Interesting Things

My blog on idiosyncratically interesting things...

that can't be fake when i first saw this CGI video, i had trouble believing it was all pure CGI. but it is, created with 3dsmax, Vray, AfterEffects, and Premiere. here is a related video of the underlying compositing breakdown. wow, Lamarck was actually (sort of) right important trend in inheritance and genetics science... transgenerational epigenetics and genomic imprinting. The upshot is that DNA is not the only factor in genetics and inheritance. Genomic imprinting is an inheritance process independent of the classical Mendelian inheritance. Briefly, without changing the content of the DNA, the on/off expression of genes can be altered by a wide variety of environmental factors. The two major factors that control that gene expression are DNA methylation and histone modifications (think of them as surface control switches on the outside of the DNA, although that is not literally true). This modification of gene expression in response to environmental factors (such as toxin exposure or starving) has been known for quite some time. BUT it was assumed that these modifications were NOT inherited to children. Wrong. Now, a slew of solid data shows that the genomic imprinting in a parent in response to an environmental factor can be inherited on to the children -- the imprinting survives DNA replication (transcription). For example, to quote Wikipedia in one of the most well-known studies: Marcus Pembrey and colleagues also observed that the paternal (but not maternal) grandsons of Swedish boys who were exposed during preadolescence to famine in the 19th century were less likely to die of cardiovascular disease; if food was plentiful then diabetes mortality in the grandchildren increased, suggesting that this was a transgenerational epigenetic inheritance. The opposite effect was observed for females -- the paternal (but not maternal) granddaughters of women who experienced famine while in the womb (and their eggs were being formed) lived shorter lives on average. When does a potential parent create the conditions to pass on environmentally imprinted epigenetics? In the case of human females, it is when they are themselves in utero and their eggs are forming. If pregnant mom Jill is starving, this can cause imprinting onto the surface of the DNA of newly-forming eggs in her female in utero baby Jane. When Jane grows up and gets pregnant, her egg's DNA still has the imprinting. When her child Bob is born, his DNA carries this imprinting. In the case of human males, the environmental factor must happen to the male shortly before puberty, just before the onset of spermatogenesis. Lamarck was wrong in the sense that the causal factor of imprinting (e.g., famine) does not mean successors are skinny (or whatever). A successor may have a higher incidence of bladder cancer (or whatever). But, nevertheless, we now know that Lamarck's idea carried a germ of truth, and this is perhaps a paradigm shift in our thinking about personal behavior, the quality of our environment, and our future generations: We are guardians of our genetics for successors. By our actions or environment there is a chance our future generations will experience some consequence. ikebana my friend albertina makes beautiful ikebana flower arrangements. here's an example. plop more beautiful images here. Perl versus Life Craig Venter has announced that his team have created, for the first time, a synthetic chromosome from lab chemicals. To quote Ventor, "We are going from reading our genetic code to the ability to write it." commenting on that quote, someone at slashdot wrote, "at least it is easier to read than Perl." skycar i guess like a lot of kids, the idea of a flying car caught my imagination. the moller skycar is getting us close. man of plastic Plastic as strong as steel based on nanotech. Interesting implications for vehicles, protection. To quote: "The scientists solved a problem that has confounded engineers and scientists for decades: Individual nano-size building blocks such as nanotubes, nanosheets and nanorods are ultrastrong. But larger materials made out of bonded nano-size building blocks were comparatively weak. Until now. 