SciShow!

I would like to call your attention to one of the most fascinating, well-made, and generally awesome YouTube series I know: SciShow.

These short videos are packed with an extremely wide variety of excellent information, and the personality delivering them paces himself well and enjoys his work. Deadly poisons, lethal diseases, Martian habitability, and many other topics have all made it into his broadcasts. Occasionally his topics might make some blush, but his frank delivery in these cases is refreshing. 

Needless to say, I enjoy his show. 

Sure he's not exactly precisely perfectly right sometimes (according to my microbiologist wife, who loves the show); however, to (rather terribly) paraphrase Zombie Feynman, "[By teaching people to value basic scientific knowledge and application, SciShow] is doing more to drag humanity out of the unscientific darkness than a thousand lessons in rigor."

I am also quite proud of the currency of his videos. He generally comments on research that is very recent while also going back in time to research the history of his topics quite well.

If you haven't watched any, go watch one now. 

No, really. I'm about to make a whiny little point, and the awesomeness of his work ought to be appreciated before reading my comment on one of his videos (NASA Needs You).

Back? Well, here goes:

-- begin misanthropy --

If you are going to venture into the political realm, please do so completely responsibly. Government economics is a fascinating field, with opinions all over the board. I would be happy, I think, to see a shift in our budgetary priorities towards science and away from pork. I am also of the opinion that we can't spend more than we have, so if everything gets cut then science probably should too, though perhaps by a smaller proportion. (According to our dear President, this was actually the case when budgets actually decreased.) "OMG, the NIH will be cut by $1 billion!!!1!" is entirely insufficient in this case, when what appears to be the 2013 budget is $30 billion. One Billion is a scary number, as my wife, several students, and an experienced professor would be going to China to do oncology work this summer on a measly $100,000 (that's its own story), but the sheer scale of the NIH's work shouldn't be so blithely understated.

Oh, and "These budget cuts cannot be reversed"? Really? Sure these budget cuts won't as per their designs, but do you really think the NIH, NIST, NSF, or DoE budget is a monotonic sequence?

-- end misanthropy --

That said, I'm happy to hear that NASA got $200 million more than they asked for this coming year. I would love to hear about the NIH's budget increasing too; PubMed is an awesome resource whose growth I am proud to say my tax dollars support.

The Collector's Box

Reconstruction after the war had been difficult, but it had been approached with a renewed rigor among the lassaiz faire policies following the outbreak of peace.

Reconstruction of the ISL's Golem, on the other hand, was not.

Calvin had been working on the project for quite some time, and figured he had seen it all: The Alliance's indifference to the project had left it massively underfunded and, consequently, understaffed. The Golem's AI core was unresponsive to even the most skilled psychotronic engineers. Only about a fifth of the original superstructure of the Golem had been recovered, and they only had enough resources to run one dilapidated salvage ship on shot-in-the-dark missions into the Void, where the war-ending cataclysm had occurred. The nature of the recovery missions meant that extensive shoreside leave on Terra was required for each crew sent out, and this did not please the bean counters.

After some time in this state, that lone salvage crew had crawled back into the Niffleheim system, barely towing a sizeable chunk of the Golem back. While the loadmasters were identifying and inspecting the prize, Calvin asked the lucky vessel's captain what had happened:

"Well, as per standard operating procedure," the captain grimaced, since such words were only used as a nod to the Senate, "we used the ship's reactor's radioactivity to generate a set of random jump coordinates constrained by the expected target space and known stellar obstructions. When our Drive popped us through, we found ourselves heading into orbit around one of the Darkened Suns." The captain paused, waiting for Calvin to urge him on. Those suns had been extinguished in the Golem's contrapuntal feedback event, and physics didn't quite work right around them.

Acknowledging the captain's obvious dismay at this detail, he urged him on. "We were sixteen AUs or so out, so we started the regular ten-light-minute scans, and stepped them up to full system scans. Something in the far hemisphere interfered with the Oort cloud's return of the FTL probe, so we cautiously microhopped over to see what it was..." The captain droned on about the routine details of crossing the star system. Heh. Microhopping was basically the least cautious approach that could have been used...it set off tachyon flares visible for about a lightyear. "...and when the Golem architecturalist on the crew identified it as a fragment, we started dragging it in. It's about four times a massive as it should be, but, with some ingenuity on our engine man's part, we got it here."

"Did you run much more than the simple architecture analytics on it?" Calvin probed.

The captain narrowed his eyes. "Are you not telling me something about my cargo? After fifteen of these missions, jumping blindly into who knows where, we find something, and all you can ask is whether I ran a few extra ********* scans?! Of course we didn't, sir, we were worried enough about getting it back here without a catastrophic drive failure of our own!"

That...was not what he had expected. He guessed that more unexpected things would follow quickly enough... "Captain Morris, you know everything I know. I just had a hunch and wanted to know if you had any small details that might be useful later. We both know it was a drive-related explosion, so I was just worried about contamination from that. The repair crews aren't daft; they know too and they'll be careful."

