Over the last few weeks, we have all witnessed the train wreck that has culminated from all of the bickering going on in D.C. which ultimately ended in the US credit downgrade for the first time in history (at least since our recognition of this standard.) Now, about the only certainty going on in the aftermath is that there will be days, weeks... OK, years where we'll be hearing about who to blame this fiasco on. Take your pick: Democrats in the Senate, Republicans in the House, Tea Party folks, the President himself, and even the S&P itself (because there are those who think the downgrade was unfair.) Personally, I think all of the above have contributed in wreaking havoc, except the S&P. On that note, claiming the S&P downgrade as being unfair, is about like getting mad at your neighbors for calling 9-1-1 when your house is on fire. Moreover, placing blame now is about like wondering who started the fire or how it started, when what you really need to be doing is evacuating from a burning building. If the truth be told, the fire started long before this 112th Congress came into session. What they were arguing about wasn't that there was a fire, but how to pull the fire extinguisher pin and where to aim it. Now that they've failed to do that, let's run out of this burning building, catch our breath, and discuss where to go from here.
Despite where you put the blame, I think at this point we can all agree that the situation that we're in is a train wreck, and it is likely going to take quite a bit of time before we can solve this problem. Much like the ongoing problems that we face, nearly 4 years after the start of the recent economic troubles, it took a long time to get to where we are at, and it will take us some time to get us out. To make an analogy, we discovered that building houses on the slope of an active economic volcano, just wasn't a great idea. Thankfully, I think for the most part we were able to see this problem, take some recommendations from economic experts, and we've made some corrective adjustments. Time will tell how the ultimate outcome of these decisions will be. But, as it stands, I think most of us can agree that pulling back on reckless lending will help us overcome this problem.
Now today, what we face is a much bigger problem. I can say that my entire lifetime has been eclipsed by deficit spending. The couple of years in the late 90's where we had a "surplus" was just a mere blip on the radar. A lot of today's problems can be rooted in Keynesian economics. Perhaps, more aptly, I would say our problems lies within the misapplication of Keynesian economics within our federal government. I am personally a proponent of the theory behind the policy. I do believe it has been given a bad name, however, due to it's misapplication.
Keynesian economics is like this: Imagine a child wanting you to walk her to a park with a swing set, and in this case, you agree to go. Now, once there, she spots the swing set and runs over towards it, and hops on. As she swings, she has no problem getting things started on her own. Now, with the desire to go a little higher, and faster, she asks for a "push" so you agree and stand behind her at that perfect distance from the midpoint withe the perfect timing, and give her the correct amount of force.
Now, pause this scene in your mind for a moment. Imagine if you had stood closer to the midpoint. If you stood too close, it becomes increasingly difficult to push her back. In addition to that, although you can reach her, she is not in a position that is optimum to where your arms reach her back. Likewise, if you stand too far back, you simply cannot reach her at all. Now, once you've determined the correct position, you must match the frequency of the child swinging back. Pushing too soon, or too late can result in the opposite effect of what you are trying to accomplish. You can actually cancel out the force of her swinging which will result in her slowing down. Finally, let's assume you've figured out the correct position to stand in and the correct frequency, but now you must push her with the correct force. If you are pushing with too much force, suddenly, swinging is no longer fun for the child, as she begins to scream, begging to slow down, or worse yet, she looses her grip, and falls. Now, if you don't apply enough force, you might as well be sitting on the bench, watching her swing on her own.
Pushing a child on a swing is a very natural thing to do. Without being conscious of the physics behind it, most people can master this technique. Anyone that has mastered it, or otherwise has been on the receiving side of the beneficial push, will recognize that the enjoyment of the child, (and perhaps the one giving her the push) is maximized versus simply sitting on a nearby bench watching her swing by herself. Keynesian economics, in essence, is the practice of the government acting in the role of the pusher. This sounds great in theory, but when politics is involved, unfortunately, those variables, of distance, frequency and force are often mismanaged.
Right now, our nation is about like a family with two inept parents teetering on divorce, with three children all wanting a push on the swing set. Imagine the parents arguing with each other about where to stand, and how hard to push. The next thing you know, Dad gets hit in the jaw, because he is not paying attention, and suddenly their son is knocked off, and busts his nose on the ground. Now, you've got crying children, a bloody nose to clean up, and no doubt, some parents pointing their fingers at each, all to blame the other.
True Keynesian policy requires the dedication and finesse of a single person (or entity) with the best interest of the child (economy) in mind. Otherwise, with the misapplication, you might as well be sitting on the bench and let the economy swing itself, to minimize damage that can be done.
Currently, one part of the Keynesian economic equation that is controlled on a federal level is monetary policy which we have assigned to the Federal Reserve. Theoretically, the Federal Reserve acts in a non-partisan way to stimulate the economy, primarily by controlling the interest rates. If you set them too low, you risk over stimulating, and higher inflation, whereas if you set them too high, you can stifle the economy, and risk deflation. Economic stimulus and currency stability aren't the only roles of this federal institute, but they are no doubt, one of the more important ones.
