Graham Glass, etc.

Intelligent Design, Part 2

In part one of this series, I explained why I originally believed in Intelligent Design and then changed my mind. This entry from David Wood's blog includes a great explanation of how complex systems can arise through a series of mutations where some actually decrease the survivability of the organism. It originally seems counter-intuitive, but it's actually quite straightforward. This is the kind of information that should definitely be presented in any course on evolution, because it deals with its fundamental mechanisms in a deep way.

8th Grade Math

Since I'm working on education software, I couldn't resist taking the 8th grade math test that seems to be percolating through the blogosphere. Thankfully, my math skills seem to be intact.

You Passed 8th Grade Math

Congratulations, you got 10/10 correct!

Could You Pass 8th Grade Math?

Google Base

My list of 2005 predictions included the following:

Google releases "Google Forms", a way for people to share structured documents with each other. This could be used to share contact information, resumes, matchmaking information, medical records, etc. and would include security permissions so that users could restrict information to, say, their current doctor or to their friends.

In addition, I wrote a much longer blog entry about this idea here. According to buzz on the net, Google has indeed created this product, although it is called "Google Base" instead of "Google Forms". Because it's not official, the product could of course just be a rumor, but I doubt it. Some screenshots are here and here.

Guinness Evolution Ad

Since I've been posting recently about the topic of evolution, I found this TV ad for Guinness particularly hilarious.

Happiness

Happiness is a butterfly, which if pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

Mars Wars, Part 4

In part 3 of this series, I outlined my science fiction story on a chronological basis. Before exposing the story to a broader audience, I solicited feedback from friends and family. Here's a list of the questions I got, together with my answers:

Q: If the original founders met in 2010, wouldn't they be too old to travel in the 2050 launch?
A: Yes, most of them would be too old. They would still be considered founding fathers though, because they initiated and funded the project. Some of their sons and daughters might be part of the colony. In addition, many of them would contribute their DNA so that their offspring would be part of the initial colony. See the next question for more details.

Q: How many people left for Mars in the 2050 launch?
A: About 200, assuming 10 spacecraft and 20 people per spacecraft. This is clearly a small number of people. However, the colony would be equipped with artificial wombs that would allow many people to be incubated in parallel, using DNA including that of the founding fathers. So within 20 years, the colony could easily have tens of thousands of adults. Indeed, artifical wombs are a great tool for kick-starting remote colonies.

Q: Would Mars really declare independence right away?
A: Probably not, especially if there were just a couple of hundred of people. A more likely scenario is that they would trade with Earth for, say, 10 years in order to obtain raw materials in exchange for advanced technology.

Q: Would the Mars colony attempt to be self-sufficient from the start?
A: Unlikely. That's why trading with Earth for a while makes more sense.

Q: Does it make sense for the celebration of Mars independence to be held on the Moon?
A: Well, the Moon is a neutral zone, so from that perspective it makes sense. However, you'd think that independence day for Mars would be better celebrated on Mars, so I'll probably change the location.

Q: Why have the woman have the daughter and the man have a son?
A: I don't think it makes too much difference. But maybe having Taron born to Zhen and Lian born to Kurt is more "balanced". I'll probably make this change.

Q: Wouldn't Lian want to visit Taron one more time before her body was destroyed?
A: That's a great point! I will adjust the plot so that she makes a single, and potentially dangerous, trip back to the Earth to see Taron in person. The lovemaking scene would be particularly emotionally charged, since she knows that it will be the very last time.

Q: Since Lian is immortal, couldn't she create a copy that would go back and live with Taron?
A: This is the trickiest question, and lends itself to all kinds of alternative endings. For example, Taron could finish listening to Lian's last transmission and then hear a knock on the door. He opens the door to see...end of movie, leaving the audience thinking that maybe a copy of Lian has returned. Or maybe he receives a mysterious package that is a digitizer that gives him the option of becoming digital and joining her. Then again, Lian might have decided that it's better to cut off the relationship completely and allow Taron the peace of mind to pursue a new lover. Anyhow, it leaves all kinds of doors open for a sequel!

If you have any additional feedback, please send it to me soon. In a week or so I will create a modified version of the story that incorporates the feedback and is more suitable for public consumption.

Blond, James Blond

It's now public knowledge that the next James Bond will be Daniel Craig, a blond Brit whose latest movie is The Legend of Zorro. I was very happy to hear that the next Bond movie, Casino Royale, will be directed by Martin Campbell, who also directed my all-time-favorite GoldenEye. Apparently the new Bond will be darker (except for the hair color of course), with more character and less gadgets. This is consistent with Ian Fleming's books, and I think it's a good direction for the franchise.