After a few more questions about the return trip, the captain left, still somewhat frazzled, and Calvin began pacing his office.

Why do Feminist Rants (usually) Bug Me?

(Savannah and Brett, I look forward to your feedback. Feminist Frequency, please read all of it and consider it carefully before dissecting me before the world.)

Let's be honest:

I'm not sure.

This post is both a fairly early attempt to understand my position AND a reaction to recent inputs from the vast ocean of YouTube.

Feminism is an interesting, complex idea. What I understand of it seeks to address deep-rooted and rather disturbing trends in society, and I'd like to think I agree with a large subset of feminist goals. Here I must plead ignorance (and risk accidentally addressing a Straw Feminist).

The video essay I just overheard (#3 The Smurfette Principle (Tropes vs. Women) by Feminist Frequency) was interestingly shallow. It was, as I experienced it, simply a long list bemoaning the fact that there are dozens of instances of Smurfette Principle trope. (I use 'principle' and 'trope' in deliberate redundancy.) The next (#4 The Evil Demon Seductress (Tropes vs. Women)) is similarly a list of complaints against films in which female sexuality is portrayed...far less than correctly.

I believe her complaints are legitimate, if poorly delivered. The Bechdel Test is a cool acid test for complex plots to strive to pass, and it is sad that we need to name the test because it is not already passed by most plots. In the same way, I believe that my view of women growing up would have been positively affected by #3 and #4 being less prevalent while I was growing up.

That which bothers me may be the fact that both of these essays end with a negative: "Sure females can be ___ in well-written plots, but 'you' should stop writing them as ___." It's "stop it, stop it, stoppit, stoppit!!!1! But FYI you can do certain stuff sometimes" rather than a wider and more careful understanding of the problem. Transformers 2 is used in both essays and disturbed me with its portrayal of its one significant female character, yet it grossed $200 million in its first five days. The problem is not just in script writing, and treating those responsible with active contempt is not likely to change much. It certainly won't endear you to me, even if I agree with you.

So, in a vain attempt to not suffer from the same problem:

If:
* you are going to write a feminist rant,
* you want to include a long list of data points, and
* you don't want me mad at _you_ afterwards,
then please:
* avoid ad hominem and straw man attacks, (yes, it's a negative...)
* present a clear argument, and
* state where you notice your own biases.

The Northern War

Encyclopaedia Fritz, Edition CLVII (2672 Atomic Era)

The Northern War

Border dispute between to adjacent star federations in the Northern Quadrant. Crimes of war led to rapid escalation with eventual depopulation of the sector. See also Blight, Hur'rikku, Tar-Aiym.

Historical Perspective

The Golden Boom was a period of extreme prosperity during the second half of the second millenium of the Atomic Era. This time saw advances in culture such as the cooperative multi-star-system development of the Golems, with massive conquest and unification achieved through the use of such massive war machines. During the peace between the Golden Boom and the White Era, ownership of one Golem came under dispute: the Mul'ulanki federation had originally built the Luk'naga Golem and, after unifying their federation, had set to work on preempting a number of internal issues with the goal of long-term nonviolent federation stability. The Luk'naga was left in orbit around Niffleheim, a cold, methane-ensconced world that was widely viewed as being neutral space in the region.

Capture of the Luk'naga

It was during this time that the artificial intelligence responsible for the Luk'naga's operation locked on to a set of stray Quantum Resonance Discharge transmissions from the Nar'ara federation. (Various theories explain why; until it is fully rebuilt, no one will know why exactly this happened.) When the small supporting fleet discovered that the Luk'naga was no longer responding to their control signals, they sent a scout to the capital world in order to figure out what to do, and started to attempt to reestablish communications with the AI; in the meantime, the Luk'naga had responded to the Nar'ara signals and had started establishing tactical feeds from their command center. According to what few records are available, the Nar'ara response was cautiously optimistic with some trepidation regarding the Mul'ulankis' response to the theft of their Golem.

The conflict began when the Luk'naga decided to jump into hyperspace.

Military Mobilization

[...]

Battle of the Diaspora

[...]

While the two battle fleets kept missing each other in hyperspace along the frontier between the federations, the Luk'naga's AI had been forced by its circumstances into a hyperaware, decision-making state akin to an electronic adrenaline rush. Deciding to stay with its maker rather than expand its experience coffers, it analyzed its trajectory in hyperspace and decided that the only way to stay out of full Nar'ara control was to self-destruct. According to the telemetry the Mul'ulanki control station received, it locked its engines into phase, coupled their impulsors, and simply went to full power. The resulting energy concentration took approximately one month to reach critical; at some point, the fabric of reality formed a discontinuity and an explosion ensued. This cataclysm enveloped several star systems and left a lifeless scar in the local cluster known today as the Black Void. When both federations' fleets heard the news, they simply returned home to watch and see what the other would do, making the Northern War one of the least bloody conflicts in recent history.

