This episode of the Wisconsin Public Radio podcast ‘To the Best of Our Knowledge‘ may have you feeling very differently the next time you take a walk in the woods or a dig in your garden. (“The Secret Language of Plants”).
‘Almost all airport designs are governed by regulations established by the International Civil Aviation Organization to ensure pilots circling Toledo or Timbuktu remain properly oriented and deliver passengers and cargo safely.
Lauren O’Neil turns those strictures into art, with the help of Google Earth. The Brooklyn-based designer has made a meticulous study of airport runways and logged the results on a Tumblr called Holding Pattern. These views reveal beautiful compositions at airports that are nothing special at ground level…’ (WIRED).
‘One reason Americans have trouble maintaing a healthy diet: They’re suffering from “food information overload” ‘ (Salon.com).
‘Although there is an estimated 10 million to 12 million living species in the world, we know surprisingly little about them. According to Quentin Wheeler, founding director of the International Institute for Species Exploration, we have only identified around two million — and species are going extinct faster than they are being identified.
That said, on average 18,000 new species are discovered every year; and, every year since 2008, the IISE and the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry announce a list of the top 10 species discovered the previous year, in order to draw attention to those discoveries. This occurs on 23 May — the birthday of Carolus Linnaeus, the 18th-century Swedish botanist who devised the modern system of scientific names and classifications.
“The majority of people are unaware of the dimensions of the biodiversity crisis,” Dr Wheeler said. “The top 10 is designed to bring attention to the unsung heroes addressing the biodiversity crisis by working to complete an inventory of earth’s plants, animals and microbes. Each year a small, dedicated community of taxonomists and curators substantively improve our understanding of the diversity of life and the wondrous ways in which species have adapted for survival.” ‘ (CNET).
‘A few weeks ago, Paranormal 2 actress Natasha Blasick made news for claiming to have had sex (two times, actually) with a ghost. Blasick first shared her story on This Morning, a popular British daytime talk show with a real verve for oddball guests and overwrought set design. Speaking remotely with hosts Phillip Schofield and Christine Bleakley, and accompanied by psychic Patti Negri, Blasick says, “I could feel the weight of a body on top of me, and I couldn’t see anybody, but … I could feel the energy, I could feel the warmth … and at first I was very confused with all that, but then I just decided to relax and, um, it was really, really pleasurable.”
As she speaks, a hashtag appears on the screen: #SexWithGhosts.’ (Pacific Standard)
‘Once upon a time, a friend of mine accidentally took over thousands of computers. He had found a vulnerability in a piece of software and started playing with it. In the process, he figured out how to get total administration access over a network. He put it in a script, and ran it to see what would happen, then went to bed for about four hours. Next morning on the way to work he checked on it, and discovered he was now lord and master of about 50,000 computers. After nearly vomiting in fear he killed the whole thing and deleted all the files associated with it. In the end he said he threw the hard drive into a bonfire. I can’t tell you who he is because he doesn’t want to go to Federal prison, which is what could have happened if he’d told anyone that could do anything about the bug he’d found. Did that bug get fixed? Probably eventually, but not by my friend. This story isn’t extraordinary at all. Spend much time in the hacker and security scene, you’ll hear stories like this and worse.
It’s hard to explain to regular people how much technology barely works, how much the infrastructure of our lives is held together by the IT equivalent of baling wire.
Computers, and computing, are broken.’ (Medium).
Film & Audio From The Velvet Underground, The Ramones, Devo & Talking Heads: ‘You know the old joke: “if you don’t like the neighborhood, wait ten minutes.” New Yorkers know it the other way around, too. If you like the neighborhood, wait ten minutes; your local haunts will disappear. But while the physical markers of my own New York era shutter one by one, during said era all I ever wanted was for it to be the late 70s again, when you could catch such upstarts as the Talking Heads, Devo, the Ramones, Television, or Patti Smith at Max’s Kansas City. Or even earlier in the decade, when Max’s served as the NYC home base for David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, and even a young Bruce Springsteen.’ (Open Culture).
‘Though Kerouac was best known for his novels… he also wrote poetry. His poems read like distilled versions of his prose – freeform, flowing and musical, laced with themes of death, drinking and Buddhism. He once wrote that he wanted his poetry “to be considered as a jazz poet blowing a long blues in an afternoon jazz session on Sunday.” ‘ (Open Culture).
Sarah Scoles: ‘We can point to our home on a globe, and find Earth in a model of the solar system, but where are we in the Milky Way?’ (Aeon).
Lynne Jones: ‘PTSD has come to signify the moral, social and political suffering of war. But not all suffering is a mental illness…’ (Aeon).
I know you are reading this poem
late, before leaving your office
of the one intense yellow lamp-spot and the darkening window
in the lassitude of a building faded to quiet
long after rush-hour. I know you are reading this poem
standing up in a bookstore far from the ocean
on a grey day of early spring, faint flakes driven
across the plains’ enormous spaces around you.
I know you are reading this poem
in a room where too much has happened for you to bear
where the bedclothes lie in stagnant coils on the bed
and the open valise speaks of flight
but you cannot leave yet. I know you are reading this poem
as the underground train loses momentum and before running
up the stairs
toward a new kind of love
your life has never allowed.
I know you are reading this poem by the light
of the television screen where soundless images jerk and slide
while you wait for the newscast from the intifada.
I know you are reading this poem in a waiting-room
of eyes met and unmeeting, of identity with strangers.
I know you are reading this poem by fluorescent light
in the boredom and fatigue of the young who are counted out,
count themselves out, at too early an age. I know
you are reading this poem through your failing sight, the thick
lens enlarging these letters beyond all meaning yet you read on
because even the alphabet is precious.
I know you are reading this poem as you pace beside the stove
warming milk, a crying child on your shoulder, a book in your
hand
because life is short and you too are thirsty.
I know you are reading this poem which is not in your language
guessing at some words while others keep you reading
and I want to know which words they are.
I know you are reading this poem listening for something, torn
between bitterness and hope
turning back once again to the task you cannot refuse.
I know you are reading this poem because there is nothing else
left to read
there where you have landed, stripped as you are.
