Thursday, May 31, 2007

Miscellaneous

Just a quick run-down of what's up:
1) To the American chocolate manufacturers, GOD DAMN YOU, damn you to hell! If you want to save money by taking the cocoa products out of chocolate, that's your call. BUT you don't get to keep calling it chocolate! Link has info about how to complain to the FDA to prevent this travesty of proper labeling.

2) In cool-science news, my dream of interplanetary spelunking is that much closer to reality. The Mars Orbiter has discovered 6 incredibly large cave entrances on Mars. The scale picture with the article shows an opening 100m across! Also, the caves are so deep that no information can be ascertained about their insides.

3) Before Pirate of the Caribbean: At World's End last weekend, they showed a trailer for the new Transformers movie. Everyone in my theater liked it but did a quick side-to-side check of the other people to be sure it wasn't just them. I was skeptical of this project (honestly, I thought Michael Bay had finally lost it) but, man, it looks fantastic!

4) Recent Reading: "7 Daughters of Eve" by Bryan Sykes - I really enjoyed this book about the genetic origins of modern Europeans and the research that went into it. The author has a very wry sense of humor that helps ease through the more technical explanations of things like polymerase chain reactions. However, the last chapter was a weird change of tone from the rest of the book.

Coming this week: My review of NASA's recently released report on Asteroid Deflections. Interesting stuff...

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Friday, May 25, 2007

I'm intensely pleased

I know its just a silly on-line quiz, but, if I'm going to be compared to anybody it might as well be someone this damn cool.


Your Score: Katharine Hepburn


You scored 16% grit, 47% wit, 42% flair, and 4% class!



You are the fabulously quirky and independent woman of character. You go your own way, follow your own drummer, take your own lead. You stand head and shoulders next to your partner, but you are perfectly willing and able to stand alone. Others might be more classically beautiful or conventionally woman-like, but you possess a more fundamental common sense and off-kilter charm, making interesting men fall at your feet. You can pick them up or leave them there as you see fit. You share the screen with the likes of Spencer Tracy and Cary Grant, thinking men who like strong women.

Find out what kind of classic leading man you'd make by taking the Classic Leading Man Test.

Link: The Classic Dames Test written by gidgetgoes on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

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Preventative Pandemic Research: Article in "Wired"

My supervisor brought this month’s Wired for me to look at (he and I both watch “Heroes” which was featured). However, it was another article that really astounded me. Apparently, there’s research going on in several continents to study frequency of animal to human transmission of diseases. They have already identified several viruses which moved from animal to humans without (apparent) consequences and are beginning to study them in hopes to learn something about how to prevent future pandemics. The Dr. Wolfe featured in the article is as the forefront of this research.

These guys are doing some really fantastic work with the CDC to study and hopefully, will succeed in reducing our reaction time to pandemics. Based on the article, these scientists are learning how hunting practices, butchering techniques and meat storage all affect transmission. We now live in a world where how African hunters carry bush meat back to their villages has global implications. Or rather, we live in a world where, for the first time, we are beginning to understand the global implications.

Considering global pandemics are historically of a great deal more concern than planetary invasion, I’m incredibly glad both the CDC and the US military are working on understanding them better. The creation of an “intelligence chatter” database for disease transmission was to me an especially striking idea.

This is yet another informative, interesting article that highlights the cutting edge of research from "Wired". Is it just me or have they gotten even better in the last couple of years?

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Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Warning! Rapid Subject Changes Ahead

Will be travelling to Monterrey, Mexico for the next couple days. I am looking forward to a visit to the plant as they are always interesting (at least in the Chinese sense of the word). I plan to spend my lunches at the local taco place indulging in something Mexico is hands-down better at than US: Carne asada tacos. For 49 pesos, I get 4 reasonable sized tacos with plenty of meat, cheese and avocado. Such an experience makes you realized how generic & uninspiring American tacos are.

I watched the penultimate episode of Heroes last night. Can I just say: Holy Crap was that good! Every character had something to do, great one-liners, excellent continuity (bringing up stuff from the 2nd episode), and all of the action leading to the final confrontation. You know, I’d watch a lot more non-genre shows if they were written & plotted as well as this one.

Current books I am reading:
Black Holes & Time Warps: Einstein's Outrageous Legacy by Dr. Kip Thorne – Liking it but I’m reading it very slowly. The book is about some advanced physics so I’m having to concentrate a bit. Very interesting stuff though. And Dr. Thorne does a good job about presenting it in an understandable way.
Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen – Not liking this very much. It’s really boring actually. The author tries so hard to have interesting characters that they don’t actually register as people but are rather each a collection of random, supposedly endearing quirks. I’m going to finish it on general principle. My uncle loaned it to me after a glowing review. I’m not going to tell him it sucked without saying I gave it a real shot.
Conquests & Cultures by Thomas Sowell – Absolutely loving this! He looks at 4 cultures that have been conquered &/or conquerors in their history, how conquest effected them and how it effected those they conquered. He talks about the British, the Africans, the Slavic Peoples & the American Indians. I’m in the middle of the Slavic peoples and so far, it’s excellent.
Number of Books in my To-Read pile: 13
Number of Books on my To-Buy / Reading List: 267 (Not a typo)

One final note, did anyone else know that guacamole is good on tater-tots? Or am I just slow?

