Between Worlds

Mantis Shrimp are TOTALLY BADASS!

2009-10-25T14:45:00.001-07:00

Mantis shrimp see in much more vivid colors than us humans, and are just generally totally bad-ass (most awesome shrimp ever) but recent studies of the mechanism that mantis shrimp use to change linearly polarized light into circularly polarized light may give inspiration to the next generation of DVD drives.

http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/mantis-shrimps-could-show-us-way-better-dvd-26561.html

Fractally Weird: Or the Awesomeness of Science

2009-10-20T17:00:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine posted as his facebook profile "with all of the advances in our modern age we've made everything so mundane. How interesting it would be to live in a world where the functioning of the earth was a complex interplay between the gods and men, where spells and divinations hold weight, and where the most simple of objects can hold hidden secrets about the course and function of the universe" And while I disagree heavily, I understand the point he is making. Often it seems like science is just the boring old truth, why cant we have magic and mysticism and all that fun stuff they used to have.

We have things far far weirder and more fascinating than we could come up with on our own. The vastness of the universe is really fractally weird, its weird alone and only gets weirder the closer you look at it. weird at any magnification. That is what's so awesome, we live in this awesome universe that creates these amazing and weird patters and self organizes to create stars, planets, galaxies, nebulas, and life. we know some of the rules that control it but not all of them. The universe is this immensely complex system that creates the most beautiful structures we have ever seen and by processes much more interesting than the decree of gods.

IT may be interesting to live in a universe where the functioning of the earth is a complex interplay between gods and man, but i think it is much more interesting to live in a universe where everything is a complex interplay between everything else. where everything is connected to each-other in the great cosmic dance that is going on every second of every day. The universe we live in where you and I are connected by a genetic relationship spanning back the eons, and are related in turn with every living thing we see, which was created from the matter of this hunk of rock we live on called earth, which in turn was created out of stardust in the formation of the solar system. which in turn was created going back far enough, at the same time as everything we can see in the universe was, out of the furnace of the big bang.

How could the ego-centered view of an interplay between just gods and men compare with the great cosmic interplay between everything that is going on always without thought or care for man itself except so-far as man is a part of the cosmos, and as far as we know, the only part of the cosmos that has been able to contemplate the nature of the universe. And even better we can get rid of the idea of gods or super-beings watching down and manipulating things because, and this is totally awesome, the universe is self-regulating, we don't need something else to tweak things, the universe does its own tweaking to itself.

This should sum up some of these ideas for you.

Too Big To Fail?

2009-10-15T15:50:00.001-07:00

I have a simple question, Why, if a bank is too big to fail, doesn't the government pursue anti-trust actions against it?

Also Huffington post is reporting that the "Tea-Baggers" are out of touch, I knew that the moment they decided to name themselves after the action of dropping your testicles in someones unsuspecting mouth.

Cosmic Friday: Luna Impact Edition.

2009-10-09T22:46:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone, it's time again for another edition of Cosmic Friday. This week, in memory of the recently deceased LCROSS satellite (who's impact was both scientifically interesting and visually anticlimactic) I have another image of a man made impact on the moon, This one from the sister spacecraft to LCROSS, The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which has a image of the Apollo 14 booster crash site. The booster rocket, like LCROSS, was intentionally dropped on the moon to study the effects of the impact. The Apollo 14 booster caused a 'moonquake' that was analyzed by seismometers put on the lunar surface by the Apollo 12 astronauts.

Universe Today has a great post on it if you are interested in learning more about these awesome lunar impacts.

LCROSS impact early tomorrow morning.

2009-10-08T16:16:00.000-07:00

At 4:31 AM(PST) tomorrow(10/9/09) morning, NASA's LCROSS satellite will smash into the moon to study possible sources of water. Now, there's a lot of important and interesting science to be done on this mission, and the resulting data will be invaluable in understanding our moon and eventually creating moon bases and cities, but when I think about this mission, I can only focus on the WOW COOL aspect of it. because WE ARE GOING TO HIT THE MOON WITH A SPACESHIP JUST TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS. I hate to yell, but that is just amazingly cool. So cool in fact, that me and a few friends are headed to the Chabot Space and Science Center to watch it with our own eyes. If you are in the bay area, Join us, its only 3$. If not, you can get live images and info from NASA

New Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter HiRISE images up.

2009-10-07T17:52:00.000-07:00

NASA has just released a whole new set of images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiters HiRISE camera and they are just stunning. There are a bunch of great images of the Gullies but the one that really stood out to me in terms of vivid beauty was a dune

USGS Dune Database Entry Number 0419-449 (ESP_014348_1345)
Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

The latest batch of Images.

NASA's Press Release

Trash Can Nuclear Reactors

2009-10-05T18:09:00.000-07:00

In yet another win for the belated retrofuture, and yet another reason why its a great idea to fund NASA, researchers have announced that they have made many critical strides into developing a trash can sized nuclear reactor. getting a nuclear reactor down to convenient size may be key into solving many of our energy problems, at the least, it helps in our energy problems with setting up colonies on the Moon and Mars.

Now don't get me wrong, they haven't built one yet, we just have encouraging signs that it is possible and it will work.

Cosmic Friday: Message from Machaut

2009-10-02T16:31:00.000-07:00

I was tempted to do a image of mars for this weeks Cosmic Friday, but then, just today, some images of NASA's MESSENGER spacecraft were released from its third flyby of mercury, and there was an awesome (in the filled with awe sense) image of Machaut Crater that made me re-evaluate my decision and give this weeks honors to that oft forgotten messenger to the gods, and the closest and mysterious planet of Mercury.

I'm very intregued to find out why the crater has these beautiful criss-crossing patters throughtout the lava flows. also I would love to see a more detailed image of the smaller shadowed crater in the center of Machaut.

Hard Problems at MSRI

2009-09-30T18:56:00.000-07:00

I am here at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute for the northern California premier of Hard Problems, a documentary about the Math Olympiad.