I dreamed I called you on the telephone
to say: Be kinder to yourself
but you were sick and would not answer
The waste of my love goes on this way
trying to save you from yourself
I have always wondered about the left-over
energy, the way water goes rushing down a hill
long after the rains have stopped
or the fire you want to go to bed from
but cannot leave, burning-down but not burnt-down
the red coals more extreme, more curious
in their flashing and dying
than you wish they were
sitting long after midnight
‘Two proposed pieces of legislation—including one that would have required school districts to allow parents to have their children excused from learning about evolution—were left to die in committee when the Missouri state legislature adjourned. The news comes as a relief to educators who said the legislation would have “eviscerated the teaching of biology” in Missouri…’ (io9).
Psychologist Developed ‘Double Helix’ Theory of Depression: ‘Dr. Blatt was a widely published Freudian analyst at Yale in the 1970s when he began arguing in essays and scientific reports that personality developed along two intertwined pathways, one focused on identity and the other on relationships.
Disruptions in either pathway could cause identical symptoms of depression, he wrote, yet the two conditions were distinct and called for different treatment approaches. The identity-based depression — “I am a failure” — responded well to classical psychoanalysis, with the therapist as a passive listener, helping to elicit growth in an independent sense of self; the relationship-based type — “I am unlovable” — could be relieved more effectively by a more assertive therapist, guiding the formation of relationships.’ (NYTimes obituary)
‘How an anti-government militia grew on a U.S. Army base.’ — Nadya Labi (The New Yorker)
An Interview With Thierry Cruvellier: You’re the only journalist who has attended all the post-Cold War international tribunals. You’ve spent years watching these trials. What drew you to them? What kept you going back? How has your view of them evolved?
‘I was drawn to war-crimes justice because of Rwanda. The 1994 genocide was a defining event for our generation. I began working in Rwanda in the immediate aftermath, so covering the trials seemed like a logical way to keep working on this event. And I quickly realized how fascinating these trials could be, at so many different levels: historical, political, diplomatic, legal, psychological, philosophical. My great interest in the trials was as a window, on the one hand, into our human condition in extreme circumstances, and the choices individuals make (or lack) in such situations; and, on the other hand, into the historical complexity of the dynamic of genocide at the central level.’ (The New Yorker).
Neutron
‘Despite decades of taking measurements, scientists cannot agree on how long neutrons live. Neutrons are stable inside atoms, but on their own they decay in about 15 minutes, more or less, into a few other particles. Exactly how much more or less is the sticking point. Each experiment seems to yield a different answer.
The lack of resolution is frustrating. Understanding the lifetime of the neutron is important not only for knowledge’s sake but also to answer other more fundamental questions about new physics beyond the known particles and processes in the universe… “We can’t leave this disagreement just hanging out there.” ‘ (Nature News & Comment).
‘The presence of a wormhole would actually solve a major problem of galaxy formation. In recent years, astronomers have observed what appear to be supermassive black holes at the centre of many galaxies. Indeed, many believe that supermassive black holes are necessary for galaxies to form in the first place— they provide the gravitational pull to hold galaxies together in their early stages.
But if that’s true, how do supermassive black holes become so massive so quickly? After all, the one at the centre of our galaxy must have been in place about 100 million years after the Big Bang. That doesn’t leave much time to grow.
A wormhole, on the other hand, is a primordial object formed in the blink of an eye after creation. So if wormholes did form in this way, they would be present in the early universe to trigger the formation of the first galaxies.’ (The Physics arXiv Blog — Medium).
‘Many of us believe that we can tell when someone else is lying, and, over the years, a folklore has developed around the facial and physical cues that can give someone away. Liars don’t look you straight in the eye. When someone is lying, he looks up and to the side, as if searching for something. A liar fidgets and seems somehow nervous. Sometimes, he’ll scratch or pull his ear. He’ll hesitate, as if he’s not sure he wants to tell you something. These, however, are all “old wives’ tales,” Leanne ten Brinke, a psychologist at the University of California at Berkeley whose work focusses on detecting deception, told me. “The empirical literature just doesn’t bear that out.” ‘ (The New Yorker).
‘There are many things that make the octopus a strange creature, but one of them is that each of its eight arms has an essentially infinite number of positions, and yet each arm operates independently. How does an octopus keep from tying itself in knots?
A group of Israeli and American researchers think they’ve discovered how the octopus keeps its arms in order. The problem is that octopus arms behave as if they have a “mind of their own.” ‘ (io9)
‘A controversial test for self-awareness is dividing the animal kingdom.’ (Nautilus).
‘…[D]o epileptics hallucinate or are their sensory abilities augmented to sharper, more intuitive levels?’ (Big Think).
The content of tweets on Twitter, based on the data gathered by Pear Analytics in 2009.
Adrienne LaFrance and Robinson Meyer: ‘Something is wrong on Twitter. And people are noticing.
Or, at least, the kind of people we hang around with on Twitter are noticing. And it’s maybe not a very important demographic, this very weird and specific kind of user: audience-obsessed, curious, newsy. Twitter’s earnings last quarter, after all, were an improvement on the period before, and it added 14 million new users for a total of 255 million. The thing is: Its users are less active than they once were. Twitter says these changes reflect a more streamlined experience, but we have a different theory: Twitter is entering its twilight.’ (The Atlantic).
‘…[S]ightings since the 1930s have shown the spot shrinking. A recent Hubble photo (seen above) observes the Great Red Spot at its smallest size yet —- just over 10,000 miles across, barely big enough for 1.3 Earths to fit inside. Scientists are studying small eddies at the edge of the storm that may somehow be sapping it of its strength. Will this monstrous cyclone continue to downsize? Researchers can’t say for sure.’ (WIRED).
Colette Shade: ‘Pinterest is best known as a destination where people can share affordable wedding ideas, dip recipes, and inspirational quotes pasted over photos of white sand beaches. But a small number of Pinterest users also swap how-tos on building bomb shelters, storing food, and emergency medical care—for “when there are no doctors.”
Meet the preppers of Pinterest.’ (The Atlantic).