Another component of the equation is fiscal policy, which is controlled by Congress, and ultimately approved by the President. Unfortunately, what we have learned to call this policy is "deficit spending." It's been called that, because that seems to be the only part of Keynesian economics that is ever applied. We have not learned to master the other side of this theory, and that is to learn to save (or otherwise let off) during years of growth. The idea is of Keynesian economics is for the government to spend, or otherwise stimulate the economy when it is down, and to back off when it is growing.
Since I've been alive, and even prior, we tend to give the child a push when needed, but then we run with the child to the other side, and keep on pushing, even though the momentum of the child would have been enough to carry her to the opposite point, as well as enough to make it all the way back to where you originally pushed her. The problem now is that the person doing the pushing becomes exhausted very quickly and before long he or she would want to give up. This is how we've mismanaged these goals in the past. Both political parties are to blame here, as both sides have done their fair share in spending, whether it's on entitlement programs that are out of balance, or military spending, or through mismanaged taxes. If one party pushes too hard, the other party attempts to run out and grab the child to slow her down. The next thing you know these two parties are at each other's throats. The child is then forced to choose a favorite parent (through elections) but ultimately they lock horns once again, and no real progress is made.
Now, with our current fiasco, we have discovered that it seems that neither party can get along. The situation is so bad, that the only thing that they could agree on, is to disagree, and to hold off on any real decision making until the after the next election cycle, (or beyond) to end this fight. This is the reason why the S&P downgraded the US. It was the lack of true leadership. Call it brinkmanship, call bad politics, or whatever you want, at the end of the day, our elected leaders failed to deliver. The S&P is simply looking at the situation, and they are placing their bets on the side that says, "I don't think this is going to get any better anytime soon." I don't think anyone can blame them for that. If history proves to repeat itself, then we'll see the same fight all over again in 2013 and beyond, unless we change something.
I propose that we change who makes the decision on how much of a deficit, or surplus we have and perhaps to some degree how we get to that point. What if we removed politics out of this decision? In a way, having politicians deciding what is right or wrong here, makes about as much sense as having congress vote on whether or not to call for evacuations for a given city, to get out of the way of an approaching hurricane. As a weather enthusiast, I can tell you that the professionals at the National Hurricane Center (NHC), rely upon all sorts of models, and data to make their forecasts, which ultimately determines who, if anyone, needs to evacuate. I can't even begin to imagine the chaos if this were some political decision. I've seen people argue over which models are superior, in the comment sections of weather blogs. Like myself, these people are usually passionate enthusiasts, but most of them aren't experts. Ultimately, though, none of the models are perfectly correct, yet the NHC gives fairly accurate forecasts, despite this. They are able to do so, because they are experts. For you sports types, just think of these weather blog commenters in the same way you hear from Monday morning quarterbacks, armed with the latest statistics. Perhaps Congress is a step or two above being a Monday morning quarterback, but do they really have the best long term goals in mind? More importantly, do you think they really understand what the economic data means and what policies to implement?
On the monetary policy side of things, the Federal Reserve, acts much like the NHC. When you read their commentaries, and their reports, they are written from the standpoint of economics, oftentimes with dry language that gets to the point. They make their monetary policy decisions based on this economic information and not politics. (Sometimes they are even known to oppose the party that appointed them.) On the other hand, for fiscal policies, at best, they just provide advice to Congress. At the end of the day though, Congress must still decide on fiscal policies. Unfortunately, even the best of them have a propensity to miss the mark, simply because politics stands in the way. As I've demonstrated by my swinging child example, any variable that is off can actually be counter productive. Even the Federal Reserve has missed the mark in the past, but for each target they miss, they learn to better adjust their aim. The NHC, likewise does the same for hurricane forecasting. Each year, though, they fine tune their craft, and forecasts do get better.
The understanding of economics in many ways, is not much different than weather. So, why not have more experts involved with the decision making. Why not have experts that have goals that last more than 4 years? I know the idea of stripping this from Congress seems, perhaps like it is a step too far, as if we are removing power from the our representative government. But, then these days, it seems that we cannot afford to give them the responsibility either.
My initial thoughts on this are to put more of this fiscal responsibility into the hands of the entity that we currently call the Federal Reserve. Why? Simply because they already have the capabilities to "read" the economy. They have the best tools to decide when to push, and when to step back and they have the experience to use those tools. They implement this information every time they meet to make adjust monetary policy, why not do the same for fiscal policy? Perhaps Congress would have some role in making these decisions, and they should, but perhaps their policies should fit within the recommended range of this entity. If the entity says to raise the taxes, Congress would simply ask "how high". Or better yet, if they suggested to lower them, Congress asks how low, or for whom. When it comes to having a deficit, balance or a surplus budget, this entity could decide which policy to follow, and by how much, and pass that guideline to Congress. Congress at that point, would have to hash out the details as they have always have done, but keep within the prescribed range. Perhaps this entity could hash out the details ahead of time, and create a few variable plans, and hand those to Congress who would then vote on them based on what would best serve their constituents.