Quotes from the movie I thought were particularly good

The subject of math rather than just the random facts I was taught in school
Math is more of exploration than knowledge
You cant really do math emotionally, that doesn't make sense.
Math doesn't have to be straight out of the book,
For a really cool problem you can explain how its really cool without having to get in the gritty details, I think math is like that it speaks for itself its very beautiful.
I have a little bit of a distaste for schools.
I have this theory that the smarter a mathematician is the better a mathematician is, the less they like to work.... I don't know if its true, I haven't asked enough mathematicians
I don't do mathematics because its mathematics. I do it because of the astounding connections and creativity it allows (ending line, one I think that is very incisive about the nature of mathematics

And now, onto the Q&A panel.
7:05 Two interesting threads, the moderator brings up, the one about what the IMO is and questions about the IMO and then also about how to bring more people into the IMO and increase higher mathematics training, however, the question i find interesting, and want to hear about, is instead how we can take the lessons gained from the higher level math education to get better math education around the board not just for those kids gifted with math talent, but to increase math education overall.

7:15 Zvezdelina Sankova puts on an interesting presentation about the Berkeley math circle, it seems like a great way to teach math, why don't we adapt a math circle setup to teach math to all children?

7: 20 Melanie makes a great point on how most of the students who do the IMO have seen some exciting math whereas moth high school students have not seen any interesting math.

7:25 Competition aspect is an important hook. "competitions were the venue in which I learned that there was interesting math"

7:40 Guy behind me comments on how the math circles helped him teach and make better, Zvezdelina makes a point about how the BMC was supposed to me a trail program, and that the allocation of resources is making it happen at colleges and universities, not schools.

7:50 some douchebag in the back asks 4 annoying questions, I hope he dies in a fire.

7:50 Ryan makes a good point about how people are not exposed to interesting math problems.

7:55 I get a question in on the first quote in the list, Zevezdelina talks about how the math circle gives the problem first then develops the tools to solve it rather than just give students the tools of mathematics with no context rhyme or reason.

ill distill this into some final thoughts when I get home.

Mars City Planning Commision, Beginning of a Series

2009-09-29T17:57:00.000-07:00

Well I have recently been thinking a lot about what it would take to colonize mars. (Yes yes, I know, it’s not very surprising that my thoughts have gone this way is it, oh mythical regular reader?)

So, to this end, I am announcing a new recurring feature for this blog 'Mars City Planning Commission" where I will attempt to list the problems and possible solutions for setting up a colony on mars. To this end, if you have any ideas, any problems, any comments, I certainly could use them. Every bit of information helps. Hopefully, I can get my ass in gear enough to make this a weekly posting, either on Mondays or Tuesdays.

So step 1, brainstorming a whole load of problems.

Air
Water
Heat
Food
Shelter
Transportation to Mars
Landing on Mars
Solar Radiation
Where to Land
Dust storms and other Martian Weather
Illness of Colonists
Sanity of Colonists
Building Materials (Thanks to Orodromeus for bringing this one up)

Also it looks like I am forced to re-read Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars Trilogy again...

Anyway, I'm going to continue looking at this list and next week, ill have a longer and more exhaustive list of problems with a little run down of exactly what the problem is.

And Tomorrow, if all goes as planned, I will be Bogging (perhaps, live, I mean, I will have my laptop with me) on the Premiere of Hard Problems at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute

Cosmic Friday: Saturnal Equinox

2009-09-25T22:23:00.000-07:00

I had a bit of trouble deciding on which image to use for this weeks Cosmic Friday, I saw many beautiful pictures of nebula's and galaxies, but, well, we have had a bunch images in those scales recently, and bodies of the smaller solar scale have been missing from our sojourns into the greater cosmos, and then I saw a beautiful image of Saturn at Equinox, and well, I think it speaks for itself.

Water Water Everywhere

2009-09-24T21:39:00.000-07:00

My desire for extra-planetary emigration is well documented, so, when I saw two interesting articles about water on both Luna and Mars, I had to talk about them and their effect on bringing about the belated retrofuture.

Before I talk about the moon, I want to mention a finding that has been overshadowed by the moon finding (which, admittedly, is very very exciting.) However, Here on Between Worlds I'm going to give Mars the first billing. a few meteorites that smashed into mars last year have uncovered martian ice at latitudes much closer to the equator than we have expected to find ice. This means that ice is much more plentiful on mars than we previously thought.

What I find most fascinating about this is a coincidence that only proves that nature has a twisted sense of humor. One of the meteorites revealed ice no more than 4 inches from where the 1970's Viking 2 lander dug a trench into mars. If the viking lander had dug its trench only 3.5 inches deeper, it would have likely revealed the ice, and certainly would have changed how we view mars and martian exploration in the past 4 decades.

But onto the big story of the day, The Indian Chandrayaan-1 mission, using NASA's Moon Meteorology Mapper, has discovered that the moon is damp. Water, while not abundant, is definitively present on the moon. One of the major problems that has been facing a Lunar Colony has been the assumed dryness of the lunar surface. If we were unable to find water on the moon, we would have to ship it all up from earth, and that puts a major major crimp in any plans. the energy cost of shipping it all up is extensive to say the least (if you don't believe me, ask anyone who has gone to burning man)
Furthermore, we gain more than just drinking water when we find water on the planetary bodies and moons we wish to colonize, Rocket-fuel and Breathable Oxygen all can be made once we have that good ol' Hydrogen Hydroxide (don't listen to the fools who call it 'dihydrogen monoxide' they don't know what they are talking about).

These findings force us to radically change our previous conceptions about the rarity of water in the solar system. The increased water we find throughout the system can and will be used to sustain human colonies on other planets. Overpopulation has become a major problem for humanity, we can fix this in two ways, decreasing population, and increasing resources/area. However, our home planet is fast becoming tapped out of resources, so, where do we go? To the stars, where else? This is one of the major callings of our generation. We must break free from the gravity well that keeps us on this planet. The water findings just give us the confidence that allows us to take bold action in taking the next step to become the first species (so far as we know) to spread itself out to the stars.

Mathematics of Steallar Death

2009-09-22T22:19:00.000-07:00

Applied Mathematicians and Astrophysicists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have recently created a simulation of the last few hours of a white dwarf star leading up to a type 1a supernova. regular readers (ha, check it out, I made a funny) may remember me blogging about type 1a supernova earlier in the month. So I felt some obligation to post this awesome new finding about them.

