So quick bright things come to confusion.

Bless thee, Bottom! bless thee! thou art translated.

2011-05-27T11:59:00.000-07:00

Lessons learned from 'Global Warming': or, the interaction between science and public opinion.

1. Naming Matters:
If you have not studied Global Warming, the only first hand 'data' in your possession are anecdotes. "It was cooler this year than last year," or "this year was the warmest on record in Seattle since 1967," are the phrase types that one hears. So why not call it something more defensible which can ALSO be more easily supported by anecdote. "Global Cooling" was a fad which once 'disproved' and discredited climatologists. So let's NOT make a name similar to that one.

I can hear the joke, "First they said the world was cooling, but that was disproved. Now they say it's getting hotter! What's next? Global stasis? because that's the only thing that's left."

I have a name which could have quieted all the naysayers. A phrase which is too ambiguous to be disproved but powerful enough to create a sense of urgency. Ready for this? I give you, "Climate Instability." Although, "climate change" is becoming a more used term which is almost as good, so good on that.

2. Don't try to manipulate the public
You may think that the non experts are incapable of understanding the ramifications of your work. But please don't try to over emphasize something. It will come back and bite you and it makes the rest of us lose credibility. It may be the case that this rule is in direct conflict with (1), if that happens you are on your own.

3. If you're a scientist PLEASE don't respond to surveys.
The fact that 95% of scientists believe something means almost nothing to me unless they are knee deep in the research the survey is about themselves. In that case I'd rather they write a stance paper to argue for their position. Science is about hypothesis and supporting data. Surveys make science sound political and whimsical.

4. Do not trust the public media to convey your ideas.
I need say no more than, for example, this from the PhD comics.
HERE

I will roar you as gently as any sucking dove; I will roar you, as 'twere any nightingale.

2010-11-03T11:37:00.000-07:00

THE FUTURE: CIRCA 2021

A

The daily rythme of society will be played out in video game sounds. New engines, novel communication devices, occasional wildlife and humanities continuous interaction with the virtual realm, will all yield sounds stranger than what we hear today.

B

An ubiquity of interconnectedness will form. No longer will it be necessary to begin/end communication with someone. Human interaction will flow as naturally as you might mingle at a party. You certainly will be able to be alone to your own privacy, but there will also be methods by which ad-hoc conversations will begin.

As an example from today, imagine siblings which grew up together must now live in different countries. They establish permanent video/audio communication feeds through the kitchen, for example. The siblings are free to chat while they make their dinner while also being able to go to different rooms for privacy. The future will be like this but on a grander scale, cleaner implementation and higher throughput.

C

I do have one concrete prediction. In ten years time from me writing this there will be energy storage devices (eg batteries) which will be cheap (less than a month's pay), 100 lb or less and capable of storing at least one mega Watt-hour (1 mWh). For comparison, the Tesla Roadster's battery weights 992 lb and stores 53 kWh.

Why am I so certain this seemingly impossible feat of engineering and science will come to fruition? Because it has to be. Because there are too many things that can't happen until this tech is available. There is a lot of effort going into the problem and a lot of promising leads. Something has to give.

D

I will have completed writing my thesis and begun preparation for the final defense.

mini rant

2010-05-25T11:22:00.000-07:00

You know what's annoying? Shaving. It's tedious and irritating to my skin. But for now at least, it is a part of life, so i live with it.

But you know what's inconsolably irritating? Buying razors, or more specifically, razor blades.

If you use an electric razor you know how expensive it can be to replace the blades. Prices from $30-$50 are not uncommon. And you're expected to buy them about once a year! And if you don't buy them you're forced to shave with an unsharp razor which will be even more painful and even more tedious than normal.

How hard can it be to make blades which will not dull so easily! They use some sort of stainless steel. I wouldn't be surprised if the blades are purposefully engineered to dull out quickly. I'm certainly not an expert, but what's wrong with tungsten carbide, ceramic or high carbon steel? I would seriously consider buying blades with industrial diamonds if it meant I didn't have to get a new one so often.

Also, a comment to Norelco: I DO NOT NEED TO REPLACE THE ENTIRE HEAD OF THE RAZOR! There are three little ninja-star blades that get dull. They're about the size of a nickel each. I would be happy to insert them into the razor head myself and obviate the need to replace the environmentally and economically costly COMPLETE razor head.

PS - I would love to buy an aftermarket razor head (hint, hint interwebs).

half baked ideas

2010-05-25T00:24:00.000-07:00

Adapt an inject printer to print tattoos directly onto skin. (btw Inject technology is already used to print half strands of DNA).

Have the inside of a tube of toothpaste cling to itself so that it is easy to expel all of the paste.

