It makes no sense at all, since this corner of the internet is pretty weedy, and not much cared for. I’m looking for reasons why that might be, but can’t find any. Still, it’s killing my database pretty regularly — like, 5 or 6 times a day. It’s getting to be an imposition on me, too. Seriously, I’d rather be weeding the front yard or (horrors) exercising (shudder) than fixing a database. I don’t know what I’m going to do. Probably just muddle on through. But if things go goofy here, that there’s your reason.

Why didn’t I think of this?

In 1769, Hungarian nobleman Wolfgang von Kempelen astonished Europe by building a mechanical chess-playing automaton that defeated nearly every opponent it faced. A life-sized wooden mannequin, adorned with a fur-trimmed robe and a turban, Kempelen’s “Turk” was seated behind a cabinet and toured Europe confounding such brilliant challengers as Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon Bonaparte. To persuade skeptical audiences, Kempelen would slide open the cabinet’s doors to reveal the intricate set of gears, cogs and springs that powered his invention. He convinced them that he had built a machine that made decisions using artificial intelligence. What they did not know was the secret behind the Mechanical Turk: a human chess master cleverly concealed inside.

Today, we build complex software applications based on the things computers do well, such as storing and retrieving large amounts of information or rapidly performing calculations. However, humans still significantly outperform the most powerful computers at completing such simple tasks as identifying objects in photographs—something children can do even before they learn to speak.

When we think of interfaces between human beings and computers, we usually assume that the human being is the one requesting that a task be completed, and the computer is completing the task and providing the results. What if this process were reversed and a computer program could ask a human being to perform a task and return the results? What if it could coordinate many human beings to perform a task?

Well, I did — a thousand years ago, when we were all still agog over 56K modems, and my lawyer buddies laughed at my plying of the internet tubes (which were really, really tiny & expensive back then.) For the record, I seriously doubt that I was the first one to think of it, and claim no special genius here. And I never would have thought of naming it “The Mechanical Turk”, which is purely perfect.

Let me, though, be the first one to point out that it won’t be long before there are really, really good Turks who can command higher rates than those offered by the buyers. Get in on this early, if you’re of a bent to that sort of task.

Via Guy Kawasaki…