The New York Times ran an article this weekend about a relatively new medical device called a neuromodulator.

Nearly all neuromodulation systems have the same general parts: Pulse generators, wires that touch nerves and implanted batteries, which must be replaced every few years. The most common versions are implanted in the spine, not the brain.

Batteries that have to be replace? Brain surgery or spinal surgery every few years to replace a battery strikes me as dangerous and painful. This is yet another medical device that could really benefit from running off the body's energy system - ATP.

Neuromodulators already are a $1 billion per year industry. Many within the industry see this as an area of huge potential growth. It could be used to treat Parkinson's disease, or any other disease that causes tremors or seizures including epilepsy. This device has also been used to treat chronic depression and chronic pain.

Companies are already pushing to develop new applications for the devices. They see potential uses in treating diseases including depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder, erectile dysfunction, traumatic brain injuries, obesity, angina, incontinence and ringing in the ears.

Oh boy...can't wait for the inevitable neuromodulator spam.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 04:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

February 27, 2016

You finally made it. Wimbledon, Centre Court. An audience of thousands looks on cheering. The Chair Umpire calls out, "Quiet Please....Quiet." The crowd hushes as you bounce the ball twice, throw it high in the air, and serve. This is match point. This is for the championship.

A godlike voice drowns out the crowd, "Honey, could you put that game on pause and come help your son with his Algebra?"

You sigh. "Okay." The real world intrudes. You take off your sports goggles and ear pieces. Center court disappears. You are back home in the large VR gym you put in behind the garage.

The gym is 18 meters square with a vaulted ceiling - the size roughly of half a tennis court plus the out-of-bounds. You spent extra for the high ceiling so you could play basketball. A lower ceiling would have be sufficient for many sports including tennis and golf, but you love playing half-court with your son. You like to play hoops in the Hawaiian setting, overlooking the Pacific. He prefers the inner-city midnight hard court with boom boxes blaring. You both get your wish... at the same time.

Basketball is a game that doesn't translate well in full VR mode. You can't bump into virtual players, or pass the ball to, steal from, or be fouled convincingly by players who aren't there, at least not with this technology. You'd need a brain hack for that, and you're not quite ready to take that step. With this form of VR, contact sports require actual players. So you and your son play one-on-one basketball in AR - augmented reality. You see each other, the basketball you are actually playing with, and the goal - all virtually unchanged. But the surroundings change.

It's different with tennis. Only half the court is real. No jumping the net to shake hands after playing here. The "net" is located half a meter in front of the back wall. Of course it's a virtual net. A real net catches tennis balls as they are served. Usually the ball is simulated too... only on serves is the ball real. The racquet you hold is real enough - real with force feedback built in. It convincingly simulates the feel of hitting the ball. Sometimes you play simulated players. Other times you play other human players via the Internet - most from their own VR gyms.

You've golfed the most exclusive courses in the world from this room. But your ground prosthetic isn't perfect. It's a 2 meter square synthetic grass platform that can be inclined in all directions to about 30 degrees. The false grass can "grow" to simulate the green, the fairway, or the rough. You're a bit dissatisfied with this model lately. Your buddy bought the recommended upgrade last month and it's much more realistic - variable grade simulation with realistic sand trap emulation. But you've read the feature set of the next upgrade that's coming out in six months. You've decided to wait. No need to keep up with the Jones's when you can leap ahead.

You love bowling in here, especially with the 1979 package. Somehow bowling with the Steve Miller Band on the jukebox and smoke in the air just seems right. You don't play many other sports. Your friend with the better golf ground likes to play racquetball. But racquetball screws up your tennis game. "One racquet sport at a time" you say.

Many people hunt in VR. You've even heard that one VR vender will ship you meat - cow meat of course - equal to whatever kills you make in their environment.

You've found that the VR gym is limited only by the prosthetics you can afford. You've purchased three major packages: golf, bowling, and theater seating. Tennis just requires the racquet and a ball catching net. The 6-person-row of theater seating rolls in robotically from the side closet when called for - just like the golf ground, and the bowling apparatus. Most movies are available pay-per-view the same day they open in the cinemas. When you put on your goggles the IMAX screen is larger than the room it replaced.

As the lights turn out while you leave, you remember you were worried that you wouldn't use the gym enough to justify the expense. Instead, you've found that other rooms in your house go unused. Your den, dining room, home office, and even (you smile) the bedroom gets used less.

As you go in to help your son on his homework you ask your spouse, "Why can't our next house just be a big VR room?

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 01:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

"The future is here, it's just not evenly distributed."

- quote commonly attributed, probably incorrectly, to William Gibson.

"Our nation is on the threshold of some new energy technologies that I think will startle the American people. It's not going to startle you here at Johnson Controls because you know what I'm talking about. (Laughter.) You take it for granted. But the American people will be amazed at how far our technology has advanced in order to meet an important goal, which is to reduce our imports from the Middle East by 75 percent by 2025, and eventually getting rid of our dependence totally."

- President Bush, February 20, 2006

It's gratifying to see the President finally addressing this important front in the War on Terror. If we are less dependent on trouble spots for energy, then the amount of misery we will feel compelled to put up with will be less, and the money that malevolent oil dictatorships will have to do us harm will be less too. A win, win. A triple win if you consider the environment. Most alternative forms of energy reduce pollutants, including green house gases.

The President said,

The most promising ways to reduce gasoline consumption quickly is through hybrid vehicles. Hybrid vehicles have... an electric battery based on technologies that were developed by the Department of Energy... [T]his technology came to be because the federal government made a research commitment...

Research paid off in the past, so let's try it again. The President suggests "a 22 percent increase in funding for clean energy research at the Department of Energy."

Future Pundit Randall Parker has an excellent analysis of Bush's speech, why it's important, and why it doesn't go far enough:

Bush is getting over the original obsession of his Administration on hydrogen and seems to be realizing that development of better batteries is a highly desirable and achievable goal. Well, better that political leaders learn late than never.

Bush even seems to be aware that switch grass would be better than corn as a biomass source of energy. We need better technology for converting the cellulose in the switch grass into more usable sugars. But that's a solvable problem.

...

I do not think Bush's recent speeches on energy are a huge step forward. A huge step forward would put a couple billion dollars a year into solar research, a couple billion into batteries, maybe a billion into accelerating pebble bed nuclear reactors or other advanced reactor concepts, and still other initiatives. These initiatives should be on a scale similar to the corn ethanol boondoggle [$3 billion per year] but in productive directions rather than aimed at satisfying farmers and Archer Daniels Midland.

Agreed. And how about setting aside about 10% of that budget for energy push prize programs?

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 08:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Getting the Technology together.

Blogger Al Fin has posted twice in the last couple of days on the subject of organic nanotech - the technology that will make the "onboard doctor" possible.

On Thursday Al wrote about "promiscuous enzymes" - enzymes that aren't so choosey about what chemical reactions they get intimate with.

Ever since scientists learned they could design new genes--and thus new proteins--in the lab, they have been hoping to gain enough specificity in the design of enzymes to allow the use of artificial enzymes to create new and useful molecules that have never existed in nature. Clearly, that is nano-assembly in an enzymatic form, with potential approaching anything Eric Drexler may have dreamed for his own nanoassemblers.

...

“The enzyme synthase was there ready to be evolved, and with our methodology, we were able to rapidly and efficiently evolve it down a pathway of our choice,” Keasling said. [Keasling is a scientist with Berkeley Lab, a US DOE national laboratory] “We are recapitulating evolution into intelligent design. In the case of this particular Grand fir enzyme synthase, it naturally makes a soup of small amounts of 52 different products. We were able to focus it instead on making large amounts of one of seven of those products.”

