If you haven’t visited www.ted.com, now is the time. The site offers tons of “inspired talks by the world’s greatest thinkers and doers.”

Here’s their quick self-summary:

“TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design. It started out in 1984 as a conference bringing together people from those three worlds. Since then its scope has become ever broader. The annual conference now brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives (in 18 minutes). This site makes the best talks and performances from TED available to the public, for free. More than 200 talks from our archive are now available, with more added each week.”

This one, is far from the most interesting, but there’s an incredibly amazing octopus at the end that I think everyone needs to see.

least skip to the end where an octopus will blow you away.

Until I read this article by William Saletan for Slate, I would have said yes with no reservations, but it’s probably not that simple.

The article describes a new theory that there may be genes, not for homosexuality, but for “androphilia” that affect both sexes. By making their owners more attracted to men, “… the importance of the genes lies in what they do not to men but to women, by increasing reproductive output so powerfully that these women compensate for the reduced output among their male relatives.” The theory has testable predictions: most notably that the female relatives of gay men should have above average reproductive success. So far these predictions have been confirmed by existing data.

A genetic explanation of homosexuality could go a long way to help it’s perception in society. Homosexuality could come to be seen as part of a natural process that benefits the species as a whole, the theory could calm fears that “gay teachers or television characters will “convert” hordes of boys,” etc. Also, it seems to me that it would be much harder to think of homosexuality a sin if it’s inherited rather than chosen.

The article raises another possible effect that wouldn’t have occurred to me:

…the word consequence suggests a … less happy implication: How would gay men see themselves and be regarded in a society that understood their condition as a side effect of female evolution? Would male androphilia be treated like sickle-cell anemia—the unfortunate cost of a genetic mutation that’s beneficial in other people? We medicate sickle-cell anemia. Would we medicate homosexuality?

I always thought a genetic understanding of homosexuality would do a lot to help it’s acceptance, but maybe a theory like this would leave enough room for people to persist in the beliefs they already hold. Tell us what you think in the comments.

Depending on which day you catch me, I say that I have 3 or 4 goals in life, one of which is to seek the abolition of customary or English system of measurements in the United States. Like day-light savings time, it seemed like one of those no-brainers: the only reason it sticks around is because of (i) cultural inertia, (ii) an anti-intellectual, anti-Europe streak that runs through the American psyche and (iii) old people.

But for the first time, I’ve come across a reasonable argument in favor of the English system:

The metric system is based around base 10 numbers. Why? We have ten fingers, so our counting system is based around base 10….. With only two factors, two and five, it’s a bitch to subdivide measures. Why couldn’t we have twelve fingers? Twelve is a beautiful number—breaking down into factors of two, three, four and six. Ahhh! Grab a ruler and try to measure a third of foot. Easy! Try to measure a third of a meter. A total pain in the ass! Nothing like an infinite repeat (33.3333333333333333333333333333333333… cm) to ruin a perfectly pleasant day.

That’ s kind of a good point– not enough to make me think we should keep the English system around, but maybe enough to demote its abolition as a all-time life-goal.

I think I’m like most males (please let me know if I’m wrong) - the last thing on my mind right after sex is sex… and it takes me a good full day, sometimes two or three, before I’m raring to go again. It seems that if a man did not need recovery time (like women) then he would have a serious evolutionary advantage over slowpokes like me, since he could spread his genes significantly faster.

Are we evolving towards Mr. No-recovery? If women made it why are we so far behind?

The biology teacher at my school thought that maybe we were like women not too long ago but something about our modern situation (perhaps stress) has us needing recovery time (but aren’t women also stressed?).

Am I not seeing something important about needing recovery time? Maybe this - after sex I’ve got about 24-48 to think clearly about non-sex things, and then my thoughts get increasingly clogged with images I couldn’t see on the big screen until I was 17. I can imagine that this pattern is better for survival than Mr. No-Recovery’s monotone horny-vision.

What do you think?

Scientists in Taiwan have finished the first stage of Doom Real! Now that they have designed pigs that glow green in the dark, they just need to make them bipedal, and install fireball guns. Once the Imps are ready, say the scientists, Barons of Hell shouldn’t be too hard to figure out - just add some steroids, nasty horns, and turn the fireballs green. The Scientists say that Hell should be roaming Earth by summer of 2007. I can’t wait. I’m already working on my BFG.

