Project 10^100

About a year ago Google started up Project 10^100 which invited people to submit ideas they thought would change the world. The intention was that a few of the best ideas would be put up for a vote, where one or several winning ideas may or may not be put into motion through funding and initial management by Google. Note, I used the ambiguous qualifier to reflect the verbiage of the site, which says "Your vote for one of these ideas will help our advisory board choose up to 5 projects to fund," thus somewhat resembling the electoral college in terms of feel good vote theater. Snark aside, I genuinely support the idea of this project regardless of the chosen process.

Moving on, the window for submissions closed quickly as over 150,000 entries flooded the digital suggestion box, and now, having supposedly read through every one, the voting has opened. The project somewhat defies our typical expectations in that it's not really about ego, that is, there is no winning person or prizes for winning people; the notion is that what really matters are the ideas, and that the people behind the ideas should be perfectly satisfied that their world-changing idea is getting attention. Likewise, judging a winning person would probably be very challenging, as there is little doubt in my mind that the ideas up for voting were put forward more or less with a consensus amongst many submissions. Humility therefore firmly established, it appears that the idea I (and certainly many others) submitted has made it into those selected for voting.

Here's an excerpt from my submission:

Unfortunately the sister project of Wikipedia, Wikiversity, has had a difficult time getting off the ground. This is attributable to several factors, most significantly the lack of contribution which itself is likely resultant from the expertise required in the knowledge of the topics as well as in the arrangement of the information in a manner conducive to learning. Thus in the spirit of Knol, portions are written by community members to be periodically approved by volunteers who are acknowledged experts in the field. International schools from elementary forward would be able to use crowd crafted expert approved materials for free, as well as individuals desiring to educate themselves in any topic. It may even be possible to establish an accredited university online using performance tests based on these materials, providing a degree for the bare minimum cost. Education is generally presumed to be a profoundly positive thing, thus indirectly the issues resolved by universally available education are multitudinous. More directly however the result of education in an individual's life are tools for empowerment and progress, which itself may eventually benefit all mankind were they to become the next Gandhi or Gödel.

From the idea titled "Make educational content available online for free," there are shown suggestions that contributed to the idea:

1. Collaborate with top schools around the world to make their lectures freely accessible online
2. Create an online educational platform that provides free training and education as part of a worldwide, officially accepted degree
3. Provide free online lectures and textbooks for every subject and grade level
4. Facilitate information exchange among students around the world, including cross-country "study groups" on specific topics


Honestly I think that all of this is inevitable, and in fact much of it has already happened. Years ago MIT kick-started what would become the OpenCourseWare consortium by making available course materials for free, and since then a large number of other institutions have joined. Though limited to post secondary materials, I'm certain it will expand soon. Point 4 is pretty well taken care of with various message boards and forums online, I often find help through questions already asked and answered on these sites with a quick search. Point 2 is the most technically challenging one, and that is only because accreditation is done through outdated organizations operating in their own interests. My opinion on this matter is something like the inverse of point 2--rather than seeking accreditation, seek to dismantle the accreditation organizations. It seems to me rather clear that the qualifications and abilities of an individual cannot even begin to be known simply because they have a degree from an accredited institution. Nonetheless, I doubt accreditation is going away, and I have heard of some organizations working towards minimum cost accredited degrees. On that note I ought to mention that affordable education is available--the tuition for foreigners at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM) is a couple hundred US dollars, which despite being an incredible bargain is still more than native Mexicans who pay less than a hundred dollars. For anyone who might find themselves prejudiced against Mexico for whatever reason, I ought to also mention that UNAM is a world class university that has produced a number of Nobel laureates, participates in cutting edge research, and is one of the largest universities in the world, with satellite campuses all over the world and nearly 306,000 students.

Of course all the criticism I have offered is quite ironic given that I apparently contributed to the idea... but I suppose all I can say is that a lot has changed in the past year, especially my own thought patterns. Fortunately the collective conscious has my folly covered in this situation, as there were enough people thinking then as I am now to have also gotten a spot titled "Drive innovation in public transportation." Intriguingly, a number of the "suggestions" for this spot match very closely with what I would have said myself (emphasizing ultralight vehicles, preferably power-assisted pedal bicycles, minimizing injury and maximizing efficiency via autonomous transports). This makes me think one thing more than any other: what are the people that suggested those things a year ago thinking about now?? Apparently I am a year behind others in getting to the thoughts I'm having now, it'd be really nice and interesting to be able to jump ahead another year's worth of thinking!

Anyway, I highly recommend taking a look at the ideas. There are a total of 16 big ideas representing a good cut of what the collective mind is thinking for the future, some of which at the very least will probably pique your interest, or maybe even move you to action.

Old cars are not safer!

Here's another common misconception ready to be exposed: old cars aren't safer. By older cars it is typically meant late 60's and prior, and the thought goes that because they are heavier, they are safer. This is absolutely false, weight doesn't matter in vehicle safety; what really matters is the ability of the frame to absorb impact while maintaining structural integrity of the passenger space. The safety of a vehicle accident is very simple physics: by spreading an impact over time and distance the force of impact is also minimized. This matches our intuitive understanding, just imagine dropping an egg from 10 feet. If the egg hits concrete, it breaks--it goes from speed to stopped instantaneously. If the egg hits 5 feet of padding, it will be fine--it will slowly go from speed to stopped over time and distance, as the padding absorbs energy from the moving egg. The "padding" in a car accident is mainly of one form, the crumpling of steel. Of course this is all moot if the passenger cabin is compromised, as our soft, fragile bodies are no match for hard things moving at high speeds, and that's the rub; no matter how much energy is absorbed, if the engine block ends up in the driver's seat or the vehicle explodes, there is little hope of walking away from the accident. Excluding air bags, seat belts, and other obvious safety features, modern cars still have the advantage because they are designed to crumple up to the cabin, which is in turn designed to be as rigid as possible. As far as I know, older cars weren't designed with any energy absorption in consideration, and thus a double edged sword: if the car doesn't crumple at all, no energy is absorbed and it is like an egg hitting concrete; if the car does crumple, it will most likely continue to crumple well past the engine bay and into the cabin, rendering all energy absorption for naught. And now, for the demonstration:



The cars collided each moving at around 40 mph. As is usual for the Internet, a number of people (I think it's safe to assume they are classic car enthusiasts) have stepped forward challenging the veracity of the video, suggesting that the chosen car was not representative. As in any scientific pursuit, contentions are often valid and desired, and the responsible scientist will acknowledge, explore, and respond to any valid concerns. I found this on Consumerist, where amongst the comments arose criticism (from user Nighthawke) as follows: the appearance of reddish dust that may indicate the presence of structure-compromising rust; the lack of seat belts used in the test vehicle (which were available as a dealer option); The expense of an unsafe frame for the aesthetics of the curved front pillar specific to Bell-Airs; Finally, the frontal offset test is unfair because the skinny engine didn't have the opportunity to absorb energy.

The responses are easy, as only the first point is really valid. The IIHS, which conducted the test, assured that the "rust" was just accumulated dirt and the car appeared structurally sound. For the final 3: the optional seat belts were lap belts only, and almost certainly wouldn't have made a modicum of difference; perhaps the Bell-Air has uncommonly poor structural integrity (I'm not sure, but I know of other classic cars with the same pillar shape), but the whole point is to show that collision safety design has improved tremendously and no other modern American car has performed anywhere near as bad as this Bell-Air; Last but not least, life isn't fair and the frontal offset test is one of a scant few standard tests that all cars undergo. Likewise, it's an important test for how common this type of accident is; James Dean died in a frontal offset collision. Frontal offsets have a particular propensity to cause extensive damage--the energy of the collision is focused on a smaller portion of the vehicle, thus causing more damage. In fact, in terms of energy absorption, a direct, in-line/"head to head" collision is safer! Clearly our intuition begins to fail us at this point, our instinct even more so; two people destined for a head on collision will swerve, unfortunately magnifying the danger of the impact be reducing the surface area of the collision. Nonetheless, this idea of applying a force over increased surface area is one that is often understood (or at least utilized) by people using snowshoes. This same principle is what allows people to lay on a bed of nails.