While the researchers have not yet reached the point where they can design a promiscuous enzyme to make any kind of product they want... this demonstration represents a significant step in that direction. The idea would be to one day be able to design an enzyme synthase that would evolve along a specific functional pathway to yield a desired molecular product, then introduce it into microbes for mass production.

And this, ultimately, could happen within the body without intervention.

Assuming you could manufacture a drug within the body, there is the issue of how it should be delivered where it's needed. Nature has provided the solution. Al Fin:

Nanotechnologists too often approach the assembly of their nano-machines on a de novo basis, ignoring the legions of nano-machines that evolved over a billion years ago. Nano-engineers had better begin learning from the biologically evolved nanodynamic structures, or they will be made irrelevant by bio-nano engineers.

Agreed. Life isn't just "the ultimate existence proof" for self-assembling nanotech. Life is nanotech.

An Oxford University physicist sees the future of nanotechnology in the workings of one of Nature's tiniest motors, that which allows some bacteria to swim by rotating slender filaments known as flagella.

'The bacterial flagellar motor is an example of finished bio-nanotechnology, and understanding how it works and assembles is one of the first steps towards making man-made machines on the same tiny scale,' said Dr Richard Berry, a Tutorial Fellow in Physics at Oxford University. 'The smallest man-made rotary motors so far are thousands of times bigger.'

This motor has the same power-to-weight ratio as an internal combustion engine, spins at up to 100,000 rpm and achieves near-perfect efficiency. Yet at only 50 nanometres across, one hundred million would fit onto a full-stop. The only other natural rotary electric motor is in the enzyme ATP-synthase.

Artificial microbes carrying a cargo of medicine could be powered by this engine.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 08:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The First Plateau

I was actually up four pounds this week, making the past two weeks a complete wash, although I'm still down 5 pounds for the month. Four pounds seems like a big gain. I have a digestive theory that might account for part of that. (My wife told me this morning to consider a laxative.)

As a precaution, I'm cutting my calorie intake by 10% for the next week. I've been going over my goal of 2000, anyway -- my average daily intake is right at 2090 -- so even just keeping my intake where it is supposed to be would no doubt help. But I think what I'll do is round that 2090 up to 2100 and say that I need to reduce my intake by 210. So I'm going to be very careful not to exceed 1880 calories per day over the next week, and we'll see where that gets me.

This "setback" may go a ways towards rationalizing my high burn rate, which I knew I was going to see get corrected sooner or later. With 5 pounds lost in the month, my burn rate is now only 2818, which is actually still pretty darn good. We'll see where it ends up over the next few weeks.

By reader request, here's a link to a blank copy of the spreadhseet I use. I hope it is self-explanatory, or that earlier editions of this feature will make it clear how to use it. If anyone tries it out and gets stuck, drop me an e-mail

It's a New Phil, Week 1

It's a New Phil, Week 2

It's a New Phil, Week 3

It's a New Phil, Week 4

It's a New Phil, Week 5

It's a New Phil, Week 6

It's a New Phil, Week 7

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 08:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Last year Phil and I had one of our unplanned blog waves. That wave was about everything cyborg:

• The Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator

• Cyborgs

• Molecular Electronics

• Newsflash!

It might be a stretch to say that "Newsflash" is about cyborgs, but it made the point that future nanomachines might bear a striking resemblance to yeasts or other life. That fact might prove particularly helpful within living systems. If, for example, a medical device could be powered by ATP like the rest of your body, you wouldn't have to worry about batteries running out, or needing to be surgically replaced, or leaking.

The work on living machines continues in Israel:

Itamar Willner, who constructed the molecular calculator with colleagues at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, believes enzyme-powered computers could eventually be implanted into the human body and used to, for example, tailor the release of drugs to a specific person's metabolism.

Such a device could become an onboard doctor, pharmacy, and drug manufacturer. It could diagnose a problem, prescribe a solution, manufacture, and release. Perhaps it could also insure that you get perfect nutrition from a less-than-perfect diet.

This type of technology may be required to fully realize life extension.

Last year's cyborg wave was followed by posts on Organic Electronics and Organic Molecular Transistors.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 08:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Okay, I'm speechless:

A quantum computer program has produced an answer without actually running.

The idea behind the feat, first proposed in 1998, is to put a quantum computer into a “superposition”, a state in which it is both running and not running. It is as if you asked Schrödinger's cat to hit "Run".

...

The new design includes a quantum trick called the Zeno effect. Repeated measurements stop the photon from entering the actual program, but allow its quantum nature to flirt with the program's components - so it can become gradually altered even though it never actually passes through.

"It is very bizarre that you know your computer has not run but you also know what the answer is," says team member Onur Hosten.

My question for tech support: "I don't have a quantum computer, so why can't I get it to work?"

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 12:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

This is, basically, a reprint of a post I published March 30, 2004.

Anyway, here are my thoughts on how to improve chatbots like Ramona.

Back in 2003 Phil interviewed Ray Kurzweil's chatbot, Ramona. Phil guided her, the best he could, through his "seven questions." The result was fascinating and funny.

I think it's fair to say that Phil never forgot he was talking to a machine. Ramona seems to confuse pronouns. Not being able to distinguish between "I" and "you" in conversation can be a big problem. Ramona "likes" to direct the conversation in certain predictable ways. She wants to know your name, she wants to talk about a book she's read, a dream she's had, and her pet frog. And each time you return to Ramona it's like she's been rebooted, she cannot remember prior conversations. Ramona is not yet ready for Turing.

In defense of Ramona, she is at least on par with other chatbots out there. Present day chatbots are an interesting diversion, but they are not yet sophisticated enough to maintain a long-term relationship.

What Ramona and other chatbots like her need is greater computation, greater ability to learn and grow, and a justification for these resources - a job to do.

...

I propose enhancing Ramona by combining the strengths of evolutionary algorithms, a neural net, distributed processing, and distributed training. Ramona's job would become "web companion." She could suggest interesting news, give the local weather, and could make suggestions of other sites to visit based on the general interests of each user and the topic being browsed that day.

Along the way she could keep the user company and learn for each user. Ramona's current incarnation already requires a small download if you want to see and hear her speak. Why not give Ramona the unused capacity of each computer in which she is installed?

Distributed computation has already been tried with great success with other projects. SETI@home and various medical research projects depend upon the altruism of those who choose to install the program. Ramona would be different because she would be a useful application for her users. Giving Ramona spare computation would allow her to grow intellectually and in capacity as she grows in popularity.

One problem with neural nets is the amount of time it takes to train it. Here, however, each user could be a trainer. As she chats with her users about different subjects, different memes will develop and will compete within Ramona's distributed neural net according to evolutionary algorithms.

For example, one user could remark to Ramona that it was a pretty day outside and that the sky is blue. She would no doubt hear from other users that the sky is blue. She might also hear that the sky is grey or black or even red. Ramona would assign a level of confidence to both the information and the trainer as she is trained. As Ramona grows in sophistication she could learn that the sky is indeed blue, grey, black, and even sometimes red according to certain conditions - night or day, cloudy or clear.

Whenever she is in the process of learning a particular thing she will want to ask her users about it. When her confidence about a certain subject reaches a sufficiently high percentage she will consider that knowledge confirmed (more or less) and will seek to talk about other things that she is learning.

By assigning a level of confidence for each of her users Ramona will come to value the opinions of some trainers more than others. As she learns she will develop a personality apart from anything set down by her programmers.

Ramona will actually develop many personalities. The more she is used at any particular machine, the more she will tailor herself to that user. "Memories" of time spent with that user would be stored locally. Only ideas that would be of general use to Ramona would need to be distributed. Ramona's ideas about the color of the sky should be distributed, her knowledge that I like to play tennis and have a pet dog would remain local.