For years type 1a supernova have been a standard candle for astrophysicists because it is theorized that they all blow up the same way, however, we have until now, a good computational simulation of the creation of type 1a supernovas has seemed intractable, which begged the question, "do they really all blow up the same way? if we cant simulate it, perhaps they don't..."

But, Mathematics once again came to the rescue as applied mathematicians Ann Almgren, John Bell and Andy Nonaka of Berkeley Lab's Computational Research Division, developed MAESTRO, a simulation code of the problem. The real genius behind MAESTRO was to strip out the sound waves making the problem much more efficient and able to run on modern day supercomputers like the Jaguar, the Cray XT4, one of the worlds most powerful supercomputers.

read the full article Here at Science Daily.

Kanye Meme

2009-09-21T00:04:00.000-07:00

Found this on the interwebs, pretty brilliant

I sort of want to see one with kanye and PZ on the dino with Kanye Saying "YO PZ, IMMA LET YOU FINISH RIDING THE DINO, BUT BERTRAND RUSSELL IS THE GREATEST ATHEIST OF ALL TIME!!!!

Edit: so i figured, what the hell, I can make it, and while doing so I got I think, a slightly better idea

Cosmic Friday: Andromeda in Ultraviolet

2009-09-18T22:27:00.000-07:00

there has been a lot of interesting astronomy news this week, the first rocky exoplanet was found, Saturn had a lightning storm that broke solar system records (at least, as far as we humans know), and the first geological survey of my favorite Jovian moon, Ganymede was completed, but really when it comes to stunning images for this weeks 'Cosmic Friday' nothing jumped out at me so much as NASA's SWIFT satellite's image of the Andromeda Galaxy that was released this week.

Credit: NASA/Swift/Stefan Immler (GSFC) and Erin Grand (UMCP)

Yet another reason why we arent funding nasa nearly enough. This is, I think, The most beautiful image of any galaxy ever captured. Images like this really do call us out to reach for the stars.

Criminally Boring, A Rant About Math Education.

2009-09-17T23:52:00.000-07:00

For years I assumed that, over time, I would get less and less angry with my high school math teachers. I was wrong. Instead, as it turns out, the massive failure of high school mathematics education serves as a constant pit of fury that I can call on anytime I need (especially when people say they hate/are bad at math, I'm convinced it stems from terrible education into what the subject is...).

Why do I harbor such rage? because it would be inconceivable to not be furious at the grand scale of the failure. When I ask people why they hate math, the most frequent response is that it is 'boring'. And, while I disagree to the utmost, I understand where they are coming from. The fact is mathematics is perhaps the most poorly understood subject by its teachers and the population at large. I was lucky to have a father who cultivated my interest in mathematics at a young age, but even so, as I left high-school I had become convinced that math is boring, a dull subject populated by endless formulae that are applied in an arcane seemingly random manner.

But mathematics is far far greater than I was led to believe from how terrible my teachers were. Mathematics, the study of relationships between objects truly is the queen of the sciences. As I started college and realized that Electrical Engineering, my chosen major, would give me no chances to take any non engineering classes, distraught over this prospect, I decided I needed to change majors, but I had no clue what to change to, then my father gave me two books to read, The Man who Knew Infinity and The Man Who Loved Only Numbers, Reading these, my eyes were opened to the true beauty of mathematics, I saw what my high-school teachers so failed at imparting, what mathematics is. It is the study of how objects relate to one another, regardless of what the object is. It is indeed the language of the universe, the noblest science.

And this, this is what they were able to make boring. I was dumbfounded, how could people in good conscience make such a beautiful and interesting subject boring. I could not understand, perhaps it was from laziness, or misunderstanding, or tiredness, but still, to take such a subject and make it boring should be a crime. The mathematical training of American high schools is downright criminal. Not only does it not grant the students even a shred of mathematical literacy and maturity, it makes them distrust and hate the subject. A subject full of beauty and wonder, a subject where even the most simple rules will lead you into bizarre worlds full of things to explore, and they, these villains that teach the subject have turned it into a cesspit of boredom for most of their students. How is this not a crime? If anything should be a crime should not turning something interesting and beautiful into something ugly and boring be a crime?

Best use of Lego's in the History of Mankind.

2009-09-15T21:44:00.000-07:00

yes, its a Lego Turing machine, how sweet is that? and yet, more proof that lego are the most awesome toys.

I really don't have anything else to say, if you don't think this is totally awesome and sweet, well, I'm not sure if you are in the right place then.

Fuck You Evangelicals, You Cant Take My Country.

2009-09-15T03:16:00.001-07:00

Bruce Wilson at the Huffington Post Reports on one of Former Alsaka Governor and Vice Presidental Candidate and total fucking lunatic Sarah Palin's Religous adviser, Rick Joyner is actively trying to undermine the principles that the uninted states was founded on and setting up a goddamn religous totalitarian state.

Im not even fucking kidding. this is the movement of the so called "third wave" christians who believe the end times are apporaching and that they need to take back the world for "their Dread Champion, Jesus Christ" This is just fucking proof of what i have been saying all along. the idea of subordinating reason to faith, to deny science, and reality, and the crazy hatred spread among these people has caused the Evangelical movement to threaten the very fibers of our modern way of life. We cannot sit idely by whiole these lunatics prepare to recalim the world,

They are preparing to send us to displacement camps. And thats it, the battle lines are drawn. I do not understand how people can see this and not immideatly turn to athiesm, This is the endpoint of blind faith. this is why i am an radical athiest, because the true threat to my way of life comes from the people who are convinced that god has sent them on a misson to destroy the Uninted States of America.

Hienlien wrote a short story, Revolt in 2100, that is about a counter revolution to a religous fundamentalist state that had cropped up in the USA, much later, when collecting his short stoies in his timeline (the day after tomorrow) he mentioned two stories that he never wrote, one of them, was about the rise of the religous fundamentalism and he said he was never able to write it as it was too depressing, but that in the rise of TV preachers he saw it coming. and it seems, he may have been right all along,

But now, we are aware, and we see it coming, it is our mission as americans to stop these religious nutjobs from seizing the country that came up with the declaration of independence and the bill of rights.

