I'm going to take a week off, or so, for the Holiday. I know I can't complain about being burnt out from prolificity; I barely post enough as it is. But I have other things to concentrate on the next week. When I get back, I'll review 2010, my prediction that 2010 would be The Year of the Human Machine Interface, and make my bold prediction for what tech trends we'll see next year.If anyone needs any last minute Christmas gift ideas for me, I really want the Kindle Wif...
Thursday, 23 December 2010
Merry Christmas from TAE
Posted on 06:16 by hony
To all you out there, from me here, a verry Merry Christmas. Remember its the giving that matters, not the gettin...
Wednesday, 22 December 2010
Weekly Devotional
Posted on 05:27 by hony
Once again I come around in the rotation for St. Andrew's Weekly Devotional series.Typically, these weekly devotionals are very good. They are introspective, uplifting, and direct. I feel like maybe I should violate the "rules of devotionals" a little, as my own birthday present for Jesus.As we celebrate Christmas this week, and as we move towards 2011 the next, I humbly ask that each and every one of you declare 2011 "The Year I Become a Hero." Jesus, of course, typifies heroic behavior: stoically true to his principles, altruistic like no other,...
Tuesday, 21 December 2010
A thought for your Tuesday - Reading, Writing, and Arithmetic...
Posted on 09:55 by hony
Reading is a noun or verb. Writing is a noun or verb. What is the verb form of Arithmetic?...
Hello, Dream Job
Posted on 05:49 by hony
R&D Engineer 2, Los Alamos National LabI wonder if Mrs. TAE would like Sante Fe? Or maybe she'd prefer Albuquerqu...
Monday, 20 December 2010
Sunday, 19 December 2010
The End of DADT
Posted on 09:20 by hony
I was having a really lousy weekend. News of this made everything better. Go America. Know hop...
Friday, 17 December 2010
Friday Poetry Burst
Posted on 13:47 by hony
I've used this before, yes I know, but I just had a huge setback at work, and needed the words.Invictus by William Ernest HenleyOut of the night that covers me,Black as the pit from pole to pole,I thank whatever gods may beFor my unconquerable soul.In the fell clutch of circumstanceI have not winced nor cried aloud.Under the bludgeonings of chanceMy head is bloody, but unbowed.Beyond this place of wrath and tearsLooms but the Horror of the shade,And yet the menace of the yearsFinds and shall find me unafraid.It matters not how strait the gate,How...
Quote for the Day
Posted on 12:08 by hony
"Any lab that is government certified has oversight." - Ryan in the comments here.Chortl...
The Worst Science Idea of 2010 - Genspace Now Open For Disaster
Posted on 08:24 by hony
Here's the idea:Let's build a lab where anyone, literally anyone, can come and tinker with microorganisms. Better yet, let's make this lab have no oversight whatsoever. Then, let's call making transgenic bacteria (in an unsecure environment) a "fun and educational" project.Then, let's complain that University research (in a secure environment) is undemocratic and held under the tight tyranny of professorial dictators.Then, let's encourage people to use the lab to test themselves for genetic conditions. If it turns out they have a genetic condition...
Back Once Again To Monogamy
Posted on 06:17 by hony
TPI (for the purposes of disclosure, TPI has the quiet distinction of being married to my favorite sister) points to an interview with Mick Jagger, in which Jagger clearly has all the answers:[Jagger] goes on to talk, in a rather rambling way, about the animal kingdom and how human mores regarding marriage and fidelity correspond to what we know of primate behavior. “If you have studied or have even a passing knowledge of animal behavior, it’s hard to see how our rules and regulation fit in,” he says at one point. There are swans,...
Thursday, 16 December 2010
In which I ask why my dad is a Republican.
Posted on 09:40 by hony
TAE has a lot of friends and family members that are both Republicans and avid Conservationists. Many are hunters, and consider preservation of wild areas specifically and the environment in general an important part of their core value system. However, as Republicans, the freedom and ability to develop individual wealth as a member of a free-market capitalist economy is also wildly important to them. TAE suggests these two concepts are directly in conflict, and have been since the 80's.And I'm not alone. Slate writer Daniel Sarewitz writes:It...