'When you tried to build something you can hold in your arms, scientists had difficulties transferring the strength of individual nanosheets or nanotubes to the entire material," Kotov said. "We've demonstrated that one can achieve almost ideal transfer of stress between nanosheets and a polymer matrix.' The researchers created this new composite plastic with a machine they developed that builds materials one nanoscale layer after another. The robotic machine consists of an arm that hovers over a wheel of vials of different liquids. In this case, the arm held a piece of glass about the size of a stick of gum on which it built the new material. The arm dipped the glass into the glue-like polymer solution and then into a liquid that was a dispersion of clay nanosheets. After those layers dried, the process repeated. It took 300 layers of each the glue-like polymer and the clay nanosheets to create a piece of this material as thick as a piece of plastic wrap." bird brains Recent research suggests that birds 'see' magnetic fields. Studies investigating what parts of a migratory bird´s brain are active when the birds use their magnetic compass showed that the cryptochrome-containing neurons in the eye and a forebrain region are highly active during processing of magnetic compass information in migratory birds. causal loops and systems dynamics Many of the groups I serve with don't have a concrete tool to explore and discuss what's going on in their organizations, in terms of the dynamics of the system. Most of us have been well-trained in details analysis and management, but not dynamics analysis. Getting together at a whiteboard and sketching causal loop diagrams can help. see. don quixote i've been reading Cervantes' Don Quixote, downloaded to my laptop from the Project Gutenberg site of many free older books. The translator's notes are a fascinating insight into the historical context of his critical parody. Translated with skill, Cervantes is revealed as an exquisitely gifted writer. He can shape a character rich with implication in few sentences. Don't miss this wonderful classic story. wave particles Even after all these years, the strange nature of reality and wave-particle duality, as illustrated in the 2-slit experiment, remains amazing. Its not really “particles” down there... both "waves" and "particles" are just metaphors for a quantum micro-level reality that doesn't conform to our intuitions of how the macro-level world works. baby boys I found this fascinating: Did you know that after World War I, after so many million males had been killed, that for some time women in the related countries gave birth to significantly more males than females? As though nature had a way to re-balance. How could that work? Recent research (I can't find the link now...) shows that women are less likely to give birth to males when there is stress, probably because males were more of an evolutionary risk (more likely to get killed). The relationship to the WWI story doesn't make sense yet, but broadly it suggests links between a women's perception of the environment and sex selection. green Green tea seems to be ridiculously good for you. A recent study showed strong results that drinking it reduced the risk of prostate cancer in men by 2/3! That is an extraordinarily strong effect. A key active chemical is Epigallocatechin Gallate (EGCG) and there is now evidence EGCG stops HIV binding to cells. A variety of studies show it is correlated with lower rates of various cancers, reduces the risk of rheumatoid arthritis and lowers cholesterol levels. alpha-lipoic acid In addition to research showing that taking acetyl-L-carnitine and alpha-lipoic acid is associated with improved cognitive function, new research shows that the protein creatine (used by body builders) is associated with improved memory and intelligence. beauty Visions of our world. prostrate If you care about prostate cancer, new research suggests you should drink pomegranate juice or eat the fruit. legacy code Lots of my clients have masses of legacy code (usually C), with questions about how to apply test-driven development with it, refactor it, and so forth. I recommend Working Effectively with Legacy Code by Michael Feathers. Kay gets Turing In the 1980s I used to develop in Smalltalk (Ruby folks -- nothing really new in Ruby). I've always been a huge fan of Alan Kay, a seminal figure in computer science, and along with Dan Ingalls, the creator of Smalltalk, which influenced me deeply. Kay won the highest award in computer science, the Turing Award in 2003 (and the Kyoto prize); here's a summary of his speech. olive oil Yet another reason to eat uncooked olive oil. priceline I've never had the time or location-flexibility to try priceline.com. Recently i thought i'd try and started with (i thought) an unlikely extreme experiment: I asked for a 4-star hotel in London for a week at $75 a night. Got it! Hilton Kensington--good location an hotel. Normal rates start at $200/night. I'm impressed. I've also rented a car at 1/2 normal rate using wheelsabroad.com. organic For 30 years, I've bought organic produce when it's relatively affordable. Not for my own health (though a study of pesticides and antibiotics in traditional farming should give pause for thought), but rather to support organic farmers, as I've felt (without strong evidence) that it's just a better, sustainable approach. Now a recent study from Oxford indicates it's also better for biodiversity. To quote: "The organic farms were found to contain 85% more plant species, 33% more bats, 17% more spiders and 5% more birds." what