Archive Page 3
Napoleons March on Moscow
I wish I had seen this before I started War and Peace so I could have had this chart as a bookmark while I read. The original chart by Charles Joseph Minard is said to be one of the best charts of all time. The lighter portion shows the size of Napoleons army as he progressed towards Moscow, the dark the progress and size of his army as he retreated from Moscow. What a sad story is told by this chart–from 422,000 men to only 10,000 in a fruitless pursuit, and that is ignoring the loss in Alexanders Russian army.
I also found a bunch of re-interpretations of this chart that add further dimensions, clarifications and data to it.
Re-Visions of Minard:
Napoleon’s March on Moscow
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The Other Side of Net Neutrality
This is the first argument I’ve ever read against net neutrality by David Cowan, a venture capitalist at Bessemer Venture Partners.
Who Has Time For This?: Net Neutrality is Politically Correct
For one thing, accelerating a stream of packets, even at the mythical expense of some random packets, does not “control what people do online.” Also, ISPs are not public utilities; they are businesses whose owners–including individual investors and pension funds–have no legal obligation to amuse Eric with whatever internet sites he craves. (Should AOL and the mobile environments of AT&T and Verizon be legally forced to provide access to outside content?) Having said both those things, the market will not reward ISPs who effectively block or even slow access to the full array of web sites–there is demand for express traffic and free traffic, so both sevices should and would exist.
I think adding another layer of complexity to the Internet to give priority to certain ‘premium’ packets is a much sloppier solution than working to increase the overall bandwidth available to businesses and consumers. That’s probably a Utopian view–it may make less sense business-wise to have huge amounts of bandwidth available to everyone than it does to simply prioritize the ‘most important’ bandwidth (as judged by who can pay more) but I think that in the long run, even though net neutrality is legislation, having a neutral net prevents another layer of complexity (technically and politically) from being added to the Internet and will thus reduce in the long term the total amount of legislation and thus government control over the Internet. Less government control over the Internet is, in my opinion, the best thing for the Internet.
That’s my initial take and it’s mostly uninformed, but I’m glad to have read Cowan’s article as a starting point for considering the issue from both sides.
Technorati Tags: net neutrality
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An Inconvenient Al Gore Truth
I probably should have seen this was coming but I didn’t. I was going to write a serious review of the movie (there are definitely serious issues at stake) but I quickly found out that it’s not a movie about global warming, it’s a movie about one thing principally:
1. Al Gore.
Did you know that Al Gore has been trying to save the world for years and years now? He’s given the slide show “at least a thousand times.” He’s been trying to convince the congress that the world is ending quick for many years. No one will listen to him. He was almost president, and had not the election been stolen from Al Gore, he would have focused more on the current crisis than on terror and those types of nuisances. Al Gore uses a Mac. Al Gore used to go shoot shotguns on his tobacco farm. Most importantly:
Al Gore had the election stolen from him. It was hard. He should have won. It broke his heart. There’s some real pain there.
Al Gore’s son was seriously injured. Al Gore creates his own slides in Keynote, on a Mac. Al Gore knows how to talk in a way that the average man can understand. He lowers things down the lowest common denominator. If you can’t understand the graphs, surely you can understand this polar bear animation. Look! He can’t get on the ice! Al Gore would have saved that polar bear if everyone had accepted that the problem is real when he told us about it a long time ago.
Look, I’m Al Gore, I did the research. Hurricanes. Global warming. Floods. Global warming. Carl Sagan was my friend. I’m not a hero, I just rose to the occasion. I’m Al Gore. Did you see how much of the coast of the world will be gone if Antarctica or Greenland sink into the ocean? Money or the Earth? Which do you choose? Kiyoto or the American Economy? What would the founding fathers do? What is your moral obligation? Do it for the children. Can you feel what I’m saying?
Thank you Al Gore.
Technorati Tags: al gore, inconvenient truth, global warming
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Business Magazines
I subscribed for a year to the following business magazines. This is the order I liked them in:
- Inc. – Everything about Inc. I like. Their articles were always the most intelligent, most different and thought provoking. Their design is excellent. I read most issues from cover to cover.
