Fetal Minds

CPSIA

2009-04-03T13:58:00.003-06:00

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act (CPSIA) isn't exactly news, but I found out recently that most of the people I know aren't really aware of some of the controversy surrounding it. This article on Forbes has a fairly good roundup of some of the consequences of the law, and as far as I know, any attempts made to modify the law have failed so far.

Where Does the Time Go

2009-03-29T18:00:00.000-06:00

So, about a year ago, the company I was working for had an employee art fair. It was a neat idea, although they only gave about 20 days between the announcement and when everything would be put on display. I knew it wasn't enough time for me to make something new, but it had inspired me to take a couple things that had been on my mind then and put them into a 3D scene. At the time, I figured it would take two, maybe three months to make it.

After about four months of working on it, it became fairly apparent that I had overestimated my ability, and probably underestimated the complexity of what I was trying to do. There were quite a few times I thought about writing something here, and a few times I even started to, but I kept telling myself that I decided to do this other project and I wanted to finish it, or at least have something to show for it, before getting back to writing.

I started over a couple times as it wasn't turning out the way I wanted it to, and I've basically put it aside for now. I've only completed about 20% of what I had originally pictured, and even what I do have I'm not that happy with, it has some flaws and less detail then what I would like it to have, but it's something.

Full image

A few months ago I realized that I had been making a few mistakes. One I've mentioned a few times here, that unhappiness can be defined as the distance between the reality that you believe, and the reality that is. I think this actually applies in a couple ways.

The first being my estimate of how long this project would take me, and even though I was somewhat aware of it fairly early in the process, it was still a difficult one to let go of. There was a part of me that thought I might just whip together everything that was missing in a burst of inspiration. Those unreasonable expectations made the project less enjoyable, more frustrating, and that frustration made the art project more like a chore then something I wanted to do, and my progress was that much slower for it.

The second mistake, or mistaken perception I had, I think was much worse. It's an insidious viewpoint, one I've seen other people take, with what I would describe as tragic consequences. Luckily, I held this viewpoint with something fairly minor, but I'm still pretty disappointed with myself that I fell into it. I'm not really sure what the best way to describe it is, I suppose we can call it the fear of "wasted time". That was what kept bringing me back to working on that picture, the thought that I just need to have something to show for the time I had spent working on it. That if I didn't have anything, that time I spent on it would have been wasted. I was too focused on getting results to appreciate what I was learning along the way. I could have stopped working on it before I had anything completed, and I still would have learned something. I still would have had that experience, that was bringing my ability closer to what I had originally overestimated it to be already. Instead though I was focused on what it could be, what I thought it should be, and anything less was failure.

Those two perceptions combined were pretty self defeating. Even if I had gotten the entire scene close to what I had first pictured, if it would have taken me three years, then at that point all I would have seen was something much less then what it should have been after three years of work. In some sense I do look at it that way, I'm not happy with the results I do have. It's a perception that's hard to let go of.

I find it somewhat disconcerting that I fell into that trap, as it was one I was already aware. I know I'm not perfect, but I do like to think that foreknowledge of these kinds of things would let me see them coming. I said I've seen people make this mistake with what I would call tragic consequences. That story is actually how I became aware of this point of view originally. When I was living with Jim & Cheryl I had a friend who was in an abusive marriage. I think she opened up to me about it more than with other people, because in some way I understood that what she needed most was some one who would listen, without telling her that she should leave him, that she was making a mistake. She already had those people in her life, who were always disapproving. Instead, I listened to it all, the good and the bad. I think she just needed someone to know, to understand, and I tried to be that person. There's more to it of course, but that's a whole other story. However, one time I did ask her, why hadn't she left him? Her first response was to say, "But, we've been together for eight years." It took me a while to realize the implications of that statement.

That wasn't the only reason she stayed of course, but I thought it was telling that it was the first thing she said. That marriage was eight years of her life that she didn't want to see as a failure, as wasted time. And that only becomes a tighter trap as time goes on, how can it get any easier when it's ten years, twenty? I don't believe that view point of wasted time can apply to the past, I don't think there's anything we can do today, that will change yesterday from meaningful to meaningless. But when that becomes the only reason left, when the fear of having wasted time already past is the only thing tying us to a situation that will never be what we want it to, perhaps we can waste that moment, and all the one's that follow. That would be tragic indeed.