“For the past ten years, Greg Mahle has driven 40,000 miles a year rescuing dogs from overpopulated “high volume kill shelters.” He and fellow volunteers run Rescue Road Trips, LLC, based in Ohio. Operating primarily in the deep South, they pick up rescued dogs and take them to other areas of the country for adoption. The organization is said to help save about 2,000 dogs each year. From The Newark Advocate:
‘Every other week, Mahle leaves his wife and stepson, traveling from their home in Zanesville to Houston, Texas, where he starts to pick up dogs destined for their new homes. Moving on from Texas, he stops in nine Southern states, picking up an average of 80 dogs on the second leg of his 4,200-mile journey.
“Some of them are scared,” Mahle said. “They don’t know what’s happening. Some have come from really bad situations, but a little love and reassurance is just what they need.”
Once secured in their crates on the truck, Mahle said the dogs perk up as if they know they’re off to a better life.
“It’s like being in a truck full of lottery winners,” he said with a laugh. “You can see it in their eyes and their disposition. They know something good is going to happen to them.” ‘ ” (Boing Boing).
‘We’ve previously featured some of Ginsberg’s Naropa lectures here at Open Culture, including his 1980 short course on Shakespeare’s The Tempest and his lecture on “Expansive Poetics” from 1981. Today, we bring you several selections from his lengthy series of lectures on the “History of Poetry,” which he delivered in 1975. Currently, thirteen of Ginsberg’s lectures in the series are available online through the Internet Archive, and they are each well worth an attentive listen.’ (Open Culture). I am going to sit down with these when I have a chance.
‘The majority of Americans – depending on which survey you look at, between 60 and 75 percent – cannot name which political party controls the House of Representatives, which party controls the Senate, or either.
Because most Americans don’t know who controls Congress, when Congress misbehaves, as they have been doing for six years, most Americans aren’t sure who to blame.
Enter the Republican Chaos Strategy, based entirely on this statistical and political reality.
And common sense suggests that well over 90 percent of Americans know that Barack Obama is the president and that he is a Democrat.
The Republicans know this, too, and it’s the other half of their strategy.
Therefore, what the Republicans know, is that if they can cause damage to the American economy and to American working people, the average voter, not realizing it was exclusively the Republicans who did it, are going to assume that the president – and the Democratic Party he is a member of – must bear some or maybe even all of the responsibility.
It’s a brilliant strategy: Damage the country and you damage the Democratic Party.’ (Salon.com).
Statuette of ancient Egyptian physician Imhotep, the first physician from antiquity known by name.
‘Over the past two decades it has become apparent that the knowledge base for clinical medicine has been corrupted by publication bias, positive result bias, the increasingly strained competition for funding and tenure, and a non-trivial amount of outright fraud.
Perhaps as a result of these problems we see a very high level of research result contradiction and retraction. Sometimes it seems everything we believed in 1999 was reversed by 2014. Retrospective studies of the sustainability of medical research has taught us that the wise physician is better to read textbooks and ignore anything that doesn’t get to the front page of the New York Times…
We can’t change the past, but what do we do with the medical literature we’ve inherited? It is vast, but we know the quality is mediocre. Can we salvage the best of it?’ (Gordon’s Notes)
‘The man who gave us the incandescent light bulb thought we should never turn out the lights at all.’ (The Atlantic).
Why it helps to put pain into words: ‘Did we lose our sense of sympathy when we lost the shared experience of pain?’ (Aeon).
‘CalTech astronomer Fritz Zwicky was the first to conceive of dark matter, supernovas and neutron stars. He also had a theory about colonizing the solar system using nuclear bombs. We could terraform other planets, he argued, by pulverizing them and then moving them closer or further from the sun.
If you’ve never heard of Zwicky, you’re not alone. Virtually the entire public was unaware of his accomplishments, largely due to his abrasive personality and unique gift for alienating himself from the scientific establishment. “Astronomers are spherical bastards,” he once said. “No matter how you look at them they are just bastards.”
And, while many of his theories were proven right, Zwicky also advocated what could be charitably described as “eccentric” ideas—most notably, his proposals for using nuclear explosives to reconstruct the solar system.’ (io9)
‘For decades, scientists have feared the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet—a vast swath of ice that could unleash a slow but unstoppable 10-foot rise in sea levels if it melted. So here is today’s terrible news: we now know the ice sheet is melting. And there’s pretty much nothing we can do about it.’ (Gizmodo)
‘
Swiss public TV was first to report that surrealist science fiction illustrator
has died at 74. Giger created the designs for the Alien movies, the notorious poster included with the
‘
, and many other iconic works.’ (
).
‘In his weekly homily on Monday, the Pope explored the idea that extraterrestrial beings might want to join the Catholic church and determines that they should be accepted with open arms.’ (Boing Boing).
Media Lab
‘Developers at MIT Media Lab’s Playful Systems group are working on an iPhone app that they say will use common mobile features to foster compassion and understanding between people. As its title implies, 20 Day Stranger will match two complete strangers and allow them to see descriptions of each other’s activities that are intentionally vague (such as “at a cafe” or “near an airport”) for just under three weeks. The app uses the phone’s sensors as well as general data from services like Instagram and Google Maps to give just enough information without revealing private details such as names or specific addresses.
The app is the brainchild of Tinsley Galyean, who co-directs MIT’s Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values and broached the idea to the development group. “[It] isn’t to make your life transparent,” says Playful Systems director Kevin Slavin, “it’s to give just enough to wonder and imagine and ultimately, to care. It is explicitly about producing imagination and conjecture, not transmitting information.” Indeed, the app only serves to link two anonymous people who, at the end, will ideally gain some insights into everyday living.’ (Big Think).
James Hamblin: ‘Preeminent scientists are warning about serious threats to human life in the not-distant future, including climate change and superintelligent computers. Most people don’t care.’ (The Atlantic).
‘For the first time ever, astronomers have identified a star that emerged from the same cloud of dust and gas as our own. Intriguingly, there’s a “small, but not zero” chance that our sister sun hosts planets hospitable to life.
For those of you who have been watching the rebooted Cosmos series, this announcement couldn’t have been more timely. As Neil deGrasse Tyson just noted in a recent episode, our sun, along with others, formed in a massive cloud of dust and gas called a nebula. Consequently, it must have so-called “stellar siblings” floating around somewhere relatively near, but to date none have ever been found. Well, until now.’ (io9)
‘The most common large predators you’ll encounter outdoors in North America, bears also really, really, really want to eat your food and sometimes even you. Here’s how to keep them from getting either.’ (Gizmodo)
‘
Amid GOP’s circus, it’s important for Hillary Clinton — and progressives — if she gets an opponent. Here’s why…’ (Salon.com).
