There are times in your adult life when you just hunker down, get stubborn, and see to the end whatever unpleasantness you are experiencing. The last few weeks have sort of felt that way. Hell, the last few years have *been* that way. And a reasonable argument could be made that my entire life would qualify. It’s like that old paraphrase of the laws of thermodynamics: “You can’t win. You can’t even break even. And they won’t let you quit.”
Anyway, back to the present. I mentioned the beginning of last month that we were engaged in some moving chaos. Well, it’s gotten worse since. We’ve been getting things ready for the auction house to haul stuff away for an auction next month. And my wife is now moving her architecture practice home. This latter had been the long-term plan all along, once Martha Sr was gone, but for various reasons it has become necessary for this to take place now. Meaning more boxes, more moving of furniture, more crowding of space as things are shifted and re-shifted, juggling this and that in such a manner that the three-dimensional puzzle all works out the way it needs to. But at least I’m getting regular exercise.
Oh, that other thing I mentioned in moving chaos, about having just delivered the first big batch of books? Well, I still haven’t been paid for that work. Some kind of screw-up in the business office, people on vacation, yada yada. Which is a problem. Because unlike my private clients, who have to put down a 50% deposit on work, my institutional clients get billed when the work is completed. Meaning that I am effectively out about 4 months of pay (because I first did a batch of work for Special Collections, and then got started on the next round of books for the seminary). If there’s one thing worse than being unemployed, it is working but not getting paid for it. What should be the start of getting back on my feet financially, after years of minimal income due to care-giving, has become an unexpected crunch, thanks to the ineptitude of whoever was responsible for processing my invoice. Thanks, buddy – I owe you one.
*sigh*
Anyway, soon my wife will be out of her office, and the auction house will collect things. Eventually I’ll get paid by my clients. Things will get better. But for now, it’s just a matter of hunkering down, getting through this. As always.
Jim Downey
Got two hours to spare? It could open up a whole new dimension in your life.
No, this is not some Amway scam, new-age Woo, or political revival. It’s a series of brilliant videos (along with explanatory text) put together by a French mathematician which explore the existence of a fourth spatial dimension. And it is *very* cool. From ScienceNews:
So can any of these techniques help us visualize Schläfli’s 600-sided, four-dimensional shape? Using a computer, Ghys first passes Schläfli’s regular, four-dimensional shapes through three-dimensional space and looks at the three-dimensional “slices” created. This helps a bit, but just as in two dimensions, it’s not easy to assemble an image of the higher-dimensional shape this way.
Next, he draws the three-dimensional “shadows” of the four-dimensional objects. This turns out to be much better: Rotating the objects around to see different facets of them can give a pretty good feeling for their shapes.
Finally, he uses stereographic projection. The idea is the same as projecting from three to two: You blow the four-dimensional shape up into a ball, and then you place a light at the “north pole” and project the image down into three dimensions. That process is all-but-impossible for us to visualize, just as the process of projecting a three-dimensional ball would be impossible for the lizards to imagine. The results, though, are gloriously easy to make sense of.
OK, for this old dog it is still a bit tough – my imagination is not as supple as it once was. But even I could start to get glimpses, on the first viewing. I plan on taking the time to make at least one more pass at the series. For someone such as myself who lacks the mathematics background to really understand what is going on, this is a very helpful tool. Seriously – give it a try. It could open up a whole new dimension for you.
Jim Downey
(Via MeFi. Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Civil Rights, Daily Kos, Government, Guns, Politics, Preparedness, RKBA, Society, Violence
Hmm. As noted in comments in the previous post, I seem to never have cross-posted this essay here from Daily Kos. So, I thought I would.
Jim Downey
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Do you own a fire extinguisher? Why?
Do you own a fire extinguisher? Why? Are you expecting a fire? Or do you have some sort of left-over juvenile desire to play fireman, a private macho image of rushing into a burning building to save a child? Don’t you know that improperly used, a fire extinguisher can be dangerous to yourself and others? And there have been “studies” done that show people who own fire extinguishers are actually more careless with fire risks, thinking that they’ll always be able to resort to their fire extinguisher to solve the problem. Besides, firefighters are always right there when you need them, and can put out any fire for you, so there’s no point in having your own fire extinguisher.