After the War

The loss of the frontier star systems around the explosion dealt a deathblow to the politics of Golem projects. If loss of such an important asset were possible, what else might be lost? Was not the Golem designed to lay waste to far more systems than what had been in the Black Void? What moral right had anyone to build such phenomenal engines of destruction?

Henrich von Kramptdatz had been one of the head engineers and architects of the Mul'ulanki Golem project. He was in the federation's control center when the telemetry stopped, signaling the great ship's demise; however, he stated that his team had built a better ship than would simply self-destruct and leave nothing. His primary claim was that salvaging the wreckage and understanding the AI's decisions was the single most important priority the federation could set. This research would reveal how such tremendously complex systems operated under duress, and might lead to better designs in the future. Sizable debris has been found in several adjacent star systems and towed to Niffleheim for inspection, but after widespread criticism of "thinking of the Nar'ara first," he was forced into obscurity and now leads a droll life at 42 Wallabee Lane, Sydney, Australia.

Few have taken note that several of the frontier worlds burned off in the explosion were not Mul'ulanki, but rather belonged to the Nar'ara. The military standoff between the federations has prevented assessment of and humanitarian assistance with the loss, though it can't be all that bad because the Nar'ara now have another Golem.

Economic recovery among the Mul'ulanki was slow but thorough. Construction began on another Golem, based on the design of the first, and is now an integral part of the federation's Defense Fleet. Certain limits on the AI are in place should a similar set of circumstances arise, and the AI is more self-aware than the first.

Childhood Dream #503

I'm not 5.

Quite a bit past it actually. Almost a menace to society...except that I'm not exactly single. Quite married, I'd say.

I'm at Disney World presently, and I'm having a blast along with my wife and her family.

I've gotten into it, though I'll admit the plush I clung to in the store wasn't Mickey or Goofy; it was Perry the Platypus. I don't know all the references, and some things are surprising like seeing Jack Skellington merchandise, but everyone's excitement and the immersiveness and the not-quite-too-controlled-yet-manicured atmosphere helps a lot.

Due to parking arrangements, my first ride was the tram and my first line was at the bus. They run very efficiently, which means that sometimes they're a bit...infrequent, and often packed. Getting to the park early is very much worth it, and I recommend the single riders' lines and FastPass--in that order.

The initial launch of the Rock'n'Roller 'coaster is rather...rapid. I would enjoy running some analytics on good accelerometer data from it... :) My wife's grandfather says it's the closest he's felt to an aircraft carrier's catapult, and now I understand why, and it's a blast...almost literally. That's the Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular. I could've tried harder to be one of the extras for it, but those that made it were ecstatic and looked like they had a ball...all except the guy the main actress beat up. ;)

Expedition Everest was the first 'coaster I've been on where it runs backwards, and that was trippy. It was also dual lift with track switching. The line has a fascinating Yeti museum, though high FastPass traffic after the parade easily doubled the promised 15-minute wait .

Construction and theming of the park are excellent. One area felt chintzy, but my wife says that's by design. We rode the dino version of the Dumbo ride and the actual mechanics were superbly functional--not like the poor little biplanes at Six Flags back home (my favorite ride as a child). Of course, I understand the pneumatic control system a LOT better ever since I did robotics in high school.

No sign of Tron, and a Portal theme park segment of this caliber would be AWESOME...but more at home at Universal methinks. Set design could use cameras, 3D, and careful construction to provide the illusion of portal passage, though proper flings would, themselves, be a special challenge.

One more detail: there is free, seamless wifi everywhere. My planless phone is quite operable and some great apps exist just for Disney World, including line wait readers. I think the wifi is a stroke of genius, as "coarse" phone location uses the nearby wifi points' info to guess your location and such coverage as is had here means that when GPS is compromised (like in any of the buildings) there is still a lot of precision available for their ride-load-balancing informational apps.

On Quanta of News

Sure, the Duke of Gramm had been dealing with a number of his own problems. That came with a planet-duchy. It still didn't help with what he was seeing.

The trader had pulled in and, as usual, was full of newsreels from the other systems in the quadrant. This one had just come from Trammelsham, one of Gramm's close allies, and he had been excited to get the news.

Invaders -- FROM SPACE!

I am presently enrolled in an embedded systems class. Over the last three weeks, my lab partner and I had the opportunity to (dear readers: keep reading) implement Space Invaders on a Digilent Atlys board. It was fun.

I think my favorite part was the lab writeup where we had to describe the game in detail; upon encouragement from the denizen of a treeless plain in Africa, I have decided to post it here verbatim for your amusement. See, I don't like dry technical writing. It puts me to sleep. I also don't like arbitrary requirements. :D

Space Invaders for the Digilent Atlys

By:

[my lab partner and I]