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
The Hero Project
Posted on 10:16 by hony
Jonah Lehrer reports on Phil Zimbardo's latest project (remember the Stanford Prison Experiment?) in San Fransisco: a school for heroes.The goal of the project is simple: to put decades of experimental research to use in training the next generation of exemplary Americans, churning out good guys with the same efficiency that gangs and terrorist groups produce bad guys. At first glance, this seems like a slightly absurd endeavor. Heroism, after all, isn’t supposed to be a teachable trait. We assume that people like Gandhi or Rosa...
The Large Hebron Collider
Posted on 05:19 by hony
Earlier this morning, Israeli physicists announced plans to build the Large Hebron Collider, a giant circular ring designed to hurl Israelis and Palestinians at each other at speeds nearing the speed of light. Israeli scientists hope that by smashing individuals of the two groups together, they might successfully detect the MOT Particle, which they have nicknamed the "One True God particle," putting to rest several thousand years of debate over the exact conditions at the formation of the West Ban...
Thursday, 9 December 2010
Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Dear TSA
Posted on 13:18 by hony
Dear TSA,I'm no terrorist. In fact, I'm surely the opposite. Evidence for this being the fact that I really don't mind so much when I get zapped with x-rays in the name of safety, or the fact that I maintain a high-level security clearance with not problem.The enhanced pat-downs and the x-ray scanners with naked pictures are lame, sure, but I'd rather have 'em than a terrorist on an airplane.That said, I have to call into question one of your current policies: laptops. I noticed, yesterday, as I was flying from Kansas City to New Orleans that I...
Sunday, 5 December 2010
Murder
Posted on 13:12 by hony
I spotted him about 4:45 pm. He was tall, and looked in pretty good shape. He certainly towered over the others around him. He showed up where I hadn't been expecting him. I'd assumed he be further down the hill, further away from traffic.In any case, there he was. Looking all proud of himself around the ladies. Some other dudes were nearby, but he clearly was being territorial, being alpha. From where I was, he didn't see me. Which was lucky, I suppose, because I wasn't trying extraordinarily hard to remain hidden. As he'd gotten in view I'd perked...
Friday, 3 December 2010
The Definition of "Discovery"
Posted on 12:22 by hony
I have to admit, before I get into this, that I am a little jaded. I got excited, like everyone else, by Kottke's implication that yesterday's NASA announcement might be the discovery of E.T. Then, when it turned out to be a horrifying well-performed press conference that was a strange concoction of part roundtable, part lecture, and part press release...I must admit that I had furrowed brows. Maybe even a scowl.That said, I think we need to discuss whether or not it is a huge misnomer to call Wolfe-Simon's GFAJ-1 bacteria a "discovery." Let us...
Thursday, 2 December 2010
New Life Discovered! (on Earth) - UPDATED
Posted on 10:54 by hony
Cat is out of the bag:At their conference today, NASA scientist Felisa Wolfe Simon will announce that they have found a bacteria whose DNA is completely alien to what we know today. Instead of using phosphorus, the bacteria uses arsenic. All life on Earth is made of six components: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur. Every being, from the smallest amoeba to the largest whale, share the same life stream. Our DNA blocks are all the same. But not this one. This one is completely different. Discovered in the poisonous...
Life on Titan
Posted on 08:21 by hony
What if Kottke is right? What if this afternoon NASA announces the discovery of living organisms on Titan (a moon of Saturn)? I find it unlikely, mostly because I do not believe we have the equipment orbiting Titan to conclusively prove little critters are moving about. Sure, the Huygens craft landed and took pictures, but barring a webcam video of some sort of Titan-dwelling, methane-powered mouse skittering about, I highly doubt we've found evidence of life.My instinct, considering this is NASA, is that they will have no conclusive results, but...
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
Game Changing Ideas, and their Impossibility
Posted on 19:38 by hony
There are probably a dozen, maybe a hundred even, people on Earth who have an idea that could really change things for the better. An example would be Robert Bussard, who's Polywell fusion reactor could potentially provide clean, cheap, endless energy for humanity. Or it might not. In any case, they have basically no funding, so it doesn't really matter.Federal research funding, it appears to me, is broken. In the first place, it is too broadly applied. While I am sure many important advancements in science have occurred in the last few decades,...