Im tired of the right wing always taking the mantle of patriotism, it is clear now that they have been pandering to treasonous liars who are out to destroy the secular way of life. I wont have it. This is the country of Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Washington, would they have sat idly by while a group of religious fanatics attempt to tear down all they had worked so hard to make free? I think not.

Panoramic Galaxy

2009-09-14T16:50:00.000-07:00

I found over at Wired Science an awesome panorama of the the milky way galaxy. what is exceptionally cool about this is that it was made with nothing more than a digital camera, each of the over 1,200 image was taking with a 6 minute exposure and the entire panorama took months to create.

The artist, Serge Brunier deserves much applause as does Frédéric Tapissier, who solved many of the technical problems of combining all of these images into the amazing whole

This is just a beautiful image that gives one perspective into the world we live in, and the vast scope of the beyond. Also it is as good a case against light pollution that I can conceive.

Cosmic Friday: HST Edition

2009-09-11T10:35:00.000-07:00

This week, the Hubble Space Telescope unveiled its new imaging camera to give us even better access to the beautiful vistas that the universe has in store. I was about to post about it on Wednesday when I first heard about it, but I figured, this would make a perfect edition of Cosmic Friday. NASA press release

In the upper left shows a butterfly emerging from stellar demise in a nebula, the upper right displays a clash of galaxies known as "Stephens Quintet", The bottom left is an image taken of the center of the great globular cluster Omega Centauri, and finally, our old friend from last weeks Cosmic Friday, the last image is a pillar of star birth in the Carina Nebula.

Images like these are why I can never understand when people are against space flight and space exploration. how can you see images as beautiful as these and of such cosmic significance and not want to be there to see it with your own eyes? I understand all the problems, the Light Speed barrier, but still, we cannot help but yearn to break free of this gravity well.

Britain apologizes for its treatment of Alan Turing after the war.

2009-09-10T22:25:00.000-07:00

In what must be a gratifying feeling for the LGBT community but should definitely be celebrated the world over the British Government formally apologized for their treatment of Alan Turing after the war. For those of you who don't know, Alan Turing, the father of modern computing, the solver of the decision problem. and the man who cracked Enigma and very likely won WWII for the allies, was homosexual. and after the war, turing was convicted of Gross Indecency for his sexual preference. he was given the choice of chemical castration and hormone therapy or jail-time, lost all of his access to his classified work, and, after a year committed suicide. One of the greatest mathematicians of this century and the man who did more than any other man to defeat the Axis powers died after being persecuted for something so silly as his sexual orientation. It is I think, one of the more shameful occurrences in modern history and it is quite refreshing to have the government that caused it to formally apologize, even if it is years later.

2009 has been a year of deep reflection - a chance for Britain, as a nation, to commemorate the profound debts we owe to those who came before. A unique combination of anniversaries and events have stirred in us that sense of pride and gratitude which characterise the British experience. Earlier this year I stood with Presidents Sarkozy and Obama to honour the service and the sacrifice of the heroes who stormed the beaches of Normandy 65 years ago. And just last week, we marked the 70 years which have passed since the British government declared its willingness to take up arms against Fascism and declared the outbreak of World War Two. So I am both pleased and proud that, thanks to a coalition of computer scientists, historians and LGBT activists, we have this year a chance to mark and celebrate another contribution to Britain’s fight against the darkness of dictatorship; that of code-breaker Alan Turing.

Turing was a quite brilliant mathematician, most famous for his work on breaking the German Enigma codes. It is no exaggeration to say that, without his outstanding contribution, the history of World War Two could well have been very different. He truly was one of those individuals we can point to whose unique contribution helped to turn the tide of war. The debt of gratitude he is owed makes it all the more horrifying, therefore, that he was treated so inhumanely. In 1952, he was convicted of ‘gross indecency’ - in effect, tried for being gay. His sentence - and he was faced with the miserable choice of this or prison - was chemical castration by a series of injections of female hormones. He took his own life just two years later.

Thousands of people have come together to demand justice for Alan Turing and recognition of the appalling way he was treated. While Turing was dealt with under the law of the time and we can’t put the clock back, his treatment was of course utterly unfair and I am pleased to have the chance to say how deeply sorry I and we all are for what happened to him. Alan and the many thousands of other gay men who were convicted as he was convicted under homophobic laws were treated terribly. Over the years millions more lived in fear of conviction.

I am proud that those days are gone and that in the last 12 years this government has done so much to make life fairer and more equal for our LGBT community. This recognition of Alan’s status as one of Britain’s most famous victims of homophobia is another step towards equality and long overdue.

But even more than that, Alan deserves recognition for his contribution to humankind. For those of us born after 1945, into a Europe which is united, democratic and at peace, it is hard to imagine that our continent was once the theatre of mankind’s darkest hour. It is difficult to believe that in living memory, people could become so consumed by hate - by anti-Semitism, by homophobia, by xenophobia and other murderous prejudices - that the gas chambers and crematoria became a piece of the European landscape as surely as the galleries and universities and concert halls which had marked out the European civilisation for hundreds of years. It is thanks to men and women who were totally committed to fighting fascism, people like Alan Turing, that the horrors of the Holocaust and of total war are part of Europe’s history and not Europe’s present.

So on behalf of the British government, and all those who live freely thanks to Alan’s work I am very proud to say: we’re sorry, you deserved so much better.

Gordon Brown

Giant Rats and Severed Tails

2009-09-09T15:23:00.005-07:00

Two awesome findings in the world of biology today. Firstly biologists in the crater of a volcano found a new species of Rat that is almost a meter long.. Meanwhile, a study shows that severed gecko tails perform complex movements.

The giant rats, having never encountered mankind until now, are completely tame and unafraid of man. knowing how good pets rats make, I have to admit wanting one of these as a pet just so I could have a pet that is as awesome as a pet rat but the size of a cat or small dog...