Free Will

2008-04-15T21:28:00.003-05:00

A recent article in Wired discussed a study that may show how brain activity can predict your decisions before you make them. The study only involved very simple decision making, whether to push a button with your left or right hand, but they were able to predict what people would choose to do seven seconds before they did it. They didn't have complete accuracy, and say it may not apply to more complex decisions, but it does bring up an interesting subject.

Could our actions be predetermined by the laws of physics? If every thought and action could be linked to a chemical process in the brain, and those reactions were predictable, then animals would be organic machines, simply carrying out the programming encoded within their DNA. That may not be the case, but assuming that it is, does that leave any room for free will? I think that it could, and I'll come back to that.

For now, please watch this cartoon.

Double Slit Experiment

Ok, everyone familiar with quantum physics now? Good. Now this dealt with electrons specifically, but actually everything travels as a set of wave functions at the subatomic level. There are different interpretations of this, but I'll just stick to one as it doesn't really affect my main topic. So, in answer to the old question "If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound?", we would have to say yes, it does. And no, it doesn't. And at the same time, it didn't fall, and it exploded, and it traveled to mars. The wave function of the tree (or the wave function of every subatomic particle in the tree) and the air that would make the noise encompasses every possible path that they could take. And each of those possibilities has a chance of being true. Once observed, the wave function collapses into a single possibility. You could say that quantum physics restates my "perception is reality" belief as "reality is perception".

Quantum physics plays havoc with predestination. This raises some interesting possibilities to inject free will back into biology, even if our actions are based entirely on brain activity. Since we're also made of subatomic particles, the substance of our brains and the decisions that we make could also be said to exist in a wave function. When you pass a coworker in the hallway and they say "Hello", you say "Hello" back, do nothing, slap them the in the face, fall over and make a sound, chew your leg off, drop your pants, and every other possibility. However, we don't experience this because we are constantly observing ourselves and those around us, so the wave functions collapse immediately.

Since information is limited to the speed of light, we get to observe ourselves before others do, and collapse our own wave functions. Quantum mechanics is already the Pope of Weird Town, it doesn't really make it that much stranger to think that the observer may in some way be able to choose among those wave functions to affect their collapse. Bam, free will again.

That does leave one interesting question I will leave you with though. We aren't actually observing the chemical reactions in our brains, we're simply observing our own actions. In the experiment, the observers could monitor MRI activity and observe the brain making it's decision seven seconds before the subject acted. In such a situation, if the scientific observers are collapsing the wave function, before the person has become aware of his own thoughts, how does that affect free will?

Recycling Toxins

2008-04-08T22:16:00.006-05:00

I recently came across an article which stated that only a few years we may see plastics made from the air pollution byproducts of other manufacturing processes. Being a fan of efficient systems, I think this is a great idea. Here is a graphic to demonstrate the elegance of such a system.

For those who prefer that joke in video form, it's been done. Between material reuse and electricity generating clothing, the future looks like a bright utopia.

Meanwhile... On YouTube

2008-03-20T20:07:00.004-06:00

I've come across/been sent a number of videos lately, so I thought I would share them.

How many men does it take to build Stonehenge? One.

Awareness test more interesting than it sounds.

Nothing beats water balloons in slow motion.

Obligatory robot suits.

And... live action Mario.

Ingenious Means Genious? What A Country!

2008-03-10T23:39:00.002-06:00

There's something ingenious about garfield minus garfield.

Extra bonus psychiatry rant, that also doesn't explain the post title.

Moore's Law Has Nothing On This

2008-03-10T22:37:00.003-06:00

When an article has a title like Tiny Brain-Like Computer Created, how can I not comment on it? I think this article should give a fairly good glimpse of where nanotechnology is going to take us. A quantum computer whose transistors, rather than having 2 states, have 4.3 billion states, is the kind of idea that makes me salivate. Of course, that kind of application for these machines is still a long, long way off. Now we just need the tiny brain-like software.

It's Like A Segway Above the Waist

2008-03-10T00:25:00.004-06:00

Robotic Arm
Dean Kamen (inventor of the Segway) is working on a next generation prosthetic arm. It looks pretty impressive.