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
A Thought for Thanksgiving Break
Posted on 13:06 by hony
A device able to combust dark matter and convert it to mechanical energy will be the single most important invention in this millenniu...
Tuesday, 23 November 2010
Adult Time
Posted on 06:47 by hony
Katie Roiphe:Can we, for a moment, flash back to the benign neglect of the 1970s and '80s? I can remember my parents having parties, wild children running around until dark, catching fireflies. If these children helped themselves to three slices of cake, or ingested the second-hand smoke from cigarettes, or carried cocktails to adults who were ever so slightly slurring their words, they were not noticed; they were loved, just not monitored. And, as I remember it, those warm summer nights of not being focused on were liberating. In the long sticky...
Sunday, 21 November 2010
The Emotions That Rule Me, Part 3
Posted on 12:52 by hony
Love is a funny thing, at least for me. The strength of love in me is not at all a constant thing. It ebbs and flows, sometimes filling me, and sometimes it seems altogether vacant from my person. My heart, it would seem, comes in a variable size.There are times when I am so filled with love it almost chokes me. I want to love everyone. I want everyone to know that I love them. I get this foggy feeling in my head and my eyes wet, and I believe, really believe, that if we all just had a little more love in us then hate, rage, loneliness, war, fear,...
Saturday, 20 November 2010
The Emotions That Rule Me, Part 2
Posted on 12:51 by hony
When I was a junior in high school, I ran for senior class President. It was on a whim, really, because I didn't have huge aspirations for myself politically, nor did I have any especially great ideas for improvement at the school. What I did have was a cutting-edge strategy for getting elected: comedy comedy comedy. High school kids really don't care about issues. At least, not as much as they care about laughing. So posters like "Do you like air? So does Alex Waller, vote for him to continue free breathing." and "Vote For Waller To End The Vietnam...
Friday, 19 November 2010
The Emotions That Rule Me, Part 1
Posted on 20:15 by hony
Earlier in the year, I wrote a soliloquy musing on darkness. In it, I described that when darkness fell on me during an overnight fishing trip, the weight of the world pressing in on me was enormous, and overwhelming. Perhaps part of being human is a fear of the dark...and that is all it was. But instead (and since I've never really known a real great fear of the dark), I wonder if what pressed in on me was loneliness.There are times in my life when loneliness creeps in, and it usually has nothing to do with the number of other people around...
Dehydrato
Posted on 06:01 by hony
Long-time readers of this blog will know that I coined the now-famous term "Godzillionaire" which is defined as a person with a net worth of at least 1 Godzillion dollars.And, yes, Godzillion is also a TAE trademarked word, meaning "the amount of money required to genetically engineer or irradiate a small lizard so it turns into a 200-foot long, fire-breathing, immortal monster capable of destroying Tokyo yet somehow morally against it." I imagine that would take a lot of money to accomplish.This google search will reveal that Godzillion and Godzillionaire...
Thursday, 18 November 2010
Matt Yglesias and Engineering
Posted on 11:45 by hony
Yglesias: The real problem with overspending on defense, by contrast, is that the defense establishment competes for people with civilian sectors of the economy. The guys who are building these cool military exoskeletons, for example, are obviously very talented. And the supply of talented engineers isn’t all that elastic. When they supply their talents to defense-related projects, the civilian economy is starved of talent.While I admit, my cool, defense related job has starved the civilian community of my daring and copious engineering talent,...
The Post-Labor Era
Posted on 09:45 by hony
Megan suggests that while we "lose jobs to China," we in fact are still maintaining jobs...we just create different ones:For an individual with a job in a textile factory, there may indeed be displacement. Yet over the centuries, our economy has "lost" millions of jobs. Weavers no longer ply their trade in front of a hand loom, threshers don't stride through the golden fields of wheat with their scythes, and wheelwrights and blacksmiths have lost their livelihoods to the horseless carriage. Yet unemployment has not shot up...