At least we have some kind of standards! Check out other poorly fairing vehicles here and here. In closing, I want to point out that heavy modern cars aren't safer either--in fact many large vehicles (trucks, SUVs) fare worse in passenger protection than smaller vehicles for a few fairly obvious reasons. Also, it's a matter of perspective: presume large vehicles are safer for the occupants, what about the people in any smaller car that may be hit? You'll probably walk away from your Suburban with a few scratches, but how will you feel about having possibly killed several or all of the people in that Yaris? The truth is, large vehicles aren't safer, they're more dangerous for everyone. The only reason huge cars can be viewed as safe is because there are other huge cars out there, and that's just an unsustainable and foolish perspective--keep it going and before long we're all driving monster trucks. Unfortunately even that won't help just as our huge SUVs haven't helped because more and more people will be getting injured in single-vehicle rollovers.

Certainly cars have gotten a lot safer, but as long as they are being driven by people, they will never be safe enough.

Information, a perspective

Fair warning: I'm about to talk about math. However, I don't think you need to know or even like math to enjoy this. Suppose I were to tell you that the following images were both of the same thing. Would you believe me?

Unless you know multivariable functions or are pretty slick, you probably think I'm crazy. However, I can assure you that these are simply two different perspectives of the exact same shape; the only thing that has changed from one to the next is the place from which you are looking at it. If you're a skeptic (and I hope you are), you still don't believe me. Fair enough, but look at the animation after the jump and you don't have to believe me--you will see it with your own eyes.

IQ Scores: Junk

Intelligence is a thing that is very difficult to define, if it's even possible to begin with. Historically something called an IQ test is considered the way to quantify or put to some kind of standard scale. In fact there are may different IQ tests with a fairly substantial deviation in approach. I think that IQ tests might be one area where we see how tradition is not adequate to justify continued use. Interestingly, there are ways to quantitatively explore an abstract idea such as IQ scores, and that is through associated statistics. For instance, wouldn't it be interesting to consider IQ score as it correlates to salary? It is at least interesting enough for someone to have done the data collection from the same people nearly every year since 1979 (the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, funded by the Bureau of Labor Statistic, information found here)... and the results? Smart most definitely does not mean rich! In fact, people with high IQ scores exhibit higher than average rates of fiscal stupidity. With this in mind, IQ scores can be thought of as failing to consider a rather essential and applied form of intelligence for proper functioning in this modern era--personal finance. Ultimately an IQ score can only tell somebody how well they are at taking IQ tests.

There are certainly many instances in which IQ tests fail to adequately describe something easily considered intelligence. The most common example is the phenomenon of savant syndrome, where the affected people have such unique and powerful capabilities that they almost seem intellectually super-human; recalling the phone number and address of any random person they've read in a phone book, instantly performing arithmetic operations on large numbers, and on and on. One of the most famous savants, local to SLC, Kim Peek, was the basis for the character in the film Rain Man; Kim is able to read books at a rate of ~10 seconds per page, even faster accounting for his ability to read in parallel, two pages at a time--one for each eye. If that weren't convincing enough, he can recall each of ~12,000 books he has read, and his amazing abilities extend beyond reading/recollection. Despite all this, Kim has an IQ of 73. Clearly IQ fails to capture something that would most certainly be called intelligence. Further, I think this failure is much more ubiquitous than the special case of savants; from personal experience I can say with certainty that I've met many, many people who would appear unexceptional to an IQ test but whom I can attest have a special (and meaningful) type of intelligence.

It might seem that I'm battling IQ like a spurned testee--indeed we would expect a person who considers themselves intelligent to express their dissatisfaction with their score. Thus it may be moderately surprising that I'm battling IQ despite having gotten a favorable score, though the reason is simple: I don't think IQ scores do any good for anyone. In fact, I think it very well may be to everyone's detriment to put any reliance on such an ambiguous and not altogether indicative thing such as an IQ score. It's a sword that cuts all ways too; it would be erroneous to think that because one has a higher than average score they are somehow superior or more likely to be successful in life... if anything, a person who finds themselves to have a high IQ should recognize a statistical disadvantage and start paying closer attention to their finances! Likewise, people with very average scores shouldn't feel limited--plenty of people with average IQs have been billionaires, CEOs, athletes, world-renowned musicians, and presidents.

In short, don't let anyone tell you what you are and aren't capable of. We are all amazing, and when it comes to nearly 7 billion unique people, there is little hope of a meaningful, broad quantification, and a great chance of spectacular, rare, and unforeseen abilities to arise.

How Dangerous is the Road?

Using data from 2005, as supplied by the National Safety Council, we can add up all the number of deaths related to normal road travel, that is excluding categories such as 3-wheeled vehicles, ATV's, construction equipment, trains and so forth but including pedestrian and bicycle deaths since the vast majority of these are caused by collisions with other motor vehicles. Including the very ambiguous unspecified transportation-related category, the result is 45,180. Since the total number of external injury deaths (which excludes health related mortality such as cancer and heart disease but oddly including suicide) is 176,406, we can subtract to get the number of deaths unrelated to driving: 176,406-45,180 = 131,226. To get the percent of external injury deaths related to cars, we divide the category by the total, 45,180 / 176,406 = .2561, thus 25.61% or one quarter of the people who died from external injuries in 2005 did so because of car accidents.

However, if you choose to not consider suicide an external injury, the percentage jumps up to 31.43%, or nearly one third.

Using statistical projections from Carnegie-Mellon, we can (somewhat sloppily) extrapolate these results across all causes and by age group into the next year. We take the number of injuries in "accidental" and multiply by .3143, which is acceptable since this data doesn't include suicide in accidents. Now we divide the result by the sum of all causes for each age group, and come up with:

Age     % Projected to die from motor vehicle accidents

5-9          12.59 %
10-19      14.75 %
20-29      11.98 %
30-39      7.17 %
40-49      3.86 %
50-59      1.66 %
60-69      0.71 %
70-79      0.56 %
80           0.57 %
_________________
All           1.32 %

These figures aren't necessarily very precise at all, but the general idea is the same, cars are really dangerous. Studies have shown that talking on a cell phone while driving increases the chance of a car accident by 400%, and my guess would be that there has been a substantial increase in driving while talking since 2005, suggesting a similar increase in vehicular accidents. Nonetheless, using these figures we can see that people under the age of 40 are generally more likely to die from a simple car accident than anything else. It's time to face the facts: humans are not equipped to react appropriately to everyday driving conditions - from the neurophysiological perspective we simply can't react fast enough, as the time for a neural impulse to transmit from eyes to feet is substantial enough that it is measurable with a normal watch. If you want to test this, get 5 or 10 people holding hands. The game is to have one person squeeze their neighbors hand, who is then to squeeze the next person. Another person can measure how long it takes the "pulse" to go from beginning to end; that time divided by the number of people is the average amount of time it takes to propagate a real neural impulse from one hand to the other. Again, if you do this from foot to hand (if you can manage to find enough willing people), you get maximal neural distance and it takes measurably longer. When moving at 40 mph, milliseconds make a difference, and this reaction time is not even considering the amount of distraction we have in the extremely fast paced modern era nor the amount of unpredictable obstacles (other people on cell phones) we must be aware of to be safe, which often exceeds the amount of things we can be conscious of at any moment. Add into the mix blind turns, unskilled drivers, and thousands of other impediments and there is no uncertainty in the result: people should not be allowed to drive.