For Those Who've Missed the Debates

2008-03-07T00:08:00.001-06:00

...this should get you caught up.

Life Imitates Spam?

2008-03-04T23:56:00.003-06:00

You may recall my run down of an email about gas pumping tips a while back. Apparently someone has taken the "heated gas expands" tip a bit more seriously than I did. In fact, our very own Kansas City Star has the scoop. They say that back in 2006 they estimated that the estimated overpayment for gas amounted to $2.3 billion annually, because the standard temperature used to determine the price is about 5 degrees cooler than what it gets sold at.

The judge's order had these handy figures in it:

To apply D-1250 to petroleum sales, one adjusts the total sales price to reflect the temperature of the product in relation to the 60 degrees Fahrenheit standard. CAC ¶ 16. For example, if a retailer purchases 10,000 gallons of motor fuel from a wholesaler at a time when the fuel temperature is 90 degrees Fahrenheit, the retailer will pay the wholesaler for the volumetric amount when the fuel is measured at 60 degrees Fahrenheit – i.e. 2,310,000 cubic inches (231 cubic inches x 10,000 gallons). Without temperature adjustment, the retailer would pay for the expanded volume of 10,000 gallons of motor fuel measured at 90 degrees Fahrenheit – i.e. 2,357,800 cubic inches (235.78 cubic inches – the volume of a U.S. petroleum gallon measured at 90 degrees – x 10,000 gallons).

So, a gallon of gas at 60 degrees, has a volume of 231 cubic inches. Heated up to 90 degrees that expands to 235.78 cubic inches. That let's me check my math I used previously. I had used a volumetric expansion coefficient of 0.001 before, using the given data, I can use a similar chart to the one I linked to before to calculate what the coefficient actually is, and I get... 0.00124156. Well damn, I had meant to be generous, but I was a bit short. I had previously said that 10 gallons of gasoline heated from 40 degrees Fahrenheit to 80 degrees would net you 10.222222 gallons (a difference of 66 cents at $3 bucks a gallon), with the new coefficient I come up with 10.275902 gallons (a difference of 82 cents).

So, there's the updated math. On a day where the temperature of the gasoline stored in the ground changes by 40 degrees, you could possible be shorted 82 cents worth of gas if you choose to measure the sale by energy instead of volume. The class action lawsuit comes in at 5 degrees, or what would amount to a 1.2 cent variance per gallon. Not a big difference in my book, and in fact, you're only getting "screwed by the oil companies" if you live in a warm state. If you live in a cold state, it sounds like you're actually getting your fuel at a discount. I'm not sure I would agree with the idea that it's a ripoff anyway, since gas is sold by volume, and not by the amount of energy in it. Do we really need gas pumps that show how many joules of energy you've pumped into your tank? You know, some of that energy gets converted into matter when you drive down the highway. Stupid space & time, always trying to stick it to the little guy.

I couldn't bring myself to read past the third page of the suit for fear that I was getting dumber, but I did find this jewel that I think sums things up nicely:

Defendants advertise and sell the fuel at a specified price per gallon without expressly defining the term “gallon.”

Those bastards!

The Day We All Rolled 1s

2008-03-04T20:04:00.003-06:00

Gary Gygax has passed away. He was the co-creator of a game that brought countless hours of entertainment to geeks everywhere, inspired a hilarious Tom Hanks movie, and made my mother wonder if I was involved in something satanic.

He will be missed.

First They Came For The Smokers

2008-03-03T21:57:00.007-06:00

American beer companies are being sued for marketing to children with some of their new products (cause, you know, kids love their caffeine). I would say the writing is on the wall, but between this, wanting to put breathalyzers in every car, and zero-tolerance for blood alcohol content, I think we're well past that point.

Discrimination vs Discrimination

2008-02-27T22:55:00.002-06:00

I came across an interesting story a while back on a case of discrimination by way of Overlawyered. The summary as I understand it is this: a man has sexual reassignment surgery and becomes a woman, wants to have breast augmentation surgery at a Catholic hospital, hospital says they don't perform transgender related surgeries.

At first it seems like discrimination against a transgendered woman, however the hospital says they offer their services to transgendered individuals, this just isn't a service they offer. Each side of that dispute will all play out predictably in court I'm sure, what caught my interest was the general concept of personal freedom being at odds with religious freedom.