Wednesday, 17 November 2010
Axed
Posted on 09:29 by hony
I'm taking Curious Cat off my blogroll, as it has degraded to hackery and advertisin...
Ending Cars?
Posted on 08:49 by hony
After several months of arguing in favor of autonomous cars...I feel its about time to start tackling mass transit. This comes on the heels of me reading a report that for every ten barrels of oil that enter the United States, seven of them power automobiles. That's a lot of oil. And subsequently, it is a lot of CO2.The solution to this abject waste of natural resources would of course be to expand mass transit, and streamline it, and make it more personal, so that large number of people gave up on their cars. This, of course, assumes that Transfer...
Wednesday, 10 November 2010
Busy
Posted on 07:51 by hony
Like TPI, I have been pulled away from my hobbies as of late, due to familial obligations and certain temporary extra-curriculars. Forgive me, dear readers, but posts may be a bit light - for a bit longer.Just to keep you in the know, I am working on two proposals, worth $50k each, to develop clean energy technologies. I can only write so much a day...and those proposals involve a lot of writing....
Cars that Drive Themselves, Ctd
Posted on 07:46 by hony
Tim Lee has made a bet with Ryan Avent:I bet you $500 that on your daughter’s 16th birthday, it won’t be possible and legal for someone with no driver’s license to hop into a self-driving car in DC, give it an address in Philly, take a nap, and wake up at her destination 3-4 hours later (depending on traffic, obviously).The car must be generally commercially available–not a research prototype or limited regulatory trial. It can be either purchased or a rented “taxi.” And obviously there can’t be anyone helping to guide the vehicle either...
Sunday, 7 November 2010
To my friend
Posted on 13:44 by hony
When I was a kid, I had this mental image of the woman I believed would eventually be my wife. She was blonde, about 5'4", loved hunting, was a genius, and did lots of outdoorsy stuff. She also was great genetics for my five blonde sons who were essentially "Little Alex" X 5.When I got to college, this woman evolved a little, to having red hair and freckles. However, a penchant for the outdoors and a sharp mind were still just as essential. I had in my head this hilariously (in retrospect) improbable image where I'd be in my pickup driving...
Friday, 5 November 2010
Friday Poetry Burst
Posted on 10:26 by hony
The Early Purges, by Seamus HeaneyI was six when I first saw kittens drown.Dan Taggart pitched them, 'the scraggy wee shits',Into a bucket; a frail metal sound,Soft paws scraping like mad. But their tiny dinWas soon soused. They were slung on the snout Of the pump and the water pumped in.'Sure, isn't it better for them now?' Dan said.Like wet gloves they bobbed and shone till he sluicedThem out on the dunghill, glossy and dead.Suddenly frightened, for days I sadly hungRound the yard, watching the three sogged remainsTurn mealy and crisp as old...
Cars that Drive Themselves, Ctd - Video Edition
Posted on 09:11 by hony
I think the need for driverless cars can be completely justified by this guy:The double irony being that the guy recording this video and the driver are also not paying very good attention to the roa...
Thursday, 4 November 2010
Electrocuting Yourself To Get Smarter
Posted on 12:13 by hony
Remember, dear regular readers, back in April when I reported that scientists had induced a mild current in someone's head while they tried to do complicated tasks? It turned out that their memory but more importantly people showed faster rates of learning.Now those results have been repeated by a group in England. They isolated a section of the brain that contributed to math skills and applied a mild current while the volunteers practiced math. Turns out the volunteers had enhanced memory. Turns out that enhanced memory lasted for months:"This...
Staying abreast of technology
Posted on 10:17 by hony
TAE thinks that it is a good idea to embrace every new technology that emerges, be it Twitter, Facebook, mp3s, tablet PCs, and now the new Microsoft Kinect. Occasionally I will look foolish, like when I was using "livejournal." But by embracing new tech, and staying comfortable with it, I will avoid the following situation when I am 65:TAE to his grandson: Will you please fix this quantum-shift voice-coil replicator?Grandson: **EYE ROLL** Grandpa, this is a boson-phase-shift replicator. No one has used quantum shift replicators in at least 5 years....
