Filed under: Astronomy, Connections, Fermi's Paradox, National Geographic, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, SETI, Space, tech | Tags: astronomy, blogging, Drake Equation, Fermi's Paradox, jim downey, National Geographic, predictions, science, Science Fiction, space, technology
As something of a follow up to my last post, there’s a great little item about the development of the Drake equation over on National Geographic. Here’s a good passage:
It’s this kind of guesswork that tends to inflame the Drake equation’s critics, those who complain that the equation isn’t predictive, is too open-ended, and doesn’t provide any answers. But “predictive” isn’t really what Drake ever intended.
“It’s a way to frame the problem,” says MIT astrophysicist Sara Seager, about the equation. “In science, you always need an equation—but this isn’t one you’re going to solve. It just helps you dissect everything.”
Definitely worth reading, as well as thinking about.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Book Conservation, Connections, tech, U of Iowa Ctr for the Book, University of Missouri | Tags: blogging, book conservation, Gutenberg Bible, history, jim downey, Johannes Gutenberg, technology, University of Iowa Center for the Book, University of Missouri, Wikipedia
As a book & document conservator, I’ve had the good fortune to see, handle, and work on some really interesting historical artifacts. Just the other day a client came to me for an assessment of a ratty old paperback book which had been in her mother’s underwear drawer for the better part of the last fifty years. Don’t think it sounds particularly special or interesting? Well, if it’s the right kind of paperback … yeah, there’s a *very* good chance that the book she brought me would be just the fifth known copy of that very important first edition. I recommended that she deal with a qualified rare book appraiser, though everything about the book — the paper quality and age, the sewing structure and condition, the amount of dust and dirt it had collected, even the smell of the thing — all fit perfectly into what I would expect of a book printed in that time and that place and then used and loved for a century or so, then put away and essentially forgotten for another century.
So, yeah, I do get to see, handle, and work on some pretty cool stuff, some of which I have documented here and over on my professional site.
But there is one thing which is so iconic, which so perfectly focuses on a critical moment in history, that when I was first asked to work on it more than 20 years ago I knew that my talents and training had been accepted by the then-director of Special Collections at the University of Missouri – Columbia. This item:
I would expect that anyone who would find themselves reading my blog would already know the history and importance of the Gutenberg Bible, but just in case here’s the intro for the Wikipedia entry:
The Gutenberg Bible (also known as the 42-line Bible, the Mazarin Bible or the B42) was the first major book printed in the West using movable type. It marked the start of the “Gutenberg Revolution” and the age of the printed book in the West. Widely praised for its high aesthetic and artistic qualities,[1] the book has an iconic status. Written in Latin, the Gutenberg Bible is an edition of the Vulgate, printed by Johannes Gutenberg, in Mainz, Germany, in the 1450s. Forty-eight copies, or substantial portions of copies, survive, and they are considered to be among the most valuable books in the world, even though no complete copy has been sold since 1978.
The title page from this presentation case explains a bit more why it is just a ‘leaf’ from one of the Bibles:
Basically, someone took a partial copy of one of the known authentic Bibles, separated it into individual leaves, mounted those into this presentation case, then sold those to collectors and institutions which wanted to have their own sample of the Bible. Each one is now worth on the order of $50,000.
Now, you might notice (if you dig around into the data on these images) that these are recent pictures all taken with my smartphone (and no flash). That’s because a week or so ago I brought the leaf home from Special Collections for some additional work. No big deal, honestly, just a little cleaning and a minor bit of repair. Here’s what the leaf looked like before (front and back):
Front of page before treatment.
Back of page before treatment.
And here’s what it looked like after:
Front of page after treatment.
Back of page after treatment.
Yeah, not a huge difference. But if you look closely, particularly on the lower fore-edge corner, you can see that it is notably cleaner. And there’s also an almost invisible repair in that area on the back of the page where a slight fold was weakening the corner. So I reinforced it with a bit of handmade kozo paper (from the UICB – where I trained as a conservator), and a little bit of wheatpaste. Here’s a detail of the repair in process, before the excess was trimmed off:
And here it is complete:
Almost, but not quite, invisible. That’s in keeping with current conservation practices, where you don’t want a repair to be a distraction, but you do want it to be evident to the trained eye, so they know the ‘honest’ history of the item and whether it has been treated/repaired.
To be perfectly honest in another way, working on this leaf was just completely straight-forward. Cleaning and simple kozo repairs are about the simplest conservation tasks performed, and in no way are a challenge to my abilities.
And yet …
And yet, because of what that leaf is, what it represents, I kept it locked away in the safe until I could devote a full afternoon of work to taking care of it. Until I had completely gone through a ritual cleaning of my bindery space. Until I was at the very ‘top of my game’ in terms of focus and attention. Until I was absolutely certain that I could do the tasks required with my full and total respect. Call it Zen & the Art of Conservation if you want. Or just call it a recognition that I am only one set of hands in a long chain who for a moment (once again) had a responsibility to both the future and the past.
