Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (May 14, 1997)
May 14, 1997 Committed to cultural diversity. Volume XXVII, Number 20 ÍElje ^ o rtla n b (©bsertier cc Portland welcomes Logos II o m m u n ity • a le - n h a r Celebrate fitness Y ou're invited to a community fitness festival May 21 from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at Harriet Tubman Middle School. 2231 N. Flint. The American Heart Association event will include blood pressure checks, health information, interactive demonstra tions, games, dancing, refreshments and activities for all ages. Potters show wares Over 2(X) clay artists will participate in the Oregon Potters Association Ceramic Showcase '97, opening Friday at the O r egon Convention Center in Portland. The show will contain the most comprehen sive display of dayw ork in the region. The hours arc 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Friday and Saturday and 10a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. Gordly sets town halls Sen. Avel Gordly and Rep. Randall Edwards convene their next Legislative Town Hall on Saturday at the Southeast Police Precinct Community Room, 4735 E. Burnside from 10 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The lawmakers plan to discuss the latest state budget developments and hear citi zens’ concerns. Gordly also plans a town hall meeting on June 7 at 10 a.m. at the Fernwood Middle School cafeteria, 1915 N.E. 33rd Ave. ortland residents are welcom ing aboard one o f the w orld's most unique ships LOGOS II, a 360 foot, 4,800 ton ocean-going ship, is open to the public while berthed at Tom McCall W aterfront Park be tween the Hawthorne and Morrison bridges through June 9th. With a young crew o f 200 volunteers representing 35 countries LOGOS II is often called a "floating united nations". LOGOS II carries the w orld’s largest floating bookstore and sails the world sharing a message of hope and goodwill. The bookstore contains 4,000 titles avail able for purchase including educational books, text books, children’s books, novels and Christian literature. While in port, the ship’s personnel wi11 be hosting special events for all ages. The ship has a program designed to pro mote goodwill and understanding among nations and is manned by an all-volunteer crew o f 200 from 35 nations. For the majority o f these people their one or two years on board is an educational experience in developing character and gain ing appreciation o f various cultures. Adults, college student, teenagers, and children will be visiting the LOGOS II to learn more about the ship and its interna tional crew. P See related story on Religion page. LOGOS II crew member shows children why their ship is called "United Nations Bookstore. Blood pressure okay? W hat’s your risk of a brain attack? Free blood pressure screenings, presented by the Oregon affiliate of the American Heart Association, can help you assess your risk. The check-ups will be May 21 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. at The Matt Dishman. Montavilla, Mt. Scott, Peninsula and University com munity centers. For more information call 233-01 (X). African dancers perform “A dance must be danced” is an African proverb with special meaning to students at the W oodlawn Early Childhood Educa tion Center, 7200 N.E. 11th. Some 32 W oodlawn students who make up the Kukatonon Dancers plan a benel it perfor mance of African celebration dances Fri day at 7:30 p.m. at the Scottish Rite Hall, 1512 S.W Morrison The dance troupe, founded in 1983, is currently threatened by school budget cuts. Professor rates Kasparov vs. Deep Blue Man and machine evenly matched - but not for long, UO expert says Garry Kasparov may be the last grand champion chess player able to give a com puter challenger an even match, according to the U niversity o f O regon's M atthew G insberg, an expert in artificial intelligence. A rtific ia l in tellig en ce is the b a sis o f Due to the ever-greater computational muscle available to programmers, he ex plains, computer programs in chess and other games have shown steady improvement and are likely to continue to do so. “ Right now,” he notes, "we are at a seri “Five years ago the computer didn ’t stand a chance against a grand master... andfive years from now even the best human player will rarely, i f ever, be able to w in,” - Matt Ginsberg Volunteers needed Loaves and Fishes need volunteers to visit and socialize with hom e-bound, M eals-on-W heels participants on week days and weekends. Training is provided and mileage and meals are tax-deductible. Call Helen at 413-7787. Seniors counsel VIEWS, a peer counseling program for older persons is currently conducting in terviews for prospective volunteers inter ested in joining the next training class that begins on June 2. The program has been national ly recoginized as a model for meet ing the health needs of older persons in our community. The training takes place on the Good Samaritan Hospital Campus in n o rth w e st P o rtlan d . C o n ta c t Susan Sweeting at 661-5455 for more informa tion. Consumer law tips Do you know your rights if involved in an automobile accident? What insurance coverage do you have? What is bait and switch? What arc your rights as a con sumer? Join John Tujo, attorney and vol unteer with the Senior Law Project to learn more about your rights. A free seminar will be held Tuesday at 10:30 a m. at the