‘…The purpose of these drugs is two-fold. First, they are used to induce death in a manner as painless as possible for the condemned. Second, the drug combination is also intended for the audience to view the process as peaceful and medical, without any twitching of the body, vocalizations, or any reflex actions that can still occur while one is unconscious.
The three types of drugs and their purposes, as originally proposed and used in order, are as follows:
I want to address these drugs in reverse order to illustrate why their successive administration is so important.’ — David Kroll (Forbes).
‘A neuro-psychologist insists humans are so ignorant about the cosmos that any encounter with aliens would be a disaster…’ (CNET).
‘If the world starts looking like a scene from “Matrix 3” where everyone has Agent Smith’s face, you can thank Leo Selvaggio. His rubber mask aimed at foiling surveillance cameras features his visage, and if he has his way, plenty of people will be sporting the Personal Surveillance Identity Prosthetic in public. It’s one of three products made by the Chicago-based artist’s URME Surveillance, a venture dedicated to “protecting the public from surveillance and creating a safe space to explore our digital identities.”…
The 3D-printed resin mask, made from a 3D scan of Selvaggio’s face and manufactured by ThatsMyFace.com, renders his features and skin tone with surprising realism, though the eyes peeping out from the eye holes do lend a certain creepiness to the look.
Creepiness is, of course, part of the point here, as the interdisciplinary artist takes a his-face-in-everyone’s-face approach to exploring the impact of an increasingly networked world on personal identity.’ (CNET).
Krulwich Wonders… ‘Look at this guy. He is half-smiley, half-frowny. I drew the mouth carefully to make it equal parts sad and happy.
But when you look at him — take him in whole — would you say he’s having a good day or a bad day? Most people would say: good day. He seems a little more smiley than not.
That’s because, says science writer Sam Kean, when we look at somebody, the left side of that person’s face is more emotionally powerful and “determines the overall emotional tenor.”
So if his left side is happy and his right side is sad, left wins — the whole face feels happy-ish. What is equal is made unequal. It’s as if when I look at you, instead of taking you in with one visual gulp, I’m scanning your face from left to right and the left side feels more dominant.
Why would that be?’ (NPR).
‘You probably only think of spiders as the horrible venomous arachnids that use two of their legs to pry open your eyelids so they can inject your eyeballs with venom while you’re sleeping. Turns out? When you look at how they evolved to produce that venom they get even scarier.’ (io9).
Electron micrograph of a cluster of E. coli bacteria, magnified 10,000 times.
All You Need to Know About Fecal Transplants (Gizmodo).
The extreme survival tricks of hibernators could help us overcome life-threatening injuries: ‘Anna Bågenholm was on a skiing holiday in Norway when she crashed head first into a frozen stream and became trapped under the ice. When rescuers finally arrived, the Swedish radiologist had been submerged for 80 minutes, and her heart and breathing had stopped. Doctors at Tromsø University Hospital recorded a body temperature of 13.7°C, the lowest ever observed in a victim of accidental hypothermia. By all accounts she appeared to have drowned. And yet, after careful rewarming and ten days spent in intensive care, Bågenholm woke up. She went on to recover almost fully from her cold brush with death. Under normal circumstances, even a few minutes trapped underwater would be enough to drown a person, and yet Bågenholm had survived for over an hour. Somehow the cold had preserved her.’ (Mosaic).
‘Australian scientists have helped to create a brand spanking new element that will soon be added to the periodic table.
The super-heavy element 117 (for now, it’s also temporarily being named ununseptium) was created in a lab by a team of international scientists. Its atoms match the heaviest atoms ever observed, which are 40 percent heavier than lead.’ (Science Alert).
‘Sylvia Poggioli… tells the story for NPR about coffee shops all over Europe that offer caffè sospeso, or suspended coffee. Suspended coffee is when a customer comes in for a cup of coffee and they pay for two so that someone else can have a drink for free. The barista would keep a log, and when someone popped his head in the doorway of the cafe and asked, “Is there anything suspended?” the barista would nod and serve him a cup of coffee … for free. It’s an elegant way to show generosity: an act of charity in which donors and recipients never meet each other, the donor doesn’t show off and the recipient doesn’t have to show gratitude.There is a Coffee Sharing website with a list of all the shops that do Suspended Coffee. And then there’s a coffee shop in Kentucky that offers a similar model, but with a twist. At A Cup of Common Wealth customers can buy a specific drink for a specific person or type of person. Such as “a medium coffee for a a middle school teacher” or “an iced latte for an Alaskan traveler”.’ (Shawn Blanc).
‘About a year ago, scientists grafted genetically modified pigs’ hearts into baboons. And now, the team reports that the baboons and their pig hearts are doing just fine. The engineering grafts haven’t been rejected, and ones like it may be ready for humans with end stage heart failure one day soon.
The biggest challenge with transplants using animal organs (or xenotransplantation) is preventing the hosts from seeing their donor parts as foreign. In the past, organs that haven’t been genetically tweaked last no more than six months in primates before they’re rejected. One of the reasons pigs were chosen for this study is because their anatomy is already compatible with humans; pig valves are already being swapped for human heart valves.
To further help pig parts evade our immune systems, a team from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the U.S. National Institutes of Health added several human genes to the pig genome — while removing (or knocking out) genes that would trigger immune responses in humans…’ (I Fucking Love Science).
![Cover of "The Terminator [Blu-ray]"](https://i0.wp.com/ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/512CJZQA58L._SL350_.jpg "Cover of \"The Terminator [Blu-ray]\"")
‘Next time you play a computer at chess, think about the implications if you beat it. It could be a very sore loser!
A study just published in the Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence reflects upon the growing need for autonomous technology, and suggests that humans should be very careful to prevent future systems from developing anti-social and potentially harmful behaviour.
Modern military and economic pressures require autonomous systems that can react quickly — and without human input. These systems will be required to make rational decisions for themselves.
