May 14, 1997
Committed to cultural diversity.
Volume XXVII, Number 20
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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 ”