This, that, the other, and more

Would you copy your mind to a robotic body-double? George...

Tue, 18 Jun 2013 23:42:28 -0500

Would you copy your mind to a robotic body-double?
George Dvorsky, io9.com

A central theme of the recently concluded GF2045 Congress was the idea of achieving a kind of immortality by transferring our minds to avatars or robots. Indeed, as Japanese professor Hiroshi Ishiguro’s presentation clearly showed, our robotic…

This is what Rebecca and I are waiting for.

Reader speaks out against Boy Scouts | Starkville Daily News

Mon, 17 Jun 2013 16:41:34 -0500

Reader speaks out against Boy Scouts | Starkville Daily News:

File this under “you think you know someone”. Dr. Taylor is the assistant director of the Famous Maroon Band, which I was a member of for 8 years and helped conduct for five of those years. I spent a lot of time with Dr. Taylor. He is a very nice, sensible, and intelligent person, but this dramatically lowers my opinion of him. I gave up counting the number of fallacious arguments he uses, so I simply present it as is.

Serious conversations (part 50):

Fri, 14 Jun 2013 22:38:42 -0500

This series is a continuation of my conversations with an atheist friend of mine. These are my edited responses from that conversation. The forty-sixth through fiftieth entries deal with introversion/extroversion, social interaction and popularity.

Before we talked about what makes someone popular, and I entertained everyone with how I view myself in social interactions. In this closing chapter of the popularity series I take one last look at how I view myself in social situations, specifically how I view myself as an introvert.

I am definitely a introvert when it comes to spontaneous functions. I must know in advance that something is going to happen or I just won’t go to it. Impromptu events make me nervous and uneasy, which is classic introvert behavior. I can’t just have people over; it must be planned at least multiple hours in advance and preferably days. If it is 11:30 and I’m invited to lunch I usually decline, even if I might want to go otherwise. Being confined by my personality is somewhat annoying, but it means decisions are sometimes already made before I’m even confronted with them. It makes life much easier, and I’m all about that.

I’ve written on this before, but I’ll say it again. When I first meet a group of people I’m very shy. I hate meeting new people, not because I don’t like people, but because I don’t know how to act. It takes me some amount of time to get used to the group so that I know that they accept my level of awkwardness. After the initial trial period I go through I open up pretty quickly. As a consequence of my delayed release extroversion I hate interacting with strangers or making small talk with acquaintances. Of all the social interactions I dread it is being thrown into an icebreaker type of situation with people that I’m never going to interact with again; that fills me with the most dread. I’d rather sit in a corner and people watch than be forced to get to know people with whom I’ll never have a relationship. Unfortunately people watching has become associated with being a creeper or being just plain weird. That’s a darn shame. People I don’t know are interesting when I don’t have to talk to them. (Rereading that, that sounds terrible, but I’m not going to delete it.)

Closing this chapter of the series I have to say that people are interesting to me but I certainly don’t completely understand how to act around them.

Next time we begin a whole new chapter on overpopulation.

via http://bit.ly/11Gk3BO

My thoughts on the Apple keynote

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 15:05:14 -0500

I know that most people are freaking out about iOS 7, but I’m more excited about Mavericks, the new OS X release (stupid name, I know). There are going to be some really exciting features that are going to change how I work with the OS. The full support of multiple screens is awesome. I’ll definitely be buying a second monitor once the OS is out. Tags sound very convenient, and tabs for the Finder is something we’ve needed for a decade. I’m looking forward to the next ten years. I’m hopeful that Mavericks is just the first step in a long line of new features.

iOS 7 looks amazing. It isn’t as rich a feature set update as I wanted, but I was expecting almost no new features and simply a skin change. Thus, I’m satisfied. Calling it beautiful is a bit of an understatement. I hated skewmorphic design, so what they have done is amazing. The new gestures are really going to help with navigation. Overall, I would agree that recently Android got ahead of iOS feature while, but now iOS has caught back up and set a new bar of excellence.

I’m pretty excited. The next big things I expect for the rest of the year are touchscreen computers. Also, since they introduced parallax into iOS 7, I think that sort of wizardry like that will be incorporated into OS X.

If I can afford it, I’m buying a Mac Pro.

Investing in science is worth every penny - Quantum Diaries

Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:15:03 -0500

Investing in science is worth every penny - Quantum Diaries:

This has been hashed out many times, but it cannot be repeated enough. Funding the sciences funds the country.