Researcher Steve Omohundro writes: “When roboticists are asked by nervous onlookers about safety, a common answer is ‘We can always unplug it!’ But imagine this outcome from the chess robot’s point of view. A future in which it is unplugged is a future in which it cannot play or win any games of chess.”
Like a plot from The Terminator movie, we are suddenly faced with the prospect of real threat from autonomous systems unless they are designed very carefully. Like a human being or animal seeking self-preservation, a rational machine could exert the following harmful or anti-social behaviours:
The study highlights the vulnerability of current autonomous systems to hackers and malfunctions, citing past accidents that have caused multi-billion dollars’ worth of damage, or loss of human life. Unfortunately, the task of designing more rational systems that can safeguard against the malfunctions that occurred in these accidents is a more complex task that is immediately apparent:
“Harmful systems might at first appear to be harder to design or less powerful than safe systems. Unfortunately, the opposite is the case. Most simple utility functions will cause harmful behaviour and it is easy to design simple utility functions that would be extremely harmful.” ‘ (ScienceDaily, with thanks to abby)
The Supreme Court heard arguments on the issue of warrantless cell phone searches today. Here’s an elegant proposed solution.
Adam M. Gershowitz: ‘Courts are deeply divided on the question of whether police can search a cell phone incident to arrest without a warrant. This essay argues that the Supreme Court should not authorize warrantless cell phone searches. However, the Court should allow law enforcement to seize cell phones without a warrant and immobilize the devices until a magistrate determines whether to issue a warrant. While a cell phone is in police custody, there are three ways for law enforcement to preserve the data and protect against remote destruction: (1) Police can use a data extraction device to download a copy of the phone’s data; (2) The phone can be placed in an inexpensive bag called a Faraday cage that isolates the phone from outside communication and prevents remote wiping of the contents; or (3) Police can simply wrap the phone in aluminum foil to create the same protection as a Faraday cage at virtually no cost. Any of these methods will protect against remote destruction of evidence in almost all cases. And there is longstanding precedent to support a regime of warrantless seizures while a warrant request is pending. Allowing warrantless seizures and isolation of cell phones strikes a balance between the competing concerns of cell phone privacy and the need for police to preserve evidence.’ (SSRN).
‘There aren’t enough humans on Earth to fill the Grand Canyon, and in a lifetime you don’t produce enough saliva to even fill a swimming pool. That suggests that most things around us are countable or measurable: so how many things are there?
That question is posed and—kinda—answered in this video by Vsauce. First, though, we need to answer an important question: what counts as a thing, anyway?’ (Gizmodo)
‘This little bastard is the deadliest animal in the world, with an estimated 750,000 human deaths every year. According to this great visualization posted by Bill Gates, mosquitoes kill 163,780 more humans than all the other “dangerous” animals combined, including sharks, snakes, and humans—the second deadliest animal. In fact, sharks and wolves’ kills—so feared by humans—are absolutely ridiculous.’
Radio Lab recently had a piece speculating about the implications — turns out they are pretty complex — of exterminating all the mosquitoes in the world. Worth a listen.
‘The Panama Canal is not the only water line connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. There’s a place in Wyoming—deep in the Teton Wilderness Area of the Bridger-Teton National Forest—in which a creek splits in two. Like the canal, this creek connects the two oceans dividing North America in two parts.
Yes. You read that right: North America is divided in two parts by a single water line that—no matter how hard you try not to—you will have to cross to go from North to South and vice versa.’ (Sploid). I find this pretty amazing. Would like to trek to that point.
Execution Could Kill Americans’ Access to Key Anesthetic: ‘Next month the state of Missouri is scheduled to execute convicted murderer Allen Nicklasson by overdosing him with propofol, a German anesthetic. Late last week, the European Union announced that the Missouri execution could trigger export controls on the drug. European Union law prohibits export of products that can be used for capital punishment. If export controls kick in, they could block American hospitals’ ability to purchase propofol, which is used in as many as 80 percent of American medical procedures requiring general anethesia.
The drug’s producer, the pharmaceutical company Fresenius Kabi, announced that it has unilaterally blocked distribution of the drug to American correctional systems. However, the E.U. regulations would go further than the private company’s decision.’ (Pacific Standard)
‘A very strange object called WISE J085510.83-071442.5 lies just 7.2 light-years from the earth. Discovered by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), it is nominally one of those not-quite-planets-not-quite-stars known as a brown dwarf. Because they are so much smaller and cooler than stars, brown dwarfs appear red and faint. But astronomer Kevin Luhman noticed that WISE J085510.83-071442.5 was very red and very faint…partly because it is small—perhaps only 2 to 10 times the mass of Jupiter—and partly because it is so cold. It’s temperature, Luhman found, is only about 9° F (-13° C). That’s well below the freezing point of water. In other words, the brown dwarf is literally ice cold. The fact that it is so cold is a clue to its age. If it started out at a few thousand degrees it would have taken somewhere between 1 and 10 billion years to have cooled to its present temperature.
It may well be that instead of being a brown dwarf, this object may in reality be one of the half dozen or so mysterious rogue planets, the first of which was first observed in 2010. These are worlds that, as the result of some catastrophe, were ejected from their home systems and now orbit the galaxy directly, as our sun does…’ (io9).
‘A belated happy birthday to the Hubble Space Telescope: Our favorite source of wonder and joy was 24 years old on April 24, and the Hubble site celebrated it with this spectacular visualization of the Monkey Head Nebula.
NGC 2174 is “a star-forming region in which bright, newborn stars near the center of the nebula illuminate the surrounding gas with energetic radiation. This radiation, along with strong stellar winds, erodes away the lower density gas. Pockets of higher density gas resist this erosion, and form pillars and peaks along the inner edge of the roughly circular cloud.” ‘ (Sploid).
‘Editors at The American Scholar have published a list of what they believe to be the “Ten Best Sentences” from literature. There are more suggestions sent in from their readers. [And]… [h]ere’s Roy Peter Clark at Poynter.org, on why they’re so great.’ (Boing Boing).
‘In a pilot, the amazingly effective strategy reduced poaching by 96 percent.’ (Salon.com).
