Six Things You Might Not Know About "Peanuts"

1. Schulz’s lifelong ambition was to be a cartoonist.

A Minnesota-born barber’s son, Schulz dreamed of becoming a cartoonist from a young age. He had a less-than-distinguished academic record, but outside the classroom, he drew constantly and read newspaper comic strips with his dad. When Schulz was 15, he published his first drawing, a picture of his dog, who later served as the inspiration for Snoopy. Following his high school graduation in 1940, he worked odd jobs and submitted cartoons for publication in magazines. However, Schulz received “nothing but rejection slips,” as he later noted.

2. Schulz wasn’t a fan of the name Peanuts.

In 1947, one of Schulz’s local newspapers, the St. Paul Pioneer, started publishing a weekly comic panel he’d created called “Li’l Folks,” which featured the forerunners of the Peanuts characters. In 1950, Schulz sold “Li’l Folks” to the United Feature Syndicate after being turned down by other syndication companies. Due to worries about potential copyright infringement, the syndicate opted to rechristen Schulz’s comic strip Peanuts, likely after the Peanut Gallery where the live audience of kids sat on “The Howdy Doody Show.” Even after Peanuts became hugely successful, Schulz said he never liked the name and wanted to call the strip “Good Old Charlie Brown.”

New A.I. Shows Signs of Human Reasoning

[From the New York Times article "New A.I. Shows Signs of Human Reasoning" by Cade Metz]

When computer scientists at Microsoft started to experiment with a new artificial intelligence system last year, they asked it to solve a puzzle that should have required an intuitive understanding of the physical world.

“Here we have a book, nine eggs, a laptop, a bottle and a nail,” they asked. “Please tell me how to stack them onto each other in a stable manner.”

The researchers were startled by the ingenuity of the A.I. system’s answer. Put the eggs on the book, it said. Arrange the eggs in three rows with space between them. Make sure you don’t crack them.

“Place the laptop on top of the eggs, with the screen facing down and the keyboard facing up,” it wrote. “The laptop will fit snugly within the boundaries of the book and the eggs, and its flat and rigid surface will provide a stable platform for the next layer.”

The clever suggestion made the researchers wonder whether they were witnessing a new kind of intelligence. In March, they published a 155-page research paper arguing that the system was a step toward artificial general intelligence, or A.G.I., which is shorthand for a machine that can do anything the human brain can do. The paper was published on an internet research repository.

The Pursuit Of Beauty

“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Beauty can infect our working hectic lives, if only we allow it. The thing is, and stop me when you've heard this before, our daily choices can quickly become our daily ritual. 

Do you see the difference?

Reaction Video to John Denver's "Annie's Song"

I don't know if you are a fan of these reaction videos that are all over YouTube, but this is one of my favorites. This is one of my Top 10 songs of all-time, a nearly perfect marriage of lyrics, vocals, instrumentation, and arrangement. I've lost track of how many times I've heard this song, but it never failed to move me to tears. Part of that may be the stunning delivery, his purity of voice, and a realization of the history behind this song. But whatever the reason, this may be the greatest love song I've ever heard. 

NOTE: In retrospect, perhaps, a tie between this song and Gordon Lightfoot's song, "If I Could Read Your Mind" for the title greatest love song. 

Either way, both songs always pierce the core of my heart each time I listen to them. Let me know if either of these songs have that effect on you or maybe list your favorite love song in the comments below. 

Until next time . . .