How did they not notice?

I just watched the Season 6 premier of The Dead Zone. JJ was a completely different child! He didn't even look the same, but nobody noticed. Is it some kind of evil plot?

Fun fact of the day: Burnt witch.

You know why the Church burns witches? The given passage says "suffer a witch to live", but why burn them? Oddly, the Church literally read their doctrines and "the church abhors bloodshed" -- this is why they killed people with fire. That way their blood stays inside their body as the die. Apparently nooses are less effective than loopholes.

Oddest Criticism EVER!

I was lambasted for judging a person, without knowing their astrological sign.

Goodness forbid I cite what the Bible says, as having any authority over what the Bible means.

I told an eight year old once not to eat my cookie. He took it as an metaphor and ate the cookie but promised not to remove the sweetness from my life, or make me less rounded.

I understand the urge to craft one's religious faith into something you can show off to your neighbors without that much embarrassment, but if you're going to strip it of enough to pull off that feat, why not dump the husk that remains and embrace truth without duplicity?

Wired for Junk

Wired had an interesting article about Junk DNA and how it is so very important because most of the mutations between possums and humans happens in the junk DNA. Missing the obvious fact that that is evidence in favor of it being junk. The little sections of DNA that doesn't change between organisms are the important parts.

Here's an example from my own evolutionary algorithms. The following are the genotypes of related organisms:

**/+-*4e-a=1d=8828l53b7lckkfdj9
**/++*5e-%21d%84gjgfgdhd12506dj
**/++*4e-cb1dl8ghc4fili903l4a9j
*//+/*6e-=f1d$8ge177ca2d6j66d91
*-/+/+5e-77%d=8h908fibe6e611i5j
**/++*6e--%1d=8f0832bcj735a9lj3
**/++*5e-531d=9f2b6blka7a431ibk
**/++*4e-+71d=79f021kk6f1h1063i

Anybody want to take a guess at what the important bits are and what the junk DNA is? In fact, one can tell which bits are extremely important and which have a little bit of wiggle-room if you look closely.

The original species:
**/++*4e-+c1d=89f1bd2k6f1h1b63i

The phenotype is:
*(*(+(e,-(=(1,b),8)),+(+(9,f),c)),/(*(1,d),4))

So the ending 11 or so digits don't do anything, and thus mutate all over the place. Other sections don't matter much either. =(1,b) to have 8 subtracted later is at most able to change that e + -8 to an e + -7, and thus the 1b digits in the genotype vary greatly. In fact, the digits are different in every subspecies.

Junk DNA is actually junk.

Half the planets have rings.

Just an odd fact, nobody has told you. When we first found them around Saturn they were awesome, but now we know that half the planets have rings. Four of the Eight planets in this solar system have rings around them: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. We found Jupiter's rings rather recently and booted out Pluto because Pluto didn't clean his room or something.

My Very Exceptional Mother Just Served Us Nothing (Presently Eating).

Programs to use:

I have been around computers since preschool during the 80s, and now my whole family pretty soundly has computers all over the place and so the best programs for certain tasks get found and used. So, as nobody reads this blog and it's sooo pressing to know. The following are programs you should use.

Firefox
Web browsing with a much improved browser. I also highly recommend getting adblock as an add-on.

Stickies
Post it notes for your computer desktop. Many members of my family use them, and use the network features as well. It is not uncommon to toss notes around the house with the program.

Trillian
Instant Messenger client for all the major instant messenger software suites. It does ICQ, AOL, MSN, Yahoo... and save the hassle of caring about the messengers and having too many odd tray programs.

Net Meter
Displays bandwidth usage and statistics for your computer. You can tell how much information is moving through your system.

mIRC
Basically the it program for IRC communications. Has a built in language and a vast number of scripts for it. I've written quite a few myself.

FastStone Image Viewer
Graphics viewer. I use to use ACDSee for such a purpose, but they got too clunky.

Team Talk 3
Very basic network speech capabilities, a must for slightly dispersed LAN parties.

Stroke It
Mouse Gestures for windows. Draw a 'C' to close. 'W' for web. Amazing how often they are exceedingly useful.

Azureus
Still makes the list even though Vuze is just stupid. Great bit torrent client with a good set of fantastic features.