Given my freedom loving leanings, I prefer whichever option is the least limiting. The choice between not letting someone do something they want to do, or forcing someone to do something they don't want to do, isn't a very good one. Taken on their own without any specific examples, forcing someone to do something they don't want to do seems crueler, but I think that's just a visceral response to the word force.

It seems strange to me that two freedoms could be opposed to each other in such a way. I tend to lean towards whatever option means the government doesn't get involved, which in this original case would mean the hospital would not perform the surgery, and the woman would have to go somewhere else. Not exactly a good option though if that denial of service is widespread. If a different solution seems necessary in the widespread condition, is the hands off approach really correct in the individual case? Can you really say that all hospitals are required to offer transgender surgeries? I can't seem to make up my mind on this issue, and I've been going back and forth on it. Since this is a transgender related surgery for breast augmentation and not the sex reassignment itself (which I'm sure this hospital doesn't perform), the simplest path to a decision is to ask, "Does the hospital offer breast augmentation to other women?" If the answer is yes, then under existing law I don't believe they can deny this surgery to a transgender female, and if the answer is no, I don't see how the law can force a hospital to perform a surgery that it doesn't do.

However, that brings us back to Overlawyered's point that one type of diversity is being limited in order to enhance another diversity. If it turns out that the hospital must perform the surgery at the patients request, when there are already other hospitals that will perform it, no matter the reason for the refusal, I'm not sure that there is a net gain in freedom occurring. I'm not even sure it's a zero sum game, since the patient has other options available, and once the hospital is required to do something they feel is against their code of ethics, it's either go against their beliefs or get out of the health care business.

Just to be clear I don't agree with the hospitals viewpoint, if someone wants to change genders I could care less. There's just something about this case that strikes me as similar to an attempt to limit the KKK's freedom of speech because what they have to say is ugly. Popular opinion seems to be slowly turning against religious views for awhile now, and while I'm certainly no zealot, I do think that freedom of religion is right up there with the freedom of speech. This may be a cyclical thing, but I think what's turning the tide against religion is what was seen as attempts by religious authority figures to proscribe their moral guidelines on the populous in general. I'm leery of a case that seems to do the opposite. Must one side always attempt to impose it's viewpoint on the other? It seems like there should be a balance that can be struck where each side can co-exist in tandem, quietly despising each other like they were meant to.

I suppose I'm just a dreamer.

This Roundup Has No Name

2008-02-17T22:25:00.003-06:00

You may remember my mention of Google Maps street level view. Well, guess who's come to town?

Concerned about us running out of oil? Don't worry, we can always tap Titan, where black gold rains from the sky.

Mississippi is considering a "No fat people in restaurants law". This isn't the first time I've heard of something like this. A search on fat tax shows they aren't alone.

6% of internet users are responsible for 50% of add clicks. Less than 1% of my readers will care.

Raspberry turtle?

One of the energy trends I'm a big fan of, is recapturing energy. Like the energy spent walking.

Zombie hearts! I thought I already talked about this, I guess I was mistaken. Please allow me to correct that: Zombie hearts!

Giant Armadillo. Probably the last animal I would pick to made giant-sized.

The Little Death

2008-02-13T00:42:00.005-06:00

I came across a really good article on fear. While it no longer serves the same purpose that it once did, it still remains deeply embedded in our biology. Understanding it is one of the important pieces in understanding ourselves, and how our perceptions of reality may be distorted. Sure to come in handy once November rolls around.

And yes, the title is stolen from the litany against fear. All the cool kids are chanting it.

Stem Cell Treatments For Dogs

2008-02-07T23:40:00.000-06:00

Vets are getting in on the stem cell action. At first I thought of this story as a ridiculous reversal of the "You wouldn't put grandma to sleep, so why do it to your pets" adage (or was that "You put your dog out of it's misery, so why not grandma"?), but as I've thought about, it seems like a great idea. The medicine that is, not the euthanasia. With people willing to spend money on expensive medical treatments like this for their animals, it will be interesting to see if "pets as medical trial subjects" becomes a new pattern on the edge of medical technology. With cloned animals OKed by the FDA for consumption, cloned pets can't be too far away for the zoolatrous rich.