Why Many Retirees Could Outlive a $1 Million Nest Egg - NYTimes.com

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 12:44:49 -0500

Why Many Retirees Could Outlive a $1 Million Nest Egg - NYTimes.com:

This article talks about social security not being enough for people with even $1 million retirement account to draw down. That seems so greedy to me. The benefit for a 66 retiree is $31,000 a year from social security alone. That’s $7,000 more a year than what I make working as a research assistant. I pay a mortgage and have money left over. What are you people doing with all of this money?

NSA’s PRISM program: The government’s surveillance will lead to an abuse of power. - Slate Magazine

Sat, 08 Jun 2013 10:32:58 -0500

NSA’s PRISM program: The government’s surveillance will lead to an abuse of power. - Slate Magazine:

I’m rather concerned about this. I also agree with the NYT that the president has lost all credibility on this issue. I just don’t trust him anymore of any sort of spying issue. I wouldn’t say he is lying to us (unless you call lies of omission actual lies), but he is walking a very thin line. And I don’t know that the administration hasn’t crossed it already.

Map: Do You Live In IHOP America Or Waffle House America?

Fri, 31 May 2013 22:32:57 -0500

Map: Do You Live In IHOP America Or Waffle House America?:

I want a Waffle House in College Station so badly. IHOP is just so terrible and expensive.

Health Law Spared Young Adults From High Hospital Bills : Shots - Health News : NPR

Wed, 29 May 2013 16:49:53 -0500

Health Law Spared Young Adults From High Hospital Bills : Shots - Health News : NPR:

I realize that new the healthcare law is unpopular, but Rebecca and I would be bankrupt without it. So, I really like it.

Debussy, Clair de lune, piano solo (by musanim) To everyone who...

Mon, 27 May 2013 11:19:16 -0500

Debussy, Clair de lune, piano solo (by musanim)

To everyone who has pointed out to me every time I’ve missed a note when they’ve heard me play this particular piece, look at how many notes there are - many thousands of them.

This is a fantastic version of the piece just to listen to as well. It doesn’t range as dramatically dynamically as I generally play it.

House buying

Fri, 24 May 2013 17:53:30 -0500

I’ve owned a house for about nine months now, and I had a friend ask for some advice on buying a house. I though I should pass along such advice here. I was asked these questions: Did you have any trouble getting a good mortgage, given that you’re young and haven’t really been in the full-time workforce? Did you shop around with different banks a bunch? Did you work with a realtor? If so, how did you select one?

My answers: I did work with a realtor. They are worth the few percent they charge, though at many points I questioned the competency of my realtor and lender. Even with their marginal competency they were worth it. I interviewed about half a dozen realtors before picking the one I used. I found them via online searches of realtors for the area. I came up with a standardized list of questions, and I picked my realtor based off of their responses, how easily I could contact them directly, and their enthusiasm for helping me. I could tell a couple of the realtors were too busy to work with me because they only talked with me for a few minutes. I’ll list the questions I asked at the end of the email. Some of the answers are from some friends of mine that have already bought two houses. You can also search online about how to find a realtor.

The only real problem I had with my mortgage was that they required proof that I would get a regular paycheck. I bought the house before I started pulling a salary from my assistantship, so I had my parents cosign my loan. It cost me about a tenth of a percent more in APR, but it was worth not getting an apartment for a few months first. I did make sure my credit history was very good before I began the whole process though. I had a credit card for a few years before hand and never missed a payment, so I had and still have a very high credit score. If you don’t have a good credit score, you should wait until you improve it. There are plenty of online guides on how to do that.

I checked a few banks to get an estimate of how expensive my loan would be, and they were all comparable. In the end I simply went with the mortgage company my realtor recommended. (Again, a realtor is worth it.)

I cannot recommend getting a house enough. You don’t share a wall with anyone. When something needs fixing you just fix it instead of waiting for a landlord. I love having my own garden again. You can be as loud as you want. I am paying less for the mortgage on a three bedroom house with a quarter of an acre than some of my grad school cohorts are paying for renting their two bedroom apartments. The beauty of that is I will own probably two thirds of the house when I leave Texas; my cohorts will have just given a lot of money to a property management company.

Realtor questions

1.) Is this your full time job? How many clients are you currently representing?

15 is too many for a buyer

2.) Ask about fee

What if I come across the house I want without you helping me?

The seller pays the buyer’s agent using the money you pay for the house, typically 3% of the sales price. Some buyer’s agents refund part of this fee.

3.) Experience

4.) How will you communicate with me?

5.) How many sales have you handled in my target neighborhoods?

You want someone who knows the local market, with a few recent deals in your target neighborhoods.