Paris Hilton Finds God?

Poor girl, things just get worse and worse for her.

Science, the Evolutionary Algorithm.

I do a bit of work with evolutionary algorithms. They are exceedingly powerful, and in fact are the only way we know to increase the complexity of a system without direct action. As evolution does not require any intellect to perform.

Evolution needs three things, replication, modification and filtering. You simply need to filter out those things which don't work, create more things, and change them a little. And the most important step "filtering out those things things which don't work" is the most subjective and thus the most powerful. It doesn't matter what you say doesn't work. If you are modifying a text string and the closer the letters are to the end of the alphabet the more likely they are to be filtered out... then you'll end up with large amounts of early letter text strings. Basically you need to be able to figure out what isn't the answer, and that's pretty easy to do.

That's even assuming you have a goal for the evolution to accomplish, which is certainly not needed nor existing biological evolution. The modification also need not be random, though random is probably better than non-random in truth.

This brings us to science. We test ideas scientifically by looking at the evidence. We create a hypothesis (genotype) about how the world works (phenotype) and find a method for testing this hypothesis (filter). We accept and improve upon those ideas which pass this filter creating more hypotheses (duplication) with slightly altered (modification) ideas in order to produce a more exact theory (fitter).

We tend to think that we are awesome in our thinking ability. We are this fantastic thinking individual. We can set our minds to something and through our amazing mental powers determine something truly amazing. In reality, some of the most major discoveries are mistakes. This isn't because we are just lucky with our mistakes, rather our ability to think is holding us back. We do not create non-random modification. We create predictable, often flawed modifications, over and over again, we reject brilliant (accidental) ideas out of hand without evaluation. And tend to only get a little entropy into our science when we fuck up. Most genius is really in not rejecting an idea. In providing that extra flash of insight to induce us *not* to reject an idea.

We aren't that bad ass. We are naked apes, the third known species of chimpanzees. Sure science is great, but really we are just latching on to the power of evolution and performing the operations (often unwittingly) on ideas faster than ever before (most species are unable to adopt ideas at all stunting the process as replication). We are taking evolution to the next level, and frankly, species just can't adapt to us fast enough, save perhaps some bacteria.

Neville Chamberlain Atheists

Neville Chamberlain Atheists the names given by the new "militant" (code for not sit-down-and-shut-up atheists) for those who try to appease religion. I loved the name, though, I only just realized that that would equate Religion with Nazism. Hm. Bonus?

Abstinence only education is terrorism.

Really, what is terrorism? The use of fear to achieve a goal. If that's the case than people who rather than provide good sex education provide fear, lies, and generally terrorize children are actually terrorists. Abstinence is fine, really it's safe, effective, and not really an issue. However, sex education should be comprehensive and that little "only" there means that it is anything but... and usually it involves lies about other methods of preventing STIs and pregnancy. The goal is to scare the sex right out of them. And this is done through fear and misinformation. They don't go into a market place and blow themselves up... but they are certainly taking lives.

Soul Physics.

Soul Physics are an odd sort of byproduct of religion. They are the interactions between souls and odd things like that. For example, the current view is that the soul enters the cell at the moment of conception. Only human cells though.

This differs from earlier notions that the soul entered the fetus at quickening (first kick) or that early on a fetus has a vegetable soul. However, the current view (at least in the Christian worldview) has a number of rather critical problems. First, identical twins. When the embryo splits does the soul double? Do they share the same soul? Does one clump of cells get the soul and the other clump not get any? What happens if the broken embryo recombines? Does it now get one soul, two souls, half a soul? What about Chimerism? Where rather than twins recombining we simply have two different fraternal twins recombine into one person. Do they have two souls? Or one soul that enters at the moment of combining? What about clones?

If embryonic stem cells are taken to their full potential it's easily possible that any stem cell could be made into an embryo. As is, it's easily possible to remove a few stem cells from the side of a embryo and make a new stem cell line. Growing the original embryo into a human being. What happens soul physics wise if we start growing thousands of clones out of that stem cell line? What if it turns out that rather than plurapotent adult stem cells have totopotency? We could take adult stem cells and make them into embryos. It's also feasible to take any cell and un-differentiate it. Any cell in a human has the potential to be human. If embryos are people too, aren't we committing genocide by scratching our asses? The only thing stopping many of these cells from being human is a lack of a womb. Clearly, worse than the murder of removing some potential life from a womb is having a womb without potential life.