How about an emergency first-aid kit? Do you have one of those? Why? Are you expecting to injure yourself? Or do you have some sort of left-over juvenile desire to play doctor, a private macho image of saving someone from bleeding to death with an improvised tourniquet? Don’t you know that improperly used, medical supplies and equipment can be dangerous to yourself and others? And there have been “studies” done that show people who own first-aid kits are actually more careless in general, thinking that they’ll always be able to resort to their medical supplies to repair any injury they sustain. Besides, Emergency Medical Technicians or doctors are always right there when you need them, and can instantly patch you up if you get injured, so there’s no point in having your own first-aid kit.
Are these responses to being prepared absurd? Yeah. But they are exactly the sorts of responses I get when people find out I have a permit for carrying a concealed weapon, and generally carry a pistol whenever and wherever I can legally do so. And my experience is not at all unusual – most gun owners encounter the same sort of reaction from non-gun owners. We’re asked if we’re expecting to have a shoot-out in the supermarket. We’re asked if we have some childish fantasy about playing cops & robbers. We’re told that if we want to play with guns and shoot people that we should join the military. We’re confronted with facts that guns are inherently dangerous to ourselves and others, and that “studies” have shown that owning a gun makes it more likely that we will behave in such a fashion as to need to resort to using one to get us out of a dangerous situation. And besides, there’s always a cop around when you need one, just to protect you, so there’s no need to have a weapon for self defense.
Are there gun owners who think that carrying a weapon makes them invincible, and they therefore go around with a chip on their shoulder, putting themselves in dangerous situations thinking that they can always whip out their pistol and escape? Yeah, probably. But that is no more the typical mindset of a gun owner than is the notion that someone who owns a fire extinguisher is going to be careless with fire risks. Are guns inherently dangerous, and if used improperly present a threat to the owner and anyone else in the vicinity? Definitely. Which is why anyone who carries a weapon has a responsibility (usually mandated by law in the state which issued their concealed carry permit) to know how to safely handle and use a firearm, how to safely store it, and when it can be legally used in defense of self or another. And are there gun owners who think that they’re some kind of auxiliary police force, ready to jump in and right any criminal wrong they see being committed? Yup. In fact, a lot of people who legally carry a firearm do so precisely because there are situations where intervening could save the life of a loved one, a friend or even a stranger. But that doesn’t mean that they are wanna-be cops. Rather, they’re just trying to help contribute to their own safety and the safety of others. The police, firefighters and EMTs can’t be everywhere. We do have a responsibility to protect ourselves, to make prudent preparations in the event of an unexpected turn of events. That means having a fire extinguisher handy in case of a fire. It means having a first aid kit, and knowing some basic medical skills for dealing with an emergency. And for me it means having a gun available as a tool for self protection. Your level of comfort with how you are prepared for what situations may well be different, but that does not mean that my decision, and the decision of millions of other Americans, to legally and safely carry a concealed weapon is wrong or paranoid.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Civil Rights, Constitution, General Musings, Pharyngula, Politics, PZ Myers, Religion, Science Fiction, Society, Terrorism, Violence, Writing stuff
[This post contains mild spoilers about Communion of Dreams.]
I’ve had some people say that the Edenists I created for Communion of Dreams are just absurdly overblown – that I have unfairly mischaracterized both fundamentalist religion and radical environmentalists. I don’t usually argue with people who say things like this – my goal is not to convince everyone that my book of speculative fiction is right in all of its particulars. I just hope that they will continue to pay attention to the world around them, and see what is happening.
Like this item, via PZ Myers:
Should Evolutionists Be Allowed to Roam Free in the Land?
* * *
Clearly then, “evolutionists should not be allowed to roam free in the land.” All that remains for us to discuss is “What should be done with evolutionists?” For the purposes of this essay, I will ignore the minor issue of Western-style jurisprudence and merely mention possible solutions to the “evolutionism problem,” leaving the legal details to others:
- Labor camps. Their fellow believers were high on these. But, my position would be that most of them have lived their lives at, or near the public trough. So, after their own beliefs, their life should continue only as long as they can support themselves in the camps.
- Require them to wear placards around their neck, or perhaps large medallions which prominently announce “Warning:Evolutionist! Mentally Incompetent – Potentially Dangerous.” I consider this option too dangerous.
- Since evolutionists are liars and most do not really believe evolution we could employ truth serum or water-boarding to obtain confessions of evolution rejection. But, thisshould, at most, result in parole, because, like Muslims, evolutionist religion permits them to lie if there is any benefit to them.
- An Evolutionist Colony in Antarctica could be a promising option. Of course inspections would be required to prevent too much progress. They might invent gunpowder.
- A colony on Mars would prevent gunpowder from harming anyone but their own kind, in the unlikely event they turned out to be intelligent enough to invent it.