- Business 2.0 – Not always as fast and forward as Inc, but excellent nonetheless.
- Fast Company – Fast Company was surprisingly good. It felt like a quick read and is more focused on the people behind businesses. I like it.
- Money – Money isn’t necessarily a business magazine and maybe that’s why I didn’t like it. I found it to be pretty amateur though. From their reviews of mutual funds and section of things to buy I found recommendation after recommendation that seemed to defy all logic.
- Entrepreneur – This magazine isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on in my opinion. I never could make it through more than 2 or 3 articles since they were all so superficial and to put it bluntly, boring. By the end of the year I was throwing them away before I even cracked the spine.
Living in Uruguay I don’t read any of them anymore (in their paper form anyway), but when we move back to somewhere where magazine subscriptions are more pratical I’ll definitely pick back up the first three in the list.
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Top Science Magazines
Here are the biggest online (and offline) science magazines, most of these from a tip from Justin:
- New Scientist
- Scientific American
- Science Daily
- Science Now
- Science News Online
- The Scientist
- Seed Magazine
New Scientist seems to be the best of the bunch. I’m going to do the same thing I did with business magazines awhile back and read (or scan anyway) them all online for awhile and pick my favorites.
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Extracellular Matrix
This was in my audio version of the Wall Street Journal This morning. I’m probably oversimplifying again but this is the gist I got.
Extracellular Matrix (subscriber link) is a material that comes from animals that promotes regeneration of tissue and possibly even appendages or organs. From what I understand, it could be an alternate to embryonic stem cells–a way to convince other non-embryonic stem cells to generate other organs or tissue.
Matrix can come in a powder and is already being used to regenerate tissue. Potential applications could be to regenerate fingers or even limbs in soldiers.
Technorati Tags: extracellular matrix, science
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More on Global Warming Skeptics…
Here’s a skeptic in a high place:
Czech president Vaclav Klaus has criticized the UN panel on global warming, claiming that it was a political authority without any scientific basis, Czech media reported Friday.
An in what sounds almost just like my previous article on what happens to scientists skeptical of global warming:
“In general, if you do not agree with the consensus that we are headed toward disaster, you are treated like a pariah,” said William O’Keefe, chief executive officer of the Marshall Institute, which assesses scientific issues that shape public policy.
“It’s ironic that a field based on challenging unproven theories attacks skeptics in a very unhealthy way.”
Looks like man-made emissions aren’t the only theory either:
Man-made climate change may be happening at a far slower rate than has been claimed, according to controversial new research.
Scientists say that cosmic rays from outer space play a far greater role in changing the Earth’s climate than global warming experts previously thought.
All links courtesy the Drudge Report.
Personally I’m a little tired of the subject for the time being. I think I’ll watch Al Gore’s movie and comment on it and give it a rest for awhile.
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Tech Roundup – Feb 12 2007
- Roy turned me on to the term ‘cyclomatic complexity’ in computer science which means:
Cyclomatic complexity may be considered a broad measure of soundness and confidence for a program. Introduced by Thomas McCabe in 1976, it measures the number of linearly-independent paths through a program module. This measure provides a single ordinal number that can be compared to the complexity of other programs. Cyclomatic complexity is often referred to simply as program complexity, or as McCabe’s complexity. It is often used in concert with other software metrics. As one of the more widely-accepted software metrics, it is intended to be independent of language and language format.
Basically a measure of how complex a program is. This is useful to know how easy it will be to test and maintain software. From my understanding having a lower cyclomatic complexity is desirable as long as the program still gets the job done.
- Josh showed me eXist-db – a native XML database that you query by XQuery. It’s meant for web application development. I am by no means sold on the idea yet, but it’s something that I want to look into a little more.
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After reading Sum of All Fears yesterday, today I read the 18 page summary report released by the IPCC. I am admittedly not qualified to analyze the data, but I can still come to my own conclusions which are:
- To start on a controversial note, to say humans cause global warming is still a theory. It’s a very likely one but to say it’s no longer a theory is not responsible.