I think these ideas are certainly something worth debating. Ultimately, in order for this to work, you would have to give this entity some teeth, enough to enforce their guiding budget principles. Not doing so would all be a legislative waste of time. I have no doubts someone would bring up the constitutionality of such a measure. If that is true, then maybe this is something that should warrant such a change. I do know one thing though: the status quo is not getting the job done, and I'm afraid we are running out of time. This is just my idea, but if you think of something better, then by all means, let's discuss that. We cannot afford to sit around and do nothing.
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Tuesday, August 9, 2011
Saturday, March 26, 2011
The Theory of Everything Explained
Tonight, after doing some "deep" thinking, I came up with the "Theory of Everything". OK, by that, I mean the theory of how seemingly "nothing" could turn into everything you see today. My theory proposes that everything that exists today is made up of, and originated from exactly one particle. Admittedly, I cannot explain the origin of the first particle, only how it became everything we know today. Open your mind and read more below.
Ok, the concept here is simple: all things started with one elementary particle, and only one elementary particle has ever existed and that all things are made of this one particle. This particle, which you may call the "God" particle, (though not necessarily the same as the currently sought after "Higgs boson" particle) I'll name the "genesis" particle, to help differentiate from the others. This one particle has the ability to travel back and forth through time. A better way to think of it is that it can vibrate forwards and backwards through time. Now, suppose that initially this genesis particle existed for "x" amount of time. (Any amount of time could be used, I suppose... at least in the "early stage" of this theory. You can use one second, if that makes it easy to imagine.) In fact, better than that, we'll say that this unit of time of its existence is the most elementary unit of time possible. In other words, no other division of time is smaller (unless otherwise imaginary), just as no other particle could be more elementary. I'll call this unit of time a "bop." Now, suppose the genesis particle vibrated around and lasted for one bop. Then let's just say that it travels back in time by exactly one bop, and when it does, it "meets" the earlier version of itself. Next, the process repeats, and the two twin particles vibrate for one bop and then appear back in time by one bop, making four particles (which are all really just the same particle, just from different time frames, folded upon itself (in a nearby space.)
>Here's a crude drawing to represent what happens:
For a quick thought on this....
Imagine if you will, if you owned a telephone booth sized time machine. And you stood in front of it for a minute, and sort of wondered in a circle, before you decided to go in. When you enter, you emerge exactly one minute earlier in time, which means you find yourself standing in front of your one minute younger self. Now, imagine if the two of you repeated the same thing, so that there would be four of you.
Get the idea?
Now that initial step would repeat itself until the amount of matter grows to a critical point to where things start to interact with each other and perhaps some of those particles begin to clump together. The strangeness of this idea is that although all of the matter is really just the same particle, they begin to interact as if they are unique particles. Some continue to "duplicate" while other "rogue" particles clump together and form groups. These early groups would have formed the early ancestors to what we all know to be sub-atomic particles. Eventually this mass would have become very dense, and would have at that time initiated what we now refer to as the "Big Bang." The same physics from the that step on, as we've come to know them would then apply to the rest of the creation of the universe as we know it.
So there you have it. My theory of everything is that everything that you see is actually just one particle that continuously traveled back in time, which effectively duplicated itself in that instance of time, grew to a critical mass, enough to create the sub-atomic particles which began the universe that we all know today.
Now, you may wonder, why and how did I come up with this? Well, the answer is simple. I started off thinking about what it would be like to see yourself at an earlier state, by going back in time. Then I thought, if you could go back to see yourself in time, what would it be like if you had several of your future selves visit you? It would give the appearance of a growing mass. In fact, the amount of mass occupying that space would indeed have increased at that one instance in time. My next thoughts moved to, "what if that applied to just a single particle?" All of that led me to consider this a possibility however strange it may seem. Now granted, its a wild one, and its the type of thing that is born from late night, past-my-bedtime, type of thoughts. But then, think about it: What if this idea was possible and true? What would the implications be? What are your thoughts?
Read More!
Ok, the concept here is simple: all things started with one elementary particle, and only one elementary particle has ever existed and that all things are made of this one particle. This particle, which you may call the "God" particle, (though not necessarily the same as the currently sought after "Higgs boson" particle) I'll name the "genesis" particle, to help differentiate from the others. This one particle has the ability to travel back and forth through time. A better way to think of it is that it can vibrate forwards and backwards through time. Now, suppose that initially this genesis particle existed for "x" amount of time. (Any amount of time could be used, I suppose... at least in the "early stage" of this theory. You can use one second, if that makes it easy to imagine.) In fact, better than that, we'll say that this unit of time of its existence is the most elementary unit of time possible. In other words, no other division of time is smaller (unless otherwise imaginary), just as no other particle could be more elementary. I'll call this unit of time a "bop." Now, suppose the genesis particle vibrated around and lasted for one bop. Then let's just say that it travels back in time by exactly one bop, and when it does, it "meets" the earlier version of itself. Next, the process repeats, and the two twin particles vibrate for one bop and then appear back in time by one bop, making four particles (which are all really just the same particle, just from different time frames, folded upon itself (in a nearby space.)