did you say? Senility finally kicking in? Eat Indian food. Here’s why. Dont forget. wonderful This is a wonderful story. java pathfinder Are you involved with a Java-based multithreaded highly-concurrent application (e.g., servers, telecomm switches)? If so, you know that testing for bugs related to concurrency (e.g., deadlock) is HARD. NASA has a solution. They have just released as OSS a cool and sophisticated testing tool, Java Pathfinder, that they have built and used for years (yes, NASA uses Java, including on the Mars rovers). Pathfinder is special JVM that systematically explores all potential execution paths of a program to find violations of properties like deadlocks or unhandled exceptions. This is difficult, powerful testing, so tell your friends. babies Earlier I wrote about the interesting fact that women after WW I gave birth to more females than males, but scientists didn't if it occured at conception or by miscarriages. Now we have more clues. After the 9/11 attack, a similar pattern arose in the USA, and researchers have discovered that the difference is not in sex variations at conception, but a greater rate of miscarriages of males when the mother is in a stressed environment, presumably because males are worse best for the tribe. acupuncture An example of well-crafted careful experiments to show if an alternative medical therapy works, in this case accupuncture. Is it just a placebo effect, or something more? exploding toads Some stories just beg to be read: Mystery of German exploding toads. ... (update) News flash: Mystery solved. suspended mice This story didn't get major attention, but I predict it will if it works on humans: Scientists have, for the first time, achieved a state of near suspended animation in mice, using air laced with 80 parts per million of hydrogen sulphide. Huge implications for space travel, medical delays, parents of teenagers, ... savant Some things really inspire my sense of wonder and beauty and mystery in this universe: wave-particule duality in quantum physics, high heels, and extraordinary savant mental abilities, as in the case of Daniel Tammet. Like some other autistic savants, he can do amazing feats: recall Pi to 22,514 digits, multiply ridiculously large numbers in an instant, speak 7 languages... What is unique about Mr. Tammet is that he is the only autistic that can clearly describe his inner mental processes, and this gives us a window onto other dimensions of mind. There are several fascinating aspects of his story. One is that his powers arose after a head injury and then the onset of epilepsy. Obviously it suggests that different parts of the brain had to become engaged in "math" for example, but in ways most of us can't fathom. To quote: “Since his epileptic fit, he has been able to see numbers as shapes, colours and textures. The number two, for instance, is a motion, and five is a clap of thunder. "When I multiply numbers together, I see two shapes. The image starts to change and evolve, and a third shape emerges. That's the answer. It's mental imagery. It's like maths without having to think.” I think his injury+change story suggests we all have potential for such radically different mental behaviors. But more deeply, the wonder for me is that it's so "outside of the box" compared to how i do math and hints at profound wonders in our minds. It is not impossible to imagine that scientists will someday unlock a way to such transformations--without having to hit our heads against the wall. dbc Design-by-contract (DBC) is worth knowing, especially for safety-critical and fault-tolerant applications. Although commonly associated with the Eiffel OO language and Bertrand Meyer, the roots are much older. They start with another Bertrand--Bertrand Russells “Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy”, which introduced the great Dr. Tony Hoare to the idea of axiomatic theory and assertions (pre- and post-conditions) while he was developing an ALGOL-60 compiler in the 1960s. In 1974 at the IBM Lab in Vienna a PL/1 compiler was being developed, and the researchers desired an unambiguous formal specification of the language. Out of this need VD, the Vienna Definition Language, was born by Peter Lucas. VDL borrowed the pre- and post-condition assertion form earlier explored by Hoare and Russel. Various solutions have been created for Java, and i'm intrigued by a recent, elegant OSS solution: Contract4J, that uses Java 5 attributes and AspectJ behind the scenes. dbc and dry Speaking of DBC, unit tests that are testing DBC assertions should avoid their own duplicating "assertTrue" assertions. No point in duplicating a test! Which reminds me of my favoriate basic SW engineering principle, from Andy Hunt and Dave Thomas: Remain DRY. So much pain and suffering in software can be traced to not remaining DRY at every level. mad scientists The USA military is moving seriously closer to