We have the technology for automated vehicles, it is very doable, and now more than ever we have both the need and chance to make this a reality. Combined with the fresh and tenable (enough to get $100,000 in DOT funding for development) idea of solar panels embedded in roads, we could save many lives, increase efficiency of travel and energy, banish automotive And power plant pollution, etc. etc. Where is the downside?

Am I the only one thinking this through??

Energy? Let's Keep it Real.

When I was in elementary school my dream was to make a perpetual motion machine, which are commonly referred to these days as "over-unity" devices. I'm all for other people trying to do it, but I no longer feel the need to waste my time with it. Of course, there are loads and loads of people lacking a strong scientific background trying to come up with these devices, and as such it is useful to know a bit of the scientific background so we aren't so easily deluded into believing their claims. Personally I'm a fan of innovative approaches and casting much doubt towards commonly held assumptions, but there are definite limits to this concept - at some point, you are just wasting time trying to come up with results that have already been long known (and which were discovered by geniuses who got lucky, something unlikely to happen again to any naive experimentalist).

Conservation of energy is the first law of thermodynamics and fundamental to every physical science, it's shown up in every one of millions of experiments and is about as established as a theory gets. Even more, the theory is one that makes a lot of sense and is descriptive to the extent that it has encapsulated and explained every single experimental observation yet made. Of course, science hinges on the precision of explanation, which implies that experimentation outside common conception--a theoretical dictum such as Thermodynamics--is not a threat but either 1. A chance of showing that common conception is accurate, or 2. A chance at showing it is incorrect and must be changed to accommodate new observations. Quality observation is very difficult to do, and it is easy to make mistakes in measurement that will lead to erroneous results, as was the case with the famed events surrounding cold fusion. Scientists as a community realize this difficulty and thus relies on an unofficial system called peer-review. In attempting to submit your results to a reputable source, a small group of individuals including some in the field of concern reviews the document for possible experimentation errors. Rather than publishing it outright, the expectation is that you receive your returned paper with questions and concerns to which you respond or preclude publication with that journal. This kind of process is often not enjoyed by scientists, but I'd say on the whole it is accepted as important when not disheartening. Thus, with proper background, it makes sense that there was some controversy over cold fusion, because the researchers went to the popular media which lacks peer-review or the knowledge to vet the material. As it became more clear that such technology would revolutionize the world, it was also with growing disappointment as other scrambling scientists failed to reproduce their results. Thus also we can see the importance of proper procedure with science, and the reason pseudosciences always have air-time on the local news but not space in reputable journals. This too is why anything related to emerging science in mass media should be taken with serious skepticism (though if I take my science pants off I'd also argue that all mass media content should be avoided at all cost).

Perpetual motion now acknowledged as very unlikely, the closest we're going to get to "free energy" in the real world/foreseeable future is going to be nuclear power. That's not to say nuclear power is anything less than enough; the process converts mass directly into energy, and there is an incredible amount of energy stored in mass. Einstein's famous and very proven equation shows this clearly: Energy = mass * speed of light^2 aka E=m*c^2 (the c is thought to stand for celeritas, Latin for speed or swiftness). Thus, even the slightest amount of mass stores an amount of energy proportional to the speed of light squared, which is an Incredible amount; the Fat Man dropped on Nagasaki was the result of just ~1 gram (the same mass as about half of a US dime) of mass being turned into energy.

This is actually really easy to calculate with the help of google's calculator, since google is just awesome like that. The wikipedia article says Fat Man released about 88 terajoules of energy. Since we know energy and c, rearrange to solve for mass:

E = m c^2
to
E / c^2 = m

and simply google "88 terajoules/(c^2)" (or clicky here).

So the whole bomb weighed over 4,000,000 grams... had all that mass been turned to energy there would probably no longer be a place called Earth. Likewise, my body mass (and I am a rather Skinny Man) converted directly into energy would be about 74,000 times more powerful than Fat Man. Thus, one could guess that the next greatest energy discovery be how to turn some "more stable" mass (as in not plutonium) into energy by nuclear fission, which is the idea behind cold fusion. Cold fusion is generally considered impossible, but some researchers continue to look into it.

Electromagnetism was discovered in the early 1800's, so it's pretty safe to say that any secret way to get free energy with magnets/electricity would've been figured out by now, particularly given that we have explored electromagnetism (EM) at the most fundamental (quantum) level; EM is one of four fundamental forces in physics: strong nuclear, weak nuclear, EM, and gravity. Since we're on a physics roll, connecting these four forces (referred to as unification) into a single theory is the holy grail of physics research today, and the person who figures it out will probably become the most famous scientist in history. String theory (actually theories) is an untestable proposal for the unified theory. Since they are untestable, they aren't considered scientific and thus not viable candidates until tests are developed.

Back to nuclear power: recently a story in the local paper had our new governor Gary Herbert saying much about the role of nuclear power in future infrastructure. This all stems from the current Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, pushing for nuclear reactors to be the future energy source for the USA. It has been suggested that the US has wasted the past 30 years by not developing energy infrastructure based on nuclear power, and this is true. Nuclear power is the cleanest, most sustainable and efficient way to get power. Likewise, there is a lot of opinion that the explosive growth seen in China over the past few decades has been fueled by nuclear power, and it isn't difficult to see that without this kind of powerful technology for power generation the rate growth couldn't have had such a pace.

There have been plans put forth for miniature reactors, termed "neighborhood nuclear reactors" or "nuclear batteries." Residing in a 10 foot cube of heavily reinforced concrete, the reactor can provide power for 20,000 homes for 10 years. Divided evenly between 10,000 households, the projected cost for a decade of electricity is $250. Backyard reactor sounds like a bad idea? Absolutely not. Even if a group were able to secretly reach the buried cube, they would need to penetrate several feet of reinforced concrete. Assuming they were able to do that, they would need to do it many times as each reactor contains a diminutive amount of nuclear material. They would be better off just buying some on the Internet, which anyone can do (I used to have a bookmark for an online store with plutonium available for purchase, but alas, no longer). Assuming these would-be idiot terrorists had secured enough nuclear material, they would then need the resources of a nation to refine it into something weapons-grade, not to mention the necessary detonation device. Thus, there is no risk of terrorism aided by nuclear batteries, QED.

What about catastrophic failure, as in Chernobyl or 3-mile island (which is when we stopped building reactors)? Not possible. First, nuclear power technology has come a Long way since the 1970's, just like Everything else. Second, the mini-reactors are closed systems with no moving parts, there is no way for them to catastrophically fail. Third, there isn't enough radioactive material in them to do much damage in the impossible case they were to fail.

