And You Thought Your Pregnancy Was Rough!

Just a bit more crap from outer space to round things off...

Pretty amazing images actually from the greatest time machine on Earth, namely: the Hubble Telescope.

Scientists have been able to put together time-lapse videos of the decade long process of stars being born.

What Up, Space?

Just a couple of quick hits from intergalactic news...

To begin with, a Swedish man reports that he has shot down a spaceship that was coming to abduct him. Understandably, the police are rather interested in his shenanigans. Notably, he claims to have destroyed the UFO using a pistol which frankly doesn't speak well of the durability of alien technology. One would assume that they would have to survive asteroid strikes and what-not...Being downed by a pistol doesn't say much.

Oh, and while we're at it: Domino's Pizza has announced plans to build a pizzeria on the moon. Because of course.

Kacee Bait

OK, OK, the Girlfriend. Maybe some of the rich are apparently evil.

A recent survey covered at the Guardian explains one possible reason for the Great Recession.

Way To Go Science!!

Circling a miniscule star the size of the city of London at such high speeds that an entire year lasts a mere two hours is...holy crap...a planet made out of diamonds.

Even Sadder Astronauts

Remember those sad astronauts I posted pictures of the other day? Now that we've gotten rid of our perfectly good shuttle program and chosen to rely on clap-trap Russian rockets, they really do have good reasons to be miserable.

What We Lost

I posted a link to this video earlier but honestly, only had a chance to look at it now.

Fabulous, astonishing, life-affirming images of the night sky.

If you're like me, you can't help but consider the awesome majesty that we've simply lost because of light pollution. Granted, we've gained some pretty wonderful stuff in its stead but still...Being able to look out nightly at the whirling glory that is creation as it speeds around our tiny ball of mud is beyond humbling.

Plains Milky Way from Randy Halverson on Vimeo.

And Their Handwriting Sucks

A new study shows that in addition to being weird, wrong-handed mutants; left-handed people are a cowardly bunch:

Psychologists found that people who watched an eight minute clip from a scary movie suffered more symptoms associated with post traumatic stress if they were left handed than if they were right handed.

When asked to recall events from the film clip, taken from near the tense climax of thriller Silence of the Lambs, left handed volunteers gave more fragmented accounts filled with more repetition than their right handed counterparts.

This effect is common in people suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. 

Take that, Southpaws!

Video for a Late Saturday

And they are all going to land in your hair...

Look Up! The Billion-Bug Highway You Can't See from NPR on Vimeo.

Seems Reasonable

A letter writer at McSweeney's "Open Letters to People or Entities Who are Unlikely to Respond" pens a proposal to James "The Amazing" Randi concerning his offer that he would pay $1 million to anyone that can demonstrate paranormal abilities under the conditions of a proper scientific trial:

I am writing to you in regard to your offer of $1 million to anyone who can demonstrate, under proper conditions of scientific trial, paranormal abilities. I deeply admire your policy of holding those who claim to possess supernatural powers to the rigorous standards of scientific inquiry and rational thought by working with these claimants to develop a preliminary, and then a formal, test of those abilities. 

The warning, posted so ominously (and, dare I say, smugly) on your website, that "no one has ever passed the preliminary tests" only deepens my conviction to be the first. 

Delightfully, I have not only a love for the scientific method but also a demonstrable paranormal skill! I have the ability to control men's minds with my vagina.

To test the claim that I can control men's minds with my vagina, I propose the following experiment:

A statistically significant even number of volunteers will be recruited to participate in the test. Volunteers should be male, heterosexual, and unknown to me, and should have at least $5 on their person. Each volunteer will be assigned to a group: "vagina" or "no vagina." 

In every trial, the volunteer will be seated within a short walking distance of a hamburger stand. Volunteers in the "vagina" group will also be seated within a short walking distance of my vagina. Volunteers in the "no vagina" group will have a leaden wall placed between them and my vagina. To ensure that the "no vagina" group is not motivated by even the suggestion of my vagina, I will not be seen by them, and my voice will be conveyed only through a voice-altering device that masks my gender. 

For each trial, I will ask the volunteer if he will buy me a hamburger.

Will Randi's Challenge survive the Hamburger/Vagina Proposal? Only SCIENCE shall determine.