using fighting robots. And of course, in what could be a quote straight out of a science-fiction movie on robots-gone-mad: “They dont get hungry,” said Gordon Johnson of the Pentagons Joint Forces Command. “Theyre not afraid. They dont forget their orders. They dont care if the guy next to them has just been shot. Will they do a better job than humans? Yes.” The first generation are just remote-controlled, but surely it is only a matter of time before autonomous robots are used. I feel that when Deep Blue beat Kasparov in 1997, it was a computing milestone; and when the first autonomous robot kills a human, it will be another (sad) milestone. Mark my words: We will then see police robots somewhere in the world. grey matter in women Interesting story: Research shows that men have 6.5 times more grey matter (we can call it 'processing' matter) in the brain than women related to general intelligence, while women have 10 times more 'white' matter (connections and networking of the grey matter) than men. Both sexes have equal general intelligence levels, showing that alternate architectures can lead to similar capacity. Of course, the parallel to electronic computing is clear. statistical diets Recent diet study: Four popular diets were tested/comparied with four random groups over two years: Ornish (a relatively low-fat vegetarian diet), Atkins (a relatively high-fat, high-protein diet), Weight Watchers, and the Zone diet. Conclusions? One key conclusion was relevant to software practices: More influential in losing weight than the particular diet was simply sticking to it. Diet results? Ornish dieters had the best results in terms of losing weight (3.3kg), and Atkins the worst (2.1kg); Likewise for lowering "bad" LDL cholesteral: Ornish dropped 12.6%, but Atkins 7.1%. But another conclusion was also important to software: Some diets were more followed than others. The "stickiness" of a development practice is VERY important. For example, test-driven development has caught on largely because developers really see a quick, useful payoff.

internal mental activity by a BBD? is this the first example of independent "mental" activity by an artificial brain-based device? don't be put off by the academic dry title; read carefully the second-to-last sentence in the abstract to grasp the implications of what is really being reported. the author Gerald M. Edelman is the winner of a 1972 Nobel prize. afaik, it is also the largest neural simulation created. Thru You read this, and then see the linked "thru you" music videos (my favourites are tracks 1, 5, and 7) . the musician has composed new music by only mixing stuff from youtube. that might sound "simple," but when i saw it, it seemed to me he has raised this mixing to a new level of creative art. computational intelligence deduces a law of physics my grad degree was in AI-related subjects (having little of my own), so this research and video struck me as quite interesting. the algorithm identified several laws of physics (without prior information about the domains) by analyzing data of objects in motion. See here. transparency i just discovered the existence of Glass Wing Butterflies. lovely. fun this has got to be one of the best things i've seen this year. System Weinberg Systems thinking emphasizes learning to see the dynamics of systems interactions and the subtle, multiple indirect causes of things, and focusing on systems-level global optimization rather than local sub-optimizations. It has long been part of my system of thought and i encourage folks to read seminal books such as The Fifth Discipline. In the software world, Gerry Weinberg has long been a favorite author and "consultant's consultant." Some know about systems thinking but don't know that he wrote (in 1991) Systems Thinking, a great education on how to think more clearly from a systems perspective, understand the causal loops we see in the software domain and organizational patterns. Recommended. he's radio - active an ex-radio engineer has invented a device based on radio waves to fight cancer. some researchers are very impressed. the operational mechanism is not stated, but on looking at a picture, i see the words "therm med" labelled on the device, so i'm guessing the radio waves heat the cancer area. see here. google robot in your cerebellum Only 11% of USA survey respondents said they would be willing to implant a proven safe device that enabled them to use their mind to access the Internet. That's probably a good thing, given that 63% of young adult americans can't find Iraq on a map, and 74% think english is the most widely spoken language in the world. frames, self, javascript, ruby, smalltalk, and slots some folks newer to programming assume that the programming constructs and concepts found in languages such as ruby or javascript are newish. in fact, the majority of inspiration for ruby comes from smalltalk, and any smalltalk programmer