6.) When am I committed to working with you?

Many consumers start touring homes without realizing this can obligate them to work with the agent, contract or no contract.

7.) How many foreclosure or short-sale transactions have you handled?

Distressed properties can be great deals, but the paperwork is complicated, and your liability is greater. The best agents have experience closing deals with banks.

8.) Who else will be working with me?

An agent is often supported by a team. But the person you hire should do most of the work.

9.) How quickly can you get me into a home?

Hot homes move fast. Ask how the agent handles tours on short notice.

10.) Do you represent buyers and sellers on the same house?

No agent can fairly represent both. You need someone on your side.

11.) May I Review Documents Beforehand That I Will Be Asked to Sign?

A sign of a good real estate agent is a professional who makes forms available to you for preview before you are required to sign them. If at all possible, ask for these documents upfront.

As a buyer, ask for copies of the following:

Buyer’s Broker Agreement (is it exclusive or non-exclusive?)

Agency Disclosures

Purchase Agreement

Buyer Disclosures

12.) What sets you apart from other agents?

Look for expertise, not just eagerness. You aren’t hiring the neighborhood kid to rake your leaves.

13.) Can I get references for your last five deals?

Every agent has clients he served well. But the best agents serve nearly all of their clients well. Getting an agent’s last five clients will give you a more balanced picture of his service than letting him choose his most favorable references. Call at least two of the five, asking clients some of the same questions you asked him. Look closely at these last five deals to see how they compare to similar sales in the neighborhood. Did he negotiate a good price for each customer?

14.). How Will You Help Me Find Other Professionals?

Let the real estate agent explain to you who she works with and why she chooses these professionals. Your agent should be able to supply you with a written list of referring vendors such as mortgage brokers, home inspectors and title companies. Ask for an explanation if you see the term “affiliated” because it could mean that the agent and her broker are receiving compensation from one or all of vendors, and you could be paying a premium for the service.

15.) What Haven’t I Asked You That I Need to Know?

via http://bit.ly/10ua821

Prayers for Oklahoma: Wolf Blitzer and other journalists should leave God and miracles out of natural disasters. - Slate Magazine

Thu, 23 May 2013 10:08:30 -0500

Prayers for Oklahoma: Wolf Blitzer and other journalists should leave God and miracles out of natural disasters. - Slate Magazine:

The media needs to be careful when invoking God for everything. I agree with this 100%.

Lamar Smith: Overheated rhetoric on climate change hurts the economy - The WP

Mon, 20 May 2013 11:24:36 -0500

Lamar Smith: Overheated rhetoric on climate change hurts the economy - The WP:

This guy is actually the chairman of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology. It’s as hilarious as it is scary. He is an excellent politician though. He injects just enough factual information to make his opinion seem grounded in truth. The problem is that a couple of key “facts” are actually as wrong as wrong can be. He cites a study that states that global temps have held steady over the last 15 years. That is simply a lie. He says that the uncertainties undermine our ability to accurately determine how CO_2 has affected the past climate. Again false. The uncertainties are factored in already.

If you want to disagree on how much warming is anthropogenic, fine, but don’t just lie on if it exists. There is 97% agreement among scientists that the planet is warming. That is the truth. Those are the numbers.

The final crux of his argument is that since the US contributes so little to the total CO_2 planetary emission it doesn’t matter what we do. Again lie. The US is about 20% of the yearly emission of CO_2. Also, it is emission per capita that is the real indicator of how bad each American is; we lead that by more than double what China emits. How short sighted of him! He calls himself a leader. It’s his job to look to the future. Any amount that we can prevent is an amount worth stopping. In a few years it isn’t going to be his generation’s planet he and his fellow politicians have screwed up, it will be my generation’s planet he will have screwed up. He’s sacrificing the future for the present, but that’s what politicians do all the time, so I shouldn’t be surprised (mostly because we youths don’t vote in numbers the older generations do…so vote!).

Who are you going to believe — the facts from an atmospheric scientist who has three degrees and is getting a Ph.D. and receives no climate science funding whatsoever or the “facts” from a 25 year career politician and lawyer who received $84,000 in campaign contributions from oil and gas companies last election cycle alone. I rest my case.

Needed: A Mass Movement for College Debt Relief

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:45:23 -0500

Needed: A Mass Movement for College Debt Relief:

Robert Kuttner, huffingtonpost.com

Austerity has failed in Europe, where the European Union just racked up 18 months of negative growth with no end in sight. It is failing in the United States, where this year’s deficit reductions will cut the growth rate in half.
But…

Loans at 0.75% sound great to me.