The gecko tail thing, however is just amazingly cool and yet another example of evolution coming up with great and weird solutions to problems. if the gecko's tail just falls off, the predator is likely to still go after the rest of the gecko, if it moves rhythmically, the predator is likely to ignore it after a few seconds once it sees it is a pattern, by having complex non-deterministic movements, the tail can lure the predator away from the gecko, and given how fast it is, can perhaps even evade the predator itself.

Like I said, totally awesome!

Being Smart About Extinctions

2009-09-08T16:37:00.003-07:00

People worried about animal extinctions always slightly troubled me, not that I don't agree, I don't like the thought of animal X going extinct, but its also inescapable. on a long enough time line, all species go extinct, extinctions happen all the time. evolution keeps marching on. How do we couple the problems of ecological disaster due to key species going extinct and yet always be aware of the process of evolution and how to manage the ecology Well, like all good things, Google has the answer! According to Wired, scientists have used a modified version of the Google search algorithm to determine which species are key to the survival of an ecosystem. Now we can look more closely at where to tailor our conservation efforts not in a vain attempt to save every species but instead to save ecological diversity.

now that you are helping us save the planet, I have one question, Google, is there anything you cant do?

Biotech on the Rise.

2009-09-08T02:12:00.005-07:00

Articles like this make me glad to be alive in our times

ScienceDaily (2009-09-07) -- If artificial devices could be combined with biological machines, laptops and other electronic devices could get a boost in operating efficiency. Researchers have now devised a versatile hybrid platform that uses lipid-coated nanowires to build prototype bionanoelectronic devices.

I've been dreaming of the day when biotech gets started ever since a fairly obscure white wolf role-playing game Trinity (or, if you really played it, Aeon) The coolest bit of trinity, in my opinion, wasn't the weird psionic powers, or the futuristic setting (although I liked both of those) but it was the cool biotech toys you got to play with. all the other kids can enjoy their vorpal swords, I'll take a crazy slug that attaches to my arm and fires mini-nukes. I just cant wait.
full article

Early computer to be brought back online.

2009-09-05T20:45:00.003-07:00

The Harwell computer, the UK's third oldest computer is about to head down to bletchley park to be rebooted after 36 years idle.

Mr Barnes said the prospect of seeing the Harwell computer up and running after more than 36 years was "very exciting

indeed it is, computers have become so ubiquitous to modern life, tha it is easy for us to forget how modern they are, and we often forget those early pioneers into computing technology that has created the modern era. its nice to see these great early computers starting up again to remind us how far we have come, now that we seem to be sitting on the cusp of the quantum computing revolution.

read more here

Stand Aside, its time for SCIENCE

2009-09-04T12:08:00.005-07:00

Its a great time to love science. We now have the first evidence of a binary star system where one is a massive white dwarf star. Such stars are the precursor to type 1a supernovae. A white dwarf star is usually about half as massive as the earth and about as large, however, the star the ESA has found is half the size of the earth and half again as massive, hence much much denser than the average white dwarf. The theory is that when the star hits 1.60 earth masses, it will cause a supernova, one that is close enough to us that will light up the sky day and night. The inhabitants of this planet are going to be so damn lucky in a few million years....

ScienceDaily (2009-09-04) -- The European Space Agency's XMM-Newton orbiting X-ray telescope has uncovered a celestial Rosetta stone: the first close-up of a white dwarf star, circling a companion star, that could explode into a particular kind of supernova in a few million years. These supernovae are used as beacons to measure cosmic distances and ultimately understand the expansion of our Universe.

White dwarfs

Cosmic Fridays

2009-09-03T22:50:00.008-07:00

Planetary features were cool and all, but we need a larger scope so I can use images like
Source: Hubblesite.org

The Carina Nebula as caught by the HST. although it should be called the cephalopod nebula amirite

Big version

Friday Planetary Feature

2009-08-14T09:47:00.003-07:00

To make blogging a more regular exercise for me, I present the "Friday Planetary Feature" feature

Every friday a cool picture of some planetary feature. and today, what better way to start than with a great image of Victoria Crater that I snagged from Greg Laden

Now just think about what a beautiful hike that ridge would be...

Crypto-Human Interest.

2009-07-01T23:22:00.002-07:00

So I wanted to share a fun story with Two Centuries On, a Cryptologist Cracks a Presidential Code

However, I think this article really misses a opportunity to explain the importance and nature of cryptography and misses some very important points of how cryptography matters to our daily life as opposed to being just the playthings of presidents and friends as a exercise for the mind.

the very nature of our modern lives is build on a foundation of cryptography. all modern financial systems rely on the strength of modern cryptography. and modern cryptography is very goddamn strong. and quantum cryptography is unbreakable.

The code-breaking effort the allies unleashed in WWII is one of the greatest stories of ingenuity, hard work and very possibly more than any other factor, defeated the axis powers.

All online purchases rely on the modern public-key system for encryption, one that cannot be attacked like we would attack enigma, we know how the system works, without the key to find what you needed to decrypt the message would take all of the computers on earth working non-stop for thousands of years. I think to sell cryptography short is to fail in your responsibility to educate the public, and the fact that they spent time talking about simple substitution cyphers but don't mention the massive impact crypto plays in our day to day life is intellectually disingenuous.

None-the-less, by the current standard of media and what sort of job we can expect the 4th estate to do on our behalf(a terrible one) it is a fun article, that you should read.

Great Quantum Turing Machine Batman!

2009-06-22T19:07:00.005-07:00

Ah, dear reader, It has been a while, not that time particularly matters to you, what with the whole not-existing thing you got going on, not that I blame, you, its not like I update this thing with any regularity, although I would like to change that... and with that note, lets get down to the entry....

So, while i was living in that terrible cess-pit known as the world sans internet I had time to read Programming the Universe by Seth Lloyd. This book is a must read for anyone who is interested in computability and the world as we understand it. Following up in the tradition of Wolfram's A New Kind of Science and Rucker's The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul(which i cant recommend highly enough) Programming the Universe is an exploration of what information science and the mathematical underpinnings of computation mean to how the world works and how to explain the universe in terms of a new physical entity (information) that must be considered when trying to understand what base forces and rules control and manage the universe.

However, Lloyd, a leading researcher in quantum computing, takes an interesting approach viewing the universe as not merely something that can be imitated by any old Universal Turing Machine, but rather, the universe is a giant quantum supercomputer that is constantly computing itself.