That’s an excerpt from the close of the piece, after the author has gone through some effort to define who ‘evolutionists’ are (he seems to mix up socialism, communism, Nazism, and support for slavery. No, really, he says that ‘evolutionists’ are all of these things.) Feel free to read the entire piece.
Now, as one commentor over at Pharyngula said, “that’s some weapons-grade crazy.”
My intent here isn’t to get into a discussion on this particular fellow’s pathology. It is simply to point out that this stuff is out there, and in my experience is fairly widespread. He’s just down the road from me about 100 miles, and growing up and living in the Midwest I have met plenty of his type. There are a lot of people who would take such an eliminationist approach to all their perceived enemies. Unfortunately, as we have also seen with the Earth Liberation Movement, there are also those who claim to be radical environmentalists who are willing to take violent action. Melding two such groups was an easy step in my mind.
Don’t misunderstand me – I am not claiming that all religious adherents are violent extremists. Nor are all environmentalists. Hardly. But these groups are out there. They are not a figment of my imagination. And if we forget that, or ignore them, we may find ourselves in a world akin to Communion of Dreams (or someplace worse.)
Jim Downey
Filed under: Arthur C. Clarke, Charlie Stross, Nuclear weapons, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Space, tech, Travel, Wired
Bit over a year ago, I wrote about Charlie Stross’s pessimistic views on space colonization. Pointing out that Stross was correct in terms of the current technology curve, I said that the bigger issue was a failure to understand that forecasting breakthrough technologies is almost impossible. From my post:
The thing is, it is difficult in the extreme to make solid predictions more than a couple of decades out. In my own lifetime I have seen surprise wonders come on the scene, and expectations thwarted. Technology develops in ways that don’t always make sense, except perhaps in hindsight. 100 years ago, many people thought that commercial flight would never become a reality. 40 years ago, people thought that we’d have permanent bases on the Moon by now. You get my drift.
Everything that Charlie Stross says in his post makes sense. You can’t get to that future from here. But “here” is going to change in ways which are unpredictable, and then the future becomes more in flux than what we expect at present. For Communion of Dreams, I set forth a possible future history which leads to permanent settlements on the Moon, Mars, and Europa, with functional space stations at several other locations outside of Earth orbit. Will it happen? I dunno. I doubt that exactly my scenario would come about. But it is plausible.
And I have pretty much the exact same reaction to this item from Wired:
Rocket Scientists Say We’ll Never Reach the Stars
Many believe that humanity’s destiny lies with the stars. Sadly for us, rocket propulsion experts now say we may never even get out of the Solar System.
At a recent conference, rocket scientists from NASA, the U.S. Air Force and academia doused humanity’s interstellar dreams in cold reality. The scientists, presenting at the Joint Propulsion Conference in Hartford, Connecticut, analyzed many of the designs for advanced propulsion that others have proposed for interstellar travel. The calculations show that, even using the most theoretical of technologies, reaching the nearest star in a human lifetime is nearly impossible.
Well, yeah. And if you asked medieval blacksmiths about about building a weapon that could kill a million people instantly, they’d also say it was impossible. For them, it was. For us, it’s technology which is 63 years old as of last month.
I’m sure everyone attending that conference (professionally, anyway) knows more about rocket science than I do. And probably about any exotic propulsion technologies on the horizon as well.
But that doesn’t mean they’re right. In fact, even if they aren’t elderly, they’re very probably wrong.
And even they know it. From that same article in Wired, after saying this:
The major problem is that propulsion — shooting mass backwards to go forwards — requires large amounts of both time and fuel. For instance, using the best rocket engines Earth currently has to offer, it would take 50,000 years to travel the 4.3 light years to Alpha Centauri, our solar system’s nearest neighbor. Even the most theoretically efficient type of propulsion, an imaginary engine powered by antimatter, would still require decades to reach Alpha Centauri, according to Robert Frisbee, group leader in the Advanced Propulsion Technology Group within NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Frisbee says this:
As for interstellar travel, even the realists are far from giving up. All it takes is one breakthrough to make the calculations work, Frisbee said.
“It’s always science fiction until someone goes out and does it,” he said.
Perzactly.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Ballistics, Book Conservation, Feedback, Guns, Health, Migraine, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Ray Bradbury, Science Fiction, Sleep, Society, Writing stuff
As I have noted, I have been fairly busy of late. And in looking back over the last couple of months, I can see a real change in both my energy level and my ability to focus – it’s no longer the case that I want to nap most of the time. Yeah, I am still going through a detox process, still finding my way back to something akin to normalcy – but there has been a decided improvement. Fewer migraines. More energy. A willingness to take on some additional obligations.