An unoccupied womb is murder!

We are all deeply immoral and nobody realizes it

In the history of the world there has been more than a few shifts in morality. The perfectly acceptable slavery of one century is turned into anathema the next, racism, sexism, heterosexism. Even as early as fifty years ago, a number of things have shifted. And it stands to reason that things will shift again.

What will it be?

What are we doing today which will be universally condemned by progeny? Our vile eating of meat from murdered animals (tasty!), our admonishments against pride (it's okay to feel good when you kick ass), our patriotism (USA! USA! USA!)? Certainly, killing animals will seem barbaric when you're eating steak grown in a petridish, or humble about things when you should be rewarded for your deeds and given reinforcements for good behavior, our illogical love for our own country and group due to nothing more than our non-choice in being born here?

Perhaps something more sinister? Our respect for religious faiths that do nothing to earn our respect? Our rather critical attacks on higher learning in a number of areas? How about our old classics, such as xenophobia and racism. Certainly they aren't wiped out, and as such we have much to condemn from a place beyond such petty bigotries. How about the idea that we think races exist at all. That there are black people or white people or asian people rather than simply humans with a slightly different gene frequency set?

How about something rather odd? Our pathetic public school system? Even funding our public school system at all? Not providing universal healthcare? Being a society that allows lawsuits for every little stupid thing. Perhaps PETA has a point and our very ownership of animals as pets will someday be looked upon as that of slavery. Perhaps even our idea that animals are things, or that we are somehow not animals ourselves. Perhaps the very notions of sin or God? Perhaps our frigid views of sex as something you can only do with people you know the names of? Perhaps the very idea of clothing will be seen as quite Victorian and worthy of scorn. Our wasteful nature? Our trash? Our use of nuclear energy? Our lack of use of more nuclear energy? Our pollution? Our ignoring of global warming? The notions that big faceless corporations are big bad and faceless? Taxes existing at all? Circumcision being permissible on children without their consent? Indoctrination into political, religious, and ideological view points? Psychology? The very existence of science?

It's impossible to know what morality will look like fifty years from now, and thusly it's impossible to be moral in the way the future will view morality. Thusly, if my view that my family is worth more than comparable individuals who aren't my family is someday viewed as gross bigotry, my most humble apologies... assuming apologies aren't viewed as some sort of cop-out shouldn't really absolve any previous behaviors.

Why Columbus was stupid, and drugs lead to the new world

A number of people believe the Washington Irving myth that Columbus was the first to figure out the Earth was round and that sailing west would not lead to certain doom. This is however clearly false. There was a disagreement between Columbus and the intellectuals of the time, mainly the distance to Asia going east and the circumference of the Earth. He figured it was about three thousand miles traveling west to hit India, everybody else said it was probably about 11,000 miles, and he would die sailing through the great "Ocean Sea" which covered 180 degrees of the world.

Now, it turns out that the great minds of the time were right on both counts, the distance to India going east as well as the circumference of the Earth to a remarkable degree. He was pretty clearly rebuked by everybody because he was pretty clearly wrong on both these counts. Though, the wrong assumption that the span between Europe and Asia was only water was made on both sides.

Why then did the new Spanish Monarchs fund his journey? Why spend a lot of money funding a fool's errand? Drugs. When the Muslims took over Spain and were later cast out they left a rather interesting legacy: Opium addiction. They were desperate to find a better way to India because they needed a fix. After Ferdinand and Isabella managed to drive the last of them out, they were left with a rather bad drug problem and no supplier. They gave him unusually generous terms, partially because it was doubtful he was going to return, and an order for opium.

Christopher Columbus was wrong on every count, had stupid ideas, and was rightfully rebuked. Finally, though finances were short he was sent on a drug run to India. He was so foolish he believed he actually made it (hence the word "Indians" for Native Americans) and refused to hear otherwise and died believing he was right.

Panphones to cure ToTs.