Create a 'nap' watch which can determine the stage of sleep you are in so you are never woken during stage 3 or 4 deep sleep.

Create a 'void balloon'. That is, a sturdy shell (probably from some nanostructure) which is strong and light enough to create a void inside. This 'void' will have more lifting capacity than Helium or Hydrogen in atmosphere. Additionally, this is 'green' in that no gases need to be mined/synthesized.
-- with enough technology a 'morphing' balloon could transition from round->airplane shape->supersonic airplane shape etc, for optimal performance depending on velocity, function and altitude.

Create a flying craft, the skin of which creates corona wind via high voltage potentials for propulsion and maneuvering.
(update: it seems they've already done a similar idea for ship propulsion. See "Magnetohydrodynamic drive".)

Once I sat upon a promontory

2010-05-10T10:09:00.000-07:00

THE INVERSE-TURING TEST

The Turing test measures a machines ability to be 'intelligent'. The test involves a person having a 'blind' text conversation with either man or machine. If the person is consistently unable to determine to whom they are talking, the machine is said to have passed.

To my knowledge, no machine has ever passed this test. In that sense this test can determine whether a 'being' is human. This is because the machine lacks sufficient 'human' intelligence.

Now consider the opposite question. Is it possible to form a test which can prove machinery? IE, humans will consistently fail this test. If we put a few restrictions on the human, I believe this to be so.

That test already exists, it is called the 'Diehard Test Suite'. It sounds like a simple test--can you generate independent and identically distributed random variables? At its simplest, could you generate a completely random series of 0's and 1's? The restriction: you can't image some sort of complicated algorithm in your head and you can't use information from your surroundings. That's it. And my hypothesis is that humans cannot do this because of the fundamental nature of how we think.

Man is but an ass if he go about to expound this dream

2010-03-24T10:18:00.000-07:00

AYN RAND and the GOP

My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.
—Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged

For those of you out there who consider yourselves politically savvy, I have a question to ask. Have you read Ayn Rand?

She's an author whose most notable works are from the 1940's and 1950's. She brought "Objectivism" to the lime-light of american politics and culture. I consider her "Atlas Shrugged" to be analogous to the Communist Manifesto--except for capitalists, not socialists. If you are confused at all about the current Republican philosophy, seemingly chaotic in purpose and execution, I'd claim that many of the their objectives indirectly revolve around Ayn Rand's work. The GOP may not know this, and in fact they have strayed quite a bit from their fundamental message, but let me explain why I believe this to be so.

I was introduced to Ayn Rand in ninth grade. A friend lent me, "The Fountainhead." I later read, "Atlas Shrugged." Rand introduced to me a revolutionary way of thinking. What if, instead of relying upon man for acceptance, welfare and enjoyment, we relied upon ourselves? What if the highest moral priority was for man to be happy? Not in a, "look at me, I'm a pig wallowing in mud, and I just ate some delicious garbage," but a deeper happiness as defined by a continual sense of purpose, accomplishment and beauty.

Objectivism may initially sound selfish and potential harmful, but let's look a little deeper. First, this will not result in anarchy. Deep happiness is not achieved by doing immoral acts. This would be contradictory to the premise of happiness. In fact the self-sufficiency demanded by the philosophy entails a deep sense of responsibility for ones actions and achievement. For these things are integral to ones being. Ones 'worth' as a human and 'worth' as a productive member of society become nearly identical (the only difference being that 'productivity' has intrinsic metrics, not all seen by society). A watered down version of Objectivism would not result in the collapse of society.

The arguments and fictional 'case studies' in Rand's novels illustrate these principles much better than I could. For a deeper treatment of the issue, I would strongly advise you to read Rand. Her novels affected my life philosophy in many ways. Even if you are a liberal till death, her work will give you insight into your 'foe' while giving you reason to pause and reflect on convincing and logically sound counter arguments to your ideology.

This all said, I think it would be a huge mistake to fully adopt her philosophies into society. She fails to realize that some people are largely incapable of self-productivity. She presents a cold, sharp knife to those who will not follow their prerogative. She trumpets reason over humanity and ignores the effect of environment on achievement.

And so we have a wrestling match between Socialism and Objectivism which colors our political climate. Welfare vs. self-reliance seems to be the greatest point of tension. But that's as it should be. Both philosophies present useful opportunities and ideas. And both have their downfalls. Only a naive person would fully claim one over the other. One would hope that our politicians could come together and synthesize the best system from both philosophies. The democratic party seems to be doing its' job, but the Republicans seem to have gotten lost on side issues. They're not doing their job properly and largely abstaining from meaningful debate and reason.