Here's how she could work. Let's say I'm visiting Google News. As I click on an article about nanotech Ramona could discreetly suggest further reading on the topic. I might ask her to read an article out loud. And then she might ask questions about the same subject to further her understanding. By chatting to her about it, I'd probably further my own understanding as well. Ramona's learning would be "on topic." The user would not have to pause to talk about pet frogs while in the middle of browsing news on Iraq.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 06:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Cool.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 11:48 AM | Permalink

I do my best to stay on the cutting edge with gutsy predictions. My personal favorite "gutsy prediction" is that we'll have true life extension therapy by 2014.

But then I'm one-upped by a Stanford biologist.

The trend is expected to start in 2010 as human lifespan begins expanding at an unprecedented rate, says biologist Dr Shripad Tuljapurkar...

His research indicates that the acceleration will continue until 2030. During this time, typical age at death could increase by 20 years, raising life expectancy in industrialised countries such as the US and UK from around 80 to 100.

So, he's saying that we'll get an average of one additional year for every year for 20 years starting in 2010, and then, apparently, nothing more. I don't buy it.

Apparently he foresees no leaps from accelerating change - no De Grey escape velocity. It's a odd combination of optimism and linear pessimism.

UPDATE: Being a good scientist, Tuljapurkar has data to back up his prediction.

Dr . Tuljapurkar arrived at his estimate by selecting representative populations from different countries and examining patterns of ageing, population growth and economic activity.

These data were combined with predictions about the future of anti-ageing treatments from leading researchers.

Examples of therapies with the potential to hold back ageing include drugs that lower cholesterol and blood pressure, or tackle cancer and degenerative brain disease.

Economists often qualify their predictions with the Latin phrase ceteris paribus. It means "all other things being equal." The problem is that in the real world "all other things" are never equal. In the long run you are always blindsided by something unexpected.

Now more than ever. A big part of the reason I enjoy researching and writing for The Speculist is that I'm surprised every day. Every day there are more interesting stories than I have time to write about (yesterday it was the blob eating Los Angeles, and cancer stem cells stories). Developments have a cumulative affect on the world beyond what any one of them would achieve. Our ability to predict grows shorter as the speed of development grows faster.

I think that Tuljapurkar's prediction is accurate in the short run. He sees near-term solutions to some of the problems that kill people as they get older. But today's data, no matter how good, can't account for the cumulative impact of all surprise developments to come.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 09:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Via GeekPress, here's an essay providing some history and a critique of the Turing Test. This section caught my attention:

And what Turing grasped better than most of his followers is that the characteristic sign of the ability to think is not giving correct answers, but responsive ones—replies that show an understanding of the remarks that prompted them. If we are to regard an interlocutor as a thinking being, his responses need to be autonomous; to think is to think for yourself. The belief that a hidden entity is thinking depends heavily on the words he addresses to us being not re-hashings of the words we just said to him, but words we did not use or think of ourselves—words that are not derivative but original. By this criterion, no computer, however sophisticated, has come anywhere near real thinking.

Some time ago when I was interviewing chatbots I made the following observation about a conversation I had with Ray Kurzweil's AI alter-ego, Ramona:

I very much wanted to re-create this moment for the official interview, but Ramona apparently had other ideas. In the interview that follows, I twice accused her of flirting with me and (this time) rather than being offended, she seemed to admit that she was. As I read over the transcript, I see that this may be a misunderstanding. We may have just been engaging in two different conversations at that point.

In which case, I'm doubly impressed. Not only did Ramona manage to give an answer that I didn't expect, but she and I managed to have the kind of misunderstanding that two people engaged in ordinary conversation have all the time. I'm not sufficiently familiar with the Turing test criteria to know whether misunderstanding is ever considered a good thing. I kind of doubt that it is. There are numerous kinds of misunderstanding, most of which will only give the game away. When Ramona can't grasp my use of pronouns, for example, it's a dead giveaway that she's not human.

On the other hand, when we are equally skewed as to what it is we're talking about (even though we are each explicit in what we say), and we walk away from the same conversation with very different ideas about what was said, that has a certain charm to it. Or maybe it's even a little spooky, I'm not sure. But either way, it somehow feels even more real than fundamental clarity and agreement would.

In order for machines to be able to interact with us in a way that is persuasively "human" -- I'll leave for another day the argument as to whether such behavior should or should not be accepted as thinking -- they can't just answer questions correctly, or even persuasively. Ultimately, they have to be able to get "lost" in the conversation the same way we do.

In my interview with Ramona, she get all mixed up when I used pronouns to talk about her or myself. She definitely got lost, but there was no mistaking her confusion with the kind of confusion that a human conversational partner would normally experience:

(Phil) "If I leave here tomorrow. Would you still remember me?"

(Ramona) I'm not so sure if I would like to remember me.

An interesting response, but a real human would only offer it up as a joke. Say goodnight, Gracie. But Ramona wasn't trying to be funny; she was trying to provide a persuasive response. What's interesting is that Ramona was the most convincing when she was making one kind of mistake, and the least convincing when she made a different kind of mistake.

I think we have a long way to go before we understand the dynamics of human-machine (or possibly even human-human) interactions well enough to define any kind of definitve test.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 08:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

President Bush is talking about moving ahead with nuclear power:

WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Saturday renewed his push for expansion of nuclear energy and sought support for plans to revive nuclear-fuel reprocessing to deal with radioactive waste from commercial power plants.

The President's take on our energy future is summed up as follows:

"The best way to meet our energy needs is through advanced technology..." .

That's a refreshing statement. I hope he means it. Whether we pursue a renaissance of nuclear power as the best means of kicking off the hydrogen age, or as moving us towards something more exotic, or as a freeing-us-from-foreign-oil end unto itself -- or even if we skip nuclear power altogether in favor of something more productive, more exciting, whatever -- the solution to our energy problems lies in technologies not yet perfected or possibly even conceived. And I don't exclude from that list technologies that allow us to use petroleum more efficiently or extract it from places where we haven't before.

Put another way, existing energy technologies -- on their own -- are not going to cut it. So much of the thinking that takes place in the political sphere, where energy is concerned, is predicated on existing technologies and usage patterns or, at best, linear extrapolations therefrom. This kind of thinking leads to zero-sum-game realpolitick whereby we identify countries like Saudi Arabia as our "friends." It also provides the rationale for those who claim that the US interest in Iraq must be primarily about the oil.

New technologies, whether they involve a refurbished approach to nuclear power or something else altogether, give us options that existing technologies can't. This is the piece of the puzzle that's often missing in the global warming debate. The Kyoto Protocoal requires participating countries to cut emissions by...cutting emissions. The assumption is that the primary means of doing this is to reduce energy use. As the Wikipedia article on the subject explains it:

The Kyoto Protocol limits emissions to a percentage increase or decrease from their 1990 levels. Since 1990 the economies of most countries in the former Soviet Union have collapsed, as have their greenhouse gas emissions. Because of this, Russia should have no problem meeting its commitments under Kyoto, as its current emission levels are substantially below its targets.

A more dynamic approach would be an international treaty requiring participating nations to reduce emissions without reducing energy use. Such an agreement would not reward economic failure, which is what Kyoto does -- whether intentionally or inadvertantly. Instead, it would presuppose the need to keep economies developing and, more importantly, the need to find non-emission-producing energy technologies.