>Here's a crude drawing to represent what happens:
Imagine if you will, if you owned a telephone booth sized time machine. And you stood in front of it for a minute, and sort of wondered in a circle, before you decided to go in. When you enter, you emerge exactly one minute earlier in time, which means you find yourself standing in front of your one minute younger self. Now, imagine if the two of you repeated the same thing, so that there would be four of you.
Get the idea?
Now that initial step would repeat itself until the amount of matter grows to a critical point to where things start to interact with each other and perhaps some of those particles begin to clump together. The strangeness of this idea is that although all of the matter is really just the same particle, they begin to interact as if they are unique particles. Some continue to "duplicate" while other "rogue" particles clump together and form groups. These early groups would have formed the early ancestors to what we all know to be sub-atomic particles. Eventually this mass would have become very dense, and would have at that time initiated what we now refer to as the "Big Bang." The same physics from the that step on, as we've come to know them would then apply to the rest of the creation of the universe as we know it.
So there you have it. My theory of everything is that everything that you see is actually just one particle that continuously traveled back in time, which effectively duplicated itself in that instance of time, grew to a critical mass, enough to create the sub-atomic particles which began the universe that we all know today.
Now, you may wonder, why and how did I come up with this? Well, the answer is simple. I started off thinking about what it would be like to see yourself at an earlier state, by going back in time. Then I thought, if you could go back to see yourself in time, what would it be like if you had several of your future selves visit you? It would give the appearance of a growing mass. In fact, the amount of mass occupying that space would indeed have increased at that one instance in time. My next thoughts moved to, "what if that applied to just a single particle?" All of that led me to consider this a possibility however strange it may seem. Now granted, its a wild one, and its the type of thing that is born from late night, past-my-bedtime, type of thoughts. But then, think about it: What if this idea was possible and true? What would the implications be? What are your thoughts?
Read More!
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Battle: LA
Alright, so I figured it's been awhile, ok - a really long time - since I've written anything into my blog. This'll also be the first time I'll actually post a link to this blog from Facebook. Maybe that's what I've been up to - Facebook... maybe that's why I haven't written anything in a while. Or, perhaps it's because I started a little landscaping business. Well, OK, so welcome to my blog (for an explainer to it click here. Ok, well, now it's time for a "stream of conscious" review of Battle: LA.
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OK, so Battle: LA is ... well, it's OK. It's not great. It didn't present itself as such a novelty that I was looking for. But then again, I am picky. I only watch movies in the theater if it is "theater worthy." The last theater worthy movie I saw was Inception, which I really did enjoy. The movie itself (talking about Battle: LA) was only theater worthy for the fact that it had big booming special effects -- special effects that we've all seen, but hey, what do you expect? The movie was rather predictable, you have an alien invasion that catches earth mostly off guard, but then you have an American hero that leads a group of people to help successfully take down the bad guys. Aside from the plot, there were even some jokes that I found to be very predictable. One great example was when they were looking for someone to hot wire a bus. One of the men jokes that a fellow platoon member (or whatever they're called) knew how because he was from Jersey. As soon as they started the line, I knew where they were going, and as a result I actually started laughing a 1/2 second before the rest of the audience did. Laughing ahead of the curve made me wonder if there's a connection between a person's intelligence, with respect to their ability to predict a pattern. To me, its kind of like reading the headlines and knowing what and how Jay Leno will be joking about them later that night. (I find myself doing that on a regular basis.) I could go on about what those implications are, but.. that's not the point. Anyways, back the the topic... this film was obviously shot to be like a military-documentary style movie. The director managed to pull this of fine in the battle scenes. That in itself wasn't worth criticizing. Instead, the bigger thing I found lacking was the alien invasion, its tactics, the technology -- the whole nine yards.
Here it is we've got another movie about an alien invasion (compare to Independence Day, Signs and War of the Worlds to name a few relatively recent ones), so you expect to have some original ideas to make these aliens stand out from alien invaders in other recent movies. There were a couple of unique things: one, the use of meteors as an explanation to the events leading up to the invasion and two, was the use of drones, by the aliens. You don't see too much drone action in other alien invader movies (Star Wars: The Clone Wars did come to mind), so this addition was a salute to the early 21'st century's use of drone aircraft in warfare. The problem with this is that the aliens' idea of drone technology was too much based on 21'st century thinking. (Its sort of like the way over-sized computers were used in early sci-fi shows, like Star Trek.) How so? The use of a terrestrial based central command center. By the time our current century ends, if we haven't killed each other off of the planet, (or have been wiped out by another doom's day scenario) this will have become obsolete. The reality is, most drones (which we'll have plenty of) will rely less on a central command center, and more upon swarm based robotics and intelligence. If you're reading this, you're probably wondering what swarm technology is. Well, I could explain it to you, but, it might be easier to just direct you to here: Wiki's Swarm Robotics Entry
There are many advantages to swarm robotics in warfare, the biggest one is not having to rely upon on central command center to control them all. OK, so then you might ask, "but who directs the swarm?" The answer to that is that the swarm itself does most of that. Sure, some alien out there will probably have some say in things, but really if you've got the technology to traverse a presumably great interstellar distance, certainly you would have invested in some better AI technology for your war robots.