Hollywood Senior Center. Ballroom dancing Get your dancing shoes on for ballroom dancing every Tuesday at 7:00 PM Live music & square dancing every second and fourth Sunday. Contact Hollywood Se nior Center, 1820 NE 40th. Phone 288- 8303. SU B M ISSIO N S: ( 'ommunih Calendar information will be given priority if dated two weeks before the event date. K asparov’schallenger, Deep Blue, and other com puter gaming programs. “ Five years ago the computer didn t stand a chance against a grand master and five years from now even the best human player will rarely, if ever, be able to win," says Ginsberg, the founder o f the university’s Computational Intelligence Research Laboratory. ous and fleeting place in history where the best players in many games -chess, poker, backgammon. Scrabble, checkers-are almost evenly matched with their com puter coun terparts." M aking the current parity o f human and com puter skill all the more interesting and unusual, G insberg explains, is that comput ers and humans achieve their great level of technical skill using very different kinds of intelligence. It is a case o f the m achine's brute force versus the hum an’s raw wit and animal cunning he says. “Our brains are massively parallel ma chines - a trillion neurons - working at m il lisecond time scales; computers are basi cally serial machines one processor - w ork ing at picosecond time scales (a million times faster). We are good at pattern match ing, which appears to be a parallel process; machines are good at sifting through vast numbers o f possibilities, a serial process whether it is involved in game playing or elsew here.” For example, a computer would have a difficult time with some seemingly straight forward human mental activities, such as deciding what breakfast to make given the ingredients available in a kitchen. On the other hand, this same computer can make certain kinds o f calculations that are far beyond the powers o f human intelligence. Designing the most efficient process for assembling an aircraft is an example. “The curious thing is that their perfor mance levels and ours seem so close, in spite of the fact that w e’re built so differently," the UO expert says. “This bodes well tor artificial intelligence at large, since it sug gests that machine intelligence will com ple ment ours, as opposed to com pet ing with it G insberg will capture this unique mo ment o f equality o f human and machine capability in an exhibit he is coordinating at this year's gathering of the nation’s top artificial intelligence scientists, the Four teenth International Conference an A rtifi cial Intelligence, on July 27-31 in Provi dence, RI. G insberg’s exhibit, called the Hall o f Champions, whose website address is http:/ ''w w w .cirl.u o reg o n .ed u /g in sb erg /ch am p , will feature some o f the w orld’s top players in such games as backgammon, bridge, checkers, chess, go, poker and Scrabble going head-to-head against computer oppo nents. Among the electronic contestants will be G insberg’s own bridge player. "Goren in a Box" orG IB . Information about GIB can be found at the w eb site a d d re ss, h ttp :// w w w .cirl.uoregon.edu/ginsberg/bridge. Concordi plans new student housing Concordia University is planning a $6.6 million, 250 bed new student housing project on its campus. Vice president Dennis Stoecklin told the Concordia Neighborhood Association last week that the three three-story structures will be built on the school's cam pus on Northeast Holman between 29th and 30th avenues, and 30th Avenue between Holman and Portland Boulevard. Students will be housed two and four to a room, he said. The architecture will be “consisten, with the Albina Community Plan guidelines he said. The structures will boost on-campus housing at the 1,045 student university to 360 beds. (An existing 100 bed dormitory. Centennial Hall, will be demolished) In conjunction with the project, Concordia will also add 85 surface parking spaces. Concordia has already applied to the Port land Bureau o f Planning for review o f the project's design and “ impact m itigation," Stoecklin said. A public hearing will be held but has no, ye, been scheduled. One nearby resident, Jim M artello o f Northeast 30th Avenue, was concerned about the effect o f the project on parking and traffic Artists drawing shows plans lor new student housing at Concordia University on local streets such as his Because no major street accesses the campus, “There’s no way to ge, there without traveling down local streets," he said Stoecklin said that only 30 percent o f Concordia students have cars. Moreover, he said, since the enrollment will no, increase, having more students liv ing on campus should decrease vehicle trips to it. “ I disagree,” Martello said “Now they come once a day, park, attend classes and leave. Now they’ll be traveling up and down the street all the time and ordering pizza deliveries. Stoecklin noted that the hearing will discuss the b u ild in g 's design and how concerns such as M artello’s should be dealt w ith, but not w hether the buildings should be allowed. An impact m itigation plan adopted by the city in 1995 gives the school the right to use its cam pus for institution-related developm ent Others who attended the meeting were more supportive of the project One resident said, “ I’ve lived across the street from the college for 38 years, and they've been a good neighbor to me ”
