Author Archives: Phil Bowermaster

Setting the Bar Kind of High, Aren’t They?

Look, I know this is way off topic, and I’m nobody’s Lileks or anything, but I just had to share this message that I found in my inbox…

restaurant-quality-pasta.jpg

See there? It’s a restaurant and they’re serving Restaurant Quality pasta!

Pretty bold move. I hope it doesn’t come back to bite them. Because from the pictures, it looks more to me like Church-Potluck Quality pasta — or possibly even Hospital-Cafeteria Quality pasta.

But what do I know? Way to reach for the stars, Pizza Hut!

UPDATE: Instalanche. I’m so inspired by this entry’s success that I’m going to try to write several blog-quality posts over the next few days. And today at work, my goal is to make one or two middle-management quality decisions. Fingers crossed!

Myths of Innovation

Via Boulder Future Salon, here’s a lecture from Carnegie Mellon University on the subject of innovation.Scott Berkun worked on the development team for Internet Explorer, where he says that innovation was his job. One interesting moment is when he claims that he managed to do some good, innovative work “in spite” of the company he worked for.

He provides some good example of innovators from a lot of different fields, pointing out that they tend to be renegades and rebels. But their most important common characteristic is that they believed in an idea that they thought was interesting or cared about, and pursued it.

Berkun starts out by dispelling what he calls the “myth of epiphany,” the notion that a mgic moment of inspiration touches innovators and moves them to make their contribution. He believes that we use the myth of the epiphany to absolve ourselves from responsibility for innovating. After all, if you don’t have a magic moment, and the “Innovation Muse” passes you by, whose fault is that?.

He uses the familiar stories of Archimedes in the bathtub and Newton and the apple to explain how the “myth of the epiphany” lets us focus on trivia — Archimedes running through the streets naked; Newton getting bonked on the head by the apple — and ignore the hard work and extensive thinking that lay behind the moment of inspiration.

He points out that creativity literature is focused on developing habits for playing with ideas, and lowering inhibitions to new ideas. The “eureka moment” has a lot less to do with the actual moment than it does with the habits of mind the innovator has developed.

He provides some great examples of how following an idea can lead to highly unexpected destinations.
For example, the guys who developed Youtube actually started out trying to develop a video version of Hot or Not. And the folks who developed Flickr were got there by way of trying to start a software company.

He closes with the story of William McKnight and 3M , explaining how a company called “Minnesota Manufacturing and Mining” (3M) came to be in the Post-it Notes business.

handlightbulb.jpg

The Meme that Continues to Unite the World

Say, did you hear the one about the clever German kid who gave a hand to the hapless, math-challenged American scientists?

A 13-year-old German schoolboy corrected NASA’s estimates on the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth, a German newspaper reported Tuesday, after spotting the boffins had miscalculated.

Chances are you did. It’s all over the web. I saw it on both GeekPress and InstaPundit this morning (although Glenn did provide some very important follow-up information) and I note that it was the number one story on Digg Science this morning (having moved down to number three as of this writing.) Rest assured that we will hear about this in the late-night monologues this evening, especially if Leno’s staff is tracking the story. And those people, whoever they are, who compose the e-mails that get forwarded to a long line of people which eventually leads to your mother/cousin/former-coworker-who-for-some-reason-keeps-sending-you-stuff, and then finds its way on to you, are working feverishly on several different versions of the story, which you will see many times over the next 15 years or so.

And, hey — why not? It’s a great story. So what if it’s wrong…

Widespread media reports claim that a German schoolboy has recalculated the likelihood of a deadly planet-smasher asteroid hitting the Earth, and found the catastrophe is enormously more likely than NASA thought. The boy’s sums were said to have been checked by both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA), and found to be correct.

There’s only one problem with the story: the kid’s sums are in fact wrong, NASA’s are right, and the ESA swear blind they never said any different. An ESA spokesman in Germany told the Reg this morning: “A small boy did do these calculations, but he made a mistake… NASA’s figures are correct.”