The leaf has already been returned to the care of Special Collections.
Jim Downey
PS: Tucked in the back of presentation case was this document from the first treatment I performed. Thought I’d share it as well, just for grins.
Filed under: Art, Book Conservation, Connections, Survival, tech, University of Missouri | Tags: art, blogging, book conservation, bookbinding, jim downey, Legacy Bookbindery, Metamorphoses, Ovid, photography, technology, University of Missouri
My profession of being a book conservator is fairly unusual, and since I write about it and post images occasionally, I tend to get questions about it fairly often. The other day I got a nice query from graduate student Aaron Hain at the University of North Texas about a research assignment which included this:
The assignment is to include “a general discussion of major theories and practices and the controversies” in relation to dealing with different historic bindings. As the paper is only about 4-5 pages long, it’s obviously only able to be either very general or to cover only a couple of binding types. Could you give maybe a brief coverage of how you would deal with the conservation/preservation of a couple of different binding types and possible issues that you can run into when dealing with those bindings? In particular, the 1518 Ovid in limp vellum on your projects page caught my attention and was the one that got me to e-mail you.
Since it’s been 5+ years since I last posted about that, I thought I would share my brief response here.
* * *
Current practice in book conservation is to respect both the original structure as well as the history of what the book has had done to it over time. Basically, that means that I seldom try to remove all traces of damage, or rebinding, or repairs, or notes from a book and try to turn it into some pristine example of what it was when first made. Usually I try to accommodate those changes, to preserve the character of the book insofar as possible. They are, after all, part of the book’s provenance, and can teach us a great deal.
But sometimes it is necessary and appropriate to remove previous bindings/repairs, if they themselves extensively damage or threaten the continued existence of the original book. When I encounter such a book I will confer with the client and discuss options. One such case about five years ago was a copy of Ovid’s Metamorphoses printed in Venice and dated 1518. I have documented the work performed here: 1518 copy of Ovid
As you can see, we decided to put the book into a limp vellum structure, which was fairly typical for a simple and relatively inexpensive binding at that time.
Why this choice? The 19th century binding the book had been in was completely breaking down. The sewing structure was failing. The leather was deteriorated. There was nothing particularly noteworthy to the style or type of binding, and the materials it was made of would continue to cause damage to the text block. So the client elected to remove that binding, though I believe that they have kept it (separately) as part of the book’s history.
But since we had no records of what the book would have looked like its binding originally, we decided to go with a very simple and neutral structure. A blank slate, as it were, so as not to suggest a false history to future readers/custodians/conservators. While the style and material of the limp vellum binding are fairly timeless in themselves, the archival endpapers I added would clearly date the era when that binding had been created, without imposing an early-21st century aesthetic on the book. And if need be, all or part of the structure and materials could be easily removed in the future.
* * *
Just thought I’d share that. And I do love how that binding turned out.
If you haven’t yet, be sure to take a few minutes to enjoy the full set of pictures and text about the project.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Connections, NYT, Predictions, Quantum mechanics, Science, Science Fiction, tech | Tags: blogging, jim downey, Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, New York Times, predictions, quantum computing, quantum teleportation, science, Science Fiction, technology
Short paragraph. Big implications:
Realizing robust quantum information transfer between long-lived qubit registers is a key challenge for quantum information science and technology. Here, we demonstrate unconditional teleportation of arbitrary quantum states between diamond spin qubits separated by 3 m. We prepare the teleporter through photon-mediated heralded entanglement between two distant electron spins and subsequently encode the source qubit in a single nuclear spin. By realizing a fully deterministic Bell-state measurement combined with real-time feed-forward quantum teleportation is achieved upon each attempt with an average state fidelity exceeding the classical limit. These results establish diamond spin qubits as a prime candidate for the realization of quantum networks for quantum communication and network-based quantum computing.
Decent explanation (at least from what I know) in this article. Excerpt:
Scientists in the Netherlands have moved a step closer to overriding one of Albert Einstein’s most famous objections to the implications of quantum mechanics, which he described as “spooky action at a distance.”
In a paper published on Thursday in the journal Science, physicists at the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience at the Delft University of Technology reported that they were able to reliably teleport information between two quantum bits separated by three meters, or about 10 feet.
Ten feet may not sound like much, but it is a huge increase — previously, reliable teleportation of information was on the scale of just billionths of a meter. This change opens the door to functional quantum computing, which would have the same relation to current computing power that current computing power has to mechanical calculating machines of about the WWII era.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Brave New World, Civil Rights, Connections, Government, Humor, Predictions, Privacy, Science Fiction, Society, tech | Tags: blogging, civil liberties, Constitution, Focus Life Gear, government, humor, jim downey, Kunihiko Morinaga, predictions, privacy, Science Fiction, St. Cybi's Well, technology, tracking, writing
I have mentioned this passage from the prelude to St Cybi’s Well a couple of times previously:
He turned the hand-held on, did a quick check to make sure it had the software and apps he’d asked for. Everything was there. He’d pick up a burner phone later, and swap the SIMM card into the hand-held. He turned off the hand-held, dropped it into a special pocket inside his vest – one which was RF-blocked. He had another such compartment in his satchel. These, like the wallet/holster, were prohibited items and grounds for arrest in the States, but while they would raise an eyebrow in the UK they weren’t technically illegal.