Game-changing improvements in the works for U.S. weather prediction

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:06:01 -0500

Game-changing improvements in the works for U.S. weather prediction:

A short-term solution to a long-term problem unfortunately.

Star Trek movies and TV series: Which are the best? Why? - Slate Magazine

Wed, 15 May 2013 10:59:19 -0500

Star Trek movies and TV series: Which are the best? Why? - Slate Magazine:

I agree with the final premise that Star Trek deserves to be on TV, not in the movies. It should be serialized, not a series of one offs. It should be on a cable network (please not Syfy), not in syndication. But he is way too up on DS9 and way too down on Voyager. I mean you have seen Avery Brooks’s “acting” haven’t you?

Carbon Dioxide Level Passes Long-Feared Milestone - NYTimes.com

Fri, 10 May 2013 15:50:33 -0500

Carbon Dioxide Level Passes Long-Feared Milestone - NYTimes.com:

The tipping point approaches.

Serious conversations (part 49):

Fri, 03 May 2013 21:24:53 -0500

I’m sure we could have a whole discussion about why some kids are popular and some are not. Suffice it to say that it seems almost arbitrary to me. Although physical attractiveness seems to play a lot into it, doing extra curricular activities that play on qualities of attractiveness are also important. The guys should play sports that demonstrate physical prowess, and the girls should dance or cheerlead. Noting that that statement is awfully sexist, I would argue that popularity is sexist. Popularity reduces everyone to a certain paradigm, and outside of that paradigm you simply don’t fit in.

I think one also has to be average in other respects, such as and especially intelligence. You can’t be too smart or too dumb. Too smart, you are made fun of for being a nerd. Too dumb, you’re made fun of for being, well, dumb. I don’t remember any “dumb” popular people. The popular people squeaked by grade wise and didn’t attract any attention.

I tried for a minute or so to think up an unattractive popular person from high school. I could not. Same for my college career. I can’t think of an ugly popular person. People have to be drawn to someone to make them popular. The first thing someone notices about a new person is how pretty they are, not how well spoken or smart or athletic. It is physical attractiveness. People are shallow, me included. Now, I’m not arguing that attractiveness is the only important quality. I can think of many, many pretty people that aren’t popular. Outward self-confidence is important; self-presentation is important. You have to know that you’re popular to be popular. That is connected to knowing how to handle oneself in public, knowing how to talk smoothly, knowing amicable gestures and body language, not being socially awkward (see SC part 48). There is a lot to it, and I’m sure psychologists spend entire lifetimes studying the issue. Additionally, I’ve noticed that people who do not care about popularity are not generally popular. Again, you must know you are popular to be popular.

There definitely is a hierarchy to popularity. Just speculating, I’d have to say that the Alpha Popular comes from the paragon. They are the most attractive, the most adept at social convention, most self-confident, etc. They are the epitome of such a character. Others aspire to be them. From personal experience I think that adolescence is the trigger for all of this. I remember being great friends with just about everyone in elementary school, but when puberty kicked in I wasn’t good enough anymore. I suspect it was because of my demure stature. I was a nerd and not good at sports, so I simply became irrelevant.

via http://bit.ly/10xK30A

neuromorphogenesis: Age-defying: Master key of lifespan found...

Wed, 01 May 2013 22:20:52 -0500

neuromorphogenesis:

Age-defying: Master key of lifespan found in brain

The brain’s mechanism for controlling ageing has been discovered – and manipulated to shorten and extend the lives of mice. Drugs to slow ageing could follow

Tick tock, tick tock… A mechanism that controls ageing, counting down to inevitable death, has been identified in the hypothalamus – a part of the brain that controls most of the basic functions of life.

By manipulating this mechanism, researchers have both shortened and lengthened the lifespan of mice. The discovery reveals several new drug targets that, if not quite an elixir of youth, may at least delay the onset of age-related disease.

The hypothalamus is an almond-sized puppetmaster in the brain. “It has a global effect,” says Dongsheng Cai at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Sitting on top of the brain stem, it is the interface between the brain and the rest of the body, and is involved in, among other things, controlling our automatic response to the world around us, our hormone levels, sleep-wake cycles, immunity and reproduction.

While investigating ageing processes in the brain, Cai and his colleagues noticed that ageing mice produce increasing levels of nuclear factor kB (NF-kB)   – a protein complex that plays a major role in regulating immune responses. NF-kB is barely active in the hypothalamus of 3 to 4-month-old mice but becomes very active in old mice, aged 22 to 24 months.