‘Insisting that people use their real names online to prevent trolling and ensure civility ignores the fact that using real names online is quite different than using them in person. In the physical world, space and time separate facets of our lives, providing everyday privacy. Even though you use your real name in conversations you have in person with your podiatrist or pastor, those conversations and opinions are not accessible to your co-workers and neighbors. Online, however, … words persist forever, in vast searchable databases. Anything you say or do using your real name is permanently attached to it.’ — Judith Donath, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard and is the author of “The Social Machine, Design for Living Online” (WIRED).
A List of Five Bad Western Philosophers: ‘Over at his blog Leiter Reports, UC Chicago professor of philosophy Brian Leiter is currently conducting a very interesting poll, asking his readers to rank the 25 philosophers of “the modern era” (the last 200 years) who “have had the most pernicious influence on philosophy.” The pool of candidates comes from an earlier survey of influential philosophers, and Leiter has imposed some conditions on his respondents, asking that they only rank philosophers they have read, and only include “serious philosophers”–”no charlatans like Derrida or amateurs like Rand.” While I personally wince at Leiter’s Derrida jab (and cheer his exclusion of Rand), I think his question may be a little too academic, his field perhaps too narrow.
But the polemical idea is so compelling that I felt it worth adopting for a broader informal survey: contra Leiter, I’ve ranked five philosophers who I think have had a most pernicious influence on the world at large. I’m limiting my own choices to Western philosophers, with which I’m most familiar, though obviously by my first choice, you can tell I’ve expanded the temporal parameters. And in sporting listicle fashion, I’ve not only made a ranking, but I’ve blurbed each of my choices, inspired by this fun Neatorama post, “9 Bad Boys of Philosophy.” ‘ (Open Culture).
Here are some ways to assist Sherpa families, including those affected by the avalanche. (National Geographic)
‘Chances are, you’ve used one of the many useful calculating tools available online: How much would a monthly mortgage cost me with today’s interest rates? What time is it on another continent? But there are far more exotic and weird calculators on the Internet. Here are ten of the most unusual.’ (io9).
‘Barcelona is one of Europe’s most vibrant cities. Tourists flock here for the superb restaurants, lively nightlife, and a chance to check out the stunningly creative architecture of Antoni Gaudí. But the city’s historical and cultural roots run deep, and a new interactive map aims to make it easier for visitors and locals alike to explore the city’s landmarks.’ (WIRED).
Darn, wish I’d heard of this before I travelled to Barcelona last month! As always, when I travel, I do my research, but this would have made the process much easier. How do you prepare yourself, psychogeographically, for your destinations?
‘Though dinosaur-killing impacts are rare, large asteroids routinely hit the Earth. In the visualization…, you can see the location of 26 space rocks that slammed into our planet between 2000 and 2013, each releasing energy equivalent to that of some of our most powerful nuclear weapons. The video comes from the B612 Foundation, an organization that wants to build and launch a telescope that would spot civilization-ending asteroids to give humans a heads up in trying to deflect them.’ (WIRED)
Related articles
Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak, right
‘Poland and the United States will announce next week the deployment of U.S. ground forces to Poland as part of an expansion of NATO presence in Central and Eastern Europe in response to events in Ukraine. That was the word from Poland’s defense minister, Tomasz Siemoniak, who visited The Post Friday after meeting with Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel at the Pentagon on Thursday.
Siemoniak said the decision has been made on a political level and that military planners are working out details. There will also be intensified cooperation in air defense, special forces, cyberdefense and other areas. Poland will play a leading regional role, “under U.S. patronage,” he said.’ (Washington Post)
‘…It’s one of the few venomous mammals on Earth, and perhaps the only one that injects venom exactly the way a snake does.
The particular solenodon pictured above is a Hispaniolan solenodon, found in Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Its cousin, the Cuban solenodon, was thought to be extinct up to about two years ago, when it was rediscovered after some reported sitings an a ten year search. That might be good news for conservationists, who are thrilled that an animal that survived the comet that wiped out the dinosaurs hasn’t been killed off by cats and logging. Other people might not be so pleased.
The solenodon looks like a big shrew, and is in the same order as shrews, though not the same family. Like shrews, it has venom. Unlike shrew venom, which doesn’t kill its prey, solenodon venom can kill small animals within a few hours….’ (io9).
‘The lunar phases influence all sorts of creatures from cheetahs to eagle owls. Does the moon tug on human behaviour too?’ (Aeon).
‘E. B. White on Dogs is an absolute treat in its entirety — sometimes soulful, sometimes funny, always unmistakably Whitean in its warm irreverence and sensitive satire. Complement it with Mary Oliver’s magnificent Dogs Songs and John Updike’s harrowing poem on the loss of his dog, then lift your spirits with The Big New Yorker Book of Dogs and Jane Goodall’s charming children’s book about the healing power of pet love.’
DOG AROUND THE BLOCK
Dog around the block, sniff,
Hydrant sniffing, corner, grating,
Sniffing, always, starting forward,
Backward, dragging, sniffing backward,
Leash at taut, leash at dangle,
Leash in people’s feet entangle—
Sniffing dog, apprised of smellings,
Love of life, and fronts of dwellings,
Meeting enemies,
Loving old acquaintance, sniff,
Sniffing hydrant for reminders,
Leg against the wall, raise,
Leaving grating, corner greeting,
Chance for meeting, sniff, meeting,
Meeting, telling, news of smelling,
Nose to tail, tail to nose,
Rigid, careful, pose,
Liking, partly liking, hating,
Then another hydrant, grating,
Leash at taut, leash at dangle,
Tangle, sniff, untangle,
Dog around the block, sniff.
‘…[R]ather than adapting their policy positions to a changing nation, Republicans have simply adopted cynical tactics that work to minimize the electoral power of these demographic groups at every turn. If the GOP can’t convince minorities and young people to vote against their own interests, perhaps they can prevent the poor, the young, and minorities from voting in the first place. After all, as conservative columnists have noted with some glee, an election using old antebellum rules, where only white men could vote, would have led to a landslide for Mitt Romney! (And white Christians are the only “real Americans,” so this exit-polling proves that Romney deserved to win or something.)’ (Salon.com).