Amendment:

A local journalist asked one of the scientists if what they are doing is ethical. The scientist replied, “If we had more time I’d like to think about that question, it seems interesting, but as is, we only have a little over a dozen months before we are fighting for our lives against zombies and supernatural demons. Sometimes ethical inspection must take a back seat to preparing rocket launchers and plasma guns.”

Here’ s a troubling statistic for those of us who (1) like to think we’re thoughtful, relatively well-informed and (2) believe in God (though not necessarily religion).

[I]t is often said that science and religious faith are compatible, since the former deals with “how” questions, the latter with “why” questions. As an empirical matter, however, that does not seem to be true. On the whole, around 9 in 10 Americans say they believe in a personal God. When scientists are surveyed, that figure falls to 4 in 10. Among the scientific elite - members of the National Academy of Sciences - fewer than 1 in 10 say they believe in God, with the biologists in particular professing agnosticism or atheism at a rate of 95 percent.

Why is it easy to pick up chicks at weddings, funerals, and on rickety bridges? Why are kids more likely to date a guy that their parents vehemently tell them to stay away from? Why do most insomniacs sleep better after a doctor prescribes them a placebo pill and tells them that the pill will arrouse them and make it harder for them to sleep? Why did Romeo and Juliet love each other so darn much?

Read the rest of this entry »

Scientists/doctors take another step towards becoming gods by
ripping off the old faces of people and stapling on new ones.

The article mentions that this raises questions about the soul and conscience, i.e. does our face determine who we essentially are (don’t ask me to try to define what I mean by this). It seems easy to say “No, the face is just skin and muscle over bone — it’s not my soul, my personhood, whether that exists in intangible or tangible (i.e. in the brain) form.” But what happens if your face becomes horribly disfigured or, for that matter, you get the face of Marlon Wayans. Your perception of your own aesthetic appeal would change, for better or worse. So would other people’s perceptions of this appeal. These two together would most probably cause a downward or upward spiral of self-confidence which would necessarily affect how you perceive your value as a person - your value to society, your value to others. Everytime a child looks at you and cringes and then cries, or everytime a child looks at you with wonder in his/her eyes and asks if you were the DJ on “In Living Color” has to affect how you perceive yourself. So maybe a face transplant doesn’t directly affect who you are as a person, but if it indirectly affects how you perceive yourself as a person, then where do we draw the line between perception and reality?

These questions always seem like big circles, no?

A new drug, CX717, counters the chemical changes in the brain related to sleep deprivation. Drug infused, even after 72 hours without sleep, your mind will function “normally” - as if you were awake and alert. The related news article doesn’t mention any negative side effects, but I imagine that regular use of CX717 would drastically alter your body’s equilibrium and rehabilitation processes. However, I’d probably take it for special occasions: exams, papers, Mondays, Sundays, classes, ultimate pratices/tournaments, when I feel mentally tired. If you were mentally awake and physically tired, would you try to sleep? Would you need to sleep or just relax on the couch? If scientists can make CX717, why aren’t there dream-inducing drugs?

Read all five pages, just a stunning article that you should all read. It is one of the best articles I have read on the Internet, two thumbs up.

We Are the Web at Wired.com…

I don’t know if you guys knew this already, but google is the coolest company in the history of the universe. Here is another reason why. Google Earth Is one of the coolest free programs I’ve ever used. Unlike the other freeware I recently posted about It’s coolness derives not from it’s function but from the fact that it is really really fun to play with. That’s not to say that it has no good uses, just that it doesn’t even need them to be awsome. go download it now.

BWB or Joel, buy this please. Directional sound projection… works like a laser/flashlight but transmits audio frequencies. Learn more about hypersonic technology.

Determining the sexual character of a robot can be a tricky thing. You might think that robots, as they exist today, are asexual in every way. As usual though, you’d be wrong. According to Houghton-Mifflin, Asexual is defined as follows:

a·sex·u·al (ā-sÄ•k’shÅ«-É™l) adj.
1. Having no evident sex or sex organs; sexless.
2. Relating to, produced by, or involving reproduction that occurs without the union of male and female gametes….
3. Lacking interest in or desire for sex.