Stem Cell Research

Stem Cell research is one of the most exciting areas in biotechnology. Stem cells are the building blocks from which bodies are manufactured. An embryo is initially comprised entirely of stem cells, which divide for a while and then start to change into specialized cells like skin, muscle, fat and neurons. Bone marrow retains some stem-like cells, although they are partly specialized and only used to create different kinds of blood cell.

Experiments show that you can help people with various illnesses by injecting stem cells into the damaged areas that need rejuvenation. For example, stem cells have the potential to heal a heart after a heart attack, repair spinal cord damage, and repair neurons affected by a stroke. And that's just the beginning.

One of the tricky aspects of the research is obtaining stem cells in the first place. The most straightforward source of stem cells are from the thousands of embryos that are discarded as the result of abortions and IVF treatment. However, many people are against obtaining stem cells in this manner, arguing that that such a practice destroys human life. In the US, the embryos are discarded anyway and their stem cells go to waste. Meanwhile, the debate continues.

There was an interesting article recently on CNN that describes a new way to obtain stem cells from embryos without damaging them. My initial reaction was "great, now we can get on with the research without any issues", but apparently there are still some people who think that the new and improved procedure is unethical.

For example, the deputy director of pro-life activities for the Catholic bishops says that the procedure poses a risk of harm and is mostly an effort to select out genetically imperfect embryos. He also thinks that the abstract cluster of cells that is made from the removed stem cells appears to create and then destroy an embryo, thereby violating his ethics.

After reading this, I've changed my mind about the true nature of resistance to stem cell research. I don't think it really has much to do with ethics at all. I think the core issue is that some people are afraid and threatened by scientific research into the origins of life. They see it as an area that should remain a mystery, something that should remain the sole purvew of a God. People like the deputy director are never going to be happy, and will always find a problem with any proposed procedure.

In every clash between science and religion over the centuries, science has always won. Nothing has ever stopped the advance of human knowledge. This is because there are lots of smart, determined people who want to understand the universe, and who are good at providing hard evidence for their theories. So while I find the resistance to stem cell research frustrating, I have no doubt that the scientists and their supporters will endure. They will shine a light onto the mysteries of life, and in doing so, reveal its true beauty.

Monopoly Teaser

Here's a good party question: what do all the locations on the USA Monopoly board have in common? The places include Pennsylvania Avenue, Short Line, Pacific Avenue, Reading Railroad and Marvin Gardens. See if you can solve the puzzle without cheating! You can find the answer here.

New Venture, Part 5

This is part 5 of the series; part 4 is here.

I've been working about 2 months on my new venture, so I thought it would be worth posting an update. Right now, I'm in prototype phase, which means that the main goal is to get a proof of concept working without worrying too much about things like a beautiful user interface, scalability, and other such distractions. After a few false starts, I decided to base the prototype on MediaWiki, which runs Wikipedia.

MediaWiki is written in PHP and uses MySQL as the underlying storage system. I didn't have experience with either until recently, but they've both been pretty easy to learn.

PHP is a dynamic language that added object-oriented features on top of procedural features. Overall, I don't like PHP very much, but its dynamic method lookup is similar to Smalltalk's and really useful for making powerful proxy classes.

The MediaWiki code base is bloated and not that easy to understand, but once you've gone through the learning curve it is not too hard to hack. The main thing I added is support for semantic web properties so that you can attach attributes and relations to concepts that are represented by wiki pages. For now, I use a single SQL table to store the tuples.

The prototyping has gone very well so far, and by the end of November I should have a rough version of the entire system working. At that point, I'll be able to demonstrate it to teachers, children, schools and parents. Assuming that the feedback is good, it'll then be time to create a production version.

I've been doing some research on languages, platforms and databases, and I'm leaning towards writing the production system using Ruby on Rails with a pluggable tuple storage backend. Working with PHP reminds me of the power of dynamic languages I've used in the past like LISP and Smalltalk, so I don't like the thought of going back to Java. The initial storage system would use SQL for simplicity but the pluggable design buys me the option of replacing SQL with an optimized implementation at a later date.

The worst part of working on the prototype is that it's so much fun that my days tend to be 18 hours long followed by 8 hours of sleep, which equals 26 hours. The result is that I wake up 2 hours later each day, which after a week means I end up going to bed around noon. I'm trying hard to get back to a normal schedule, but it's not easy.

Part 6 of this series is here.