So why does the original story get so much more attention than the retraction? For one thing, as Glenn points out in his follow-up, sometimes a dog really does bit a man. In fact, most of the time that’s the way it happens. And it’s just not that interesting. So NASA’s math is better than this kid’s. Big deal. I think their math was better than mine when I was 13, too.

But I think the difference in interest levels goes beyond the man-bites-dog angle. This story plays into a powerful and cherished meme shared by virtually all the peoples of the world: Americans are stupid*.

Since many of us know (or at least believe) that Americans are, in fact, stupid — and since NASA has been plagued by some pretty significant gaffes in the past — maybe this isn’t a man-bites-dog story at all. Like any powerful meme, “Americans are stupid” seeks regular confirmation. Once it takes hold, its carriers are alert to any incoming information that might be relevant, and particularly that might add credence to the meme.

typicalamericans.jpg

Typical Americans, doing their thing

Concentrated Solar Power: Another Great New-Old Idea

Writing for Salon, Joseph Romm says that concentrated solar power (CSP) is the key to solving our energy problems.

One of oldest forms of energy used by humans — sunlight concentrated by mirrors — is poised to make an astonishing comeback. I believe it will be the most important form of carbon-free power in the 21st century. That’s because it’s the only form of clean electricity that can meet all the demanding requirements of this century.

Romm argues that CSP, which uses heat from the sub to move an electricity-generating turbine (as distinct from photovoltaics, which convert sunlight directly into electricity) can produce energy more efficiently coal or oil or even nuclear power. He claims that CSP can provide power at a cost of 10 cents per kilowatt hour or less. Concentrated solar power’s big advantage over conventional solar power has to do with storage:

The key attribute of CSP is that it generates primary energy in the form of heat, which can be stored 20 to 100 times more cheaply than electricity — and with far greater efficiency. Commercial projects have already demonstrated that CSP systems can store energy by heating oil or molten salt, which can retain the heat for hours. Ausra and other companies are working on storing the heat directly with water in the tubes, which would significantly lower cost and avoid the need for heat exchangers.

Romm provides a number of interesting examples of CSP applications throughout history. Before the invention of photovoltaics, CSP was the only real model for generating solar power. He even gives an example of a CSP-powered pumping station that was built and put into operation in Egypt in 1913. It was shut down during WWI, and then never reopened once cheap oil established itself as the dominant energy source.

So it’s interesting to see CSP making such a striking comeback. It reminds me of the recent news about production of automobiles running on compressed air – another idea that was experimented with a century or so ago, then pretty much forgotten, and which has now found new life. New technologies and new market conditions provide the opportunity for abandoned and all-but-forgotten ideas to re-emerge. My favorite example of this has to be the idea of building a Charles Babbage-style difference engine at the nano scale — a model of computing that would have been awkward and clunky to implement using 19th century industrial technology, and which was deserted in favor of 20th century electronics technology, now finds new life with 21st century nanotechnology.

Bring on the Meat Factories

Japanesesteakhouse.jpgOn August 31, 2007 my wife took me out for dinner at a Japanese steakhouse where I ate my last beefsteak — for a year, if not for the rest of my life. This occurred on the heels of a reasonably obnoxious George Dvorsky essay on why we should have all already given up eating meat and why meat-eaters are (George’s words) “bad people.” Dvorsky’s essay led to an interesting discussion about the merits of the case vs. his in-your-face rhetorical approach. I tend to think that there is a lot to be said for the former, and not much to be said for the latter.

On the subject of the former, I wrote:

I’ve written more than once on my belief that the world will one day be a meatless — although not necessarily vegetarian — place. I agree that it’s wrong to cause animals undue pain. I agree that our current industrialized livestock management practices are abhorrent. And, from a purely practical standpoint, I think we’ll have a much stronger moral footing with our AI descendants if they see us treating weaker / arguably inferior life forms with as much kindness as possible. In short, I think I’m just about ready to be persuaded that I should give up eating dead animals altogether.