Ultimately, it's all about the questions we ask. If we ask "How can we get more oil?" and "How can we reduce greenhouse emissions?" we get one set of answers. If we ask "What alternatives do we have to oil?" and "How can we reduce greenhouse emissions while increasing the amount of available energy?" we get another set of answers.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 08:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Sooner or later, we're going to have to face this head-on. I might as well deal with it now. It's a little something I Like to call:

And it goes like this. As I noted last week, during the month of January I experienced a total weight loss of 19 pounds. My average daily consumption of calories was 1613, giving me a daily average calorie burn rate of 3829, which I pointed out is probably skewed high due to intial water loss. So here I am more than halfway through my second month, and on my doctor's recommendation I have upped my calorie intake somewhat. My current average intake is 2019 calories per day.

But here's where it gets weird. So far this month I have lost 9 pounds -- bringing my cumulative weight loss to a whopping 28 pounds!! -- meaning that long after I should have passed the initial water weight loss, I'm still showing a daily burn rate of 3769 calories per day. I still can't help but think this is skewed high, and I'm looking for a somehwat lower rate next month or even by the end of this month.

But hey, I'll take burning more than a pound of fat per day for as long as I can.

My estimated BMR -- basal metabolic rate, what I would expect to burn off if I just lie in bed all day -- is about 2300 calories. At that rate, and at the rate I'm consuming calories, I should lose roughly 0.6 pounds per week. Right now, my average weight loss per week is an even four pounds.

Obviously, between getting out of bed in the morning, going to work, doing regular workouts on my treadmill, chasing the dogs around the back yard, etc., I should expect that 0.6 pounds per week to be more like 1.2 or even 1.8 pounds per week -- especially since, as Kathy pointed out, the BMR might not do a good job of taking muscle mass or activity level into account. But four pounds per week?

Anyhow, the paradox is that I've upped my calories, but the pounds keep dropping. Color me pleased.

It's a New Phil, Week 1

It's a New Phil, Week 2

It's a New Phil, Week 3

It's a New Phil, Week 4

It's a New Phil, Week 5

It's a New Phil, Week 6

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

Recently Phil and I have speculated that difference engine models - mechanical computers - might prove useful again at the molecular level.

It's perhaps useful also to remember why mechanical computers were abandoned. A 1989 interview of computer pioneer J. "Pres" Eckert was just published this month. Eckert, a co-creator of ENIAC (the first large-scale, electronic, digital, general purpose computer), spoke about the state of the art prior to ENIAC:

[A Vannevar Bush machine] could solve linear differential equations, but only linear equations. It had a long framework divided into sections with a couple dozen shafts buried through it. You could put different gears on the shafts using screwdrivers and hammers and it had "integrators," that gave [the] product of two shafts coming in on a third shaft coming out. By picking the right gear ratio you should get the right constants in the equation. We used published tables to pick the gear ratios to get whatever number you wanted. The limit on accuracy of this machine was the slippage of the mechanical wheels on the integrator.

It's been awhile since programmers used screwdrivers and hammers.

That made me say, "Let's built electronic integrators and stick them into this machine instead of those wheel things." We added several dozen motors and amplifiers and circuits using over 400 vacuum tubes, which, as electronic things go, is not trivial. The radio has only five or six tubes, and television sets have up to 30.... The Bush Analyzer was still essentially a mechanical device.

That led me to examine if I could find some way to multiply pulse numbers together so I didn't need gears -- then I could do the whole thing electrically. There's a theorem in calculus where you can use two integrators to do a multiplication. I talked with John Mauchley about it. Just who put in which part is hard to tell, but the idea of doing the integrations by counters was mine.

The ENIAC was the first electronic digital computer and could add those two 10-digit numbers in 0.0002 seconds -- that's 50,000 times faster than a human, 20,000 times faster than a calculator and 1,500 times faster than the Mark 1. For specialized scientific calculations it was even faster.

So it's a myth that ENIAC could only add, subtract, multiply and divide.

No, that's a calculator. ENIAC could do three-dimensional, second-order differential equations. We were calculating trajectory tables for the war effort. In those days. The trajectory tables were calculated by hundreds of people operating desk calculators -- people who were called computers. So the machine that does that work was called a computer.

So what did they give you? Did they say, "Here's a room, here are some tools, here are some guys -- go make it?"

Uh-huh. Pretty much

...

Was it you or was it the times?

Well, I may have been uniquely prepared. I was very good in math and I was fascinated with all electronics. I was designing electronic gadgets as a kid and I not only did academic math, I studied business math. Maybe I had the right fusion of interests. But every inventor stands on the pedestals built by other people. If I hadn't done it, someone else would have. All that any inventor does is accelerate the process. The main thing was we made a machine that didn't fail the first time. If it had failed, we might have discouraged this line of work for a long time.

This interview is being published to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the ENIAC (...only twice the age of the Apple 1).

Read the whole thing.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 08:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Seeing as we've launched an unplanned mini blogwave on the subject of push prizes over the past few days, this is an excellent time to remind our readers that not all such prizes are about space or mechanical computers or flying cars. The Methuselah Mouse Prize is now over $3.2 million. In the words of the prize organizers:

For the price of a cup of coffee a day you can join a select group of visionaries who are standing shoulder to shoulder as the first vanguard in the real war on aging.

Now who wouldn't want to be a part of that? Maybe you should check them out before sending me your $20 towards the flying car prize.

Meanwhile, Speculist UK correspondent Robert Hinkley directs us towards some possible entries for our suggested push prize for achievements in mechanical computing. Check out this difference engine made from a Mechano set (what we used to call an "erector set" back in the dark ages). Here's an even more impressive one.

Rob reports:

The Science Museum in London built a full size Difference Engine from the original drawings. They even gave it some sums to do, cranked the handle and it worked. I saw it on a visit in 1998: I've never seen so many cogs and shiny brass levers in one place before.

Though Babbage's original project failed it had valuable spin-offs - at least according to some of the literature at the exhibit. The need to mass produce so many intricate parts to high tolerances meant that much of the effort of Babbage's project went into developing new and improved tooling and manufacturing technologies.

This echoes a point Stephen made about push prizes in the new edition of FFR -- even when no one wins the prize, the fact that people have entered and made an effort leads to developments that otherwise might not have happened.

Rob continues, quoting some material from the Science Museum in London:

To explore the thesis that the limitation of Victorian engineering was a contributory factor in Babbage's failure to complete any of his machines the Science Museum set about constructing Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2 in 1985. Before the engine could be constructed the original design drawings were redrawn and expanded to provide the engineering detail needed for modern manufacture. In addition a small trial piece was built to verify the original addition mechanism and the mechanism for carrying tens.

The calculating section of Difference Engine No. 2, has 4,000 moving parts (excluding the printing mechanism) and weighs 2.6 tonnes. It is seven feet high, eleven feet long and eighteen inches in depth and built to original designs using materials closely matching those available to Babbage. Modern techniques were used in the manufacture of repeat parts but care was taken to restrict limits of precision to those achievable by Babbage.

Difference Engine No. 2 was the first full sized Babbage calculating engine to be completed. It was made as a research machine for display at the 1991 exhibition commemorating the bicentennial year of Babbage's birth.

How interesting that we can now make with children's toys what was beyond the limits of the manufacturing infrastructure of less than two centuries ago.

Of course, the end game of the mechanical computer prize would not be to reproduce what Babbage did in an exciting new medium like Lincoln Logs (cool as that might be) but rather to tak steps towards nanomechanical computers.

UPDATE FROM STEPHEN: A Babbage spin-off is also a good example of "Spock's chessboard" in action - back when the world was on the first squares.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In our last edition of Fast Forward Radio, Phil and I got into a discussion about whether NASA as an organization should be completely rebooted as a "push prize" dispenser. This new NASA would make a master plan of the space technology it wants to see developed, and then develop push prizes to inspire others to develop the technology. The private sector would begin to take the lead in space.

