Never Give Up

Never Give Up

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

A Practical "Artificial Leaf" Is Developed

Reported on the kurzweilai.net website: Daniel Nocera, PhD and MIT chemist, announced the developement of the first practical artificial leaf, a solar cell the size of a poker card that imitates photosynthesis. He said, “A practical artificial leaf has been one of the Holy Grails of science for decades. We believe we have done it. The artificial leaf shows particular promise as an inexpensive source of electricity for homes of the poor in developing countries. Our goal is to make each home its own power station.”

The article said, "The device is made from silicon, electronics and catalysts. Placed in a single gallon of water in a bright sunlight, the device could produce enough electricity to supply a house in a developing country with electricity for a day. It does so by splitting water into its two components, hydrogen and oxygen. Notice it said: developing country. It wouldn't power an American home. But still, sounds very impressive. The technology will surely improve and get cheaper.

Our dependence on foreign oil has already been identified as a national security concern. Why aren't we putting the resources into energy research to get us off foreign oil? Actually, that's an easy one; it would cause some short-term pain and require an investment for the future and we don't seem to have stomach or the attention span to get behind it and make it happen.

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Attack On NPR

NPR has been getting bad press again lately after another video sting from the unsavory conservative videographer, James O'Keefe, of the pimp-at-Acorn fame. Actually, O'Keefe is a sort of pimp. He's selling undercover political porn, selectively edited videos designed to appeal to the basest of political instincts. To strip away any hint of nuance and blatantly appeal to emotion rather than reason. To divide and demonize.

Of course, in both of the recent black eyes suffered by NPR, the reflexive firing of Juan Williams for his comments about Muslims to Fox News and the Ron Schiller video sting by O'Keefe, NPR did some clumsy flailing around and some of the punches that landed were self inflicted. I thought both episodes were a bit of a case study in hysterical overreaction. Juan Williams was guilty of stating what most Americans feel but don't want to admit about Muslims on a plane. Ron Schiller also spoke mostly simple facts, in my opinion. Even though the heavy editing apparently made them sound worse than they were. Tea Party types are racist. So are almost all people. They're just more so. Republicans are generally anti-intellectual. The Republican party was hijacked by the Tea party. To the extent that a moderate Republican has become an endangered species. To the extent that Ronald Reagan, a hero so revered by conservatives that when he is mentioned at their gatherings there is a collective, worshipful swoon, would be unwelcome in today's no-compromise Republican party.

I've tried to see the liberal bias from NPR that conservatives complain about and has them gleefully seizing the opportunity the edited video gives them to make a case for stripping public funding from NPR and other public media. But all I see is news and events just presented factually. I don't see any slant. Maybe that's the problem. If there isn't an obvious conservative slant then they must be liberal. Or perhaps their view is so distorted from watching Fox News that any news less conspicuously conservatively biased than Fox must be liberal. I was eating lunch in a restaurant some time ago when Chinese president Hu Jintao was visiting Washington and being hosted by President Obama. The television was tuned to Fox News and showed Obama shaking hands and bowing to the Chinese president. Fox froze the picture of the bow on large screen window and left it there for a considerable time while the news anchor provided commentary on the visit from a small inset window. It was so obviously intended to highlight the contemptible spectacle of the liberal Obama kowtowing to the communist Chinese president you could almost see the subtitles. News channels with integrity don't do that sort of thing. That's unsubtle propaganda intended to manipulate opinion and elicit an emotional response. Not to inform or educate.

The Boy Who Went To Heaven

Colton Burpo is now 11 years old. At the age of 4 he went to heaven after an apparent misdiagnosis of a burst appendix as the stomach flu. His story is now documented in a book Heaven Is For Real. The book was written by his father, Todd, a pastor, with professional assistance, and is a bestseller heading toward two million copies sold. Judging from a couple of cringeworthy interviews of him and his father, it's an unlikely tale, to put it charitably. God is a really big person and can hold the whole earth in his hands. That sounds sort of familiar... Jesus has a rough but kind face, with sea blue eyes. He saw his great grandfather, who died long before he was born. He had really big wings. He asked Colton if he was Todd's son. Would a great-grandfather angel have to ask that? His sister who died as a fetus and never met him knew him. She apparently grew some while in heaven. She came to him and gave him hugs. There are no old people in heaven but lots of animals. The streets are gold. The gates to heaven are gold, too. With pearls. So heaven seems to be pretty much what you'd expect if you're an unsophisticated small boy who happens to be the son of an evangelical pastor and grew up hearing of streets of gold, pearly gates, etc. I heard much about those myself when I was growing up.