In the scheme of things, these aliens are only slightly more advanced than we humans currently are. In 50-100 years, most of the alien technology that is used in the movie, will certainly be obtainable (except the interstellar travel part - I think that's still a bit farther off.) Otherwise, things like the use if a prosthetic limb which happens to be a weapon, could probably be done today with some DARPA funding. (The main concern there is not the technology, but the ethics behind it.)
Back to the central command thing, the idea that aliens would have a single weak spot, that if hit, delivers such a terrible blow that the whole invasion fails comes up time and time again in alien invasion movies. Surely by now, some alien would have gotten a Netflix account and would have watched a few movies to figure out that we humans always look to discover this weak point. Every Single. Time. Seriously, think about it, if you were told to go invade another planet that had life, intelligent enough to make streaming Internet movies, wouldn't you hack the system and create your own Netflix-like account to learn their preferred method in taking out aliens? If not movies, buying a PlayStation and a couple of alien shoot 'em ups would suffice. So, putting that aside, that to me, just shows the unoriginality of the story's writers. Quite frankly, most science fiction gets it wrong here in my opinion on so many levels. I'd talk more about that, but I'm saving that for the novel that I'm currently working on. I'll just say this: nano-technology. Enough said.
One thing I wished the writers would have done is to have elaborated more on how the aliens used water as a fuel source. We could speculate that it has something to do with fuel cells, but hydrogen in that equation is really just an energy delivery system. In other words, it is not an energy source. So, then we could speculate that it was part of a reaction with some other material being used as a catalyst of some sort. I don't know... but then, adding that detail would have been "beside(s) the point" right? I'm secretly hoping that a better explanation will be found in the form of a deleted scene that will be available in the DVD/Blu-Ray release. I know, dream on.
Well, so there you have it, that effectively ends my review of the film which ends this post. Now you can review my review!
Here it is we've got another movie about an alien invasion (compare to Independence Day, Signs and War of the Worlds to name a few relatively recent ones), so you expect to have some original ideas to make these aliens stand out from alien invaders in other recent movies. There were a couple of unique things: one, the use of meteors as an explanation to the events leading up to the invasion and two, was the use of drones, by the aliens. You don't see too much drone action in other alien invader movies (Star Wars: The Clone Wars did come to mind), so this addition was a salute to the early 21'st century's use of drone aircraft in warfare. The problem with this is that the aliens' idea of drone technology was too much based on 21'st century thinking. (Its sort of like the way over-sized computers were used in early sci-fi shows, like Star Trek.) How so? The use of a terrestrial based central command center. By the time our current century ends, if we haven't killed each other off of the planet, (or have been wiped out by another doom's day scenario) this will have become obsolete. The reality is, most drones (which we'll have plenty of) will rely less on a central command center, and more upon swarm based robotics and intelligence. If you're reading this, you're probably wondering what swarm technology is. Well, I could explain it to you, but, it might be easier to just direct you to here: Wiki's Swarm Robotics Entry
There are many advantages to swarm robotics in warfare, the biggest one is not having to rely upon on central command center to control them all. OK, so then you might ask, "but who directs the swarm?" The answer to that is that the swarm itself does most of that. Sure, some alien out there will probably have some say in things, but really if you've got the technology to traverse a presumably great interstellar distance, certainly you would have invested in some better AI technology for your war robots.
In the scheme of things, these aliens are only slightly more advanced than we humans currently are. In 50-100 years, most of the alien technology that is used in the movie, will certainly be obtainable (except the interstellar travel part - I think that's still a bit farther off.) Otherwise, things like the use if a prosthetic limb which happens to be a weapon, could probably be done today with some DARPA funding. (The main concern there is not the technology, but the ethics behind it.)
Back to the central command thing, the idea that aliens would have a single weak spot, that if hit, delivers such a terrible blow that the whole invasion fails comes up time and time again in alien invasion movies. Surely by now, some alien would have gotten a Netflix account and would have watched a few movies to figure out that we humans always look to discover this weak point. Every Single. Time. Seriously, think about it, if you were told to go invade another planet that had life, intelligent enough to make streaming Internet movies, wouldn't you hack the system and create your own Netflix-like account to learn their preferred method in taking out aliens? If not movies, buying a PlayStation and a couple of alien shoot 'em ups would suffice. So, putting that aside, that to me, just shows the unoriginality of the story's writers. Quite frankly, most science fiction gets it wrong here in my opinion on so many levels. I'd talk more about that, but I'm saving that for the novel that I'm currently working on. I'll just say this: nano-technology. Enough said.