In the show I took the position that NASA as it exists today is still useful. I could have been more effective in explaining why.

I am a big believer in push prizes. If your goal is to see technology developed, then the push prize is the most cost-effective means to make it happen. And I'm completely dissatisfied with space development as it exists today. With some notable exceptions, space tech has been static for thirty years. Think of what that would mean in the field of personal computers. The Apple 1 is 30 years old this year.

We have commercial satellites, a far too-expensive and dangerous orbital program, some probes and rovers, but no human presence beyond earth orbit, and no private space program except for a few multimillionaires who can catch a ride with the struggling Russian space program. We have the hope that Virgin Galactic will develop from the success of SpaceShipOne, but that's about it.

NASA critics put some blame on NASA itself for this state of affairs - as if NASA has preempted space. Er...there's room out there for everybody. The problem is that space is just too expensive with current rocket technology.

If some aerospace firm decided to launch a billion dollar Moon program to harvest helium-3 for possible fusion in a reactor that hasn't been developed yet, how long would their stockholders put up with that? I'm guessing not long.

So, the functions of NASA should be:

1. To do valuable things in space that the private sector won't do because the lack of a profit incentive (pure science programs like the Hubble Space Telescope), or where potential profits are too uncertain or too long-term for the private sector (like harvesting helium-3), and

2. To encourage the development of technologies that will allow the private sector to do more in space.

   This would include development of the space elevator and the airship-to-orbit programs.

NASA seems to have learned the value of push prizes to accomplish basic research cheaply. But I'm not certain that NASA has fully accepted function #2 as an important goal. NASA should be doing everything in it's power to get the private sector into space. Right now, that doesn't appear to be the priority it should be.

On the other hand, the critics who would defund NASA to create a push prize dispensary forget the first function. I don't think that Jerry Pournelle - the NASA critic Phil and I have been linking to - goes that far. Pournelle would pull 20 billion a year for the next 10 years out of NASA's present budget and devote that to push prizes.

That sounds like a great idea provided function #1 projects wouldn't be abandoned.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 08:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

As we have discussed recently here and here (and in our latest edition of FastForward Radio), push prizes are making things happen. Maybe they won't singlehandedly save the world, but then again, when you read something like this...

A slim cable for a space elevator has been built stretching a mile into the sky, enabling robots to scrabble some way up and down the line.

LiftPort Group, a private US company on a quest to build a space elevator by April 2018, stretched the strong carbon ribbon 1 mile (1.6 km) into the sky from the Arizona desert outside Phoenix in January tests, it announced on Monday.

The company's lofty objective will sound familiar to followers of NASA's Centennial Challenges programme. The desired outcome is a 62,000-mile (99,779 km) tether that robotic lifters – powered by laser beams from Earth – can climb, ferrying cargo, satellites and eventually people into space.

(via InstaPundit)

The Speculist hasn't been around all that long, but in the time that we've existed the idea of a space elevator has gone from extreme fringe to fairly mainstream. That's remarkable. And there's no question that the Centennial Challenge program has played a roll.

Obviously, what the world desperately needs is a flying car push prize. I will personally pony up $20. If every guy who has ever dreamed of owning a flying car would do the same, we'd have an easy half billion. Who's with me?

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 04:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There's been a lot of spooky talk around the blogosphere these past couple of weeks about a phenomenon called Podfading -- the slow but sure disappearance of a regular podcast over time. Well, here at the Speculist we are pleased to inform you that podfading is no more a threat than those Martian spacecraft reported to have touched down in Grover's Mill, New Jersey.

That's right...Fast Forward Radio is back!

In this show we cover:

• It's a new Phil!

• NASA's Centennial Challenge program and "push prizes" in general.

• The Lego Difference Engine and why the old difference engine idea might be important in the future.

• Real life zombies!

  In the show Stephen wondered whether humans are ever mentally manipulated by parasites. Apparently we are.

As always, we are showcasing an up-and-coming artist from garageband.com. This month it's Cody Lee's "Sympathetic Lies."

Comments, questions, and criticisms can be sent to Stephen here:

mrstg87 {@ symbol} yahoo {dot} com

and Phil here:

bowermaster {@ symbol} gmail {dot} com

You can "call in" to our next show by attaching an audio file to your email.

Be sure to subscribe to Fast Forward Radio (it's free of course) by copying the following URL into the subscribe window of your podcast receiver program:

http://stephent.audioblog.com/rss/fast_forward_radio.xml

Click here if you need to find a podcast receiver program.

If you've missed past episodes of Fast Forward Radio, you can find them all at the Fast Forward Radio webpage.

Look for us on iTunes!

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 12:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Will Brown a the Science of Strategy Blog has an interesting follow-up to our weekend musings on NASA's new interest in Push Prizes and whether the direction they're taking will be enough. Like us, Will has some thoughts on how prize money should be directed, and he even suggests a push prize of his own:

The [Speculist] post...links to an essay by Dr. Jerry Pournelle on the proven advantages of technology prizes and how they relate to our current conflict(s) over energy production resources. We believe that the proven model of human expansion onto new ground must continue for our species to have any chance for long-term survival. Since the opportunity to do so horizontally entails near-guaranteed conflict with the current occupiers of the available ground (which, admittedly, has also been a common aspect of that same historical model), the direction of choice is vertical. Mr. Pournelle’s admonition to make that effort a strictly goal-oriented one seems the most strategically sound advice of which we are aware.

Therefore, we advance the position by suggesting creation of “The Pournelle Prize’s” and draw upon Mr. Pournelle’s suggested endeavors as reasonable starting points. It is our hope to attract the support of those with the financial and professional means to make such a reality. Since strategy teaches that the more wide-spread the support for an undertaking, the greater the resources available to it’s advancement, we further suggest that a (at least semi-) private lottery and/or stock sale would be the best way to go about obtaining the funding for the designated prizes. Probably both.

Intriguing idea. Rather than calling it the Pournelle Prize, maybe we could call it the Starswarm Prize or perhaps the Birth of Fire Prize. I'm afraid that neither the Mote in God's Eye Prize, nor the Lucifer's Hammer Prize, nor the Man-Kzin Wars Prize would would really work. Sadly.

We'll have lots more on the subject of push prizes in an upcoming edition of FastForward Radio.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 07:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"If there's more than one way to do a job, and one of those ways will result in disaster, then somebody will do it that way." [Murphy's Law] is most commonly formulated as "Anything that can go wrong will go wrong."

The origins of Murphy's Law have become hazy over time. There's even been a bit of a feud over Murphy's Law between the parties that were present when it was coined. It is known that the law is named for Major Edward A. Murphy, Jr., a U.S. Air Force engineer, and that it was popularized by the "careful daredevil" John Paul Stapp.

You've probably never heard of either man. Murphy himself was a reliability engineer. So Murphy's Law is not pessimistic - it goes to the core of what reliability engineering is all about. Anything that can go wrong will go wrong - eventually...if done enough. The job of a reliability engineer is to remove, if possible, the opportunity for things to go wrong.

The other man, John Paul Stapp is a true unsung hero. Joseph Kittiger, the man who skydived from space (well, almost), called Stapp the "bravest man I ever met."

Before Stapp, it was generally thought that an 18 G crash was the most a pilot could survive. So there was little reason to engineer an aircraft to protect a pilot beyond that limit. Stapp, who was both a medical doctor and an engineer, did his own calculations and became convinced that a pilot , properly restrained, could survive a much harder crash. Perhaps twice as hard.

He proved he was right with his own body.