This is a elegant way around dealing with the problem of Chaos theory and quantum interaction that plagues most attempts at determinism by Universality of Turing machines. Chaos theory showing that if our measurements are even just a tiny bit off from the real value of the event we are measuring it would be impossible to predict its course, and the quantum interference that puts a minimum bound on how precise our measurements or even any measurements can be.

Lloyd also makes a very interesting point about entropy, viewing entropy as an increase in information, an increase in all those bits, that make up the universe as a complete and wonderful whole. is i think particularly thrilling,

Furthermore, Like Rucker's Work, Lloyd's work reads like a great lecture, anticipating questions and givng a phenomenal overview of the theory and its consequences. I give this book my highest recommendation. It is a fascinating read and has shaped the way I personally, understand the fundamental forces and interactions of the universe.

Solution to Problem 2 of Project Euler

2009-01-31T23:50:00.003-08:00

My solution to problem 2 was done shortly after solving problem 1, so you can see the progression of my Scheme programming, still not as sharp as it could be, (and I didn't even try to explore the interesting mathematical attacks on the problem, I'm still using the problems as exercises in coding and not yet looking at them as math problems, something I imagine I wont be able to keep up for long...

(define (fib n)
  (fib-iter 1 0 n))
(define (fib-iter a b count)
  (if (= count 0)
      b
      (fib-iter (+ a b) a (- count 1))))
(define (fib< n)
  (fib<-iter n 1 empty))
(define (fib<-iter n count l)
  (cond ((> n (fib count)) (fib<-iter n (+ count 1) (cons (fib count) l)))
        (else l)))
(define (euler2 n)
  (euler2-iter (fib< n) 0))
(define (euler2-iter l sum)
  (cond ((not (empty? l))
      (cond ((even? (car l)) (euler2-iter (cdr l) (+ (car l) sum)))
            (else (euler2-iter (cdr l) sum))))
        (else sum)))

then I call the function by (euler2 4000000)

Code for My Solution the the First Euler Problem

2009-01-31T23:40:00.007-08:00

This was basically the first scheme program I have ever written and the first program i have written in about 4 years, so yes, I know the code is very sloppy...


(define (testdiv n f)
  (cond ((= (remainder n f) 0) 1)
        (else 0)))
(define (buildlist n m)
  (cond ((> n 0) (buildlist (- n 1) (cons n m)))
        ((= n 0) m)))
(define (test2div n f1 f2)
  (cond ((= (testdiv n f1) 1) n)
        ((= (testdiv n f2) 1) n)
        (else 0)))
(define (euler1 n f1 f2)
  (cond ((not (empty? (cdr n))) (+ (test2div (car n) f1 f2) (euler1 (cdr n) f1 f2)))
        (else (test2div (car n) f1 f2))))

It worked but due to the fact that its been 2 weeks since I wrote it and the code is ugly as hell I cant for the life of me remember how I call it. sure, I could probably figure out how, but if I had any desire to go back to this problem I would almost certainly scrap this and rewrite the code entirely..

A bit of a change of pace...

2009-01-24T00:34:00.005-08:00

Well its been a while, a while since you, oh non-existent reader and i sat down here on this masturbatory exercise of a blog and had a catch up and the obligatory change of pace.

So, to start, lets get caught up. I am enjoying myself in Oakland, have a nice new apartment and a job that while is not great affords me time to think, Time to study, Time to relax. In that time i have started working on getting my math up to par, to this end I have begun some slight work on the Project Euler problems. to accomplish this I have begun to learn the programming language SCHEME. I have started this by working my way though MIT's "Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs".To that end i will be posting here my solutions to both the exercises of that book and the Project Euler problems.

2008-11-27T21:12:00.001-08:00

keach, contemplative

ryan keach deep in thought
laying back

me
Posted via Pixelpipe.

Why I Am An Atheist.

2008-05-10T18:41:00.004-07:00

I was raised in a fairly secular home, going to church on Easter and Christmas, when I was about 8 me and my sister, liking Christmas and Easter a lot, and in fact, liking the church atmosphere, convinced my parents to take us to church weekly (in retrospect, not the best idea). After about a year and a half to two years of church, my parents separated, one of the many catalysts was my father falling in love with my stepmother to be, the choir director and organist. After my parents separated, I still continued going to church with my father, my mother changed churches and went every Sunday and when I was about 13 or so, felt the call to ministry.

My Father, on the other hand, has always been what he calls a "High Church Atheist", and with my stepmother being the choir director, we ended up going to church a lot. I am not sure if I ever believed in god, but I know that I certainly thought I believed, I never really prayed for things, but I had some sort of deist feelings about the world.

In High school, I, Being the dork that I am, found out about Buddhist philosophy and read about it a lot; it made, in my mind, some sort of sense. I didn't classify myself as Buddhist, I was still, at least in my own mind, an Episcopalian, but the philosophy really said something to me, in my second semester at college I took a course on the philosophy of religion, by far the least informative and worthwhile course of my college career (well at least tied with the bowling course that I forgot to attend (funny story for a different time perhaps)). The complete lack of substance of the philosophy of religion class who's main idea is that "God" or "Spirit" or whatever, that there is something that is above and separate from the phenomenological world, that there is some sort of numenon that you just couldn't question was unsettling, I became, for all intents and purposes an agnostic.

During this time, a New youth group director took over at my church, my church was a liberal moderate church that didn't really push the whole Christianity thing very far, we were there for community, wine and crackers and we knew it, or at least that was my feeling, the church was pro-gay, pro-life, accepting and open. The new youth group leader decided to set us up on a Christian work-camp thing. Now if you don't know what work camps are, they are where a bunch of evangelical youth gets together to praise the lord and fix the houses of poor people. The first two years I went were fairly tame, I mean the leaders of these things were clearly insane, but the people my age were cool (for the most part) and the work was fun and rewarding (the music however, was god-awful). The Third year, however, that year marked the moment I became, like Douglas Adams, a Radical Atheist.

