Archive for the 'Science' Category

Ideas About Ideas

Published by Jarred on December 20, 2009 in Advertising, Books, Business, Computing, Consumer Behavior, Copyright, Culture, Design, Environment, Google, Health, Legal Issues, Lifestyle, News, Politics, Privacy, Science, Social Networks, Space and Web 2.0. View Comments

The New York Times recently issued the ninth edition of its annual Ideas feature for its magazine.  I’ve read through most of the entries and found several really fascinating; others were also interesting but neglected to surface other important angles.  I thought I’d use this space to highlight both, seeing as Tropophilia is all about ideas that may bring about change in our world.

The Advertisement That Watches You - I’ll leave the details of this particular implementation to the article, but the essence of the technology is a billboard with a built-in camera that, through facial recognition technology, can tell when anyone within a certain radius of the advertisement is looking at it.  This one, interestingly, changes to its main message when people are not looking.  You can imagine, however, how this technology might develop over time: electronic ads could be powered off until it new there were passersby actually looking at the space.  Facial recognition could also be used to power an impressions-based ads payment system, much like exists on the web: advertisers would only have to pay per “view” or elapsed “eyeball time” on the ad.  Of course, such commercial use of facial recognition technology also raises enormous privacy concerns (How long are camera images kept?  Would the technology eventually be used to identify people and serve ads based on their personal interests, or  even the clothes they were wearing or the book they are reading at that moment?).  It will be interesting to see how this area grows, if at all.

Bicycle Highways - I thought this was a cool idea, but I’m not sure I see it gaining widespread adoption outside of cities that have significant numbers of bike commuters.  What I think is really clever is the possibilities raised with GPS and RFID technology that would allow for bikers to create on-the-fly pelotons, which in turn would be able to gain privileges for traffic lights and such: a mix between EZPass and carpool lanes.  Throw in a custom social network for the city so you could plan your departures in order to meet up with a regular riding group, and this could be really great for those cities with big biking cultures.

The Counterfeit Self - I think this research has implications for the Web.  There has long been a debate about authentication online: when writing a blog, posting comments, or joining a social network, is it “better” for users to have the ability to remain anonymous or pseudonymous, or should they be encouraged or required to use their real identity (obfuscated to whatever degree they prefer).  Many argue that encouraging or requiring authentication would, for example, solve the problem evidence by the (often hateful and troll-like) comments of any given YouTube video.  Opponents summon the right to free dom of speech as a defense of anonymous use of the web.  Some governments, like South Korea, actually require what is referred to as “real name verification” for websites in their jurisdiction that surpass a certain threshold of users; users are required to authenticate against a national registry before they can interact with the site.  Considering the idea of how behavior is influenced by fake identity could offer a fresh perspective in this debate.

Good Enough is the New Great - One aspect that this idea doesn’t cover (and I can’t remember anymore if the Wired article does or not) is information.  Just as consumers are turning to cheap cameras, low-fi music files, and YouTube videos, they are also turning to Twitter for their information fixes.  Many argue that in moving from mainstream to social media as our main source of information, we make a similar sacrifice of quality for convenience.  I think that may be true in the short-term, but I’m hopeful that just like companies are starting to fit better and better sensors into those tiny Flip cameras, so will Twitter eventually recapture some of the fidelity of the “news” that it carries.

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In Science, FAIL = WIN

Published by Jarred on October 27, 2009 in Energy and Science. View Comments

Science WinIn April, I wrote about a little debate some coworkers and I were having about whether politics could be studied scientifically, and whether that approach was valid (I said it could be, and that it was one among many valid approaches).  One argument tendered in opposition was that we simply don’t have enough information to even make a successful politico-scientific model, let alone to test whether it works or not.  Any attempt to construct such a model, or to delineate variables and units of measurement, would be in vain.

I think that is incorrect, because in science, the cool thing is that fail = win.  What I mean is that science is all about testing something, getting results, and developing a conclusion based on those results.  If your model sucks and your experiment fails as a result, you’ve learned something.  You rebuild, you try something else, and you chalk your first try up on the list of things that don’t work.  Launch and iterate, my friends.  It’s the Google way, and we’ve done alright so far.

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The Science of Political Science

Published by Jarred on April 19, 2009 in Education, Politics and Science. View Comments

Back in January, I got into a debate with some work colleagues over the status of political science as a “true” scientific discipline.  Though I think one or two were playing devil’s advocate, the consensus seemed to be that political science was not worthy of the second half of its name.  I argued (and do believe), however, that it is indeed a valid science.