And even earlier did a blog post about a commercial product to isolate a phone that way when I first thought of it: Off the Grid Bag. (Which actually works quite well, as a matter of fact; I got one of those and have tested/used it exactly as intended.)
Well, now someone has come up with the idea of making actual articles of clothing using the same idea:
Sure, you could just turn off your phone. But that would be too easy. Now, thanks to Trident (yes, the chewing gum) and fashion designer Kunihiko Morinaga, you can repel all cellphone transmissions simply by wearing these hip threads called Focus Life Gear—made of radio frequency shielding fabric.
I suppose that since I haven’t actually published St Cybi’s Well yet I can’t claim to have predicted this tech, but no matter — it’s an obvious application of existing technology and desire for privacy. But still, kinda fun.
James Downey
Tip of the radio-wave-blocking hat to Tim for the news item! Thanks!
Filed under: Brave New World, Health, Humor, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Society, tech | Tags: blogging, health, humor, jim downey, medicine, predictions, science, Science Fiction, stem cells, technology
“Mr. Jones? This is Jane from Universal Replacements.”
“Yes?”
“I was just calling to tell you that your new left ear will be ready for delivery on Friday. Which medical clinic will be doing the installation?”
“Acme Doctors over on … hey, wait, did you say LEFT ear?”
“That’s right, sir.”
“No, no, no, there’s been a mistake. I ordered a RIGHT ear when I sent in the cell sample.”
“I’m sorry sir, my records clearly indicate that you ordered a LEFT ear when you placed your order.”
“That can’t be right, I know I ordered a RIGHT ear! I don’t need a new LEFT ear!”
“I’m sorry, sir … ”
James Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Amazon, Artificial Intelligence, Brave New World, Connections, Feedback, Genetic Testing, Health, Hospice, Humor, Kindle, Marketing, movies, Promotion, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, tech, Writing stuff, YouTube | Tags: Aliens, Alzheimer's, Amazon, artificial intelligence, blogging, direct publishing, DNA, feedback, free, health, Her Final Year, hospice, humor, jim downey, John Bourke, Kindle, movies, promotion, science, Science Fiction, Scrivener, St. Cybi's Well, synthetic biology, technology, writing, www youtube
Catch this news this week?
Synthetic biology: New letters for life’s alphabet
The five bases found in nucleic acids define the ‘alphabet’ used to encode life on Earth. The construction of an organism that stably propagates an unnatural DNA base pair redefines this fundamental feature of life.
* * *
Sorry about the sparseness of posting lately. I’ve been … busy. Have had a couple of interesting things happen which could play out in some very good ways. One is still enough in an embryonic stage that I won’t mention anything about it yet, but the other is far enough along that I’ll share: there’s a literary agent who is potentially interested in representing me, something which I have been thinking about for a while.
And it seems like a good enough fit that I took all of last weekend to put together a submission package for formal consideration. That meant going through and doing fairly thorough revisions to the first few chapters of St Cybi’s Well, using the feedback I have gotten from half a dozen ‘beta readers’, as well as composing a formal synopsis of the book. Frankly, both were a lot of work, and somewhat skewed my normal work schedule such that it is just now getting back to what passes for normal in my life.
But it was also helpful, and forced me to clarify some things which I had left unfocused for the rest of the book. Because of the way I am writing this (using Scrivener), it has been fairly easy for me to block out both the overall arc of the book as well as character developments. But doing so has been based on chapter notes more than anything, meaning that it was still somewhat in flux. Creating a full synopsis meant that I had to put the whole thing into one coherent document. And even though it was something of a pain in the butt, the result is helpful.
I’ll keep you posted as to any concrete developments.
* * *
Remember this scene from Aliens?
Considered a classic, and rightly so. But I’ve always thought that a big part of the brilliance of it is how it sets up what happens immediately after:
Back at the groups’ table, Bishop holds up his hand and examines a tiny cut closely.
BURKE: I thought you never missed, Bishop?
To Ripley’s horror, a trickle of white synthetic blood runs down his finger. Ripley spins on Burke, her tone accusing.
RIPLEY: You never said anything about an android being on board! Why not?!
BURKE: It never occurred to me. It’s common practice. We always have a synthetic on board.
BISHOP: I prefer the term ‘artificial person’ myself.
BURKE: Right.
* * *
Oh, one more thing: in observation of Mother’s Day, the Kindle edition of Her Final Year is available for free download through Sunday, May 11th. If you’re new here, just a quick note: this is our care-giving memoir about the challenges and rewards of caring for someone with dementia, as well as the long recovery/reflection period which comes after. It seems to have helped a lot of people. Perhaps it can help you or someone you know.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 