So I had to debate a long time when I was recently contacted by a site wanting to expand their scope and impact. These folks. They were wanting me to do a column every two weeks, more-or-less related to Science Fiction (giving me a lot of latitude to define the scope of the column as I saw fit). They have a lot of good ideas, and seem to have a pretty good handle on where they want to go in the future. And the invitation was a real compliment to me – not only did they say nice things about my writing, but they have a good energy and attitude which is appealing.
But I declined the invitation. Why? Well, to a certain extent it’s like Bradbury says: “You have to know how to accept rejection and reject acceptance.”
I may come to regret this decision. It could possibly have helped my writing career, at least in terms of landing a conventional publishing contract. And I know from writing my newspaper column that the discipline can do good things for me – forcing me to address a specific topic rather than the more general musings I post here and at UTI. But I really do have a lot on my plate right now, and they are all things I want to do well, rather than just get done. Blogging here (which is really quite important to me). Participating at UTI. Crafting this book about being a care provider. Getting the ballistics project website up and running. All the book conservation work waiting for me. Eventually getting to work on St. Cybi’s Well again. And enjoying life. There’s been precious little of that these last few years.
So, I declined. But if you perhaps would be interested in the gig, they have contact info on their homepage.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Artificial Intelligence, Connections, Expert systems, General Musings, Health, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Synesthesia, tech, Titan, Writing stuff
[This post contains mild spoilers about Communion of Dreams.]
One of the difficulties facing computer engineers/scientists with developing expert systems and true Artificial Intelligence is the paradigm they use. Simply, working from structures analogous to the human brain, there has been a tendency to isolate functions and have them work independently. Even in modern computer science such things as adaptive neural networks are understood to analogous to biological neural networks in the brain, which serve a specific function:
Biological neural networks are made up of real biological neurons that are connected or functionally-related in the peripheral nervous system or the central nervous system. In the field of neuroscience, they are often identified as groups of neurons that perform a specific physiological function in laboratory analysis.
But what if the neuroscience on which these theories are based has been wrong?
Here’s the basics of what was Neuroscience 101: The auditory system records sound, while the visual system focuses, well, on the visuals, and never do they meet. Instead, a “higher cognitive” producer, like the brain’s superior colliculus, uses these separate inputs to create our cinematic experiences.
The textbook rewrite: The brain can, if it must, directly use sound to see and light to hear.
* * *
Researchers trained monkeys to locate a light flashed on a screen. When the light was very bright, they easily found it; when it was dim, it took a long time. But if a dim light made a brief sound, the monkeys found it in no time – too quickly, in fact, than can be explained by the old theories.
Recordings from 49 neurons responsible for the earliest stages of visual processing, researchers found activation that mirrored the behavior. That is, when the sound was played, the neurons reacted as if there had been a stronger light, at a speed that can only be explained by a direct connection between the ear and eye brain regions, said researcher Ye Wang of the University of Texas in Houston.
The implication is that there is a great deal more flexibility – or ‘plasticity’ – in the structure of the brain than had been previously understood.
Well, yeah. Just consider how someone who has been blind since birth will have heightened awareness of other senses. Some have argued that this is simply a matter of such a person learning to make the greatest use of the senses they have. But others have suspected that they actually learn to use those structures in the brain normally associated with visual processing to boost the ability to process other sensory data. And that’s what the above research shows.
OK, two things. One, this is why I have speculated in Communion of Dreams that synesthesia is more than just the confusion of sensory input – it is using our existing senses to construct not a simple linear view of the world, but a matrix in three dimensions (with the five senses on each axis of such a ‘cube’ structure). In other words, synesthesia is more akin to a meta-cognitive function. That is why (as I mentioned a few days ago) the use of accelerator drugs in the novel allows users to take a step-up in cognition and creativity, though at the cost of burning up the brain’s available store of neurotransmitters.
And two, this is also why I created the ‘tholin gel’ found on Titan to be a superior material as the basis of computers, and even specify that the threshold limit for a gel burr in such use is about the size of the human brain. Why? Well, because such a superconducting superfluid would not function as a simple neural network – rather, the entire burr of gel would function as a single structure, with enormous flexibility and plasticity. In other words, much more like the way the human brain functions as is now coming to be understood.