To be honest, I can’t remember my friends’ specific arguments (we may or may not have been sitting in a hot tub in the mountains and a few drinks in — thus making the debate fairly comical to begin with).  I’ll be sure to let them know I’ve blogged about it so they can correct, clarify, or elaborate on their arguments in the comments.  As I remember it, though, their main contention was that because political science is the study of human behavior, and because observations of human behavior cannot reliably be generalized and retested to form a consistent theory or law, the study of politics cannot be classified as a science in the same vein as physics, chemistry, or the other “natural” sciences.  It’s simply too flaky.

At Davidson (where Taylor and I went for undergrad and both majored in political science), there is a huge division among the department faculty on this point.  Currently, every political science major is required to take “Methods and Statistics in Political Science,” a course that is almost uniformly dreaded.  “I’m majoring in a social science precisely because I suck at math”, they complain.  “When will I ever use this again?”  The science and math wannabes that we are, Taylor and I loved it, and ended up working with our professor one summer on a quantitative study of how congressmen shape their political messaging.

The fear of the course stems mostly from a failure by the faculty to execute any kind of positive PR, because really, it’s not that bad and not that hard.  Anyone who is smart enough to get into Davidson can handle it.  The first half of the course doesn’t deal with a single number, formula, or regression model, but rather shows how to take a question of politics and attack it using the scientific method.  Delineate the specific question, form a hypothesis, decide what the variables are, and propose a way to run an experiment.  Not hard, right?  The second half is certainly more difficult because it delves into the quantitative realm using computer-aided regressions; but really, it’s nothing impossible and the professors are not only ready, but eager to help them understand and succeed.

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The Pace of Human Progress

Published by Jarred on June 4, 2008 in Computing, Health, Humanism and Science. View Comments

Ray Kurzweil and the Singularity

Man… that would be a great name for a band, wouldn’t it? Alas, Mr. Kurzweil – to my knowledge – is not sick nasty at the guitar. He did, however, invent “the first music synthesizer capable of recreating the grand piano and other orchestral instruments.”

According to his biography, Ray Kurzweil “has been described as ‘the restless genius’ by the Wall Street Journal, and ‘the ultimate thinking machine’ by Forbes.” He’s part entrepreneur, part inventor, part futurist. He’s been receiving lots of press recently. Why? Because Mr. Kurzweil believes in the coming of the Singularity.

What is the Singularity? According to Kurzweil’s website, it’s:

an era in which our intelligence will become increasingly nonbiological and trillions of times more powerful than it is today—the dawning of a new civilization that will enable us to transcend our biological limitations and amplify our creativity. In this new world, there will be no clear distinction between human and machine, real reality and virtual reality. We will be able to assume different bodies and take on a range of personae at will. In practical terms, human aging and illness will be reversed; pollution will be stopped; world hunger and poverty will be solved. Nanotechnology will make it possible to create virtually any physical product using inexpensive information processes and will ultimately turn even death into a soluble problem.

Before you dismiss Kurzweil as having watched The Matrix a few too many times, you should understand the logic behind his seemingly preposterous claims.

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Competition Needed Among “Climate Ready” Crops [Guest Post]

Published by a Guest on May 13, 2008 in Agriculture, Business, Environment and Science. View Comments

It’s a pleasure for us to publish this thoughtful guest post written by “Marriott” — good friend, good neighbor, and good ol’ fashioned lover of Freedom.

What if I said that you could plant corn any time of year, in any climate condition, and still harvest the same succulent vegetable that many of us grew up eating every summer? What if you could do this for any vegetable? During my morning commute I read an article in the Washington Post that discussed how this may be a possibility for the future of farming. (I urge you to read the Post article)

Although there are many issues to discuss with this idea, my focus will deal with the corporate side of things and the future of this potentially lucrative industry. Feel free to debate the usage of these seeds, their methods, or anything else that hits a nerve with this issue.

Geneticists and scientists working for major bio-tech and agricultural development firms have been working on developing “Climate Ready” crops. The basic idea is that through genetically altered seeds, these scientists can create crops that are drought, heat, flooding resistant. They are basically “Global-Warming Proofing” our crops. And with the recent sticker shock at grocery stores throughout the country, this appears as a welcome opportunity to help the impending food crisis.

The problem with this recent technology is patent monopolization. From the article:

Three companies – BASF of Germany, Syngenta of Switzerland and Monsanto of St. Louis – have filed applications to control nearly two-thirds of the climate-related gene families submitted to patent offices worldwide.

The nature of these patents is even more troubling as corporations are able to eliminate competition. In one such case a corporation is applying for a patent to use one gene, and in the language of the patent the corporation effectively bans other corporations from using the same gene in any other “Climate Ready” seed.

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