Clearly since robots do not reproduce they are asexual in only 2 of the 3 ways listed above. At least that was true until now. Now thanks to scientists at Cornell you can look at these new robots and unabashedly say ‘those robots are asexual in every way!’

That’s right these little dudes can build copies of themselves out of any spare robot-cube-segments that might be lying around, proving that reproduction, particularly reproduction in highly contrived settings, is not limited to biological thingamabobs.

Now run for your life before those little roomba vacum cleaners learn to reproduce and start taking over the world.

Consumer Review: Antique Silex Vacuum Pot

Yes, that’s right, I’ve been on eBay again. And while not drunk in the traditional sense, I had been drinking in that sweet elixir known as curiosity. Curiosity over what, you ask. Well, to answer that I’m going to have to start right at the beginning.

You see, for my money there are 4 basic categories of coffee brewing. The first known to mankind is simply boiling. This includes both Turkish and Greek coffee boiled in a traditional Ibrik (or Briki). This method also includes your basic percolator which many holdouts (my grandma included) still use to this day. By the mid-19th century, though, this method came under criticism because the 212-degree temperatures over-extracted the coffee grounds and created a nasty, bitter beverage.

The next method, gravity brewing, is what almost everybody in the United States uses for coffee - your standard automatic drip maker. In principle a rather ingenius device, most of these suck because (despite over 50 years of development) they only heat the water to about 175-185F, while the ideal temperature lies between 192 and 197F. The only automatic coffeemaker certified by the Specialty Coffee Association of America to reach these temperatures is the Dutch-made Technivorm but it’ll set you back about $170. Also included in this category are extremely simple manual pour-over devices, such as the Chemex (my everyday coffeemaker), the manual Melitta, and the SwissGold One-cup Brewer. The principle here being, of course, that only gravity is used to move the hot water through the coffee grounds and the filter.

Third, you have the pressure method in which hot water is forced through compacted coffee grounds by either steam or pump pressure. This method includes your high-end espresso machine and your humble Moka Pot. While some think that this is the end all, be all for coffee, I like to enjoy my beverage over a longer period of time (say, all day), rather than drinking my coffee as though it were a Jaeger bomb.

Read the rest of this entry »

CNN.com is worried over Google’s new map feature that displays an actual sattellite photo of a user-entered address. For example, check out my old place in Fayetteville!

Yet, Microsoft’s Terraserver has had this same feature for a few years now. But in another sign that Google wants to take on Microsoft, check out how much better Google’s satellite photos are compared to Terraserver’s (again my former place in Fayetteville). It seems like Google’s got better pictures of non-urban areas. But check out downtown Seattle (Google and Terraserver) or my school in Washington (Google and Terraserver). In urban areas at least, Terraserver’s got much better resolution.

In the end, both are wonderful tools for stalkers. Terraserver’s pinpoint accuracy seems better for a surgical strike. Google’s handy search and navigating features, however, are more useful for the casual affair.

Finally, though both are useful for stalking and other petty crime, do either constitute a national security threat? For example, why has Terraserver pixelated these buildings flanking the Whitehouse? (here and here) And what is this giant blurred out compound on Google? Oh crap, I hope I don’t get USA PATRIOT Acted because of this….

From the New York Times -

“The Senate endorsed oil-drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge today, giving President Bush and others who favor exploration of the Alaska wilderness a major victory.”

full article

The “parasitic” twin (see second head above), which was capable of smiling and blinking, was removed (and trashed) after a 13 hour surgery this week. The doctor said, “[don't worry, it wasn't capable of] independent life.” Apparently, two-headness is a rare “defect,” but it has occured at least three times in the last twelve months.

I must create said blazing light trail!

Part 2, because I know that you didn’t watch the video.

“Total Immersion’s D’Fusion software solution allows for real-time video capture and perfect merges between video streams and 3D objects… [It] turns YOUR world into an immersive gaming experience, where you are IN the game…or where the game is all around you.” - www.gearlive.com

Just watch the video.