Quick digression: radioactivity gets a bad rap because of a few common misconceptions, so it's re-education time! Everything you see is radioactive! Color is simply a form of electromagnetic radiation in the range of frequencies we happen to be able to see... in other words, light is radiation. Heat can also be radioactive, which is why something "glows red hot." In fact, there is a whole construct called the electromagnetic spectrum, on which all radioactive frequencies are described. On this spectrum resides color (light), micro waves, radio waves, gamma rays, X-rays, and so on. Thus there is an important distinction to be made with different types of radiation, and it's very simple: there is ionizing radiation, and there is non-ionizing radiation. Things like light and radio waves are non-ionizing, which means there is no risk of cellular damage. You can think of it in terms of light: light can't penetrate a piece of paper (otherwise it would be invisible) much less your skin, and neither can many other forms of radiation. On the other hand, there are very powerful forms of radiation that can ionize. These compact rays of energy are so powerful and concentrated that they literally knock atoms out of molecular bonds, and this is a bad thing for we cellular/molecular creatures. A small dose of ionizing radiation will probably not have major effects, which is why it is considered ok to have an X-ray done every once in a while. A large dose of ionizing radiation will completely disrupt the cellular processes that allow a living thing to live, thus able to cause extremely fast death. However it is not even necessarily to be considered a negative thing, ionizing radiation--Carl Sagan postulates in Cosmos that the occasional radioactive wave that manages to penetrate the ozone layer may have been critical in the role of evolution, by knocking apart random pieces of DNA with possibly beneficial side effects. By analogy, we might imagine a lucky hominid named Peter Parker getting hit by an interstellar wave in such a way that he gains super-human, spider like abilities, making him an exceptionally viable reproductive candidate (all the ladies know Spider Man is hawt). Thus evolution could depend on cosmic rays for random mutation, with similar albeit far more subtle results. Amazingly, simple forms of life have been found that can repair cellular damage due to radiation. For one, this opens the possibility of anti-radiation medications, but this also means that were humans to wipe out most life on Earth in a global nuclear war And the ozone completely wiped out, other forms of life would continue despite the heavily irradiated environment, ionizing and otherwise.

Nonetheless, nuclear power is the only viable energy source for the very near future. And it can't happen soon enough, when you consider the amount of pollution from coal and fossil-fuel power plants... which is so extensive that nearly every body of water is severely contaminated by mercury, a dangerous neurotoxin. In case you don't know the connection, coal fired power plants are by and far the greatest source of mercurial emissions, about 50 Tons released into the air each year according to EPA estimates from 2000. I would much rather have spent nuclear material buried in my literal backyard than be breathing mercury. Let's get the ball rolling, folks!

Not a Robot, But a Ghost...

is the title of a song on the album Noble Beast, by Andrew Bird. I can say with certainty, from my own diminutive and humble personal perspective, that this song is the greatest song I have ever heard. Nothing has ever spoken to me or defined my life so perfectly, so efficiently, or so profoundly as this song just did with its succinct five and a half minutes. I'm not one to pay attention to lyrics, most often these words to me exist wholly separate from their meaning as instead an additional instrument, but the instrument I'm speaking of is not the voice as one might expect. Instead, it is a sort of dreamlike sensation of the words abstracted, stripped of context and intention, rearranged into an entirely new personalized meaning; in other words, instead of trying to understand what the artist is trying to communicate, I focus on understanding what the music makes me feel. With that in mind, here's a portion of the lyrics:

I run the numbers through the floor
here's how it goes: I crack the codes
I crack the codes that end the war
I crack the codes that end the war

I pushed a note under your door
here's how it goes: things come to blows
but we don't want this anymore
No we don't want this anymore
We don't want this anymore

I crack the codes, you end the war

I hear the clockwork in your core
time strips the gears till you forget what they were for
I push the numbers through your pores
I crack the codes
I crack the codes that end the war

I think life is the most beautiful thing, that earth is the most amazing planet, and that reality is a mind bending paradox of a glory far beyond what is conceivable. Often enough I realize that I don't know anything relative to the amount there is knowable, but if I know one thing more than any else it is that I am incredibly grateful for every single moment I spend in this impossibly magnificent phenomenon called existence. No matter what happens to me or where I go in life I will always be ecstatic just knowing that I have been alive. Just the same, I will always do my best to give more than I am given; to have been given anything at all seems an impossibly tremendous favor to recompense.

Tired of Furry Clothes?

As the owner (or own-ed) of a very fuzzy long hair cat named Pickles, having everything be constantly coated in fur was just something that had to be adjusted to. Everyone who has ever had an indoor cat or dog will agree, trying to have a fur-free home is an impossible battle. However, a few days ago I realized that my clothes weren't nearly as furry as they had been for a long time. Seemingly moments afterwards I accidentally discovered why, and with that a way to have clothes nearly fur-free. Beside how pleasant it is, it's also very simple! The answer is microfiber cloth.

A few months back I was perusing the local Harbor Freight and found a bag with a dozen microfiber cloths for some absurdly low price, as is usual. I had been hearing some whispers here and there about these remarkable fabrics so I picked them up. In essence, I realized that if you put a bunch in with your laundry, the microfiber practically sucks the fur off most other fabrics; In effect it seems as though fur is to microfiber as the two sides of velcro. It doesn't work for everything - from what I've noticed some other fabrics are even more "sticky" to the fur... in my case I noticed this because when I pull my clothes from the drier, a particular pair of shorts has every microfiber cloth stuck to them, as well as all the fur. It's kind of nice, the shorts take care of sorting out the rags, just a smidge less work for me to do.

When you go to buy some cloths, be sure to pick up a few extra. A damp microfiber cloth (just water, no chemicals needed) does an Astounding job at cleaning just about everything: mirrors attain a genuinely surprising clarity, and chrome looks freshly polished. However, you really don't want to use the same fur-magnet cloths for cleaning, as they tend to release the captured fur. I especially don't recommend the same cloths for washing your face - it's a good way to discover the amazing amount of fur they capture (as I did), but otherwise you just end up with a really furry face.

I'm not sure if they will work for dog fur as well - if you find out that they do, be sure to let me know!

A Radical Proposal

What if you could decrease the US's oil consumption (and the foreign dependence requisite therein), cut greenhouse gas emissions, increase general public health, reduce obesity substantially, and preempt cardiovascular deterioration in one stone's throw? It isn't difficult to imagine how it could be done, they're all related problems.

In the USA:
Percent of all energy consumption that is used for transportation: 29
Percentage of that energy used that comes from oil: 95
Percent of all trips that are 3 miles or fewer: 50
Percent of those that are driven: 72
Percent that are by bicycle: less than 2
Percent of all trips that consist of driving 3 miles or fewer: 36 
Percent of bicycle trips that are 3 miles or fewer: 85
Estimated average speed of a moderately fit cyclist: 12 mph
Time for this cyclist to cover 3 miles: 15 minutes
Estimated time for a lawful driver (regardless of physical fitness): 15 minutes
Estimated gasoline used by the car to cover 3 miles: 0.1215 gallons
Amount of energy this represents: 15,800,000 joules
Estimated energy expended by the cyclist: 135,000 joules
Estimated additional food calories the cyclist burned: 32
Estimated total food calories the driver burned: 29
Amount of food calories the car burned: 3,775
Food calories in a gallon of gasoline:  31,070
Example daily Caloric intake of an ultra-endurance athlete: 6,000
sustained horsepower of Lance Armstrong: 0.67
sustained horsepower of an average male: 0.20

In Amory's video below, it is mentioned that less than 1% of the energy consumed in moving a vehicle is moving the driver - obviously, too, the car weighs an awful lot more than you do and weight costs energy to move. So we are wasting 99% of our highly condensed energy to move a hulking steel shell a couple of miles. Cars are great vehicles for moderate distances, 30 miles and up at least, but they're too wasteful for anything less--just the same as how you wouldn't taxi an airplane to travel a few miles.

But wait, weren't we supposed to be talking about health? Where does health fit in? Right here.