On the subject of the latter, I wrote:

Here we have a world-class futurist taking an “I’m good; you’re bad: be like ME” approach that even the most backward fundamentalists dropped decades ago. You see a lot of this kind of thing among “progressive” thinkers when dealing with the great unwashed who haven’t yet achieved their level of enlightenment. (An example — for whatever reason, atheists seem particularly prone to these excesses when arguing against belief in God. This could be a reverse application of the old adage that “converts are the worst.” Which would also apply to George, I suppose, what with his five-year tenure as a morally superior being.)

But then Dvorsky fired back with what I think was a fairly sound defense of his approach:

Let’s imagine for a moment that I had written an article titled ‘Racists are bad people,’ or ‘Homophobes are bad people.’ Do you think I would have received the same kind of negative response? Hardly. Aside from a few anachronistic and unenlightened perspectives I’d get a slew of comments saying, ‘right on, brother.’

But the fact that I didn’t get these sorts of supportive comments, aside from a small minority, indicates to me that our transition to a mostly meat-free society is a process still in its infancy.

It's Yuri's Night!

Today marks the 47th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s historic first manned flight into space, as well as the 27th anniversary of the first space shuttle launch. The folks at yurisnight.net believe that this is cause for celebration:

Yuri’s Night is like the St Patricks Day or Cinco de Mayo for space. It is one day when all the world can come together and celebrate the power and beauty of space and what it means for each of us.

We couldn’t agree more. Tonight let’s party like it’s 1961:

Of course, back in 1961, Americans didn’t think of Gagarin’s flight as something to celebrate. Rather, it was cause for alarm. The dreaded Russians had put the first artificial satellite in orbit with Sputnik, and then they put the first man in space with Gagarin. It was these threats — and, yes, they were absolutely perceived as threats — that led to the Apollo program and the first man on the moon.

It’s kind of neat that today we can look back on Gagarin’s accomplishment not as a victory for the Russians or communism, but rather as a major step forward for humanity. Ditto for Armstrong’s accomplishment a few years later. (And in fact, Neil said words to that effect upon setting foot on the moon.) Gagarin and those who came before and after him belong not to one nation or philosophy or system of government, but to all of us.

So let’s party!

yurisnight.jpg

It’s Yuri’s Night!

Today marks the 47th anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s historic first manned flight into space, as well as the 27th anniversary of the first space shuttle launch. The folks at yurisnight.net believe that this is cause for celebration:

Yuri’s Night is like the St Patricks Day or Cinco de Mayo for space. It is one day when all the world can come together and celebrate the power and beauty of space and what it means for each of us.

We couldn’t agree more. Tonight let’s party like it’s 1961:

Of course, back in 1961, Americans didn’t think of Gagarin’s flight as something to celebrate. Rather, it was cause for alarm. The dreaded Russians had put the first artificial satellite in orbit with Sputnik, and then they put the first man in space with Gagarin. It was these threats — and, yes, they were absolutely perceived as threats — that led to the Apollo program and the first man on the moon.

It’s kind of neat that today we can look back on Gagarin’s accomplishment not as a victory for the Russians or communism, but rather as a major step forward for humanity. Ditto for Armstrong’s accomplishment a few years later. (And in fact, Neil said words to that effect upon setting foot on the moon.) Gagarin and those who came before and after him belong not to one nation or philosophy or system of government, but to all of us.

So let’s party!

yurisnight.jpg

Looking for the Smart Aliens

An intriguing post on The Daily Galaxy:

The 1.5 Gigayear Technology Gap

Some of the world’s smartest astronomers estimate that some of the more advanced technological civilizations in our Milky Way galaxy may be 1.5 gigayears older that Earth (that’s 1.5 billion years older). In other words, the search for extraterrestrial life is not going to end with us meeting the Hollywood kind of alien. ET or the Asgard (from Stargate) are not going to be who we first meet. Instead, we’ll be greeted by highly evolved robots.

Yes, in other words, Battlestar Galactica has got at least one thing right. The hit Sci Fi channel show’s bad guys are, unlike most other Sci Fi shows, highly evolved robots that have turned on their human creators.

But first, the real story.

