay tax on appreciated value. Charities will be happy to help you make such gifts.)

With an AB trust, the living trust splits into an A Trust and a B Trust when the first spouse dies. One subtrust -- the bypass trust -- is irrevocable and holds money destined for children or designated beneficiaries. Income from the bypass trust goes to the surviving spouse during his or her lifetime, and the principle can be used for basic support or medical care if other assets have been exhausted. The other subtrust is a revocable living trust holding the remainder of the surviving spouse's estate, and can be spent for nearly any purpose. This strategy permits a maximum gift/estate tax exclusion for each spouse, rather than losing any remaining gift/estate tax exemption for the first spouse to die.

A QTIP trust is a similar irrevocable trust, except that estate tax is levied when the trust is paid out rather than when it is created and funded. This delays payment of estate tax until the second spouse dies, but the taxed estate may well be much larger at that time. (However, both major political parties are talking about raising the marital exclusion or doing away with estate tax completely.) QTIPS are often used within second marriages, to protect money destined for first-marriage children.

At the opposite extreme is the "disclaimer trust" -- not discussed in these four books -- where all assets are left to the surviving spouse, but with any disclaimed (refused) assets put into a trust for other beneficiaries. This maintains maximum flexibility. The secondary trust might be a "family pot" or "sprinkling" trust, which can be used as needed for family support until it is finally paid out in equal shares (or unequal shares, if you prefer). As with a bypass trust, the surviving spouse gets all income from the disclaimer trust and can use the principle if necessary.

Your assets might also be passed via a qualified personal residence trust (QPRT) or grantor retained annuity trust (GRAT), if you set one up before Congress closes these loopholes. Tax lawyers and estate planners can implement charitable remainder trusts, generation-skipping trusts, life insurance trusts, family limited partnerships, and other instruments for partially sheltering large estates.

I've studied the Nolo living trust examples and two living trust documents prepared by lawyers. The Nolo version was much better than the work of the general-practice lawyer and significantly less tight than that of the leading-edge tax lawyer. (Tight in the same sense as tight, elegant computer code that covers common possibilities with a minimum of duplicate language.) In each case there were details that were handled more explicitly in the other documents, though I don't know if the omissions would have legal consequences. The Nolo version seemed good enough, though somewhat redundant and inelegantly structured.

Living trust specialists -- e.g., seminar presenters -- can set up simple AB trusts, but the salesman's expertise may be limited to this one instrument. Often what is offered is a fancy printout in a thick, illustrated binder. Buy it only if you know what you need and are satisfied with the cost. The trusts are revokable and easily amended, but it's your own responsibility to track changes in the tax laws.

Bottom line: read at least one of the Nolo Press books -- sort of dummy's guides to US law -- if your net worth is over your state's limit for simplified probate. (CA and OR are the highest, at $100K and $140K. You can exclude anything passed with right of survivorship (WROS), or, in CA only, as community property without specifying WROS. Most states also exclude any bank accounts or vehicles passed by beneficiary designation.) If you have substantial probatable assets, consider a living trust or a marital (AB) living trust, or see an estate planner, estate lawyer, tax lawyer, or tax accountant. Some lawyers charge by the hour for setting up the basic documents, others have fixed fees or negotiated fees. You can expect to pay $1K-$2K for a simple marital living trust, backup wills, and durable powers of attorney for finance and health care, if you don't use the Nolo software or book forms.

----- "If you can give your children only one gift, let it be enthusiasm!" -- Bruce Barton. -----

Lisp programmers may like the T-shirt design at . [Rainer Joswig , comp.lang.lisp, 02Nov00.] (Too painful for a tattoo, but it would work on a mug or mouse pad.)

If you're interested in discount coupons for online shopping, visit the freebie collection sites , , , , , , , , and . [Elisa Ung, Philadelphia Inquirer. SJM, 12Nov00, 3F.]

Recycle! About 24M computers will be thrown out this year. Computers weigh about 40 pounds, and proper disposal costs about $.50/lb (costing hundreds of millions of dollars in the next decade). Only 14% will be recycled or properly discarded, introducing up to 1B pounds of lead in the US waste stream over the next decade. Lead, mercury, and other dangerous materials in regular landfills could leak into the soil and water. [Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition. Christian Science Monitor, 16Nov99. Edupage.]

IBM PC Recycling Service will accept and process all PCs and PC parts for $29.99, including UPS shipping to Envirocycle, . Usable equipment will be donated to needy organizations. [AP. LA Times, 14Nov00. NewsScan.]

-- Ken