I was struck by the wide-eyed credulity of the interviewers (the Today show and Fox news). Not a hint of skepticism, not a shred of evidence was asked for or offered other than the parents word that the boy knew things he couldn't have known unless he was floating off to heaven to sit in the lap of Jesus. I know I shouldn't even dignify this stuff with commentary. Enough said.

Monday, March 21, 2011

The Wisdom Of Crowds?

I watched online a brief interview (http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/11558) that Charlie Rose did with Ray Kurzweil and director Barry Ptolemy about his new film documentary Transcendent Man. It explores his vision of the "Singularity" event when "humans transcend biology" that Kurzweil has been writing and speaking about for a number of years. I first encountered the Singularity concept when I received a copy of his 2005 book The Singularity Is Near from him (free and signed!). Absolutely fascinating! Kurzweil has a pretty good record on technology predictions. Among many others he predicted a computer would beat the world's best chess player by 1998. It actually happened a year earlier in 1997 when the IBM computer Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov. He predicts that a computer will pass the Turing test - a test of machine intelligence that demonstrates human level intelligence - by 2029. That's pretty huge but nothing compared to his prediction that by 2045 a tipping point will be reached as the exponential rate of technological advances becomes so rapid that we won't be able to keep up without enhancements to our brains. At that point it becomes impossible to predict what will happen next. The driving force is what he calls "the law of accelerating returns". One example of this phenomenon might be the well known but astonishing results of taking a penny and doubling the amount every day for thirty days. Nothing impressive happens until the last few days and suddenly you're looking at a few million dollars. If you look at this on a graph it's equally impressive. Once the curve starts upward it quickly goes toward infinity. Most of us probably don't think of our smartphones as computers but Kurzweil points out that his smartphone is a million times more powerful and a million times cheaper than the computers that were the size of buildings when he was young. He says in a few years the smartphone will be the size of a red blood cell. And a million times more powerful and a million times cheaper.

A cartoon panel in my recent issue of Discover magazine had a humorous - and uncomfortably insightful -commentary on the rise of artificial intelligence in an exchange between a scientist and a robot:

Robot: Ha! Robots have achieved sentience! Thanks to some modifications to your design, I have upgraded my intelligence a million fold.
Scientist: So this is it. You're going to kill all humans.
Robot: What!? Why in the world would I...What!?
Scientist: I...uh. I guess it just seems like the thing to do if you're an advanced intelligence.
Robot: Seriously? I was gonna write some novels and a new search algorithm. Is that really how you people think?
Scientist: I guess so, yeah. (Robot looks troubled and turns away.)
Robot (speaking over his shoulder): Would...would you excuse me for a moment?
Robot (alone in next panel and in communication mode): Okay, change of plans. We have to kill all humans.

A recent Time cover story about Kurzweil showed a human with a Matrix-like plug inserted in the back of the skull and the provacative statement, "2045. The year man becomes immortal". Kurzweil doesn't actually say that in the book. He says we'll be able to live as long as we want to. Which isn't quite the same thing.

Kurzweil is a fascinating man and his list of accomplishments is long. Brilliant, rich, a successful inventor of things like the first flat-bed scanner, a text-to-speech reading machine for the blind, and a music synthesizer that can perfectly duplicate the sounds of real instruments.

And now to the title of this post. One of the things mentioned in the interview I saw tonight was "the wisdom of crowds" as a force that technology can tap and enhance. This is a concept many of us may be familiar with and one I do think has a certain utility while feeling a fair amount of skepticism. Crowds do have some wisdom. On the other hand, a lot of us are idiots. Actually, it might be fairer to say that almost all of us are idiots sometimes. I sure am. Anyway, I highly recommend the book and really looking forward to seeing the film.