‘With mountains of knowledge, why aren’t we better at setting up our society in a way that helps us to prosper? Isn’t that the point of having a society in the first place? Unfortunately, ours is increasingly designed by politicians indebted to the 1 percent for the express purpose of enhancing and maintaining the power of the very top rung. The rest of us are left to cope with a rocky, competitive life path that leaves us isolated and exhausted. Inequality is stunting our growth as human beings.
We are doing an especially poor job at setting the conditions for our development as social beings. Recent research in Scientific American shows that today’s college students are less empathetic than generations past. We are less involved in our communities and less fulfilled in our jobs, our families, and our relationships. As the great psychologists have taught us, it is accomplishment in these areas that give us the feeling of significance as human beings. Yet at each stage of life development, we have adopted policies, practices, and habits of mind that thwart us and cultivate anxiety, loneliness and antisocial behavior.’ (Salon.com).
‘…[T]he members of the national security state, unlike the rest of us, exist in what might be called “post-legal” America. They know that, no matter how heinous the crime, they will not be brought to justice for it. The list of potentially serious criminal acts for which no one has had to take responsibility in a court of law is long, and never tabulated in one place. Consider this, then, an initial run-down on seven of the most obvious crimes and misdemeanors of this era for which no one has been held accountable:
Mind you, the above seven categories don’t even take into account the sort of warrantless surveillance of Americans that should have put someone in a court of law, or the ways in which various warrior corporations overbilled or cheated the government in its war zones, or the ways private contractors “ran wild” in those same zones. Even relatively low-level crimes by minor figures in the national security state have normally not been criminalized. Take, for example, the private surveillance of and cyberstalking of “love interests,” or “LOVEINT,” by NSA employees using government surveillance systems. (Salon.com).
. . . and He Feels Fine: A portrait of Paul Kingsnorth and the Dark Mountain Project, a.k.a. the “crazy collapsitarians.”
‘For Kingsnorth, the notion that technology will stave off the most catastrophic effects of global warming is not just wrong, it’s repellent — a distortion of the proper relationship between humans and the natural world and evidence that in the throes of crisis, many environmentalists have abandoned the principle that “nature has some intrinsic, inherent value beyond the instrumental.” If we lose sight of that ideal in the name of saving civilization, he argues, if we allow ourselves to erect wind farms on every mountain and solar arrays in every desert, we will be accepting a Faustian bargain.’
(NYTimes.com via abby).
Robinson Meyer and Alex Madrigal face off in The Atlantic about whether songs should be flow-charted.
‘A new religious statue in the town of Davidson, N.C., is unlike anything you might see in church. The statue depicts Jesus as a vagrant sleeping on a park bench. St. Alban’s Episcopal Church installed the homeless Jesus statue on its property in the middle of an upscale neighborhood filled with well-kept town homes. Jesus is huddled under a blanket with his face and hands obscured; only the crucifixion wounds on his uncovered feet give him away.
The reaction was immediate…’ (NPR). Happy Easter!
Stop turning tragedies into slogans! ‘At a ceremony to honor the victims of that tragedy, Vice President Biden said that we Bostonians are “living proof that America can never be defeated. So much has been taken from you, but you have never given up.”
America’s eternal invincibility aside, it’s undeniable that the victims of last year’s bombings show impressive resilience and strength in coping with such a disgusting day.
But what’s so strong about the rest of us?
…While intended as shows of solidarity, the actual effect of such catchphrases could be much more problematic.’ (Salon.com).
The dark world of animal “crush” films: ‘A Florida arrest reveals a disturbing genre — and how hard it is to punish the perpetrators…’ (Salon.com).
‘The New York Times columnist and award-winning economist says America may be the most unequal society ever.’ (Salon.com).
‘When you’re looking for alien life, the best place to look is somewhere like Earth; the only place we know of that life exists. Kepler-186f, the first Earth-sized planet to be found in the habitable zone of a star, is the best bet we’ve ever found.
We’d heard details about this find a little while back, but now NASA has come out with the full announcement which adds more juicy information:
Kepler-186f is 1.1 times the size of Earth. Due to its size and location, it’s likely to be rocky. It’s (probably) not some gaseous ball. It’s 500 lightyears away from Earth. Scientists hypothesize it is at least several billion years old.
Its years are 130 days long and it gets one-third the energy from its star that Earth gets from the sun. So it’s chilly. On the chillest end of the habitable zone. At noon on Kepler-186f, its sun would be about as bright as ours is an hour before sunset. It has four brother planets, though none of them are habitable. They fly around their sun once every four, seven, 13 and 22 days, so they are way too close and too hot for life.’ (io9)
Want To Spot Earth’s First Cousin? Look For the Swan in the Sky
‘The Kepler-186 system is in the constellation Cygnus, which stargazers will know as the easy-to-spot swan in the northern hemisphere’s summertime sky. From here on Earth, some 500 light years away, we can’t see Kepler-186f at all. But you can still look in its direction. You won’t see how awesome Cygnus is by just looking up. Molecular dust clouds in the region form a veil called the Great Rift, which makes it hard to see anything more than a hint of what’s happening there. And, oh, is it happening. Cygnus is home to the Kepler system and our newly discovered first-cousin planet, but the constellation is also known for being a major star factory.’ (The Atlantic).
The nearly 5 million Census Blocks with zero population:
‘A Block is the smallest area unit used by the U.S. Census Bureau for tabulating statistics. As of the 2010 census, the United States consists of 11,078,300 Census Blocks. Of them, 4,871,270 blocks totaling 4.61 million square kilometers were reported to have no population living inside them. Despite having a population of more than 310 million people, 47 percent of the USA remains unoccupied.
Green shading indicates unoccupied Census Blocks. A single inhabitant is enough to omit a block from shading…’ (mapsbynik).
‘Buy one part of the set — say, an AWS-100 digital scale — and Amazon’s “what other customers bought” feature will tell you the rest you need.’ (Boing Boing).
‘…[A] quick glance at the history of the federal government and capital punishment should provide a clear answer: no.’ — Jonathan Zimmerman, professor of education and history at New York University Salon.com).
‘Some are clumsy (kakopo), others majestic (Christmas Island frigatebird), all are fighting for their survival.’ (Salon.com).