The author closes with:

P.S. With fries!

 

Machines are Taking All the Jobs!

Well, lawyer jobs at least.

Not surprisingly, I find myself feeling optimistic about the idea of machines doing more jobs. I think it's a good thing that humans can be freed to more effectively do the things that humans do best. Additionally, I would point out that given the prohibitive cost of launching a law suit, being able to cut down the costs significantly by automating a lot of the document research can make a real difference. I know, I know...Nobody wants to encourage even more litigation in this country. But honestly, there are times when people need redress but simply can't foot the bills. Hopefully this will help change that.

An interesting point about the economic consequences though:

David H. Autor, an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says the United States economy is being “hollowed out.” New jobs, he says, are coming at the bottom of the economic pyramid, jobs in the middle are being lost to automation and outsourcing, and now job growth at the top is slowing because of automation.

“There is no reason to think that technology creates unemployment,” Professor Autor said. “Over the long run we find things for people to do. The harder question is, does changing technology always lead to better jobs? The answer is no.” 

 I wonder though, how this works out over a long run? Obviously, a similar situation existed at the start of the Industrial Revolution with the obvious difference being that lower level jobs were disappearing rather than mid-level jobs. Obviously, the Industrial Revolution worked out pretty well in the long run...

I'd say that as always, there will be some short term pain. However, people being people, will always find something new to do.

Well, until the robots decide to eat us, anyways.

Not Quite Watson But Still...

Sure the machines crushed us at Jeopardy but will they steal our thunder at rock, paper scissors?

Pshaw...Watson doesn't even have phalanges!

Bad News

I'm a big fan of IBMs thinking machine, Watson. I'm glad that it defeated human contestants on Jeopardy, it means that we have a good, working tool. As a species that utilizes technology, we should be very, very happy about that.

Sadly though, Watson is still dumber than Congress.

Watching Watson

Didn't think I'd ever write about the game show Jeopardy but...Well, never thought that Jeopardy would become "must see tv".

Tonight on Jeopardy (and for the next three episodes), the two most successful contestants in the shows history will be competing against an IBM computer named Watson (in case you missed it, tonight was a draw).

Like most people (I would assume), my gut instinct was to root for the two human contestants against their very rectangular opponent However, having thought about it a bit, I've decided that I have to root for the machine. Here's why:

First of all, the victory of a human over a tool designed by humans, isn't really something that humanity should be celebrating. Certainly, the John Henry myth is a heroic and sad one, but would you for even a moment prefer to rely on a single giant to dig tunnels or would you rather see tunnels dug by machines? A victory over a tool might be fantastic for the giant performing the feat. But for the rest of mankind, it just means we're stuck with an inferior tool. Being the tool using species, we should never be happy about that.

And that's essentially what this Watson thing is: It is a tool. Or more accurately, it's a step on the road of the evolution of a tool. It's a small step towards creating a cognizant machine.

Which leads me to my second point: If Watson does in fact defeat its human opponents, consider what an awesome accomplishment this is for the many, many men and women that worked to design it? One of the major flaws with computers is that there language is so profoundly rigid. It operates under extremely precise parameters.

For example, you could give a 12 year old an instruction along the lines of "Find out everything you can about space exploration" and send him on his way. Those instructions given to a computer would be utterly worthless; they'd be far to vague for it to even begin. If it managed to return anything at all, it'd be an endless stream of mostly useless data.

What the men and women who designed Watson have done is therefore spectacular: They've created a machine that can respond to normal human questions (which are almost always somewhat vague). Furthermore, it's a machine that can purportedly untangle the awesome intricacies of language itself to understand what data is in fact pertinent (for example a question like "Who ran for President in 2008?" has a completely different context than "Who ran in the marathon?").

So, I'm rooting for humanity in the form of our champion: Watson.

Thou Shalt Not Follow a Multitude to Do Evil

Betrand Rusell for the win:



There's really quite a bit to take away from this interview. The first thing that stands out to me is this:

It seems to me a fundamental dishonesty and a fundamental treachery to intellectual integrity to hold a belief because you think it's useful and not because you think it's true.

Later, the interviewer asks him if the so-called "ordinary people" might not be strong enough to find their own "personal ethic".