LHC

2008-02-05T20:35:00.000-06:00

...will very likely change our understanding of the universe forever

As the grand opening of the near light speed particle smashing Large Hadron Collider grows near, my mailbox is abuzz with the glee of physicists. The experiments carried out at this facility could... well, I guess the quote I led with about sums it up.

You Want Weird? We Can Provide.

2008-02-03T01:03:00.000-06:00

I haven't bothered linking to the Tom Cruise/Scientology video, because it seemed like small fries to me. Personally, I think if you weren't aware that Tom Cruise is a bit creepy and has a creepy laugh, then you just weren't paying attention. As Penny Arcade recently pointed out, if you want a real look into the eyes of madness, you should check out the Steven Fishman Deposition. Here is the first part of it:

Part 1

Recession For Dummies

2008-02-01T19:22:00.000-06:00

All the news about the impending recession has sparked a few office conversations about it. Mostly revolving around "What the heck is a recession anyway?" I've been meaning to figure that out myself, economics not being one of my strengths. HowStuffWorks has come to the rescue with an explanation.

It's A Dream Come True

2008-01-31T20:33:00.000-06:00

Finally, science has brought us monkey controlled robots.

Sweet.

This American Life

2008-01-28T11:30:00.000-06:00

For those of you who haven't heard of This American Life, I would recommend checking it out. It is a radio program on NPR whose format could be described as "story telling". I subscribe to the podcast myself, and the shows are also available for download, or can be listed to online. If you're not sure where to start, check out the favorites section.

Let Your Children Grow Up To Be Geneticists

2008-01-25T20:35:00.000-06:00

Synthetic life forms are coming back into the news as work is progressing on man-made bacteria. I've mentioned my thoughts on this type of technology before, but I recently came across a lecture that I thought was interesting about making modifications to DNA to change the way things work that seemed timely. Though not the same as synthetic life forms, modified life forms encompass many of the same possibilities and questions that wholly synthetic life forms do.

Programming DNA

Cyberwarfare

2008-01-24T21:23:00.000-06:00

"We have information that cyberattacks have been used to disrupt power equipment in several regions outside the U.S.," Donahue said. "In at least one case, the disruption caused a power outage affecting multiple cities."

This CIA statement at a recent SANS conference is the first official word I've heard of successful attacks against power grids. I wonder if it is related to the attacks on Estonia last year.

In a way I see these types of attacks as part of our transition to a Type I Civilization. I first heard about the civilization types from an interview of Michio Kaku. While the civilization types on the Kardashev scale refer specifically to harnessing energy, Michio Kaku describes it in a more general sense, where many aspects of society can be classified on this scale. This always made sense to me, our society is greatly affected by the technology available to us, which is directly dependent on the energy we have available. I highly recommend the article by Dr. Kaku, however, for those of you that want the short version, a Type I Civilization is a global civilization. We are currently a Type 0 or a pre-global civilization, but we are well on our way to Type I (we're about a 0.7).

If the internet could be called a Type I communication system, then these attacks utilizing the internet to target cities or nations could be called Type I attacks. Likewise, I think that The Pentagon's New Map as a way to transition from Type 0 security, to Type 1 security. Where Dr. Barnett may describe it as a transition from a disconnected society, to a connected society in the process of globalization, I see it as the first step necessary to insure our survival, something I've touched on before. I actually considered talking about the civilization types in my previous article, and I actually did end with that scalar progression.

If we get off this planet, then we can survive a global event. (Type II) If we spread beyond the solar system, we can survive the unfortunate star deaths that occur every now and then. (Type III) If we spread beyond the milky way, chances are pretty good that's we'll be around till the end of the universe, (Type IV) which will hopefully give us enough time to find a new one of those too (Type V).

Of course, we still need to make it to Type I.

2 Tons of Rodent

2008-01-17T23:17:00.000-06:00

Forget the capybara, this is the real giant rat.

Capitalist Russia

2008-01-16T00:51:00.000-06:00

Thomas Barnett pointed out a great article on Russia, and the position they've taken on the world stage. I've found myself captured by these kinds of articles lately while reading Dr. Barnett's book "The Pentagon's New Map". It turns out that he spoke about some of the topics in his book at Ted back in 2005.