‘For the first time in history, scientists are witnessing the formation of a new moon in our solar system. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has detected a new moon forming in the edge of Saturn’s rings. Astronomers around the world are amazed about this incredible find, which they have named Peggy.*
It’s really exciting to see this happening in real time. Carl Murray—lead author of the paper describing Peggy—says that “we have not seen anything like this before. We may be looking at the act of birth, where this object is just leaving the rings and heading off to be a moon in its own right.” According to Cassini Project Scientist Linda Spilker at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, “witnessing the possible birth of a tiny moon is an exciting, unexpected event.” ‘ (Gizmodo).
‘Stepping into a heated debate within the nation’s intelligence agencies, President Obama has decided that when the National Security Agency discovers major flaws in Internet security, it should — in most circumstances — reveal them to assure that they will be fixed, rather than keep mum so that the flaws can be used in espionage or cyberattacks, senior administration officials said Saturday.
But Mr. Obama carved a broad exception for “a clear national security or law enforcement need,” the officials said, a loophole that is likely to allow the N.S.A. to continue to exploit security flaws both to crack encryption on the Internet and to design cyberweapons.’ (NYTimes).
A Decade-Long Photographic Masterpiece at the Intersection of Art, Science, and Philosophy: ‘For nearly a decade, Brooklyn-based artist, photographer, and Guggenheim Fellow Rachel Sussman has been traveling the globe to discover and document its oldest organisms — living things over 2,000 years of age. Her breathtaking photographs and illuminating essays are now collected in The Oldest Living Things in the World (public library) — beautiful and powerful work at the intersection of fine art, science, and philosophy, spanning seven continents and exploring issues of deep time, permanence and impermanence, and the interconnectedness of life.’ (Brain Pickings).
‘This is a clay model of the final design for the life-size statue of Edgar Allan Poe that will be unveiled on October 5, 2014 at 2pm, at the corner of Boylston Street and Charles Street South in Boston, which is also named “Edgar Allan Poe Square.” It’s got Poe with his coat flapping in the wind, a suitcase, and raven heralding his arrival. Stefanie Rocknak’s design was selected out 265 other artists from 42 states and 13 countries with the proposal for “Poe Returning to Boston”…’ (io9).
‘
Late Monday night/early Tuesday morning will be an incredible time for skygazing. Not only is Mars bigger and brighter than it’s been in more than six years, you’ll also be able to witness the first total lunar eclipse of 2014. Here’s how to watch.’ (io9)
‘Under the Skin’ review: ‘Starring Scarlett Johansson as an alien creature trolling the streets for human prey, it’s a mesmerizing and haunting film that refuses to concern itself with traditional genre or even narrative conventions. The result is an unforgettable piece of art-house sci-fi that may alienate audiences used to the hyperkinetic spectacle that dominates most screens, but those that are able to slip under its spell will enjoy one of the most striking theatrical experiences this year.’ (The Verge).
‘A huge pyramid in the middle of nowhere tracking the end of the world on radar, just an abstract geometric shape beneath the sky without a human being in sight: it could be the opening scene of an apocalyptic science fiction film, but it’s just the U.S. military going about its business, building vast and other-worldly architectural structures that the civilian world only rarely sees.
The Library of Congress has an extraordinary set of images documenting the Stanley R. Mickelsen Safeguard Complex in Cavalier County, North Dakota, showing it in various states of construction and completion. And the photos are awesome.’ (Gizmodo).
Hondros (left) and friends
Here is a tribute to a great man, photojournalist Chris Hondros, killed this week in Libya (Committee to Protect Journalists).
How did enlightenment thinkers distinguish between ‘drugs’ and ‘medicines’? And how should we? ‘…[T]he same novel sensory effects that made substances such as tobacco, opium and cannabis desirable to global consumers also made them fascinating for the earliest experimental scientists. But what did those drugs mean – for them, and for us? How did our modern binary between ‘illicit drug’ and ‘valuable medicine’ come into being?’ – Benjamin Breen (Aeon).
‘Some people found a baby seal crying for attention far away from the open sea, deep in the city of Sundsvall, in eastern Sweden. Apparently, instead of calling some emergency service, they just filmed her with their cellphones. A sad sign of the times, I guess…’ (Gizmodo)
‘Oarfish are freaky sea dragons. …[T]he fish usually live far down in the ocean — at depths up to 3000 feet. It’s relatively rare to catch them at a depth where humans have easy access. In this video, you can see tourists with a Shedd Aquarium travel program interacting with a couple of 15-feet-long oarfish in the Sea of Cortez. Definitely stick around to about 1:40 in the video, where you get some stunning underwater close ups of the oarfish.’ (Boing Boing).
‘Most of us have come upon it many, many times throughout our lives. But when was the last time any of us really saw it? Like so many of Alfred Eisenstaedt’s most storied photographs, this one flirts with sentimentality — but avoids that ignoble fate by virtue of its energy, and its immediacy. This is not a depiction of manufactured emotion, but a masterfully framed instant of authentic, explosive spirit.’ (LIFE.com, via kottke).
‘From access to healthcare and education, gender equality, attitudes toward immigrants and minorities, the U.S. looks like a second-rate nation…’ (Alternet).
‘A long-sought fugitive has been caught at the world’s largest particle accelerator. Experiments at the Large Hadron Collider confirm that a provocative particle called Z(4430) actually exists – and it may be the strongest evidence yet for a new form of matter called a tetraquark.
Quarks are subatomic particles that are the fundamental building blocks of matter. They are known to exist either in groups of two, forming short-lived mesons, or in threes, forming the protons and neutrons that make up atomic nuclei. Researchers have suspected for decades that quarks might also bind together in quartets, forming tetraquarks, but they have not been able to do the complicated quantum calculations necessary to test the idea.’ (New Scientist).
‘Though security vulnerabilities come and go, this one is deemed catastrophic because it’s at the core of SSL, the encryption protocol so many have trusted to protect their data. “It really is the worst and most widespread vulnerability in SSL that has come out,” says Matt Blaze, cryptographer and computer security professor at the University of Pennsylvania. But the bug is also unusually worrisome because it could possibly be used by hackers to steal your usernames and passwords — for sensitive services like banking, ecommerce, and web-based email — and by spy agencies to steal the private keys that vulnerable web sites use to encrypt your traffic to them.’ (WIRED).