So, perhaps in letting go of the inaccurate model for the way the brain works, we’ll take a big step closer to creating true artificial intelligence. Like in my book. It pays to be flexible, in our theories, in our thinking, and in how we see the world.
Jim Downey
Hat tip to ML for the news link.
To a man I never met, and whose life I would not pretend to understand.
Larry Sievers has died from the cancer about which he blogged and reported the last several years. He was an exceptional writer, and brought us insight into his battle with a brutal honesty and grace. More than that, he built an online community of which he was justifiably proud. As he said in the farewell piece on NPR this morning:
But I am at peace because I have done my best to make a difference. I hope when the real time comes, someone says that about each of us.
No worries, Larry. Thank you for all you did in sharing your humanity with us all.
Jim Downey
I just came across a clipping from four years ago – a political Op-Ed I’d written for one of the local papers. Thought I’d repost it, just for grins. Here it is, and it can also be found on my archive writing site.
Jim D.
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Real Americans
A local radio station promotes itself as “Real Radio – for real Americans!” It’s a station that I listen to occasionally, because I like to think I’m a real American. After all, I was born here (on the Fourth of July, no less). I pay my taxes, try and make my community a better place, fly my flag and love my country. Some of the shows are interesting. Some of the hosts are funny (sometimes intentionally so). Some of the opinions are ones I agree with.
But since I only occasionally listen to this station, I guess I’m not a “real American.” Or maybe I’m partly a real American, proportional to the amount of time I listen in. OK, but do I figure that as the percentage of my time listening to radio overall, as a percentage of my waking hours, or what? Perhaps it should be calculated according to how much I agree with the politics stated on the radio station. Well, that leads to problems, too, because after all, even the hosts have major disagreements from one show to the next.
I don’t conform completely to most of the right-wing ideas espoused by this radio station. Nor do I comfortably fit in with the beliefs of the far left. I’m pro-choice but also pro-death penalty. I believe in concealed-carry, but wanted the assault weapons ban. I supported Desert Storm, but think that the latest Iraqi Adventure was nothing more than a Neocon con-job. I find opera boring, but NASCAR is also a snooze. I read The Economist, but also check out Mother Jones regularly. The current version of “JFK” is a pale shadow of the one I remember being assassinated, but then, the current President Bush can’t hold a candle to the intellect, experience, and accomplishments of his father. I’ve worked in Republican presidential campaigns, but have contributed money to Democrats. I’m somewhere in the happy middle, and don’t trust fanatics of any stripe, either in politics or religion. Most people are like me, using common sense and their internal moral compass to make tough choices in a complicated world. So maybe that means we’re all not completely “real Americans.”
The numbers would seem to bear this out: the radio station only has a small share of the market (let’s be generous and say it’s 10%). Does that mean that 90% of the people here who aren’t tuned in aren’t real Americans?
Or maybe the hype of the radio station’s promotional material is out of sync with reality, a reflection of the unfortunate tendency for the far right to think that they somehow have a monopoly on what it means to be a “real American.” This radio station isn’t the only example of this I’ve come across lately.
Recently on NPR there was an interesting interview with a nice couple in Dallas who are putting together a film festival for those with a more conservative inclination. They’re doing this because they feel that so much mainstream film reflects a Hollywood liberalism, and wanted to balance the ledger a little. Great. But in the course of the interview the woman said that they’re putting together the film festival for ‘real Americans.” When asked by the host what the woman meant by that, she stuck to her guns, said she meant “folks like us – in tune with the news, such as the War on Terror.”
Ah. So, if I keep up with the news, I’m a real American. Got it. But once again, does that mean that everyone who doesn’t keep up with the news, particularly the war on terror, doesn’t qualify? And how do I scale this? If I can point to Afghanistan on a map, can pick out Osama bin Laden from a line-up, and can name the three countries in the Axis of Evil, do I qualify? Do I get extra points for being able to identify the Americans killed this week in Iraq, or being able to explain how their deaths make me safer?
What if I am current on the news, but just happen to disagree with the way the War on Terror is being conducted? Somehow, I doubt that the nice lady who is putting together the film festival would think that makes me a real American. Would she say that those families who have lost sons and daughters in Iraq qualify as real Americans? Even the ones who oppose this war?
What about you, are you willing to let her decide whether or not you’re a real American? Isn’t it time that we asserted our status ourselves, rather than let some narrow partisan group or radio station claim that as their sole property? If you think that you’re a real American, whatever your politics, then don’t let someone else steal that from you. Patriotism isn’t only the province of the right; it belongs to all of us, and it’s high time we started saying so.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 