One thing I wished the writers would have done is to have elaborated more on how the aliens used water as a fuel source. We could speculate that it has something to do with fuel cells, but hydrogen in that equation is really just an energy delivery system. In other words, it is not an energy source. So, then we could speculate that it was part of a reaction with some other material being used as a catalyst of some sort. I don't know... but then, adding that detail would have been "beside(s) the point" right? I'm secretly hoping that a better explanation will be found in the form of a deleted scene that will be available in the DVD/Blu-Ray release. I know, dream on.
Well, so there you have it, that effectively ends my review of the film which ends this post. Now you can review my review!
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Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Techlepathy
In this evening’s entry, I’m going to focus in on future technology, specifically augmented reality and technology enabled telepathy or what I’m going to call technotelepathy.
I was going to use the word technopathy, but it’s a word that, according to Google, already exists. Technopathy is specifically referenced as being a capability to manipulate ordinary electronics with a person’s mind. This specifically is a reference to an ability of Micah Sanders, a character on the show, “Heros” (which I don’t watch.) Doing a search on technotelepathy reveals, again, that I’m not the first person to come up with this word either. Being relatively new and unknown and therefore a lesser used word, Google gives a search suggestion to split techno and telepathy into two words, but I’m going to keep them together. Google also reveals that the word has been used about 77 times on the Internet (when repeat entries are omitted.) So, I suppose, this will make yet another “hit”. And, it looks as if the use of the word is associated to my topic, so I just may use it. Looking for a shorter version, I’ve found the word techlepathy. Techlepathy, has a nice ring to it, and it turns out that it’s a more commonly used word, which also tends to describe my usage of the yet-to-be christened word. (That is, it doesn’t seem to appear in any official online dictionaries or Wikipedia. In fact, Wiki only refers to it as technology enabled telepathy, which brings back to the beginning of this conversation.
{A quick interjection here—if you’re keeping up with all of this, the process that I just went through is how I do a lot of what I do when it comes to developing ideas, and learning about the many concepts that I’ve stuffed into my cranium over the years. I call it the Google Method of thinking (somewhat inspired by the Scientific Method.) In the Google Method, you think of an idea, you Google it, then you roll through a few entries to verify the existence of your idea. You see, the idea could be completely original to me at that time of thought, but I’ve learned to accept that it probably already exists. The concept of techlepathy, for example has existed before I was even born. In my own mind, I’d come up with the concept about 10 years ago. On the rare occasion, it’s possible that I may think of something completely original, and when that happens, I’ll let you know. Techlepathy just isn’t one of them. Anyway, that’s the Google Method.}
Now that we’ve gotten the word “techlepathy” knocked out of the way, let’s talk about what it is, what it’s going to do, and why I’m talking about it now. Also, I first mentioned that I would be discussing augmented reality. For those of you who have heard of that concept, then you’re probably thinking that I’m referring to the technology that allows you to experience reality, as you see it today, but with enhanced information. Think of those war/shoot-em up video games that display your teammate’s name and other information like the amount of ammo or health a person has, on the screen, well that’s augmented reality. Technically, it’s a virtually augmented reality, but you get the idea. In my brain, my neurons took a vote and decided that techlepathy is a segment of augmented reality. {Edit.. actually although true techlepathy is a form of of augmented reality, the use of it here is not what I'd call augmented reality.}
Now, some of you may be wondering why I’m even talking about techlepathy, because after all, isn’t this exotic technology still, years, if not decades away? If you ever heard me discussing this 10 years ago, I would have told you that it looked to be decades away, but none-the-less very probable. Well now, the fact is, it’s already here. And quite frankly, it’s been here for a few years now. Today, it’s even on the verge of becoming part of our everyday experiences, at least for entertainment’s sake. This call all be thanks to the new Mindflex game by Mattel. Sure, the game makes claims of telekinesis, but in all reality it’s an early start to technokinesis, that’s made possible through an early version of techlepathy. The goal of the game is to manipulate a floating ball through a series of physical obstacles through three dimensional space.
Don’t be fooled, there is a little smoke and mirrors involved, but there’s also a true bit of techlepathy. The floating ball trick is an old one, pulled off using the properties of air pressure and aerodynamics to lift a ping pong ball by blowing a steady stream of air from below. The ball’s horizontal movement turns out to be controlled by manipulating a control with your fingers. So what’s the catch? Where’s the techlepathy and/or technokinesis here? Well, that lies in the way you move the ball vertically. Your brain controls the volume of air blowing vertically onto the ball, thus adjusting its vertical position. In all, it’s a combination of using physical controls along with a brain reading headset that gets the job done.
My prediction is that, initially, this game will be a hit. It may very likely become a fad that crosses all cultures, generations and genders. After all, who hasn’t fantasized about manipulating a physical object with their mind. This game will certainly accomplish that. After some time, after it becomes more of a commonly held experience and looses its sense as a novelty, the game’s popularity will drop, but not without changing how we, as a world, think about techlepathy. Mattel will very likely continue to at least draw in younger children for years to come.