I would be happy to see objectivist ideas integrated into our society--to an extent. They have their place and could ultimately make America happier, more economically stable and independent. That's the sort of arguments I would hope to see clearly presented by the GOP. I'm waiting to have the call for self-sufficiency and reason answered by politicians in office--but until that time comes I remain distant from political affiliation.

How easy is a bush supposed a bear

2010-02-09T12:53:00.000-08:00

BABIES

I fear holding newborn babies. They're fragile. Their necks are very thin, and it looks like the head may just twist off. You pick up the baby, forget to hold its' head properly and "POP CRACK," dead baby.

And there are others, guys mainly, who are afraid of holding young babies. It is a common phobia. So common that I would call it a phenomena.

Strangely, I do not feel like this phenomena applies to other fragile, valuable objects. Want me to coddle the Mona Lisa? Sure, I'd do that. Here is the remote for an armed atom bomb, hold it? Sure, I'll hold that too. I'd even try to burp it given sufficient incentive. But babies, I will not hold.

Perhaps it is genetic -- there has been sufficient selective pressure to make men predisposed to being afraid of babies. I can imagine a lot of shamed faces and devastated grunting after our ancestors picked up a newborn, went to cuddle it with love and accidently crushed it to death instead. Assuming men were more likely to hold babies related to them, a likely prospect, all the requirements for natural selection are present: a life/death scenario, a genetic link and the natural genetic variation found in all creatures.

That's it, and I am convinced men are genetically predisposed to be afraid of babies. I don't have to be ashamed of my fear anymore. In my most guttural roar of science, I have defended my manhood.

The worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.

2009-10-29T10:26:00.000-07:00

BECOMING A PERSON OF INTEREST

Part of the US government's job is to keep track of domestic affairs. Since 9/11 this has seemingly evolved from hobby to obsession. Wiretapping with minimal legal recourse by 'secret agencies' is a controversial practice that is commonly assumed to occur. I speculate that deeper, more dubious intelligence gathering methods are being employed.

Except for ideological reasons, these practices are meant to be seen as irrelevant to the non-terrorizing population. Think again Mr. Brown. I have reason to believe that two seemingly innocuous actions on my part have put me on some sort of watch list.

How/if this will impact my future is unknown. In the least, I actually feel a little paranoid about writing this entry. I'm purposefully staying away from acronyms like N S A, or posting certain IP addresses. I would suggest that my freedom of speech has been compromised.

On a previous version of my .EDU webpage (now deleted) I described my research interests. I am sufficiently religious (Christian, as is 76% of the US population) that I mentioned God in my introduction--basically saying that he has given us a lot of natural tools to do some useful things.

I happen to keep some basic statistics about who visits my webpage. There were multiple hits from the pent a gon and a few others from Virginia while this page was up. I will not go into details other than saying it sort of creeped me out. My page is not frequented that often, so I am pretty sure these were associated with the gov ernment. When I removed the references to God, the hits ceased.

A second instance of me stumbling towards possible infamy occurred back in my undergraduate days post nine-eleven. I was vacationing in Eastern Washington: hiking, exploring, etc. I thought it would be fun to visit the Han ford nu clear re search facility. My map (circa 1995) indicated there was a visitors center.

As I drove to where I thought the center would be, I was stopped by a roadblock with a humV. A sol dier, complete with mach ine gun and green ades came out and asked me questions for a while. He took my ID information and lic plate number.

I can not say whether the information was retained for years. Although I imagine a little black book with my name on it with a page for each of these 'incidents'. Once my book gets say, 9 pages, it gets bumped up to a higher level of surveillance.

As with any passive surveillance system, it is nearly impossible to determine what information is collected about you. And this is the problem. The checks and balances of our democracy break down in the area of national security. In a sense, we have to 'trust' that the government is behaving decently.

The founding fathers knew that power leads to corruption. If information is power, then the secret agencies have more power than any other segment of the population. Will the moral control poorly demonstrated by wiretapping and illegal interrogation techniques snowball into greater decay? What will the limit of their 'power' be as information about citizens becomes more available? To what end?

Star Trek

2009-06-02T15:40:00.000-07:00

Star Trek is an energetic, not too geeky, sci-fi film that will give you a few shots of adrenaline along with a warm hearted sigh every now and then.

Despite its heavily weighted fiction over science, and lack of significant romance, this film has a universal appeal to thinkers and feelers alike -- due to good ideas and character development.

bottom line:
This film is like a beautified and engrossing Starship Troopers. It lacks the deeper metaphors of Star Wars -- but it's spring, the sun is out and who wants to think anyway.

shazbot!