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
In Defense of Not Voting - UPDATED
Posted on 07:19 by hony
When I was a senior in high school, some years ago, I took a trip with Brian Knapp to Washington D.C. to learn all about the government process. The trip was part of the "Close Up: Washington, DC" program for kids, and involved round table discussions, lectures, and trips to important monuments. It was January and man was it cold.Anyways, Brian and I got into this entertaining routine of choosing the minority opinion whenever we, as a group, were discussing an issue. Didn't matter the issue, we just looked for which side was the minority opinion...
Monday, 1 November 2010
Modifying SETI for Earth Hunting
Posted on 13:41 by hony
Let's assume the number of exoplanets being found continues, as expected, to increase. Let's then assume that increased technology also allows, as expected, finer details about those exoplanets to be discovered. It's fairly safe, based on this and simple statistics, that the chances of finding a rocky planet in the habitable orbit zone around its star asymptotically approaches one very rapidly.Give this data, should we not release probes out of our own orbit to observe our planet from afar, to determine what, if any, characteristics of a "planet...
Friday, 29 October 2010
Why My Marriage Works
Posted on 07:15 by hony
Things that I loathe, like, loathe to the point that I actually get depressed and just want to sit on the couch and eat chips until the cops come find my body...are exactly the things my wife sets to with a frenetic glee. For example: moving. In my youth I typically waited until 11 pm the night before I moved to pack everything, in a chaotic explosion of random, unsorted boxes. I cared not what went where, never labeled the boxes. I just hated packing so much. Then, when I got moved to my new destination, only 50% of the boxes ever got unpacked....
Wednesday, 27 October 2010
DARPA and the Human Machine Interface
Posted on 08:27 by hony
In a BAA released yesterday, DARPA announced their Reliable Peripheral Interfaces (RPI) program:DARPA seeks to develop reliable in-vivo peripheral motor-signal recording and sensory-signal stimulating interfaces. Such efforts will involve design, fabrication, testing, and analysis of new materials and technologies to demonstrate substantial improvements in reliability and quantity of peripheral motor-signal information. Ultimately DARPA desires to develop clinically viable technologies, enabling wounded service members to control state-of-the-art...
Electric Vehicles
Posted on 08:01 by hony
TAE predicts the need to recharge electric vehicles on cross country trips could predicate a resurgence in public rest stop use, if states are smart and get self-service charging stations in place quickl...
Friday, 22 October 2010
Marketing the iPad rival
Posted on 11:22 by hony
The smartest name I can imagine so far is the "Motorola Everything." Or "Samsung Universe." Or "HTC Nuclear."The name should not invoke any references to feminine hygiene, to be sur...
Thursday, 21 October 2010
Adventures in Rare Metal Supereconomics
Posted on 10:12 by hony
What if China decided, one day, to not sell rare earth metals (in which it basically dominates the world market) to any company that did not have its corporate headquarters in China? In a day, Apple, Motorola, RIM, and a cadre of other cell phone manufacturers would fall to their knees. HTC would be fine.Southwest Airlines cheap flights, for many years, was partially due to the fact they'd locked in a multi-year gas pricing agreement, and as gas prices surged, they could still get their gas cheap. If I were Apple, or Dell, or Garmin, or anyone...
Steve Jobs' Logic Adventures
Posted on 09:58 by hony
The iPad isn't selling as well as hoped...because it doesn't have enough competitio...
Wednesday, 20 October 2010
Adventures in Airport Security
Posted on 09:22 by hony
TAE's (bad) Idea: Tape aluminum foil stencils of funny images to your chest before you go through the fully body scanne...
Tuesday, 19 October 2010
Brain-Mounted Computers/Active Contact Lens Displays
Posted on 10:01 by hony
Adam Ozinek has an interesting article (cited on Sullivan) about what he sees as an inevitable future:Let me describe it extreme layman’s terms (the only terms I know): you’ll have a powerful computer in your future iPhone-like-device that is connected to a special contact lens that so that screens floats in front on your face, and you steer the whole thing with your brain. The most important facts about this technology is that a) nobody will be able to tell whether you’re looking at your computer or not, and b) it will always be available...
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