Bicycles. Yes, they've been around for ages, all the laws regarding their use are (internationally) in place, they're cheap, familiar enough in culture to not be mocked (ahem, Segway), and just about every business has some kind of object a bicycle can be locked to, usually closer than the handicapped parking space. The bicycle is a legitimate form of transportation; having ridden a bicycle the ~3,600 miles that span the US this is a statement in which I have authority to represent. A healthy human being can sustain an average of 15 miles per hour for one hour without much problem. The result is that anything within a few miles of where you are is a short bike ride away. For me, and I'm nowhere near as in shape as I was, riding my bike 3 miles takes about the same time as in a car. When closer, the bike is definitely faster in most cases, and a whole lot more pleasant. Of course, the more you ride a bike the more fit you become, and so forth. If everyone were to abandon their cars for short distances, the streets would be flooded with cyclists. You wouldn't need to worry as much about being hit by a car because there wouldn't be near as many cars, and many of the people who were driving would realize what it would be like to be a cyclist and would drive more defensively. Bicycle collisions aren't much of a worry, nothing like auto collisions which are the 4th greatest cause of death in the US--cars are, to people, a disaster; the human brain is not built to process the number of things at the speed required for driving, as much is clear in the amount of accidents that happen every day. Add on top of this our increasing distraction by the fast pace of modern life (drivers on cell phones, grrr) and that a four thousand pound vehicle (such as an average SUV) moving at 35 mph has tremendous kinetic energy, about 11% of a stick of dynamite: kinetic energy is 1/2 * mass * velocity squared, which ends up as 222,088 Joules. A stick of dynamite has around 2.1 million Joules of energy, so the percent of dynamite's energy the vehicle has is 10.6%. The result is clear: people just shouldn't be allowed to drive, we aren't capable of doing so safely. I love driving a lot, but there is no question here, no way to justify allowing people to drive. The way to make a vehicle inherently safer is to reduce its energy, which means lighter and slower; bicycles are singularly wonderful in that they represent one of the lightest forms of transportation conceivable, however even they are not perfect, as in the wrong hands they can be tricked into traveling at dangerous speeds ;)

Pushing cars off the road and people into the streets with motivation/education for physical fitness is, very unfortunately, not enough. We need to truly revolutionize our understanding of existence--not a new same-as-usual car with an astonishingly expensive marketing campaign that uses the word "green" a lot. In this small domain of personal, local transportation we already have the technology, we just need to use it!

The craziest thing about the low utilization of bicycles is that self-powered transportation would be an overwhelmingly positive thing for the majority of people. It comes down to health, wealth, and happiness.

Wealth is obvious, bicycles are a lot cheaper than cars, even absurdly expensive bicycles. 17% of the average USAmerican yearly income goes to transportation, which is the second largest spending category after housing. Furthermore cycling naturally supports the very local economy, which the cyclist necessarily participates in and at least indirectly benefits from. The savings can even be realized directly with participation in the Bicycle Benefits program, with presently almost a hundred local, conscientious businesses (some of my favorite) offering incentives such as 10% off purchases.

A widely accepted goal for life is to live a long and healthy life. Healthier lifestyles would substantially reduce the majority of deaths, including their often extensive associated medical care/cost, by the biggest killers (followed by the chance any person will die from it):

1. Heart disease, 1 in 5
2. Cancer, 1 in 7
3. Stroke, 1 in 24
4. Motor vehicle accident, 1 in 84
5. Suicide, 1 in 119

I included suicide because there is evidence that shows exercise effective in mediating the symptoms of depression. There is no reason I know of to imagine that an active society will have significantly reduced cancer rates (except for the decrease in environmental pollutants), as the many causes of cancer aren't so well understood. For the next greatest causes of death some arguments could be made for the effectiveness of cycling in prevention, though they get weaker: number 6, falling, could be diminished by increased muscular fitness of elderly folks and increased spatial coordination for (tragically) clumsy people; number 7, firearm assault, could be decreased by the increase in social interaction that is inevitable when you aren't enclosed in a glass and metal box and by increasing the wealth of immediate neighbors through the support of local economy. Number 8, pedestrian accidents, would clearly decrease with the amount of cars on the road and number 9, drowning, could also decrease with increased general fitness. Of course each of these causes have instances in which the fantasized bicycle culture won't help, but there is little question that increased mean health of the population ultralight human powered vehicles would have an incredible impact on healthcare expenses. There is no other way to say it but that bicycling is a miraculous thing that a (growing) few take advantage of. Riding a bike leaves the air cleaner, your self happier and your body healthier, where's the downside? You can't say safety because cars aren't safer, car accidents kill way more people than bicycle accidents. There is no downside, ride your bike.

A view of human communication

Through time, humans have developed a good variety of ways with which to communicate. A common thought I hear expressed is that the development of the Gutenberg movable type printing press was the innovation that gave rise to the explosion of intelligence leading to the industrial revolution and so on. While this position is dubious, what cannot be denied is that communication is critical to any functioning society - it would be very difficult to convince ones contemporaries of the viability of a shared work system were one unable to do more than point and grunt. What we can see from this is that within every system of communication there are a number of channels on which we express; were the grunts all too similar and hands dexterous only to the extent that would allow semi-random pointing, there's little hope of meaningful communication. Just the same, were a creature fully capable to communicate yet separated in all manners from any kin, no communication could take place.

Not too long ago the idea of being thousands of miles away from another person yet able to communicate across that distance was inconceivable; clearly even the loudest shout wouldn't come close. Perhaps it was and remains from lingering awe that we have failed to recognize the layers involved in communication. In this modern age, we have the following commonly used means of communication:

twitter
gesturing
SMS text messaging
e-mail
voip videophone
telephone
printed language (books, periodicals, etc.)
pictographs
face-to-face

The one of particular interest is SMS messaging, the text messages received on cell phones. SMS is interesting because it has so few channels of communication that the resulting communication can only be described as clumsy. What characterizes SMS? SMS consists of very short strings of letters that rarely even qualify as sentences. Words are shortened, abbreviated, and generally butchered as a result of the inefficiency of input. Continuing, SMS lacks any characteristic lettering, that is, every letter is the same no matter who it comes from. Though we might be able to tell an individual by syntactical arrangement and the like, we are otherwise robbed of a significant contributing channel of communication. SMS is essentially so barren that anything as complex as emotion most often fails to be communicated accurately, with a sad and frustrating result of being all too occasionally completely misinterpreted. This is an important thing to note! The simple misinterpretation of an otherwise well-intentioned message can really ruin ones night, if not more. From this we can see that twitter too must be awful, even worse than SMS, simply because there is a limit imposed on the length of any attempt at communication (where with SMS any person with the constitution can write messages of unlimited length). This is a good reason not to use twitter to try to convey complicated information.

Moving on, we can jump right to handwritten messages. As eluded to, handwritten messages contain more information from the start with the characteristics of individualized writing, which may also change over time and mood. With these messages there is a new and interesting condition which is of questionable impact, that is the time in which you must wait to send and receive correspondance. It is logical that the content of a message will change if one knows any correspondance will take months to be received and responded to, as opposed to minutes.

With telephone conversations we have the benefit of a flood of information: pitch, emphasis, rate, external sounds, and so forth. Yet the telephone can be viewed as a special degenerate case of the communication afforded by voip, itself degenerate from face to face real and direct contact. In person you get whole body movement, perfect resolution (eyesight dependent of course), scent, and other sensational (that is, of the senses) experience otherwise currently impossible via digital transmission.

Can communication go beyond face to face?

What an intriguing question, I'm happy to say yes! And with some confidence to boot. Headed to market right now is a device called the epoc, from a company called Emotive. The epoc is a consumer electroencephalograph (more commonly referred to as EEG, but would you believe me if I said I spelled it right the first time?) with a computer interface. Given the high number of electrodes on the device, it is capable of doing a number of astounding things, including gauging a person's general emotional state as interpreted by discrete recognizable brain waves associated with mood, as has been explored and established over the decades since EEG measurement was first discovered. Don't get distracted yet, the important point is this: two people wearing epocs and engaged in conversation will have the ability to watch the general emotional impact of their words on the other person in real time. Imagine being able to ascertain that what you are saying is upsetting your partner (despite them verbally assuring the opposite, as does happen). With this device the degree of easily understandable communication extends beyond that which would be the capability of normal people in face to face contact. This is not to say of course that there are some number of people who are simply adept at reading emotions from body language, but I hardly think that this could be any recognizably large minority of people.