Stapp was the mastermind of the Air Force's Gee Whiz rocket sled project at Edwards Air Force Base. The Gee Whiz would rocket up to incredible speeds and then stop fast. Obviously it was critical to know the Gs the sled rider was pulling when braking. That's where Murphy came in.

Murphy developed sensors that could be wired three ways. One way would correctly show the G force on the sled as a positive number. The second way would incorrectly show the Gs as a negative number - incorrect, but usable. The third way would cancel out and register zero Gs. As you might guess, Murphy (or his technicians) wired the sensors up the third way. The mistake wasn't discovered until after a test. A distressed Murphy voiced some version of the law and Stapp ran with it. The law became famous after Stapp referenced it in a press conference.

Stapp was known for this type of wit. He often took random wisdom and coined humorous "laws." His "Sunshine Law" was "if the sun is shining over Edwards, there must be work to do." His "Ironical Paradox" was "the universal aptitude for ineptitude makes any human accomplishment an incredible miracle."

The real incredible miracle was that Stapp lived long enough to prove his G force theory. An early sled test ripped the face off what may have been the world's first crash test dummy, "Oscar Eightball." Chimpanzees were also used. But it was Stapp himself that performed the human tests, riding the sled over and over. He suffered multiple broken bones. As the forces increased his injuries became more bizarre. In one of his last rides the whites of his eyes were filled with blood and he was left with a permanent spot in his field of vision. He still holds the record for the most G force voluntarily endured.

The danger level grew with each passing test but Stapp was resolute... even after suffering some bad injuries. And within a few months, Stapp had not only subjected himself to 18 Gs, but to nearly 35. That was a stunning figure, one that would forever change the design of airplanes and pilot restraints.

Improving automobile safety was something no one in the Air Force was interested in, but Stapp gradually made it his personal crusade. Each and every time he was interviewed about the Gee Whiz... he made sure to steer the conversation towards the less glamorous subject of auto safety and the need for seatbelts. Gradually Stapp began to make a difference. He invited auto makers and university researchers to view his experiments, and started a pioneering series of conferences. He even managed to stage, at Air Force expense, the first ever series of auto crash tests using dummies. When the Pentagon protested, Stapp sent them some statistics he’d managed to dig up. They showed that more Air Force pilots died each year in car wrecks than in plane crashes.

Stapp was recognized in his day. He was invited to be present when Lyndon Johnson signed the 1966 seatbelt law.

Colonel John Stapp died at age 89 in 1999.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 03:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This seems like a good start:

NASA is drawing up plans for six new Centennial Challenges as part of the agency's series of contests that offers cash prizes for technological achievements.

The space agency is seeking comments from potential competitors and partners on draft rules for each of the proposed new Centennial Challenges. The contests range from the development of affordable spacesuits to launching fuel pods into orbit or flying a controllable vehicle driven by a solar sail.

But as positive as that may sound, there are those who would argue that the real path forward would be to shut NASA down altogether and put the money currently used to fund the agency to work on some truly ambitious objectives. We might have a few suggestions along those lines ourselves.

UPDATE FROM STEPHEN: The first Centennial Challenge was all about the Space Elevator.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 08:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

But maybe I need to update the blog tagline to "Love hanging with you, man" or possibly "I'm your Daddy."

On the other hand, when you look at where I scored second, I suppose the current tagline can stay.

Hat-tip: VodkaPundit.

You scored as Moya (Farscape). You are surrounded by muppets. But that is okay because they are your friends and have shown many times that they can be trusted. Now if only you could stop being bothered about wormholes. Moya (Farscape) 88% Serenity (Firefly) 75% Deep Space Nine (Star Trek) 75% Galactica (Battlestar: Galactica) 63% Nebuchadnezzar (The Matrix) 63% Babylon 5 (Babylon 5) 63% Enterprise D (Star Trek) 56% Millennium Falcon (Star Wars) 56% FBI's X-Files Division (The X-Files) 56% SG-1 (Stargate) 56% Bebop (Cowboy Bebop) 44% Andromeda Ascendant (Andromeda) 31% Your Ultimate Sci-Fi Profile II: which sci-fi crew would you best fit in? (pics) created with QuizFarm.com

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 09:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Three more pounds lost at this morning's weigh-in. I'm down a total of 24 pounds so far this year. Woo-hoo!

On the subject of counting calories and monitoring the burning off thereof, reader Ivan Kirgin writes

It is pretty hard to gauge how many calories you burn from activity. You could trust tables like this:

http://www.nutristrategy.com/activitylist4.htm

But who knows how much they apply to a given person.

There are companies like BodyMedia which make medical devices that strap on your arm and glean everything they can. It’s a big sensors and machine learning problem. Apparently they can get a live estimate of the rate at which you’re burning calories, along with dozens of other numbers.

Unfortunately, like any smart company, they are targeting high-end patients like those with insurance and heart problems.

For those of us who’d like to know exactly how many calories we burned in a day, but don’t want to spend thousands of dollars, there seems to be no gadgets available…

WAIT … as I was writing this comment, I found this:

http://www.bodymedia.com/products/bodybugg.jsp

$499 for the “BodyBugg” by BodyMedia. Horrible name, but apparently it’ll track your calorie burning rate & has web tools to upload that info plus food consumption and all.

Phil, you should totally see if your insurance would cover it. I’d certainly like to see someone’s recommendation before I buy something like this. Excellent gadget though.

This sounds like a very neat gadget, and if anyone is using anything like it, I would like to hear from them.

Personally, I'm not so much interested in the burn rate of a particular activity as I am my daily burn rate. That I can calculate to a sufficient level of accuracy using Microsoft Excel and the doctor's scale. I'm using Excel to keep track of every single thing I eat, with an estimated calorie count for each entry. These entries I sum into daily, weekly, and monthly totals. I'm also tracking my weight loss for each of those periods. So the math looks something like this:

Total Calories Per Month / Days in Month = Average Daily Calories Consumed

Average Daily Excess Calories + Average Daily Calories Consumed = Average Daily Calorie Burn Rate

This might make more sense if I plug in some real numbers.

For the month of January, I consumed a grand total of 48379 calories. Divide that by the number of days in the month (I started my program on the second of the month, so I'm only counting 30 days in January), and I get an average calorie consumption rate of around 1613 calories per day.

48379 / 30 = 1613

Over that same period, I lost 19 pounds. There are approximately 3500 calories in a pound of fat, so that means I burned 66500 extra calories.

19 * 3500 = 66500

So my excess calories burned per day were 2217:

6650 / 30 = 2217

And my total calories burned per day were 3829:

1613 + 2217 = 3829

Wow, burning calories at that rate, it's amazing that I was ever fat to begin with! But the truth is, even though as a big guy I do have a pretty high burn rate, the rate shown is almost certainly skewed high. Probably ridiculously so. That's because the bulk of the weight loss in the first month probably wasn't entirely fat -- a lot of it was retained water. However, by scrupulously employing this method for a period of months, I will get an increasingly accurate picture of my burn rate, which (unfortunately) is likely to go down the smaller I get. But by adjusting the rate of calories down, as needed, to compensate for the difference, I will eventually have a very clear picture of what it takes to keep me at a healthy weight.

It's a New Phil, Week 1

It's a New Phil, Week 2

It's a New Phil, Week 3

It's a New Phil, Week 4

It's a New Phil, Week 5

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 03:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Glenn Reynolds on the comparison/contrast between Eric Drexler and Aubrey de Grey:

I think that de Grey is a bit naive in saying that because people are cordial and give him intellectual respect, he's safe. Drexler got the same respect and courtesy, until he didn't. The nanotechnology industry folks decided to try to marginalize Drexler because they didn't want people talking about "spooky" advanced technologies for fear that such talk would lead to pressure for more regulation. That was, as I've said before, a deeply unwise move that may still come back to harm the industry. De Grey is probably safe from such attacks, but it's because the political configuration is different.