- The amount of global warming caused by humans as opposed to other environmental factors is unknown. The report only says “The primary source of the increased atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide since the pre-industrial period results from fossil fuel use, with land use change providing another significant but smaller contribution.” The summary does not state how this conclusion was reached or the percentage of increased atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide resulting from fossil fuel and land use, only that it was the ‘primary source.’ If there are 98 sources, each contributing 1% and fossil fuels contribute 2%, fossil fuels can still be called the ‘primary source. I’m sure this isn’t the case, but to make the statement blindly is pointless.
- 180 to 300 ppm is the increase in average parts per MILLION of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere over the last SIX HUNDRED AND FIFTY THOUSAND YEARS. I’m extremely skeptical at the ability to measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from ice cores over that period of time, but even if the measurements are perfectly accurate, the effects of averaging over that amount of time is insane! The spikes and drops in ppm could have been enormous–we’re talking parts per MILLION here. I’m not denying that we’re higher now than we have been, but I highly question the dramatic and drastic effects that this increase in carbon dioxide will have on Earth.
- Increases in methane in the atmosphere are even less impressive. The global atmospheric concentration of methane has increased from a pre-industrial value of about 715 ppb to 1732 ppb. This statistic is measured in parts per BILLION. Ok, I’m not a scientist and making snap judgments just because these quantities are so extremely small is probably ridiculous, but I just can’t imagine that the earth is so inflexible as to be thrown into chaos over such small increases in carbon dioxide and/or methane.
- The increase in nitrous oxide isn’t even worth mentioning.
- Global average temperature over the last 150 years has increased by less than 1 degree Celsius.
- If you accept the accuracy of our measurements, global average sea level has increased almost steadily over the last 100 years which to me indicates a trend not significantly related to human activity and not significantly affected by the increases in carbon dioxide and the subsequent (albeit minor) resulting increases in temperature.
- “Global average sea level rose at an average rate of 1.8 [1.3 to 2.3] mm per year over 1961 to 2003. The rate was faster over 1993 to 2003, about 3.1 [2.4 to 3.8] mm per year.”
- “Average Arctic temperatures increased at almost twice the global average rate in the past 100 years. Arctic temperatures have high decadal variability, and a warm period was also observed from 1925 to 1945.” To me this is another indicator of a general trend in warming that is separate (and in conjunction with) from warming human activity.
- “There is no clear trend in the annual numbers of tropical cyclones.” Really? Interesting.
- “Antarctic sea ice extent continues to show inter-annual variability and localized changes but no statistically significant average trends, consistent with the lack of warming reflected in atmospheric temperatures averaged across the region.” Also interesting.
- Model-based projections of globally averaged surface warming over the next hundred years varied so drastically that I have a hard time accepting any of the models.
My conclusions:
Currently I think the threat of global warming is overstated. I think that the data that is being used is good for showing general trends but probably not accurate enough to predict either future trends in global climate change or significantly attribute current trends to specific causes.
It seems apparent to me that the earth has been warming slightly for at least 100 years, probably longer. Sea levels are increasing somewhat and ice is melting in some places and not in others. Recently, humans have played a role in this at least to some degree, but not to the degree that justifies paranoia or drastic actions that will do more net harm (e.g. Kyoto) than good. I think we have a responsibility to take care of the Earth and look for solutions to general problems such as reducing pollutions, emissions and deforestation. That having been said, I believe that the Earth and the human race will somehow overcome the effects of global warming and that this crisis will not prove to be bigger than other problems that humans have passed through successfully to this point.
To me it seems that unless you can say with some degree of certainty (which apparently we can’t do still) how much of global warming is solely attributed to human factors you can’t accurately predict the future trend of global warming since the data we have from past, non-human related, trends in global warming are not accurate enough to predict how long a cyclical increase in temperature will last or how high it will go before it begins to fall again.