What I like to imagine is a program that allows a person to control the number and level of communication channels, because as it is we are forced to use the channels as they are given to us on a per program/call/meeting basis. I imagine too that there are some combinations of communicative channels that extend themselves to particular degrees of communication - for instance semi-anonymous Internet messaging has the peculiar affect of diminishing social inhibitions. Some other combination may make everything said get interpreted as very kind, wise, or otherwise acceptable, which would be a fantastic installation for every political organization known. Of course the choice is critical, it doesn't seem ideal to have maximal communication, at least on a personal privacy level: indeed, the majority of people would rather not communicate their nude image to whichever stranger encountered throughout the day, thus the silly garments (and deodorant, makeup, etc.) we use to close channels of communication (but probably also to hide our shame of being animals). Just the same, it would be rather unpleasing and unaligned with our social conventions were any person able to know the full content of any other mind with abandon. The thought, however, of a world without secrets is a fascinating one.

Anyway, there you have it. Consider carefully the medium of communication you choose for any important information transmission (in other words, stop text messaging, it's most likely doing more harm than good).

On On Intelligence

I recently finished Jeff Hawkins' (creator of the PalmPilot) book On Intelligence. The book is intended to expose the mechanism of intelligence through the wise and oft ignored neurophysiology of the neocortex. Most intelligence research has ignored the structure of the cortex, an odd move considering our perception of such as the seat of the remarkable intelligent behavior in humans. Similarly unsatisfactory, the majority of neurophysiology (the study of the cellular structure of the neural system) has ignored intelligence, focusing mostly on mapping connections and occasionally trying to describe the mechanism for reflex and instinctual behavior.

I myself had intended to research the anatomy of the brain in hopes to gain some insight to the workings of intelligence. It is a great fortune, having eschewed neuroscience in favor of the advanced mathematics of machine learning, to be the beneficiary of Hawkings' 25 years of neurophysiological study. In the book he outlines, to some but not all detail, the so called Memory-Prediction Framework. The quick essential components are two:

1st, the structure of information in our world is hierarchical by nature, in a way that can be represented as a tree data structure. For instance, if we were to talk about music, we could talk about many components that make up music. At the bottom of the hierarchy we have tones that represent notes, which is the precise thing that enters our ears. As we move up the chain, we get chords, phrases, songs, albums and so forth. Every other sense can be described in the same way -- at the bottom you have raw data, and as the data moves up the chain it becomes more and more abstract. Hawkins posits that the structure of the brain mirrors this hierarchy, an argument he makes based on the structure of the brain itself.

2nd, the brain operates in all areas with a single common algorithm. An algorithm is like a list of instructions required to complete a task. This is an interesting and immediately reasonable position. The brain is composed of somewhere between 100-200 billion specialized brain cells (neurons), each with around 1000 points of connection. This gives about 50 trillion connections, an astronomical number. But that is nothing compared to the number of possible ways to connect those, which is (((1*10^14)-1)! / ((5*10^13)!*((5*10^13)-1)!). If you don't know your combinatorics, that number is insanely large, so large that calculating it would require a lot of very special computer code. The estimated number of atoms in the universe is around 1*10^83, 1 with 83 zeroes. 150! is about 5.7*10^262. In order to make this calculation we'd need to take (1*10^14)!. It's unfathomable, trust me. The point is, there is no possible way that DNA can contain information for specific connections. The result of that is that yes, the brain must have a common algorithm, one that works the same no matter how the connections come in or from where. It is certainly possible that some connections are made in different ways than others through the use of different signalling chemicals, but the number of different ways is limited and even still a connection might come from this neuron or that, there is no way to specify otherwise.

The result of these foundational aspects is a neural network, which have been around for a long time. Ironic, as Hawkins' doesn't have much good to say for neural networks in the start of the book. This might be for a lack of study in the field, as he mentions (paraphrasing) "No one really knows why neural networks became popular again in the 90's" which isn't true. I don't know an awful lot about neural networks, but I know that there is a consensus that they became popular again because a way to handle XOR was introduced by one of the authors of the paper years prior that showed they couldn't handle XOR (either Minsky or Pappert, I can't remember which). Though it is a neural network, it's a very special kind of neural network.

All told, I suggest anyone interested in intelligence as a mechanism read this book. The ideas might turn out to be wrong, but in the mean time they are interesting and apparently apt; there have been many times since finishing that I have seen in people behaviors that fit cleanly into the model.

There is always so much to be said, never enough time with which to say. So until time comes to afford saying again...

Stranger Than Fiction

Imagine there existed a very special and undeniably fantastic machine, one that could possibly solve all of our environmental issues. A hundred to a handful, these miraculous machines could be transported by the thousands to any location with virtually no energy cost. Once prepared (and the preparation is nothing, even unknowingly dropping one may sufficeth), the cogs of the machine would set themselves into motion, unfolding from its capsule, expanding to the exact specifications allowed implicitly surroundings, fueled by the very greenhouse gases which so worry us presently.

The machine would require zero maintenance, it would be able to repair itself. Since it pulls energy from its surroundings, no lines would need to be run, no fleet of technicians would be required to assure continuing functionality.

I hope I'm not getting too far out there, but imagine also that these machines could pull from the air (thus purifying it) our modern environmental ills and transform them into edible, indeed highly nutritional bits of sustenance. So deep in fantasy we are, we may as well engineer these machines to also produce more, better machines. The machines could be so efficient that their newly produced versions needn't be transported by humans at all, but by animals (who happily reside within and are sustained by the machines) tricked into carrying them to new suitable areas. Were the machine population to explode, the results would only be clean air and plentiful food.

The successful creation of such a machine would unquestionably be the greatest feat of mankind thus far and would probably remain such for a long time. Unfortunately we will never be able to take that claim, not for lack of possibility but because it has already been done by the invisible force that also happened to make us--nature. You've probably already guessed that these miraculous machines are called Trees (and more generally plants), but please don't let your self-satisfaction for discovering that which I obfuscated override the content of my facade. Trees may not be able to solve All of our problems (using their wood as a fuel source releases all the CO2 they capture over their lifetime, which is rather counterproductive), but they could solve a Lot of our problems. The campaign to stop deforestation and recognize the truly miraculous essence of trees is an old and sadly frail one, something I hope changes soon and fast. Hopefully with this new perspective I have attempted to offer you you can see why existing trees must be protected and new trees must be planted (lots and lots of them)--that we lack the technical competence to create such a powerful and profound green-machine, and that we are beyond fortunate to have been given so many. That we might cut them down so that millions of items of junk mail (and memos, fliers, etc.) can be sent directly to the junkyard is a Tragedy. Before the saw was conceived, moving a large tree was equivalent to moving a mountain... now we have the technology to move real mountains yet we still cut down trees. Can't we at least move them before we consider cutting them down? Perhaps we need to start hanging signs on every tree that says

This tree is working hard to ensure that Earth will remain habitable for mankind (yes, that means you and your children) and all life (yes, there are other living things about, and they would rather like to stick around too). Please do not disturb unless massive extinction is desired.

PS - money is not an acceptable motive for disruption of future Earth habitability.

A Story

This is an updated version of a certain special short story I wrote 6/27/2005.