To paraphrase, Russell responds with "Bullshit."

SCIENCE!!!

An oldie but a goldie...

I present the State.

Monkey Torture by The State - watch more funny videos

Stuff that Spits Lightning

Via Cracked, the amazing Zeusophone:



As they note:

That's right: We have not only officially tamed, but completely humiliated lightning.

Kacee Bait

Work and the Universe in general have unfortunately prevented me from spending as much time talking to the Girlfriend as I would have liked to over the past couple of days. On the plus side, my video game playing has improved...However it's always nice to hear from her.

That said, Reason magazine has a pretty interesting article up about the search for extraterrestrial intelligence Where are all the space aliens and do we really, really want to meet them?

Takeaway:

Even if Sagan and Newman are correct that the galaxy is populated with saintly super-advanced intelligences, it is puzzling that no one has so far found any physically detectable astronomical evidence of their existences. Hanson also noted that our instruments should be able to detect some evidence for his postulated colonizing wave front as it progressed by converting matter and energy around various stars. There is, however, another possible explanation for this absence of evidence for extraterrestrial civilizations—intelligence could be toxic.

In 1996, Hanson formulated the idea that there is a Great Filter that somehow reduces the chances that a civilization can reach the stars before going extinct. The question then becomes is the Great Filter behind us or ahead of us? It might turn out that evolving life is highly improbable which would suggest that the Filter is behind us and that we are alone in the universe. Of course, finally detecting an alien civilization would be a positive event with regard to the Great Filter: if aliens have survived technological development, then so might we.

But what if we just find evidence of alien life? Oxford University transhumanist philosopher Nick Bostrom argues that finding fossils for independently evolved complex life on Mars would signal a dismal future for humanity [PDF]. “Such a discovery would be a crushing blow,” argues Bostrom. “It would be by far the worst news ever printed on a newspaper cover.” Why? Because it would mean that it is highly probable that life arises frequently in the universe.

In that case, since we have no evidence for extraterrestrial civilizations that would strongly imply that the Great Filter lies ahead of us, it is likely we will be winnowed out by it. Intelligent life might inevitably destroy itself by deploying apocalyptic technology, e.g., thermonuclear weapons, biotech plagues, runaway nanotechnology, or something else horrible that we’ve yet to imagine. Thus Bostrom concludes, “In the search for extraterrestrial life, no news is good news. It promises a potentially great future for humanity.” In other words, extraterrestrial silence is golden.

Sigh...

Via The AV Club...

As a result of the general terror over our inevitable global demise in 2012, NASA has felt forced to establish a website hopefully convincing everyone to calm the hell down!!!

Good luck with that space nerds! We're Americans! We do panic better than anyone else!

Additionally, NASA held a press conference where they “pleaded with Hollywood bigwigs for more rational plots,”. Again, good luck with that space nerds! We're Americans! We don't need your stinking, commie rationality!

The "winners" for most irrational movie are...

1. 2012 (2009)
2. The Core (2003)
3. Armageddon (1998) 4. Volcano (1997)
5. Chain Reaction (1996)
6. The 6th Day (2000)
7. What The #$*! Do We Know? (2004)

The Darkest Day

In the event you missed the eclipse, here's a cool time-lapse video of it via Radley Balko.

Our Murderous Metal Machines

The New York Times has an interesting piece up about the future of robotic warfare. First of all, I have to admit that I have a boy's fascination with all things robotic. How could I help it? I grew up on this stuff:



Yes. Those are jets. In space. That turn into robots. That shoot giant aliens.

How can you not love robots after being fed that sort of thing every lazy afternoon after school?

That said, I have some reservations about the mechanization of warfare (unless we're fighting giant aliens, naturally).

My feeling is this: given two countries engaged in hostilities, both with fully mechanized forces, is it likely that a conflict will be resolved after a bloodless robot fight? Were that the case, we'd already be resolving our conflicts via chess. That's not likely to happen anytime soon.

Sooner or later, the robots are going to be used to kill someone.

In the second situation, the side incapable of fielding few mechanized forces is going to have no choice but to directly target weaker targets, specifically civilians. In this event, overwhelming force may actually make things more dangerous for the country wielding them.