“There are two kinds of encounters with aliens you can have,” said Seth Shostak, senior astronomer at the California-based SETI Institute. “Either you pick up a signal, or you pick them up on the corner. But I think it’s safe to say that in both instances they will be synthetic. They will be artificial constructions.”

starbuck.jpg

Twin Universes

Beyondtheuniverse.jpgYears ago I remember reading a book by Isaac Asimov (one of his many collections of essays) in which — if I recall correctly — he provided answers to questions that he had never addressed before, or that wouldn’t have been a good fit for any of his other books. One of these questions was, “What lies beyond the universe?”

Asimov’s glib initial response was “non-universe.” He then spent some time talking about what non-universe might be. Whatever it is, one would think that it would also be the correct answer to the question, “What came before the universe?”

But maybe not:

Before the Big Bang: A Twin Universe?
Until very recently, asking what happened at or before the Big Bang was considered by physicists to be a religious question. General relativity theory just doesn’t go there – at T=0, it spews out zeros, infinities, and errors – and so the question didn’t make sense from a scientific view.

But in the past few years, a new theory called Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) has emerged. The theory suggests the possibility of a “quantum bounce,” where our universe stems from the collapse of a previous universe. Yet what that previous universe looked like was still beyond answering.

Now, physicists Alejandro Corichi from Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and Parampreet Singh from the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario have developed a simplified LQG model that gives an intriguing answer: a pre-Big Bang universe might have looked a lot like ours. Their study will appear in an upcoming issue of Physical Review Letters.

“The significance of this concept is that it answers what happened to the universe before the Big Bang,” Singh told PhysOrg.com. “It has remained a mystery, for models that could resolve the Big Bang singularity, whether it is a quantum foam or a classical space-time on the other side. For instance, if it were a quantum foam, we could not speak about a space-time, a notion of time, etc. Our study shows that the universe on the other side is very classical as ours.”

So if a pre-Big Bang universe looked a lot like ours, does it follow that our universe looks a lot like a pre-Big Bang universe? Remember the old computer programming joke that goes…

__AM I IN A LOOP?

__AM I IN A LOOP?

__AM I IN A LOOP?

__AM I IN A LOOP?

Neitzche.jpgThe idea that our universe sprang from one much like it puts me in mind of Friedrich Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence. Corichi and Singh talk in terms of our universe being a lot like the one that came before it, but nothing I read above rules out the possibility that this universe is a dead ringer for its ancestor. If that were the case, if the current universe were an exact copy of the one that came before, it would only be reasonable to expect that the next one will also be exactly the same. Or as Nietzsche put it:

This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything immeasurably small or great in your life must return to you-all in the same succession and sequence-even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned over and over, and you with it, a grain of dust.

How many times have you read this blog post? How many times have I typed it? Is it possible we have each done these things a dozen or a hundred or a billion times, and that we will continue doing so for all eternity?

Also — and this is the part that makes my head twinge just a bit — if it is exactly the same thing occurring over and over and over and over…exactly the same…does it really make sense to talk in terms of the number of times it happens? Is one instance of the universe somehow different from an infinite repeating series of the same universe? How? And to what observer?

UPDATE: Michael Darling directs us to this talk by Stephen Hawking, in which he asserts that the universe could have spontaneously created itself out of nothing. As far as satisfactory explanations go, this one has to be the bottom of the barrel. Which doesn’t mean it’s wrong, of course.

The Tower Lions

toweroflondon.jpg

At some point between the reign of Edward I (1272-1307) and and that of Richard II (1377-1399), two lions lived in the Tower of London. They were part of a Royal Menagerie that was kept at the Tower for some 600 years, until the animals were moved to the London Zoo in the 19th century. There are a couple of reasons that these medieval lions are particularly interesting. First, they were part of a population of Barbary lions — a north African lion subspecies known for their long, dark manes which has been extinct in the wild since the 20th century. And second, their skulls were recovered during an excavation at the tower’s moat in the 1930′s.

lionskulls.jpg

These skulls have recently been subject to carbon dating, which identified them as coming from the era mentioned above, as well as genetic testing, which may prove to be of great benefit to some lions in the future.