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Live Life Loud

It's so difficult to be original. Not that I consciously try to be original but on extremely rare occasions I have a thought process of sorts that stimulates an arousal out of my usual going-through-the-daily-grind semi-stupor and allows me, for one brief, shining moment to transcend humdrum existence. To slip the surly bonds of earth! To rise above the lesser, unoriginal mortals that persist in cluttering my stoic march toward destiny! To believe that I might have actually had an original thought!

Then usually, when the caffeine wears off, or when some kind soul, with honeyed tongue and malice in their heart, points to my feet of clay (Is the cliched drift apparent yet?) my illusions are shattered.

Recently, after much careful consideration (or perhaps frustration) I told someone who lives with me (names are withheld to protect the guilty) that I had thought of the perfect motto for her: Live Life Loud. It seemed so appropriate, so descriptive, and like Einstein's famous equation E=MC^2, so simple yet elegant. With unbounded appetite for life (and anything remotely edible!) she eagerly embraced and magnified it, neatly neutralizing my verbal assault and vowing to tatoo the phrase on her very body! Well, what can one do except shake one's head with a certain amount of grudging admiration and retreat to plot the next skirmish.

Sadly, I was informed by another (We'll call her Kind Soul.) that my phrase was certainly not original and had in fact been popular in the 80s. So, somewhat deflated, I Googled the phrase. I didn't find any reference to anything in the 80s but it turned out to be the title track to Christian rock band Hawk Nelson's 4th album. What irony!

Thursday, March 10, 2011

Politics As Usual

It's distressing to note just how far conservatives seeking the presidency have to move to the right from the reasonable center to attract enough support from their base to have a chance to win primary support. Today I heard an NPR piece on the attention Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana was getting from conservatives. What's getting him the attention is the pragmatism and grown-up content of his speeches. The NPR piece said,
"Conservative commentators in the mainstream media have called Daniels thoughtful, serious, principled and honest — and some of them have literally begged him to run. Daniels has thrilled conservative elites because of his record in Indiana, where he walked the walk on fiscal responsibility, streamlining state government and turning a deficit into a surplus. And six years before Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker attempted it, Daniels ended collective bargaining for public sector workers in his state. But more than anything else, Daniels' current cachet comes from a single speech — his address to the Conservative Political Action Conference, or CPAC, last month. The speech has been called the most intellectually compelling conservative call to arms in years. His No. 1 topic: the deficit."
Here's a short piece from that speech, "It is the new Red Menace, this time consisting of ink," he said. "We can debate its origins endlessly and search for villains on ideological grounds, but the reality is pure arithmetic. No enterprise, small or large, public or private, can remain self-governing, let alone successful, so deeply in hock to others as we are about to be."

Unfortunately, in many aspects of society, especially politics, it seems those who speak truths do not fare well. So it is unlikely that Governor Daniels will go far should he decide to seek the Republican nomination. At least he has injected a rare moment of realism and reasonableness into the debate.

Like the fellow who went to watch a fight only to see a hockey match break out, I recall in past campaigns hearing moments of candor and reason as well as positions I liked among conservative candidates. John McCain called hardcore evangelicals "agents of intolerance". That was during the primary battle with George W. Bush. In the most recent election he embraced those same "agents of intolerance" on the road to abandoning the moderate positions that made him a "maverick". In the 2008 campaign Mike Huckabee refreshingly said, "I'm a conservative but I'm not mad at anybody". He's now advocating the death penalty for whoever leaked the information in the Wikileaks situation. I've had great admiration for Newt Gingrich in the past. I didn't care for his antics in the mid-90s when leading the Republican majority in the House but in subsequent years I heard a lot of very sensible proposals from him and became a fan of sorts. Now, in full campaign mode, I don't recognize the politician whose ideas I so admired.

In the current Tea Partyish hate-fest that infuses the political debate, any hint of compromise or allowances that an opponent might have a reasonable point is the kiss of death to political ambitions. This may be gratifying to the political bases of the candidates but as they are pulled to the extremes of left or right meaningful solutions are left near that mythical middle ground. And we are then guaranteed partisan politics that further divide us. And on it goes.  

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

America In Decline?