Now Mindflex is just a game with a low level ability to read, at best crude brain signals. Perhaps you’ve also have seen or heard of cases where amputees have controlled a bionic limb, or where a paraplegic man controls a cursor on a computer screen to help him communicate. Even monkeys have been outfitted with such devices to control artificial arms to receive a reward. All of these are receiving the sum of all of the signals that are released from brain activity. Think of it as being as nebulous as trying to follow a game by listening to the roars of a crowd at huge sports event while blindfolded, sitting up in the nosebleed section, without knowing much about the sporting event, let alone the teams that are playing. You could even throw a language difference between you and the crowd. If you understood the language, you might be able to discern who’s doing well based on who’s cheering the loudest or perhaps by the announcer on the loudspeaker, but outside of that, you’re not likely to gain much more insight about anything else. Without the ability to understand the language of the crowd, at most you might be able to tell that something exciting has happened.
Now, with a little bit of prompting and practice on behalf of the crowd, perhaps focusing the crowd so that most of the people attending where overwhelmingly rooting for one team, it may be possible, to pick up on what’s going on, even with a language barrier. Think of it as if you’d gone to a college football game at Kyle Field in College Station, Texas, watching the Texas Aggies play against a fierce or well known opponent. And if you know anything about an Aggie football game, especially played at home, you would know the intensity that the home crowd can bring to a game. (And yes, I’m an Aggie, so I have some experience, and perhaps a bit of a bias for Texas Aggie football.) It’s been observed and noted many times how the crowd at Kyle field has given the Aggies an advantage over even the most formidable foes of the season. Even if all you knew was that you were at a sporting event and nothing about the game, and didn’t speak the language, you would still be able to determine when the home team did something praiseworthy. And you may even attempt to participate in the one of the yells that Aggies practice before each game. Being an observer in that whole experience, is the equivalent of using the same brain reading technology, but with a focused mind capable of adjusting to outside stimulus.
Even though the technology may not be able to read your thoughts any better, it’s the brain that is learning to adjust to the technology and its new feedback. Our use of this technology will initially rely upon this principle. Right now, we’ve mostly only seen the adult human brain interacting with this technology. But imagine what it might be like if you could take an entire generation from nearly birth and have them use these capabilities as it stands today. If you can imagine that, then you could also conclude that it’s possible for a high level of telepathic manipulation to be possible. Imagine neurons being dedicated to the technology. There may be some of you that would regard such an experiment as being cruel, but doing an experiment won’t be necessary anymore than my generation had computers and video games experiments forced upon us. The truth is, once we were exposed, we sought out the new experiences and sensations. Our brains have indeed developed differently than our ancestors as neurons have dedicated themselves to video game concepts, artificial map reading, hyper communication and pattern recognition all associated with hours of exposure to that technology. I can remember even as a child, thinking about how video games were secretly training our generation to fight in advanced warfare. I can also remember not being alone in that thought. We could sense how we were thinking differently, and how that could someday be exploited. Indeed, our childhood intuition and prognostication was correct, as military technology has advanced to take advantage of the skills that so many of my generation have spent a childhood developing. And it’s not much of a stretch to imagine that just as computer and video game technology grew with my generation, so the same will be true for these new techlepathy technologies, combined with, you guessed it, advanced video game technology.
I’m going to pause with that thought for tonight. But, expect this conversation to continue, as there are many, many avenues to explore.
Read More!Friday, September 25, 2009
H1N1... an update
Its tough to call this an update, since I haven't commented on H1N1 (aka Swine Flu) online yet, but I'll call this an update, since we're all aware of its presence. Our awareness has begun to pick up recently thanks in part due to the recent spike in activity. In fact, it seemed that last weekend, an explosion of activity, at least from my vantage point in North Texas, commenced.
I had a niece, a cousin-in-law, some friends of my family (their children specifically) and a few others report having swine flu or influenza-like-illness (ILI - as termed by the CDC) all within the last week. This sudden increase in activity is correlated to an increase in reports from the CDC as shown on this chart: (Note-- these figures are based off of serious cases that require hospitalization as a percent of visits.)
Apparently, for this time period, nearly 99% of people in the US who have the flu have tested positive for H1N1. (See chart below.) So, what this all boils down to is that if you get the flu, chances are you've got swine flu. The same is true for most of the globe, except for most of Africa and parts of the Middle East where the regular flu outpaced H1N1 by a 3:1 (or greater) margin. I should point out that even there H1N1 has started to increase in activity, and I'm afraid those numbers are only going to continue their trend.
It would seem to make sense that the disease could mutate into multiple possibilities, but only a few of those survive to pass itself on to others. After all, its not like Mother Nature has some hidden war room, where she has a section called "Infectious Diseases" where she commands her minions, with the accent of an old evil British sounding lady, to update the H1N1 code and hit a Hong Kong poultry market with the famous "mu hahahaha" evil laugh to end her sentence. The reality is that when something, like a virus, mutates, the chances are that it does so multiple times, across the globe, with similar, though not necessarily exact, mutations. Each one of those mutations will have a different chance to survive, depending on its environment, nearby carrier agents, and so on. Its the sum of all of those chances that causes something new enough to happen that our collective immune system wouldn't recognize it.