To see whether it was possible to affect ageing by manipulating levels of this protein complex, Cai’s team tested three groups of middle-aged mice. One group was given gene therapy that inhibits NF-kB, the second had gene therapy to activate NF-kB, while the third was left to age naturally.

This last group lived, as expected, between 600 and 1000 days. Mice with activated NF-kB all died within 900 days, while the animals with NF-kB inhibition lived for up to 1100 days.

Crucially, the mice that lived the longest not only increased their lifespan but also remained mentally and physically fit for longer. Six months after receiving gene therapy, all the mice were given a series of tests involving cognitive and physical ability.

In all of the tests, the mice that subsequently lived the longest outperformed the controls, while the short-lived mice performed the worst.

Post-mortem examinations of muscle and bone in the longest-living rodents also showed that they had many chemical and physical qualities of younger mice.

Further investigation revealed that NF-kB reduces the level of a chemical produced by the hypothalamus called gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH)  – better known for its involvement in the regulation of puberty and fertility, and the production of eggs and sperm.

To see if they could control lifespan using this hormone, the team gave another group of mice  – 20 to 24 months old  – daily subcutaneous injections of GnRH for five to eight weeks. These mice lived longer too, by a length of time similar to that of mice with inhibited NF-kB.

GnRH injections also resulted in new neurons in the brain. What’s more, when injected directly into the hypothalamus, GnRH influenced other brain regions, reversing widespread age-related decline and further supporting the idea that the hypothalamus could be a master controller for many ageing processes.

GnRH injections even delayed ageing in the mice that had been given gene therapy to activate NF-kB and would otherwise have aged more quickly than usual. None of the mice in the study showed serious side effects.

So could regular doses of GnRH keep death at bay? Cai hopes to find out how different doses affect lifespan, but says the hormone is unlikely to prolong life indefinitely since GnRH is only one of many factors at play. “Ageing is the most complicated biological process,” he says.

“There are dozens of pathways that people will look at thanks to this work,” says Richard Miller at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Miller has previously demonstrated that an immunosuppressant drug called rapamycin can also extend life in mice (see “A guide to defying age”).

Since the hypothalamus  – and GnRH in particular  – regulate several major biological processes, it may be possible to influence ageing through related mechanisms, says Miller. He wants to look at possible dietary interventions, such as the indirect effect that spikes in glucose may have on the hypothalamus.

Stuart Maudsley at the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore, Maryland, agrees that the hypothalamus could be the route in for age-controlling drugs. “The body is all one big juicy system,” he says. The ideal drug would hit that system at its centre. “Activate that keystone and everything falls into place,” he says.

Though this is the first time that an explicit role has been found for GnRH in the ageing process, previous studies in humans have hinted at a link between longevity and fertility – in which the hormone is known to play a significant role.

As GnRH levels drop, so too does egg production and fertility. In a study presented this month at the annual meeting of the Population Association of America in New Orleans, Graziella Caselli at the University of Rome, Italy, and colleagues found that mothers in Sardinia who’d had their last child over the age of 45  – so were still fertile at a late age  – were significantly more likely to reach 100 than those who’d had their last child at a younger age. Since late fertility could be linked to higher levels of GnRH, Cai says those findings are a good match for his own. “There is likely to be some kind of biological correlation between ageing and reproduction,” he says.

“There are maybe 10 steps to controlling ageing,” says Miller. “We’ve taken the first two or three.” The first is simply accepting the idea that ageing can be slowed down, he says. “Many think it can’t. They are wrong.”

Maudsley reckons that we could see drugs that slow ageing in the next 20 years. Initially, though, research is likely to focus on delaying the onset of age-related diseases. “That could solve some real problems,” says Cai.

But since the hypothalamus has an effect on every cell in the body, Maudsley warns that interfering with it could lead to unwanted sequences of events. “You’re playing with fire,” he says.

Journal reference: Nature, 10.1038/nature12143

I’m counting on this kind of drug therapy to get me to the singularity.

SOPA author Lamar Smith wants congressional guidelines to...

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 23:38:52 -0500

SOPA author Lamar Smith wants congressional guidelines to replace peer review for federal science research
By Tim Carmody, theverge.com

Draft bill requires National Science Foundation to certify each funded project promotes ‘national health, prosperity, welfare, and defense’
Texas congressman Lamar Smith, SOPA author and new chair of the US House of Representatives’…

I submit again that it is absurd that politicians have even the tiniest bit of influence over the sciences. I will also again say that I find it laughable that a republican is on the Science, Space, and Technology House committee, much less the chairman.