The Third year I was pegged with two other people to lead a much larger group of kids from our parish to this work-camp, so this time I actually had to pay attention to the daily services/propaganda. What I saw was disgusting. The underlying message of these theatrical abortions was not to question authority and that anyone who disagrees with the literal interpretation of the bible is a sinner and is going to hell. After these services we are supposed to take our kids aside and reinforce the lesson, I however, along with making my kids laugh by making an ass out of myself (its a gift), condemned the message and subtext in the strongest possible terms (not to mention my rails against the quality of the music (Christian Rock is by far the worst thing in the world. and prompts my favored disproof of the Christian god, a loving god would never inspire these abortions that are put out as rock. QED) But this was just the beginning.

On the last day, after a week of roofing (possibly the worst job ever, I respect anyone who does it for a living), up on the roof I was drawn into a theological debate where I admitted that I was agnostic. Upon hearing this, two of the other people both evangelicals urged me to read the book "The Case for Christ", I agreed on the supposition that they read "Living Buddha, Living Christ" by Vietnamese Zen Monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. At this suggestion they were flabbergasted, claiming that there is only one true way and that way is through Christ. My response was, straight out of my religious philosophy class, that everything is partially true and partially false, religions are shades of grey and it matters most on what you do to be a good person. They would not concede this point, one of them saying: "Things are either right or they are wrong. When you flip a coin it comes up heads or it comes up tails, it is never both!" Now before I respond, I want you the reader to understand, I'm an asshole. I wasn't going to let that line stand, not with my very very small understanding of quantum physics behind me. I mean I have read popular science books about the subject! So with that said, I made what I consider to be one of my hallmark remarks of all time saying: "Well, that’s not technically true, according to quantum physics, when you flip a coin it comes up both heads and tails and you only observe one outcome" (I know not technically true for coins, but you get my gist) their response to this latest hurdle to their philosophy marks the exact minute I became a atheist.

I really cannot give this remark enough fanfare; it is in my mind the height of ignorance, wrongheadedness and villainy that I have ever encountered. And i assure you that it is a 100% direct quote, it has been engraved on my brain ever since word for word. I know you are thinking with all this buildup the actual remark will never live up to my claims but I assure you that it does. So, without further ado, here is their response "You see, Galen, that’s your problem, you read all these science and math books, and science leads to the Devil. You need to take all of your science and math books and burn them."

Now I pride myself on having a remark for any situation. And in my entire life I cannot recall ever being so completely speechless as I was at that moment. My brain just couldn’t comprehend the fact that anyone could ever say this. Who would even think such a thing, much less think that it might convince me of anything. The only thought I had was "So this is where blind faith leads." I felt like the gauntlet had been thrown, no longer could I even pretend faith, much less respect it unconditionally. The line in the sand has been drawn and the choice is clear, either put yourself behind faith and superstition and view the idea that science is from the devil is an acceptable thought in the modern era, or you must renounce all forms of superstition and faith. You must be willing at all times to change your ideas in the face of new evidence. That idea to me, perfectly encapsulates why religion is a problem.

Well, thank you all for reading this post. Feel free to leave any comments.

An Atheist Reads The Bible: Isaiah 41:17-20

2008-04-30T20:02:00.004-07:00

From the King James Bible (I know you people are out there trying to get me to use NRSV. I have a message for you FUCK NRSV! I want my bible readings to be endorsed by royalty. Plus I always thought the KJV has more aesthetic qualities.)

When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the LORD will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them.

I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.

I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together:

That they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the LORD hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it.

This is an interesting passage to start with, you know, I don't think I could have done better as a starting point if I had searched for one. It is Old Testament but it has a decidedly New Testament flair (although I guess that’s not surprising given that it is Isaiah)

The idea of god helping the poor is certainly better to my pallet than god ignoring the poor, however I wonder does this then shift the burden of helping the poor from society onto God? A bad precedent, I think, to set. If the influential members of society believe that they can ignore the poor and thirsty because god will provide for them, I'm sure some poor will be provided for but I think it would just lead to much worse poverty.

Also, I feel this passage fails in execution. I live in Oakland around immense poverty and desperation and I don't see fig trees and lakes and rivers sprouting up from the heavens, I do however see crime and misery. (Are rivers allegorical to crime and trees allegorical to misery? if so then god is one real jackass)

But my real problem with this passage is the promise of salvation and help. All of this stuff god will do. Why hasn't he done it already? Or, why is he not doing it now? It is a consoling passage but it seems on the face of it, just a bit light in substance.

An Atheist Reads the Bible (Mission Statement).

2008-04-30T19:45:00.002-07:00

So over the past few months, when I haven't posted anything on here at all, I have become more and more of a Atheist, the expelled commentary happening just as I was reading the god delusion probably didn't help my once strong spiritual side. And I know how religious people like to claim that if Atheists just read the scripture they will be saved, now, that seems like a fine experiment to do as, because it is the foundation for a large amount of western culture I have been meaning to comprehensibly read the bible for years, hence my new plan. I will read the bible using the order of the liturgical calendar (as to get a sampling of all of the scripture each week) and give comments and thoughts on the passages.

The first episode will be posted shortly. But first a rundown of how the system will work (at least ideally)

Each week I will update 4 times, once for the old testament reading, once for the new testament reading, once for the psalm and once for the gospel. I will be using the Episcopal Lectionary because I grew up in the Episcopal faith (and to be honest, I still have a little part in my heart for the great writing of the BCP)

So.... lets do it to it

Music of Our Robotic Overlords

2007-10-22T03:40:00.000-07:00

First let me introduce those of your reading this (ha ha I made a funny!) to a link where I have wasted a good portion of my time recently Wolfram Tones My dad the huge Mathematica groupie that he is found it and introduced me to it sometime last week. so I think the best way to start collecting my thoughts on it is by quoting his.

This is not particularly interesting music, and I think the approach is too naive. It values novelty too much, so there is too much surprise. I believe that music needs direction which is provided by some sort of predictability, usually supplied by rhythm and harmonic structure. Otherwise it becomes a sort of random walk and essentially boring after a little while.

I tried several manipulations, different instruments, rules, scales, meter, tempo, and duration. It was all noise because there was no structure. I don’t mean that the structure needs to adhere to any particular tradition, but if it doesn’t, it runs the risk of being too novel for the listener.