Obviously my opinion is biased. I think it’s hard to discern hype from politicians, the media and attorneys (in this I agree with Crichton) and my natural inclination is to believe that the Earth will survive. When I read the data I look for points that will justify my assumptions and being biased, I think that I find them. As I mentioned before, I think we should take every reasonable action to protect the environment but that we should do it in a reasoned, non-hyped, non-paranoid way.
Technorati Tags: global warming, ipcc, climate change, science
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State of Fear
I read all but 50 pages (which I read yesterday) of State of Fear by Michael Crichton today. A lot of interesting things to think about including the real reasons behind the global warming frenzy, the sources of information and validity of the information on global warming, the problems with mixing politics and science, the capability of humans to control, modify, understand and predict changes in the environment. More to come.
Technorati Tags: michael crichton, state of fear, global warming, books
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If you’re a scientist (or anyone really) and you don’t buy into human cause global warming, you can count on the following happening to you:
- You’ll be told your data is old and that new data has disproved it. This is regardless of whether your data is 5 years or 5 days old. If your data is brand new, the credibility of the source of your data will instantly be questioned in the same way your own credibility will be questioned (see point 2).
- Your credibility will instantly be attacked in one of the following ways:
- Connections to ‘big business’ or ‘neocons’ will be found either in your personal life, your educational institution or history or affiliation or related to the funding of your research. No matter how far or unlikely the connections may be, they will be emphasized.
- Your history and credibility as a scientist will be thrown into question–if you haven’t published recently that will be held against you. If there was ever a paper you authored or co-authored and there was a single mistake it will be used to cast all subsequent research into doubt. If this happens, you stand a good chance of losing your job and/or the respect of the scientific community at large.
- Regardless of any attempts at objectivity, you will be accused of massaging the data and/or manipulating it to prove your point.
- You’ll become the subject of any variety of other ad hominem attacks based on your personal or family history. Being compared to a holocaust denier should not be unexpected.
It’s almost like clockwork–you question the theory of human caused global warming, one of these four attacks is made. Every. single. time. Try it.
Technorati Tags: global warming, science
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Definition of Art
After all the art discussing of yesterday I decided to write my own definition of art. It could probably stand to be more concise, but here it is:
1. Art must have meaning, even if the meaning is not profound. The mere act of being beautiful, pleasing or evoking an emotion does not make something art.
2. The meaning must be self contained. If a work requires an external explanation to understand its meaning, is not art. The meaning does not have to be immediately apparent or easily obtainable, but it must be possible to arrive at the meaning without external resources.
3. Art is the skillful transformation of a medium. Art is not the rearrangement of existing objects into new patterns, but the manipulation of an existing medium into a new form.
4. The purpose of art is should not be to offend the viewer. Art may offend viewers who are unaccustomed to the style or concept, but the offense should be a by-product of the novelty, not the explicit intention of the artist.
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Until I can narrow down my areas of interest some (assuming that ever happens) I’ve decided to basically pursue anything that strikes me as interesting and worthwhile. I found a night course on “Modern Theoretical Physics and Quantum Entanglement” that doesn’t assume much prior knowledge on Stanford on iTunes and started watching it. The lectures are about an hour and a half long. The first one gave a brief overview of traditional physics which the professor – Leonard Susskind – summed up as:
Classical physics – real laws of nature are deterministic either forward in time or backwards in time. Wherever you are you can either trace forward uniquely or backward uniquely.
Then the rest of the lecture was spent teaching what matrixes and vectors are and how to multiply them. I’m still not 100% sure how this relates to quantum mechanics but I know it has to do with knowing the state of a system and predicting it. It took me two sittings over two days to complete the first lecture, but I like it so far, hopefully I’ll be able to understand it though the end of the series.