2009-04-21T16:32:00.001-07:00

An exact accelerated stochastic simulation algorithm
J. Chem. Phys. 130, 144110 (2009)
http://link.aip.org/link/?JCPSA6/130/144110/1

The Orals

2009-02-18T12:00:00.000-08:00

Imagine being thrown into a room with five of the smartest people in the county. They grill you for a solid 1-2 hours on intricately technical matters. You must, on the spot, answer their questions which you have never seen before.

This ancient right of passage tests your knowledge and ability to think on the spot. If things go poorly, your childhood dream of becoming a scientist may destroyed.

Not a nightmare, not an audition to 'American Idol Scientist', this is your Oral Examination.

If we shadows have offended

2009-02-12T15:09:00.000-08:00

The revised economic stimulus package is set to fly through the congress and senate for approval. It is a complicated measure, but there is at least one aspect of this and the treasury bill which appeals to me.

The US government is poised to print money, and lots of it (up to ~$350 BILLION if I'm reading things correctly). Normally, printing money can result in inflation, hyperinflation and possibly a crash in currency. So your $1000 in the bank could be worth about as much as 1,000 pesos.

However, from what I can tell we are already experiencing deflation, where money increases in value as time goes on. You probably noticed the great holiday sales, or substantially lower gas prices. Your money is worth more than it used to be.

Despite the initial advantages of deflation, it can also lead to serious consequences. The Great Depression experienced about 10% deflation per year. Why is it bad? There are two main reasons. First, if people know that prices for goods are going down in the future, they will be inclined to wait to purchase goods. So manufacturers will have to reduce the price of their products in order to sell them, not break even and possibly go out of business. This will result in even less money in the system. Second, most investments will not pay-off during times of extreme deflation. For an investment to 'break even', it would need to grow at a rate faster than deflation. If not, it is better to put your money in the bank and let it sit there. This also results in less money in the system. And when there is less of something, it means that it will be worth more*.

* with the exception of new songs or re-arrangements of songs or dances to the re-arrangements of songs by ABBA.

getting the ring

2008-04-21T17:02:00.000-07:00

Today I got my wedding band. It is a very nice piece that I am very excited to be wearing. But the really amazing part of the experience was talking to the person I bought it from. This just happened, so I'm essentially dumping the contents of my memory in no particular order.

It was a used ring. So naturally it had a story along with it.

As we were talking about the ring technicals, I internally wanted to ask if he had any advice to give. But before I could, he said that he had some unsolicited advice to give. So naturally I sat back to listen.

His name was Mike. He'd been married for 7-8 years. He was 40'ish and looked similar to George Clooney--same hair, similar dress, etc. I couldn't tell you if he was happy. He definitely had the look of experience about him.

"A women is like downed power line--she's full of energy. It sparks and lashes out. It can light a whole city or it can destroy you."

He said that a women's intuition is amazing. Ask them how they know something, and they won't know how, but they just know. To counter this, I brought up that my fiance has a habit of going the wrong direction while driving. "If she says right, I go left and we get there on time." Mike suggested, "go right; find out we went the wrong way and turn around. Don't rub it in her face that she was wrong. If you were wrong she'd rub it in your face. She realizes that she went the wrong way. She's not dumb. But if you rub it in she won't forget that you did that to her."

His son had cancer at 1.5 years old. It was hard on him and his wife. Until then they were relatively blissful. Once the chemo started they hardly talked. They grew apart. I could tell it was difficult for him at that point: the baby, the marriage. He said he wished he and his wife had used the opportunity to come closer together, not grow apart.

There were moments in his life that he felt exuberant with joy. "Having a child, being in love--these things cannot be described. It's like trying to ." He was thankful for the bad times: the cancer, the martial discord, because it showed how great his good times were.

"EXPECT the sh&% to hit the fan. There's no such thing as a happily-ever-after."

"In marriage two flesh really do become one. When you're married it's like you're almost the same person. She's your best friend... But now that we're apart, I feel like half of me is missing. Not to say that you should be co-dependent. By all means, continue to grow your interests. But you two are walking side-by-side, you're her support."

"I came into marriage with skewed expectations. I wanted her to listen to my concerns and say, 'it'll be alright.' But when we talked about my work, she worried about it. She would try to give me advice. Most women have a fear of ending up in the poorhouse. They worry about it alot. ~So instead of listening to me as a friend, she would try to involve herself in the business. That didn't work out well."

One of the first things he said, "In an argument, when you're REALLY mad and you just want to leave, the VERY first thing you should do is remember why you fell in love with her. Do that, step aside to calm down for a moment, and you'll have a successful marriage."

I'm sure there was more. But I'm hungry right now :). He said I could call him anytime to talk. He gave me a substantial monetary wedding present. I was taken back.