since 1974 (or even earlier) will see lots of familiar constructs in ruby (i started working in smalltalk in the mid 80s). for example, here's a ruby construct: array = [1, 'hi', 3.14] array.each { | item | puts item} and here's the similar construct in smalltalk, circa 1970-74: array := #(1, 'hi', 3.14). array do: [ :item | Transcript show: item] similarly, there are influential AI programming constructs from the mid-1970s (from the great Marvin Minsky) found in wider use today. for example, frame representation systems (implemented usually in lisp, prolog, or smalltalk) were an OO system that contained "prototypical" objects blurring the lines of class and instance (i was able to start using frames in the 1980s on lisp machines, in the KEE environment for AI systems), and that contained slots with pre- and post- action method handlers. these concepts found their way into the Self language (and see) from dave ungar and randy smith in the mid 1980s, which then inspired the creation of javascript and its prototype elements. why don't they just fly first class? the 2007 ignoble awards are out, including: The US Air Force Wright Laboratory for instigating research and development on a chemical weapon that would provoke widespread homosexual behaviour among enemy troops. A National University of Quilmes, Argentina, team for discovering that impotency drugs can help hamsters to recover from jet lag. explain to me how you forget your leg? any story that begins "A US man who stored his amputated leg in a barbecue smoker..." just sort of begs to be read. APL My first job as a developer was in the extraordinary language APL, for which Iverson won the Turing award. We used special keyboards (this was on IBM mainframes) with the APL character set. It was a dynamically typed language that had a virtual machine, essentially infinite memory space, and automatic garbage collection. The essential paradigm was of N-dimensional array objects, and all operators could operate on any object. To give you a feel of how powerful and fast it was to program in APL, here's code to calculate the next generation in the "Game of Life." In the 1970s I used to spend 7 hours a day writing this stuff... life was simple then. the OLD web did you know that many versions of most of the pages on the web are archived and retrievable at the Internet Archive. Fancy to see the original Google page? Playboy.com? what did you say? scientific evidence that you should drink more beer. censored Check out Project Censored, run by Sonoma State University, that each year publishes the "the top news stories underreported by the mass media." readability Why have narrow reading columns? See here. At normal reading distance, the eye's span of movement is (only) 8 cm. For the average person, this layout supports faster reading. light stop What would you think if you saw a press release that said that physicists had some evidence that the speed of light was actually significantly different than they originally thought? Something similar has happened in the world of biology and genetics: The rate of change of genetic mutation from generation to generation (which is applied to many estimates) appears to be faster. vegetarian statistics Eat what you want, and i’m not even a vegetarian, but it has always struck me as odd when someone says a vegetarian diet is unhealthy--that one needs to eat meat. Research shows that vegetarians visit hospital 22% less often, and spend a shorter time there. More important: To quote a major British Medical Association study (BMA Report, 4.11, 1986) conducted over 10 years with thousands of matched people in veg and non-veg groups: "Vegetarians have lower rates of obesity, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure, large bowel disorders, cancers and gall stones."And the more recent Oxford study of 11,000 people over 13 years (Brit. Med. Journal, 1994, 308); conclusion: "lower rates of cancer and heart disease amongst vegetarians and 20 per cent lower premature mortality."(i.e., they live longer). antioxidants statistics Eating antioxidant foods (or supplements) to reduce oxidation (heck, let's just admit we're rusting to death) is associated with lower rates of cancers, heart disease, and Alzheimer's. A recent USDA study clarifies the most effective foods. Among fruits, cranberries and blueberries are highest (drinking juice from also works). Among vegetables (including legumes), beans are highest (lentils, etc., which are staples of protein in a vegetarian diet), and Russet potatoes. Among spices, ground cloves, ground cinnamon and oregano. quantum teleportation June 16, 2004 is a milestone date: Report that deterministic teleportation of quantum states of two separated atoms was achieved, in two experiments. Has implications for future-generation quantum computing that will make today's supercomputers look like an abacus. As demonstrated in these teleportation