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Sunday, May 13, 2007

Planetary Defense Thoughts

I recently read a sci-fi book entitled Von Neumann’s War about Earth being invaded by machines modeled on Von Neumann’s hypothesis of using self-replicating machines for planetary exploration. One of the more disturbing aspects of the book was how long it took Earth to identify that a problem existed. The machines had colonized several planetary bodies & moons before they were detected during the invasion of Mars. Upon arriving on a planet they would convert every available bit of metal into machinery to make other machines thus acting like low-tech Replicators (who are likely a rip-off of the Von Neumann idea).

Why was this disturbing? Because by the time they invaded Earth, the machines had a massive logistics infrastructure within our solar system that we couldn't do anything about. Granted, Earth prevailed in the end (it was that kind of book) but it strikes me as incredibly worrying that something (or someone) could operate with impunity and setting up the means to defeat Earth in-system. Currently, we would essentially have no means of detecting them barring a fortunately placed space probe.

But it got me thinking….What could be done right now to either extend our ability to detect threats or better use what we have? Which lead me to the following ideas. I limited myself to two specific proposals. For a more general overview of the problems & strategies of Planetary Defense, I recommend Introduction to Planetary Defense by a group of engineers with experience in defense development.

I. Albedo Verification

One of the key methods of detecting machine presence in the book was to check for changing reflectivity of the bodies involved. Mars changed from red of iron ore to the gray of refined iron alloys. However, even though Earth possessed the ability to check the albedo of bodies in the outer solar system, it was not a regularly performed check. This is exactly how the machines were able to colonize so many places before they were detected.

Thus, I would say this is a relatively low-tech (within current state-of-the-art) method of checking for in-system infiltration on a massive scale. It should be the task of whomsoever is in-charge of planetary defense (Space Command, maybe?) to regularly perform these checks & for it to be done in secret.

Why secret? If the bad guys exist & have the ability to perform massive colonization of our outer solar system, then they can probably listen to our transmissions fairly easily. If the tests were public, it might lead to said bad guys attempting to conceal their efforts, which may very well make their actions undetectable to Earth authorities & greatly diminishing Earth’s ability to gather intelligence, and greatly diminishing the time Earth has to react to any detected threat.

This check should be performed semi-regularly on every moon & planet possible in order to ensure no significant changes have been made.

II. Improved DSN to In-Space SOSUS Network

During the Cold War, the United States Navy created networks of sonar bouys in the Atlantic Ocean in order to detect enemy submarines. It was referred to as the SOSUS Network. Currently, we have a Deep Space Network of antennae for communicating with distant space probes but no in-space assets solely dedicated to tracking natural or not where-ever they are in the solar system.

The creation of the SOSUS network was a technological feat of its time but it would still be several orders of magnitude easier than a space system. This is because the US knew the Soviets' technological capabilities and had a very good idea about what capabilities were necessary in their network. Also, they could track improvements to Soviet submarines through other sources like satellite coverage of known anchorages & human intelligence (ie – spies). Any implementation of this idea to space would have the opposite situation. With so many unknowns, the probes composing the network would have to be versatile, capable of detecting a variety of frequencies & phenomena, and easily adaptable by ground controllers in light of new information. This would greatly increase both the cost of each individual probe & make it less likely to be built. How do you create a network to detect what you cannot define?

One good thing, unlike albedo checking, a space SOSUS would not necessarily have to be secret because there is a very good side benefit to this system. These probes could be used to “cut their teeth” on impact detection for earth by asteroids & comets and acting as conduits for interplanetary probes & their communications. This could ensure international cooperation (as big enough asteroid impacts affect everyone & multiple international entities have interplanetary probes). It would also provide not a cover story so much as plenty of opportunity, motive & market to develop a more advanced Deep Space Network.

Off the top of my head, these probes should be robust, long-lived and versatile. Their positioning & density should reflect both Earth strategic concerns & ensure it is very difficult for a large portion of the network to be compromised in one instance due to any event natural or otherwise. It strikes me as especially important to ensure coverage of the opposite side of the sun from earth, the asteroid belt and the outer solar system especially areas where Earth has few interplanetary probes.

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Notice that both of these ideas involve detecting a threat & not necessarily doing anything about it? Well, that’s because as of right now, there’s not much Earth can do. The Intro to Planetary Defense book explains in more detail but, barring something deeply unexpected, anybody capable of traveling between the stars is probably out of our league militarily. Honestly, all it would take is lobbing a few asteroids in our direction to wipe out our civilization and then wait a few decades for everybody to die off in the “nuclear” winter. Problem solved.

You know all those people accusing the government of running secret programs to fight aliens? They always say it like it’s a BAD thing. But truthfully, I’d feel a lot better knowing there’s a poor man’s SGC out there working toward ensuring that if anybody invades Earth, they get more than a few nasty surprises.

It’s not that I think there definitely aliens out there or that, if they exist, they are de facto hostile. I’m just one of those people who believe it’s better to plan for a rainy day than count on a sunny one.

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Sunday, May 6, 2007

Pretty (& Yummy) Growing Things

Finally finished re-planting my patio garden. Doesn't it look pretty?


In a few weeks, I will have fresh spinach, green onions, tomatoes, zucchini, rosemary & spearmint. The basil is already doing quite well. Plus, flowers!


(Note: These flowers are not from my garden. They are an example of what the flowers in my garden aspire to be.)

Hopefully, my garden will not be overrun by the mutant caterpillars currently taking over at work. Look at this thing! It's over 3 inches long. And there are hundreds. I believe I will be investing in bug-spray.

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