So, my recommendation is to get both vaccines as soon as its available for you. As it is, I'll personally have to wait until after just about everyone else, since I'm older than 24, younger than 60, male (therefore not pregnant ;-) ) and I don't have frequent contact with children.
My prediction: expect H1N1 to peak in the US around Thanksgiving (due to having already spread itself rapidly, combined with the release of a vaccine coming in October.) This will be just in time for the beginning of the regular flu season. The regular flu season will be less active than normal, thanks in part due to the awareness of the public leading to a higher percent off people getting their flu shots. Globally, things may not be so rosy, especially in developing countries, like in Africa and SE Asia. The one saving grace there is that most of the people that live there, live near the Equator, and therefore the virus may not survive as long in the normal environment.
For further reading please see:
I had a niece, a cousin-in-law, some friends of my family (their children specifically) and a few others report having swine flu or influenza-like-illness (ILI - as termed by the CDC) all within the last week. This sudden increase in activity is correlated to an increase in reports from the CDC as shown on this chart: (Note-- these figures are based off of serious cases that require hospitalization as a percent of visits.)
 |
Source: CDC (Posted September 25, 2009, 1:30 PM ET, for Week Ending September 19, 2009) |
| (Valid for the US) | Week 37 |
|---|---|
| No. of specimens tested | 9,744 |
| No. of positive specimens (%) | 2,326 (23.9%) |
| Positive specimens by type/subtype | |
| Influenza A | 2,324 (99.9%) |
| A (2009 H1N1) | 1,395 (60.0%) |
| A (subtyping not performed) | 907 (39.0%) |
| A (unable to subtype) | 17 (0.7%) |
| A (H3) | 1 (0.1%) |
| A (H1) | 4 (0.2%) |
| Influenza B | 2 (0.1%) |
Source: CDC
Now, this ratio is likely going to change as the regular flu season get up and going. There are several possibilities that could make things interesting (though not in a good way) once that does happen. For one, if you get H1N1, would it still be possible for you to catch the regular flu, or is there enough of a genetic similarity to keep you immune? It makes sense that since the regular flu vaccine won't keep you from getting H1N1, then the opposite may be true. Therefore, you could get both types in the same season.
The other possibility is that the two could combine. Its hard to guess whether or not a combination of the two would make matters worse or not. It could be possible that if they combine, then the regular flu vaccine could help prevent the combo from spreading. On the other hand, it could render both vaccines ineffective, or less effective. I do want to note that my niece was officially diagnosed with both influenza A (which covers H1N1) and B. Which, that doesn't sound like a good thing (certainly neither for her nor for the higher chance of a cross mutation.) {Update: I wanted to let you know that my niece has fully recovered, and was much better after about 3-4 days. Also, her parents and sister haven't contracted the disease either (yet.)}Now, this ratio is likely going to change as the regular flu season get up and going. There are several possibilities that could make things interesting (though not in a good way) once that does happen. For one, if you get H1N1, would it still be possible for you to catch the regular flu, or is there enough of a genetic similarity to keep you immune? It makes sense that since the regular flu vaccine won't keep you from getting H1N1, then the opposite may be true. Therefore, you could get both types in the same season.
It would seem to make sense that the disease could mutate into multiple possibilities, but only a few of those survive to pass itself on to others. After all, its not like Mother Nature has some hidden war room, where she has a section called "Infectious Diseases" where she commands her minions, with the accent of an old evil British sounding lady, to update the H1N1 code and hit a Hong Kong poultry market with the famous "mu hahahaha" evil laugh to end her sentence. The reality is that when something, like a virus, mutates, the chances are that it does so multiple times, across the globe, with similar, though not necessarily exact, mutations. Each one of those mutations will have a different chance to survive, depending on its environment, nearby carrier agents, and so on. Its the sum of all of those chances that causes something new enough to happen that our collective immune system wouldn't recognize it.
So, my recommendation is to get both vaccines as soon as its available for you. As it is, I'll personally have to wait until after just about everyone else, since I'm older than 24, younger than 60, male (therefore not pregnant ;-) ) and I don't have frequent contact with children.
My prediction: expect H1N1 to peak in the US around Thanksgiving (due to having already spread itself rapidly, combined with the release of a vaccine coming in October.) This will be just in time for the beginning of the regular flu season. The regular flu season will be less active than normal, thanks in part due to the awareness of the public leading to a higher percent off people getting their flu shots. Globally, things may not be so rosy, especially in developing countries, like in Africa and SE Asia. The one saving grace there is that most of the people that live there, live near the Equator, and therefore the virus may not survive as long in the normal environment.
For further reading please see:
WHO H1N1 situation updates:
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/updates/en/
Thanks for reading this! If you have an opinion about what you've read, please comment below!
Read More!
http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/updates/en/
Thanks for reading this! If you have an opinion about what you've read, please comment below!
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