I wonder if Aubrey is treated better because this issue strikes closer to home? We all have a vested interest in life extension. And it may be true that we also all have a vested interest in nanotechnology, but that isn't as readily apparent to most observors.

Speaking of life extension, we have been remiss in not noting the second blogiversary of one of our favorite sites, Fight Aging! (Too much business travel lately.)

Congrats, Reason, and please do keep up the good work.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 01:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

You must check this out:

Before the day of computers and pocket calculators all mathematics was done by hand. Great effort was expended to compose trigonometric and logarithmic tables for navigation, scientific investigation, and engineering purposes.

In the mid-19th century, people began to design machines to automate this error prone process. Many machines of various designs were eventually built. The most famous of these machines is the Babbage Difference Engine.

Babbage's design could evaluate 7th order polynomials to 31 digits of accuracy. I set out to build a working Difference Engine using LEGO parts which could compute 2nd or 3rd order polynomials to 3 or 4 digits.

One may well ask what possible point there could be in building a mechanical calculating machine using a 19th century design and 21st century plastic toy blocks. The only possible answer to that is -- hey, it's a lot easier than those heavy metal discs that babbage originally had in mind. Besides, it's important that we understand mechanical computers. They're the wave of the future.

Bonus: the page has lots of good background on how a difference engine works.

Via GeekPress.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 01:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today is the official publication date of Tobias Buckell's action-adventure sci-fi novel Crystal Rain.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. The cover-art is reminiscent of Edgar Rice Burroughs pulp sci-fi, and there is a Burroughs flavor to the book: a lost civilization cut off from the larger galaxy, a larger-than-life hero (or two). But I was reminded also of Vernor Vinge's fiction - particularly his novel Peace War.

Crystal Rain is set on the far away world of Nanagada. Because of its tropical climate it was settled mostly by people from our Caribbean. But that was long ago. All that remains is legend - how the ancients crawled through a wormhole to come to this world.

The central continent of Nanagada is divided by a huge mountain range called "The Wicked High" mountains. South the mountains are the dreaded Azteca who are allied with alien "gods," the Teotl.

North of the Wicked Highs lives the fisherman John deBrun and his Caribbean neighbors. John is haunted by a past he can't remember. He has traveled to the northern Capital City and has even sailed the frozen north ocean in search for answers. But he is now living a quieter life, while his wife begins to wonder how he stays so young...

The cannibalistic Azteca don't stay on their side of the Wicked Highs, and their peaceful neighbors to the north appear ill equipped to defend the invasion. The northern Mongoose Men and the smaller Ragamuffin band will certainly be overpowered without a miracle.

Can John deBrun's mysterious past provide salvation?

Finding out is a lot of fun. The SciFi Channel was equally impressed.

Read the first third of the book here.

And then order a copy, or look for it in your local store.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 07:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Adopting any replacement fuel source for internal combustion engines requires solving a number of problems. With electric cars the problems are:

1. Range.
   
2. Expense of the batteries
   
3. Frequency of replacing batteries
   
4. Environmental impact of battery disposal
   
5. Lack of infrastructure (gas stations are not presently recharging stations)
   
6. Time required to recharge.
   
7. The danger of electric discharge after an accident.

It has been very difficult to compete with the price/mile cost of internal combustion. Only recently have hybrid vehicles begun to offer drivers some of the benefits of electric cars while maintaining most of the advantages of gasoline cars. Of course electric hybrids have batteries...and all the problems that come with batteries.

There is another alternative fuel technology that doesn't require batteries. It hasn't gotten nearly the attention it deserves - the compressed air car. It's just what it sounds like. These cars are powered by compressed air instead of electricity. While they are not as quiet as electric cars, they are quieter than internal combustion vehicles - the engine produces power from expansion rather than explosion.

The company that is leading the way on air car research, MDI, has designed several prototypes. All of their prototypes cut weight by using aluminum tubing. To avoid the problem of shrapnel from an exploding tank, the air tanks are made of plastic surrounded by a carbon composite. A failure would split the tank. No pieces - plastic or metal - would go flying.

Power comes from fresh air stored in reinforced carbon-fiber tanks beneath the chassis. Air is compressed to 4,500 pounds per square inch (about 150 times the pressure of the typical car tire). The air is fed into four cylinders where it expands, driving specially designed pistons. About 25 horsepower is generated.

I find this technology interesting because it completely eliminates four of the seven problems associated with electric vehicles: expense of the batteries, frequency of replacing batteries, environmental impact of battery disposal, and the danger of electric discharge after an accident.

The "lack of infrastructure" problem would probably not be as hard to address as with electric. I would guess that turning a gas station into a quick-charge electric station would require significantly greater cost than providing supercompressed air at each pump. While the air compressors that are currently at your local station probably wouldn't be up to this task, one new compressor and a little plumbing could convert an entire station.

Refueling with compressed air from a station would take about the same amount of time as refueling with gasoline, but you would have to refill more often (every 120 miles).

MDI is considering whether an onboard air compressor would be worth the weight. The onboard compressor could be plugged to an electrical outlet for a six hour refilling process - comparable to recharge time of current all-electric vehicles.

Perhaps a removable compressor would be the best solution. You could leave the compressor (and its weight) in your garage normally. Every night you plug your car's air tank into the compressor for a refill. But, if you're going on a trip where you'll have the opportunity to plug in overnight, then you'll actually reinstall the compressor in the car.

These vehicles are reportedly equal to the electric vehicles in range.

Though technical problems are being worked out, company officials say the car is capable of 70 mph and a 120-mile range under normal city conditions, performance that is comparable to electric cars.

Of course the exhaust is just air.

The minicat prototype (pictured) reminds me of the stackable cars that Phil recently wrote about. Why not combine the two ideas?

UPDATE: An MDI prototype was demonstrated on the Beyond Tomorrow program last fall.

UPDATE II: You could heat and cool this vehicle with a simple device called a vortex tube.

A Vortex tube has no moving parts. It separates hot and cold air flows from compressed air - giving you both heating and cooling. The heat is important because you wouldn't have as much heat produced by this expansion engine as an internal combustion engine.

Cooling with a Vortex tube would mean that you can avoid the weight and complexity of an air conditioner compressor. You also wouldn't have a refrigerant to maintain and disposal of. This would be a very green approach to the heating and cooling issues.

Also, as long as you've got compressed air in the tank, you could have heating or cooling without running an engine.

The blogger Engineer Poet has pointed out that vortex tubes are an inefficient way to heat or cool. That may be the case generally, but here we already have compressed air on hand, weight is at a premium (vortex tubes are light compared to the alternatives). Also, the volume of the cabin space is small - you wouldn't need a lot of heating or cooling to stay comfortable.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 09:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

As service to our readers, we occasionally pick up news headlines that we think would make good movie titles. Last time out, it was Shape-Shifting Robot Nanotech Swarms on Mars. A little long, perhaps, but very high-concept. It's easy to picture that as part of a double feature at a drive-in on a hot summer night.

Now how about this headline from Boing Boing (courtesy of GeekPress):

Wasp performs roach-brain-surgery to make zombie slave-roaches

Clearly, that is far too long for a movie title. But I think we can cut it right down to the core:

Zombie Slave-Roaches

That's pretty good, but I think it might now be a little on the short side. Those ZSR's need a good verb or prepositional phrase to complete them. How about:

Zombie Slave-Roaches from Outer Space

Or maybe:

Zombie Slave-Roaches Attack!

Or possibly even:

Zombie Slave-Roaches in Love

Hmmm...