I think this is another example of engineers/scientists liking music but completely misunderstanding its nature, purpose, and practice.

So the question really is: can there be algorithmic music that is at least as interesting as a dog walking on its hind legs, or a woman preaching? (apologies to Samuel Johnson)

and in general I think I agree with him at least given the limited scope of Wolfram Tones. but I think there is a larger thing at work here. It is easy to forget that this is a very beta application meshing music and tone control on cellular automata by engineers and scientists with very little thought as to the musical merit of the automata themselves. I may be wrong but the impression I get is that they merely took existing cellular automata and allowed them to control tones, rather than looking for cellular automata. I think that algorithmic music has vast potential especially as the artists and musicians get their hands on it. This example, is certainly a case of Scientists and Engineers liking music but misunderstanding it However I think that the concept once worked on by people who do understand music (lord knows not I) start getting their hands algorithmic music it will be worthwhile and not merely a novelty.

and let me not say i dint try my hand at splicing some of it together pretty much randomly myself enjoy "Starving Wolfram at the Gates of Civilization"

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo

2007-10-21T01:00:00.000-07:00

And so i make my triumphant return. admittedly a tad unceremoniously. with little to no fanfare (at least here on my so called blog) I moved across the country (the planning of this move is partially why I titled this blog between worlds although perhaps the unwritten subtitle in my head would have been better "The Insane Ramblings of a Mechanical Crumbum" (hence the URL)) from Washinton DC to the East Bay in California(about 5 miles north of Berkeley).

Its weird in some ways I am almost infinitely far away (in the only measure that really counts, time) from everyone and everything I once knew and in other ways I am right there with it all. a weird by-product of the internet age seems to me to be that meat-space travel has become, by contrast to mere communication, so slow and tedious as to be almost completely worthless. I mean actual travel, thats a day at the least, and add in the planning needed and the packing and the hassle, who would ever go though with all of that?! but thanks to the internet communication means I am effectively right there with the people I knew back east. we can still send links of weird things back and forth to one another. Given that our brains and ideas can still flow almost freely (you do lose something important without visuals or sound but the influx of cheap webcams like the iSight and microphones and things like SKYPE make that lessen by the day) means the gain from actually meeting someone face to face is minimal which draws our world closer together but also throws it further apart.

Thats all for now.

The Pope Pirates say ARRRibadurrci

Steampunk arms.

2007-08-21T22:42:00.000-07:00

Steam Powered Prosthetic arm

Best article ever

The Retrofuture and the Meaning of Life

2007-08-16T21:51:00.002-07:00

The more I think about it the more I pine for the retrofuture. The sad fact of the matter is that thanks to the Internet we really are living in what could easily be called the future, the only problem with this is that this future sucks. we are in the future but we have lost all sense of wonder. we have no frontier to explore, no new worlds to conquer.

This is the true failure of our age, not only do we have no new frontier, no new lands to colonize, no way to spread the human race out to the myriad worlds of tomorrow, we have lost any desire to do so. Talking with people I hear no wish to move out to mars, All I hear are gripes about how much it may cost, that is, on the rare times they think about it at all.

People are content with the world as we know it, admittedly they all want a few small changes, but in all they are happy with the stagnant shape of the world, they merely argue over texture. I deny such feelings, I don't want to be confined to a spheroid only 24,901.5 miles across. I want the endless galactic spaces promised to me. I want the world of tomorrow Circa 1950. I want to fight Nazi's on the moon, I want to live in a self contained unit in the asteroid belt, I want to farm on Ganymede.

The Internet has made the world succumb to our collective human will. Thanks to the instant speed of communication we are approaching what may easily be called the first global human culture. so, when you are discontent with this culture where do you have to go? unfortunately we do not have such a place, it just doesn't exist anymore. we are all bound by the chains of our gravity well, and I at least, wish to escape.

Let us not forget the Human beings were not meant to be enslaved, not even by the laws of physics. The retrofutureyearning of the human spirit to reach out for whats next. We are called on the same mission that our parents failed, not merely to unite the earth, but to spread ourselves out to the rest of the universe.

my problem with blogging and XOR

2007-08-02T01:45:00.001-07:00

Blogging is not easy for a man like me. i can never think of anything interesting to write about.

well, that's not exactly true, i can think of some interesting things to write about but i cant write about them. and i can only write about uninteresting things. its a hellish circle of evil. So at least in this case, i decided well if you cant think of anything why not go meta! everyone likes meta!

wait a second, that's only true if either
A: everyone now means no-one

XOR

B: likes now means hates.

god i am such a douche. but moving on. going more into the realm of meta I'm going to analyze my use of that XOR over there. why does English not have 2 separate words for the inclusive and exclusive or? the closest we get is the XOR which, lets face facts, is just sort of dumb sounding. Logicians really dropped the ball when they came up with that one. i mean sure its fine if you are just trying to draw a circuit, but for conversation, it just doesn't slip off the tongue. and its not like i can say "lets do this or that but not both" in just regular conversation.

anyway back to the original meta. fuck blogging. that is all

see you later alligator.

First post, some thoughts, overall plan.

2007-08-01T13:14:00.000-07:00

I am a crappy writer. In fact, the only thing I do worse than writing is blogging (possibly extreme spelunking). So, I guess what I'm trying to say, is that I suck at this very thing, which, incidentally, is why I'm doing it, so that i can suck just one iota less. Seriously, did you read that sentence? (of course you didn't, you don't exist, I mean who actually reads this type of blog anyway?) It was terrible.

Okay, okay enough bitching, its time to get down to brass tax. I'm using this blog as a place to think about various things, for example, why the baby boomers fucked everything up. what the fuck is wrong with the world, what the fuck we, the children of the baby boomers can do to fix it, (as if we can, i mean they really screwed the pooch on that one. and lets be honest, we suck something hard too). why we cant live in the retro-future, no matter how awesome it would be. the lack of any new frontier (god what i would do to go off to a little country in the middle of nowhere and oppress the natives. Daniel Dravot is the one true god). Morality, Logic, and the fall of the American empire.