Every so often, a car passes, the headlights prominent. It's five in the morning, the air is saturated with darkness, the deep menacing kind that seems to be Earth's way of letting us know she can get angry too. The tires of the truck make haste through newly formed pools of rain, all blending into a mirrored black fluid metal mass, sending a volley onto the sidewalk, making it even to the window from which I am so intently staring through. I know it's them, beyond any reasonable doubt. I would know it even if I was staring into my steaming cup of coffee--the hate and fear could be heard screaming in the splash against the windowpane, transmitted all the way from those heated leather seats.

What it Really Means to be Green

I was wondering, and as such sought the wisdom of the Internets. Surprisingly, searching for this post's title yielded no help, though there was an independently published paperback book available for sale which promised to reveal the truth. This was a bit confounding, and it is difficult to imagine that the book opens by saying "you already screwed up, in order for this book to get to your doorstep unknowable energy and resources had to be consumed."

So, what does it mean to be genuinely "green," now that it has become a largely vacuous buzzword that has been so casually thrown around and a boon to marketing departments everywhere?

We all know that green is supposed to mean environmentally friendly, but this idea of a green product is perhaps the modern paragon of irony, as the greenest purchase possible is the one not made. Thus we have the first principle of environmental conscientiousness:

1: Green is the antithesis of consumption.

Of course, a product can (and should) be made in a low impact way, but by the very laws of physics no new product will ever be more green in terms of production energy expenditure than one that has already been made. I hope not to offend, but yes, this means switching from essentially any car to a fancy new hybrid for the sake of the environment is a move made in delusion. In fact, the incredible amount of energy required to gather and transform raw materials into a marginally fuel efficient hybrid vehicle will most likely not be recouped in energy saving over the entire life of the vehicle. Likewise, the amount of time required for savings at the pump to make up for the cost of a new car will in all likelihood also extend beyond the lifetime of said new vehicle. As far as vehicles go, the greenest thing you can do is simply drive less, instead walking or riding a bicycle--not only do you decrease your environmental impact, the air will be cleaner, you will be healthier, and as research on exercise has shown, happier. There is much to be said about vehicles and environmental impact, but that is for another post. For now, I must emphasize that this principle applies not just to vehicles but to everything; even the most inconsequential commercial products have an absolutely tremendous energy cost from raw material to point of sale. This concept is one recognized from the specific manifestation of it as the Food Mile, from which we are taught that any food item, from field to table, might well have traveled thousands of miles. I reiterate, this is a concept that applies to everything else as well, yet the numbers are far more stupendous when they concern, say, a plastic duck manufactured in China to be sold in the US market; such a duck may have traveled (as raw material and beyond) well over ten thousand miles from petroleum to bathtub. This idea, you might guess, is one of the principle few behind the growing movement of buying local (another most obviously being local economic support).

This leads right into the next fundamental aspect of being environmentally friendly. In most respects I'm a fairly typical middle class American, and just like every other member of that very broad stratification (you too?), I like to get fancy new things. How can I buy with minimal impact? The approach is one just like that of responsible home finance, indeed the two are closely related--by following the first principle, you will already see your wallet swell from savings. When the necessity arises or the urge overwhelms, the best purchase is one of something used. This again saves substantially (and has been presented as the most common and effective way of growing personal wealth, see the book "The Millionaire Next Door"), but also saves substantial energy; purchasing an item that has already been produced will obviously not increase the energy expenditure of production. Were the stigma of "used" to vanish, demand for new goods would drop and energy consumption with it. Similarly, we should approach each and every purchase as if it were a major purchase, with all the associated research and contemplation. As a rule, the more you think about a purchase the less likely you are to purchase at all, but notwithstanding, the less likely you are to purchase foolishly. So we have principle two.

2: So you must buy? Then buy smart, buy used, buy local.

As the rather inspired video of Amory Lovins in my previous post shows, environmentally sound business practice is (surprisingly) financially sound. I hope to have demonstrated that the same applies to personal finance too. Presuming personal financial security is not one of your priorities (nor environmental stability, national security, etc), the question then naturally arises, "Why should I care about the environment?"

And you might expect me to say "Global Warming, of course." But no. As I again alluded to previously, global warming is as an issue, albeit serious, a thin veil, a red herring for another issue of cataclysmic potential on the scale of years versus the decades or centuries for global warming, and so near if not here that I shudder to consider it--I will, but not now. It will go with my promised elucidation on vehicles.

The push for environmental conscientiousness is one that can only succeed if everybody helps. Though there are really only two succinct principles outline here, they are nonetheless of profound implication, and will require the reconstruction of each of our foundational perspectives and behaviors. Earth, we now know, is a fragile and miraculous phenomenon that we, with our special isolated gift of sentience, have both the responsibility and capability to maintain and preserve. The alternatives are unquestionably tragic: collapse of society, extinction of life on earth, and an increase of surface temperature to the point that even rocks slowly melt (as on Venus, from which we discovered the effect of greenhouse gases and global warming).

But we can do it, we can, we are capable now more than any time before to change the future of the entire planet--there have actually even been precedents for such a broad and powerful movement... or at least the start of some. Two in particular are the push for fuel efficiency in the seventies, which for the first time since the second industrial revolution led to a decrease in fuel consumption in the United States, and the push for everyone to simply turn off the lights when they left a room, which had a substantial impact on idle energy consumption.

Here are a few simple things I've worked to implement in my own life, besides those mentioned above, to reduce my environmental impact, and a few more complicated things I've dreamt of/stumbled across to do the same on a wider scale:

Use a drying rack instead of a clothes dryer.

Turn off the air-conditioner and open some windows, turn on a fan.

Shop at the local farmer's market.

Eat less.

Eschew print in favor of digital versions.

Wash dishes by hand right after using them.

Install a low flow shower head, wash self more thoroughly.

Wash clothes less often (especially jeans).

Transform something old into something new.

Use a toaster oven instead of the full sized oven.

Compost, prefer products packaged with compost-friendly materials.

Unplug "wall-warts" (these draw power whether in use or not).

Be happy with what I have, be happy with who I am--Never confuse the two.

etc.

Ideally:

Motion sensing street lights

LED light bulbs

Solar water heating

12 volt line power (goodbye wall-warts)

"Neighborhood nuclear reactor" for electricity generation

Compressed air powered last mile vehicles

Computer controlled vehicle networks

Waterless and grey water toilets

Neighborhood gardens

Massively deployed for-hire large item transportation

Distributed vehicle rental services

Car-less cities, verdant grass boulevards instead of asphalt

etc.

A shift

There has come apparent recently a certain and dire necessity for immediate action in moving towards energy efficiency and environmental awareness. For those who know, considering the prospect of a peak oil induced cataclysm most undoubtedly evokes urgency that refuses to be quashed. Most unfortunately, if not unsurprising, is that the entire issue has been sugarcoated by the unknown fundamental forces of information dissemination. And such a description is apt, as the instead phrased issue as one of global warming is a consequence maybe not lacking in capacity to devastate, but certainly unequivocally void of the sense of extreme urgency of its counterpart. Personally I don't find this sugarcoating in any way surprising given the utterly failed state of that media delivered in technicolor to masses of unwitting bystanders that passes as modern journalism. It surprises me every time I see Wolf Blitzer or Larry King, just the same with Bill O'Reily, that they aren't wearing big red noses that squeak. How can anyone expect to be informed when the news is irrelevant and somehow massively uninformed? And it is depressing on a spiritual level to know that the popular misinformed have been largely corralled into falling for cheap gimmicks, behaving antagonistically to our own cause by being tricked into thinking it is our cause (oh, it's so green, it's all natural, a hybrid), a cut and dry case of being bamboozled by that force that wants to take our money. This gives rise to, in particular for today, the idea that our news is interpreted as sugar coated because it lacks any and all science, instead giving the impression that they know what they're talking about by using jargon-turned-buzzwords. Strange, this lack of science, given that it is such a particularly scientific problem. I can tell you, as a preview, that the energy situation is pretty rough. But at the same time, every so often there comes somebody who really seems to know what they're talking about, who has some remarkably keen insight and a lot of pretty good things to say, things good to hear. Even better, his name is Amory Lovins! Notice that this was filmed in 2005, it seems to me that if Big Auto were listening to this guy whole heartedly back then their situation might be at least a little bit better now.