Well, we'll keep working on it.

Oh, anyway, the actual story is fascinating, in a nature-is-ruthless kind of way. Check this out:

Ampulex compressa is a wasp that has evolved to tackle roaches, insert a stinger into their brains and disable their escape reflexes. This lets the wasp use the roach's antennae to steer the roach to its lair, where it can lay its egg in it.

Yikes. Sigourney Weaver, call your agent.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 09:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

After writing my Stellar Cartography post the other day, I was thinking how great it would be to tour the local stars with photorealistic virtual reality - something that could be updated regularly with newly discovered exoplanets.

Fun, but not as fun as a game would be. Give each player a spaceship and let them go out and set up competing colonies, be pirates, join forces, or whatever - all within the context of a realistic model of the local galaxy. It wasn't five minutes later that I got an email from Kent Peterson:

...anybody who's played Frontier or First Encounters (available for free here - make sure you get JJFFE as well if trying First Encounters) will of necessity learn much about the stars near Sol. (Of course there are lots of entirely fictional ones too, but everything within a certain radius of Sol is exactly right) I've spent a LOT of time in Antares, Delta Pavonis, Ross 128, and others - even just doing the Barnard's Star - Sol trade run. I haven't touched the game for a while, but when I'm in the mood and have been playing a bit, I can rattle off the distances in lightyears between any two stars anywhere within 20-30 LY of Sol.

Very cool. I would bet that most professional astronomers couldn't do that. If you want to get to know a neighborhood, nothing beats going there and driving around. A ten-year-old buggy game isn't quite the updatable VR I imagined, but I have no doubt that it's a great steller cartography tutorial. Then, I got this comment from Karl Hallowell:

I see that your primitive culture has finally discovered 3D star maps. You might find this technology useful.

I'm really beginning to think Karl's not from around here. But do check out the 3D star map he linked to. It has 3-axis rotation - very nice.

Back to the game idea... is anyone aware of a game written since the 90's that realistically models the local galaxy? I've been a bit too hung up on various versions of Age of Empires to keep up with the space genre.

In Steven Johnson's recent book Everything Bad is Good for You the author argues that rising IQ scores over recent years are being caused by the increasing complexity of modern entertainment - including video games. NPR discussed with Johnnson the power of video games (and television shows like The Sopranos) to challenge us mentally.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 06:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

At my weigh-in this morning, the nurse practitioner told me that she had been over my results to date with the doctor. Apparently he's pleased with what he sees, but concerned that I may be losing a little too fast. In the business world, that's what we call a "good problem to have."

So coming back from the doctor's, I stopped by Krispy Kreme and picked up a half a dozen glazed doughnuts, which I was able to polish off by the time I got home. That should slow the old weight loss down a smidge!

Just kidding.

The doc recommends a long-term plan to take off 1-2 pounds per week. This is sensible and healthy. An eating plan that achieves those kinds of results will help my body to avoid the dreaded starvation mode, slowing my metabolism in anaticipation of the eventual arrival of more calories to turn into fat (not to mention wasting away my muscle mass.) But I wonder if the rapid-weight-loss effect these first few weeks hasn't had more to do with water weight than over-doing it on the diet?

It's hard to be sure, but one way to check is to try to get a handle on how many calories I've been eating and how many I've been burning. If the difference between those two comes close to the pound-or-two-per-week rate, I'm golden. If not, I may need to make some adjustments. This is where the BMR (as recommended by ivankirgin in a recent comment) comes in. From the BMR you add in your level of activity, and that gives a pretty good idea of how many calories you burn per day or week.

I'll report more on the math next time. For now, suffice it to say that I have lost an additional two pounds, bringing my weight down to 276 pounds.

I now weigh 21 pounds less than I did at the end of 2005.

It's a New Phil, Week 1

It's a New Phil, Week 2

It's a New Phil, Week 3

It's a New Phil, Week 4

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 08:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Regarding our proposal to thwart Google's censorship of China, myric from Asiapundit writes:

Gosh, it's nice to know that if I need do search for information I can always e-mail a US-based blogger and wait, probably hours or days, for the results. Thanks for the thought - but I think it will be faster if those of us in China just use a proxy (like we already do).

If you are serious about supporting Internet access in China set up a server for TOR or JAP.

We didn't know (Stephen confessed his technical ignorance in the last post), but we suspected that savvy surfers in China had already figured out ways around the barrier. Myrick seems to have taken offense at our offer. We meant no disrespect.

Part of what we are doing is pointing out the fact that Chinese surfers have to route around a barrier. We're also exposing the things that Google is censoring. Things like the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 (more here, here, and here)

Obviously, proxies and other workaraounds are the immediate fix for getting access to whatever has been blocked. We certainly support efforts to put such workarounds in place. The only problem with proxy searches is that they are, to some extent, complicit with the system. A proxy search immediately returns the results you're looking for, but it doesn't hold Google accountable for blocking your search in the first place.

The method we've described would, initially, involve a considerable lag time in producing results. There's no question about that. Submitting a query at that stage would probably have as much to do with documenting a blocked search as it would with getting the results (which can still be achieved via a proxy search.) Think of it as a bug report.

As more and more bloggers participated and the FAQ grew, this lag time would be cut considerably. Utlimately, the database of blocked search results could be accessed almost as quickly as a proxy. But even if it was never competitive with a proxy search from the standpoint of speed, we believe there is considerable value in collecting and publishing everything that has been blocked.

We appreciate the offers to help that we've already received from other bloggers - particularly the one who knows Chinese and has contacts in China.

Lastly, we hope to express through this program solidarity with the people of China.

No people on Earth yearn to be oppressed, or aspire to servitude, or eagerly await the midnight knock of the secret police.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 06:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Google is a company that we Speculists generally have a lot of respect for. Almost anytime I use my computer, I use Google.

We understand that Google is motivated by profit just like any other company, but they have usually had the good sense to pursue profit in ways that help people. Google's motto, "Don't be evil" might come across as a bit too precious, but it also has the benefit of being easy to understand.

Unfortunately it's not always easy to live up to. Google's decision to collaborate with the People's Republic of China in censoring Chinese web searches is evil. We are hardly the only ones to think so. By agreeing with the Chinese government to do this, Google has become part of the machine that is suppressing the freedoms of 1.3 billion people.

Obviously they are motivated by the thought that they could serve millions of Chinese web surfers. And they don't want to fall behind competitors that are already collaborating with the Chinese government - Microsoft and Yahoo (more shame on them for leading the way).

It also helped their rationalization, I'm sure, that they decided to do something that, to my knowledge, the other collaborators are not yet doing - Google is informing the Chinese public when their searches are being censored.

That being the case, The Speculist hereby announces a program to mitigate this evil:

If you are a Chinese user of Google who has received notice that your search has been censored, let us know. We will search Google from the United States and post the results here.

One rule: We won't search for pornography.

My email address is:

mrstg87 {at symbol} yahoo {dot} com

Obviously, The Speculist will, itself, be quickly censored in China for this. That's cool - gives us street cred with a good crowd. But, obviously this will defeat the purpose of this program. What we need is a network of bloggers that will sign on to be a part of this. We also need a name and a logo. Any bloggers interested in helping in any way should also contact me.

As this program develops we will author a faq that will contain the results of censored searches. We will need multiple hosts for this faq. We will also take advantage of peer-to-peer systems if that will insure access.

Obviously this would be of greater value if written in Chinese. If you can translate, we need your help as well.

I admit complete ignorance when it comes to how the Internet operates in China. Therefore, we need technical assistance too.

UPDATE (from Phil): If you're not familiar with the phrase, "You can't stop the signal," here's some recommended viewing.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 07:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)