A few years ago, there was a study conducted on ToTs, tip-of-the-tongue that concluded that the phenomenon was when the brain knew the word but couldn't access the proper phonemes the word had to vocalize the word. One popular strategy to resolving this problem that I personally use is to run through the alphabet in my head until something clicks. A better solution would be to memorize a short phrase with every phoneme in English within it.

The good cat just found grizzly bear poo.
Sharks having lawyers chose, why marry you?

Not quite perfect, but most are there. Actually kind of hard to make one up. Rhyming would help, but a needed part of rhyming is to introduce a duplicate phoneme.

Dishonesty in the Baylor Study

http://www.baylor.edu/pr/news.php?action=story&story=41678

Several months back Baylor university did a study which had several interesting findings. One of their claims was that about 94.8% of people believed in God. This was done by running an essentially valid survey and asking a question, number 26.

26. In your opinion, does each of the following exist?
God -------------- Absolutely, Probably, Probably Not, Absolutely Not.

We see from page 27 that the given definition for Atheists: "Atheists are certain that God does not exist." - Apparently only people who answered "Absolutely Not" to that final question are atheists.

This seems like a rather minor nitpick, but I think it's an extremely valid one. A good number of people from the "distant God" category are really atheists in the (non-belief in gods sense of the word). Saying that their findings of only 5% is boon to the religious is wrong. Self declared atheism previous registered at 2% then 3%. It raises a question of how many of these distant God people answered "probably not" to that question, and were still promptly tossed into the theist categories.



The Stephen Colbert / Richard Dawkins piece (airing shortly after the Baylor study hit the waves), we see that Colbert cites this 95% stat and Dawkins states his view on the subject. The irony is, given Dawkins view, he would be a theist in the Baylor study. The Baylor study claims there is a boon to religion in today's culture. However, this is mostly because they willfully shoved anybody who wasn't an unabashed strong atheist into a theist group... shouting "Look Ma, Religion."

Invention of the Day

Fill levees with that diaper stuff. Absorbent gelling material is actually fairly cheap, and it seems like several pockets of it would have the actual ability to stop a leak. Pretty much anybody who does such things knows that all it takes is a trickle of water and it's over. A trickle leads to a spray, to a good seeping, to a big hole and finally to a massive breach. All in a very short period of time. If you could have some kind of built-in method to stop the trickle, you'd be set.

If it's good enough at stopping the poop of babies, it should be quite apt at fixing much smaller problems like massive floods. If dams(parents) can use it, dams (walls to stop water) can use it!

Secondly, perhaps the stuff could be made to independently assemble a make-shift levee.
You could get a large container of the stuff hook it unto a chopper and dump in on some quick flooding area. Turn most of the water going a certain direction into gel and divert the river.

It would kill fish, not sure how the hell you'd clean it up.

In a thousand words or less describe your most admirable characteristic:

Brevity.

World Genealogy Tree.

With the advent of the human genome project and the advances in gene sequencing. It is entirely possible to track down all of your ancestors even if nobody knows what their names might have been. If a few specific mutations to gene 10 from your great great grandfather are passed down to everybody who gets his gene 10, then everybody with that mutation is an descendant of that person. It would be completely possible to track down exactly how related you are to your spouse, 5th cousins or 50th cousins. It will soon be possible to trace down the family trees of those individuals who lost their family traveling to their new homes whether on a ship whose registry was lost or a slave ship being ripped from their homelands.

Within our lifetimes, we could compose a family tree for all of mankind. Unless we decide to engage in the grand mass murder of our cousins before we can do so.

Invention of the Day

UPS systems are nice, but they are dreadfully inefficient for a product which needs every precious second of time. However, note the conversions:

AC wall -> DC battery -> AC UPS -> DC power supply.

Why can't I get a UPS that converts the power to DC, stores it in a battery, and delivers the power to a 12v (power supply/regulator/splitter) without converting. Firstly, this will stop a bunch of worthless conversions of the power current, this will replace a power supply with a simple box which splits and regulates the power flow that won't need fans and other such things.

Also, this would allow for pretty quick easy server rack, multi-power supply. It turns out you can save a ton of power if you have one large power supply to serve a large rack of computers. This would do roughly the same thing but add UPS.

Worst case a few super capacitors could one day be put into the power supply after the conversion of DC power and provide some nice functionality. That or just convert all the computer's memory to non-volatile.