PS, the new Prius's solar panel will maybe, after a full sunny day, run your headlights for an hour, maybe. After watching that video you may realize this as self evident, but putting two engines in a car is a stupendously poor step forward. While I don't like the continuation of fossil fuel nor the suggestion of bio-fuel or wind turbines, none of that really matters, because he's run the numbers and it is at least a viable solution, one that we might be able to imagine easier than other of the more radical shifts proposed.

Update: I took a quick glance at the Prius article on wikipedia and it turns out that the new solar panel can't even run the headlights. All the extra weight and expense of the large panel is done so that a small fan can circulate air while the car is off, which is the ONLY thing it can do. I implore anyone who reads this: please, don't purchase/sell an image of environmental friendliness, work for the real thing. It's really not that difficult.

visual expressions of the inexpressible

These paintings (roughly in reverse chronology) are conceived as a part of an ongoing project, the root problem, from which this place's ideas and name arise. They are done in effort to communicate the essence alternatively, perhaps more effectively as if by some smaller infinity, than those attempts prior. Regrettably these photographs entirely fail to capture the fullness of these paintings, particularly in terms of color accuracy, texture, and accordingly the overall movement of each piece. This is a notable deficiency because most have layers of pigmentation obfuscated entirely by progressive layers, but which remain on the edge of perception as a texture incongruous with the foremost. Likewise, the capture renders the colors a perceptible degree more demur and indistinct, though such is hard to believe for a few, and this deficiency is one of particular detriment as there is often a vastness of variably distinct vibrancy.

I must make a note on method, essential for the link between the thoughts prior and these that follow: these are not abstractions. I do not know what is contained upon or expressed by each, nor have I ever thought that any less than innumerable interpretations were satisfactory. Indeed, this is exactly the effect I am for, that is to visualize the enigma, the root problem, in a way that the previous explication can be seen as a poor attempt to approximate. As procedure, I expend all mental effort on not painting anything particular, to divorce myself as much as possible from the motions that produce the final product. As a consequence then, I often feel unjustified in claiming them as my own; instead, I think of them as products of reality expressed through my temporal vehicle. With that perspective, even if one were to consider the product as one produced by my subconscious, this one must then acknowledge that the subconscious is a product of this existence; one not possibly produced, ultimately, by anything other than the cosmos/existence/reality/strange timespace gyre in which we obliviously perne. The whole breadth of my rumination concerning these far exceeds the capability of a single post, and on the whole I hate to constrain the magnitude of conceptualization of these by others with my own. So:












The rest, as follows, are photographs which I think lend themselves to the exposition of the root problem, though it is of course in any and every photograph that could or couldn't be taken, just the same as those above.











I am now, more able than ever before to understand this place; this specific understanding, no less essential, far more than essential, that which fundamentally opposes the likewise essential anti-understanding understanding of it, it being it of course. Most days maybe a butterfly's wing wind flapped, but this May be instead the air which winged the butterfly to wind. My sincere thanks, Mr. Bynum.

It is it

I wish to explicate as much as you wish to know it, perhaps even more, but there is a problem; the root problem, by definition, is that which cannot be defined. Its definition is the eternal absence of words...

...but so too the eternal effort of description.

And as long as effort has existed it has been applied to answering or avoiding this question, the question, such that at this point there is a remarkable body of information concerning it.

And for the person who has read and understood it all there will be a complete absence of understanding.

The root problem, by deduction from that title, is the essence, the most essential, fundamental, principle, basic, foundational. It is the singular, the completeness, space, time, everything and nothing aside.



The root problem is The Question whose answer is all answers,
And it is The Answer which answers all questions.

The root problem is Enlightenment,
And it is Anti-enlightenment.

The root problem is Good and Evil, Heaven and Hell, Order and Chaos;
The root problem is Zero and Infinity.



The root problem is paradox, not as in those we can conceptualize, but as in those vastly more numerous, those that we can't. Seeing how paradoxes are already really quite confusing, it is not so surprising to find that the root problem is the paragon of paradox,

and well fit to explain why the root problem is so hard to explain.



The root problem is holy peace arising from bitter conflict;
Thought and Reaction,
Sense amidst the Senseless.



It is difficult to say anything more apt, more fitting than nothing at all. The words, they can be read but entirely misunderstood; even a studious glance may yield the interpretation that I'm merely listing contradictions, and that there is no profundity in an exercise as simply listing contradictions. But I can hardly do anything else. The root problem is fundamentally contradictory, but the conflict of it is almost irrelevant compared to the inexplicable subtext.



The root problem is the area where opposites collide, but the same as the whole area where opposites reside.

The root problem is The Meaning Of Life, It is The Purpose;
It is Mortal and Immortal, Man and God as They are the same.

The root problem is nature, reality, existence;
It is evolution and creation,
temporal and spiritual.



And oh, how like the root problem to be the The Final Irrefutable Answer to the meaning of life, yet also the most unfulfilling, empty, fully incomplete Answer. Yes it is! It is the womb and the coffin, the origin and destination! I know I said that the conflict was practically irrelevant, but that is only partially true, part of the time; the root problem is as much about the oscillation aside start and end as it is those points.



It is the indefinite defined and the indefiniteness of definition; the answer as it is a question.



It is it.



Do you understand now?




If you think so, please reconsider. If you think you understand, you do not understand.













But if you think not... well, then you have begun to understand.





















And if you not think but be

Atop the wild wave he rode, adrift upon the tumult of the unknown

Ever before, Ever here, Ever after. All is change changing, yet the looked looks the same. "It is impossible," the indescript void of knowledge those before passed, "to cross the same river twice."

All sayable said, all thinkable thought, and all doable done, left to drift as an orphaned leaf, tumbling amidst the cooperative competition of forces greater than itself.

In all things beauty, life, the tempest of energies birthing at no end a magnificent aesthetic wandering wonder. Destruction as a form of creation, the most epic battle of paradox as the unwitnessed witness witnesses the unwitnessed witness witnessing. So man does as man has done, the unknown deed of the system that has unknowingly done him. A problem, an answer. No problem, no answer. But if it's isn't, is it or isn't it? To say it is can not be true, because it's isn't. But to say it isn't is also false, because it is isn't. So then what? Then develop mathmatical models. Then resign in unknowing. Before then. Then. After then. What is it anyway? Is it possible to not be? Suppose I were to describe something that did not exist, for instance, a unicorn. If a unicorn does not exist, how is it possible to describe it? Perhaps it does not exist in the same manner as horses, however it exists as a thought. Thus it does exist. What then could one describe that didn't exist? It is impossible to describe something that does not exist, as the very description of it brings it into existence. But this question suddenly becomes much more complex in one specific situation, the same confusion wrought before when wondering if it is isn't: if it is impossible to describe something that does not exist, does nonexistence exist? Nonexistence by it's very nature can not exist, otherwise it would be existence. But nonexistence can not not exist because we are able to describe nonexistence.

How often does this seemingly irresolvable paradox even present itself in the daily course of life? All the time. Beginning to learn algebra the students are taught that apples cannot be added to oranges, becuase they're different. Unfortunately, neither can apples be added to apples, as even the most superficial observation of the individual fruit would yield the fact that they are completely different themselves. And yet everything works anyway...