experiments (known theoretically since Einstein and [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/qt-entangle/ Schrodinger), you can create two entangled quantum systems (e.g., two atoms), send them to opposite ends of the universe -- 100,000,000 trillion trillion light years apart -- and if you read or manipulate one of these atoms, the other atom at the other end of the universe will immediately be changed as well. How is this wonderfully bizarre fact explained by physicists? The most common is the many-worlds interpretation: that there are an infinite (or near-infinite) set of co-existing similar universes which exist in parallel at the same space and time. I sometimes think high-school science should start with this stuff, rather than the usual drill, to help inspire young people to how wondrous and bizarre the universe is -- and that science can be. burt flies Another milestone: On June 21, 2004 the great Burt Rutan's first private-enterprise manned flight into space happened on SpaceShipOne. The software connection? Financed by Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft. rule-based programming My background in the early 1980s focused on AI and expert systems development (which led me to general OO development). Out of this area comes the technique of rule-based programming -- practical in a subsystem for many software applications where complex rules or constraints must be met. I think developers should be aware of RBP ideas and options. There are a variety of Java-related components worth checking out: Jess, Mandarax, Drools, OPSJ, and this long list. boston and rome Fact: Boston is around the same latitude as Rome. Same for Toronto, Canada and Turin, Italy. It's interesting to explore why the difference in warmth, and the impact of climate change. Will there be an explosion in popularity of wool lingerie in France? tipping god The Tipping Point has many good stories. One of my favorites (I like irony) is about religion students at a famous Divinity School who, in a secret experiment, were asked to write a Bible sermon on "The Good Samaritan." Then they were told to present it in Building X in 15 minutes time, which required them to rush across the grounds of the campus. An actor played the role of a sick man lying on the ground, in distress, on their path to deliver their sermon. None of the busy "divinity" students bothered to stop to help him! broken windows Another story from the Tipping Point of relevance to software developers is the no broken windows" story of how crime rates dramatically dropped in New York City. This led to naming the excellent Don't Live with Broken Windows software engineering principle, promoted by the Pragmatic Programmers, that I encourage myself and others to follow. willows The amazing Willow bark drug that Hippocrates used. You probably know that regular low doses (81 mg) of acetylsalicylic acid (aspirin) reduces stroke and heart disease risk. New research in a large study shows it reduces by 2/3 (which is miracle-level) the risk of mouth and throat cancer if taken just once a week. Ditto in another "landmark" discovery that it's been shown to significantly reduce the risk of colon and rectal cancer, the 2nd leading cause of cancer death. Interestingly, the low 81 mg dose was more effective than a 325 mg dose. bayesian POPFile uses Bayesian analysis. This is a useful decision support method software developers will benefit from knowing to create adaptive, learning systems. It captures the idea of degree of belief, and updating that degree based on new evidence. body clock Fact: the body has an internal clock. Not just the 24-hour-ish cycle, but shorter growth/rest cycles too. Until this year, scientists did not know the mechanism. Now they do. There is a special protein in every cell whose two ends are different shapes. Every 12 minutes it flips over, and the reorientation of the ends causes new effects. A husband and wife research team made the discovery after 40 years of investigation, and proved it by lengthening the 12-minute cycle, and consequently altering all other cycles in the test organisms. This is really basic stuff, and has implications for many treatments: jet-lag, ... aop AspectJ, and Aspect-Oriented Programming by Gregor Kiczales and the AspectJ team at Xerox PARC. AOP as a relatively fundamental paradigm of programming and design, akin to object-oriented or function-oriented programming and design. One dimension of AOP that is not often stressed is that we can look at it as a meta-programming technology (programs that manipulate /modify programs). Viewed in this light, we can appreciate ways to use AspectJ that are not cross-cutting architectural concerns (like injecting logging support in many places) but still useful, such as writing interceptors or decorators for single points. Check out here for the big picture.

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