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Redefining Art
I participated in a fun debate about art today, here are excerpts from some of my comments:
…if the vast majority of the population doesn’t understand the art, it’s probably not art. Art should communicate something–if the audience it is created for can’t understand it, it’s because the art has failed–the audience hasn’t failed, the artist has. If the majority of the people find it offensive then they are the most informed people to say it is bad art because it was for them that the art was created. If the art was created for a non-general audience then it should be displayed in a place where only the audience it was intended for will see it and the rest of the public who doesn’t like/understand it won’t have to endure it (or much less pay for it with their tax money).…not that funding the arts is entirely bad, but if I, as a tax payer, am going to fund an artist I don’t expect to have to hide my child’s eyes when I’m passing by the art I paid for.
My definition of art is that it should show the talent of the artist, it should communicate something and it should not be offensive to most people who are viewing it. If it can’t meet at least those basic criteria then it may be someone’s creation but it’s not art.
…
At first glance … there really seems to be a parallel between what is happening now with modern art and the many revolutions in art (and science) that have occurred over history. People were confused and offended by Copernicus, by Van Gogh, by Monet and by almost every other artist or scientist who has has challenged the establishment with their revolutionary discoveries–people might ask themselves what’s the difference between the old masters breakthroughs and so-called breakthroughs of modern art in the 20th century?
It comes down to truth I think. In the case of science the discoveries were offensive but not because the scientists wanted to be offensive but because they discovered something that was true and felt the need to share it. In the case of artists over time who have offended their audience with real art the difference is this–the artists did not have the intention of offending their audiences. They discovered new techniques and pushed the limits of their skills and in doing so many people didn’t understand, but there was no intention to offend and once people gave it a chance they recognized the beauty and truth in what the artists were doing.
What is happening now is different. Modern artists have no other goal but to offend. If you’re not offended by their art it’s because you are either too jaded or because you didn’t understand it well enough to be offended. That is where the trend of bucking the establishment comes in sharp contrast with the past–it’s not longer for betterment and progress, the specific purpose to offend and confuse.
Art can never escape being about the viewer. Clearly the artist putting him/herself out their with their creation but for whom are they doing it? If it’s just for themselves then why bother displaying it? Art is self-expression with a purpose–to communicate something to the viewer.
….
Let me explain why I don’t think this type of work should be considered art. I think that calling these works “art” harms the entire art world. Someone learning about art is likely to write it all off (it sounds extreme but there was a point when I almost did this myself) because of an unwillingness to associate themselves with this type of work.
It’s confusing when someone who understands art by a more traditional definition (e.g. beauty etc.) decides to go out to a gallery to enjoy art (even at a simplistic level) and instead is offended and disgusted at every turn. They leave with a bad taste in their mouth–are they likely to become patrons of the art world? I doubt it. Is it because they are ignorant or unworthy of the art world, I definitely think not.
If people feel the need to express themselves in this way, so be it, but let’s not call it art. Let’s not mingle beauty with offensive political and moral statements that do nothing to move innovation in skill and do not enlighten the viewer. If art isn’t made for the public, let’s move it to another venue for display where those who would like to be jolted and offended (challenged if you will) can go and get what they’re looking for.
I’m not saying that these people should stop creating what they’re making, but that it’s something other than art and should not be displayed in the same galleries where so much talent and beauty is displayed.
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- Looks like getting a home loan is going to be a little tougher, this one wasn’t hard to foresee–with the housing boom slowing and the higher risk loans that were given out over the past couple years starting to go into default, lenders are becoming more hesitant to make risky home loans.
- The global warming study commissioned in part by Exxon wasn’t (big surprise here) actually commissioned and/or funded by Exxon as largely reported by the British tabloids, CNN, several democratic senators and the Washington Post.
The global warming debate is insane! It’s amazing to me to see people losing their jobs and being slandered in every possible way for not going along with the ‘mainstream’ view on the issue. Since when is it so unacceptable to challenge convention, especially in the United States?
For example… on Boston.com Ellen Goodman says:
Let’s just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers.
Governor Planning To Fire Oregon Climatologist for Taking Skeptical View of Global Warming.
Spokesman for U.S. senator says global warming skeptics are ‘demonized’…
Links via the Drudge Report.
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