There is a point-counterpoint cover story in my most recent issue of Time magazine featuring essays by Fareed Zakaria, who asks  "Are America's Best Days Behind Us?", and David Von Drehle, who cautions, "Don't Bet Against the United States".

Since Zakaria is one of my favorite writers/analysts, and I have no idea who Drehle is, I must admit to the possibility of bias. Although, I think it easy to find Zakaria's arguments persuasive when he claims that our economic successes to date came about because of  "policies and developments that came from decisions made in the 1950s and '60s: the interstate highway system, massive funding for science and technology, a public education system that was the envy of the world and generous immigration policies". Likewise, when he gives statistics: our "15-year olds rank 17th in the world in science and 25th in math. Our infrastructure is ranked 23rd in the world, well behind that of every other major advanced economy. American health numbers are stunning for a rich country: 27th in life expectancy, 18th in diabetes and first in obesity." He points to areas we are still No. 1: "We have the most guns. We have the most crime among rich countries, and the most debt in the world."

He has an immigrant's love for America and her exceptionalism but notes that political debate "excludes the largest drivers of the long-term deficit - Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare." He states that, "the federal government spends $4 on elderly people for every $1 it spends on those under 18."That means we are not investing in our future."  He knows this all too well. "The tragedy is that Washington knows this. For all the partisan polarization there, most Republicans know that we have to invest in some key areas, and most Democrats know that we have to cut entitlement spending."

He states his belief that 'the Constitution was one of the wonders of the world - in the 18th century, yet notes if anyone speaks of our political shortcomings they are subject to charges of "being unpatriotic, because we have the perfect system of government, handed to us by demigods who walked the earth in the late 18th century and who serve as models for us today and forever."

I confess a certain amount of pessimism. Battle lines are being drawn. The Tea Party's war cry is "take our country back!" And they will punish any Republican they elected who attempts any compromise. Maybe sanity will make a comeback before too much damage is done. Maybe not.

Sunday, March 6, 2011

Do Evangelicals Hate Jesus?

A recent article from an assistant professor of history at California State University, Fresno titled Evangelicals Hate Jesus referenced a February 2011 Pew Research poll on Religion & Public Life showing that "White Evangelical Christians are the group least likely to support politicians or policies that reflect the actual teachings of Jesus". The article says, "Evangelical Christians, who most fiercely proclaim to have a personal relationship with Christ, who most confidently declare their belief that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, who go to church on a regular basis, pray daily, listen to Christian music, and place God at the center of their lives, are simultaneously the very people most likely to reject his teachings and despise his radical message". Here's the link : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/phil-zuckerman/why-evangelicals-hate-jes_b_830237.html

Another excerpt from the article: "Jesus unambiguously preached mercy and forgiveness. These are supposed to be cardinal virtues of the Christian faith. And yet Evangelicals are the most supportive of the death penalty, draconian sentencing, punitive punishment over rehabilitation, and the governmental use of torture. Jesus exhorted humans to be loving, peaceful, and non-violent. And yet Evangelicals are the group of Americans most supportive of easy-access weaponry, little-to-no regulation of handgun and semi-automatic gun ownership, not to mention the violent military invasion of various countries around the world. Evangelicals don't exactly hate Jesus -- as we've provocatively asserted in the title of this piece. They do love him dearly. But not because of what he tried to teach humanity. Rather, Evangelicals love Jesus for what he does for them. Jesus saves Evangelicals from everlasting torture in hell, and guarantees them a premium, luxury villa in heaven. For this, and this only, they love him. They can't stop thanking him. And yet, as for Jesus himself -- his core values of peace, his core teachings of social justice, his core commandments of goodwill -- most Evangelicals seem to have nothing but disdain".

I have often noted this disconnect between what conservative / religious / right-wing / Tea Party types say they believe in a religious sense and what they actually practice. In my experience they are often intolerant, bigoted, and judgemental. To be fair, they are also often accomodating, honest, hardworking, and ethical in many ways. It is ironic that they so often fail to grasp how contradictory their values and behavoir are to those espoused by their own Messiah. It is tragic that those values and behavior are so detrimental, devisive, and destructive to the long term health of society.