Silver Jacket

Category: Technology

  • Mirage Montage

    I'm sure a lot of people think of Burning Man as a big mindless party, but a more accurate (albeit only slightly less simplistic) account would have it as a rave in an art museum. The playa would be nothing without the art installations dotting the landscape (to say nothing of the art people wear and ride and drive, etc.). Here are a few of my favorites. Award for Best…

    Boys' Toys: Big Rig Jig

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    Explaining the geometry of this one is a bit tricky so I'll just let you look at the picture. Yes, those are 18-wheeler tanker trucks stuck together and planted in the desert. You can see people climbing on them, but what you can't see is people climbing IN them. The inside is a jungle gym filled with fake vines, and you could go all the way to the top. When I reached the tip, I found one of the builders lounging on pillows sans clothing. He looked like he'd been there a while and asked if anyone had any games to play. Devoid of Pictionary, we thumb wrestled. (Here's a video and an article about the Jig.) [image source]

     

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  • Bytes for Bites

    BenettonIn 2005 I posted hyperbolic praise for Nicholas Negroponte’s $100 laptop program that revealed my idealistic side. A more pragmatic response would be Bill Gates’ "Be a Hero, Feed Your Family" program, in which the Gates Foundation offers poor hungry laptop recipients $100 in hard cash or food or vaccines for their colorful gadgets. ("…The ‘Be a Hero’ program will offer you valuable goods in exchange for your wonderful toy. As much as one hundred dollars, Abdul! Think! That is more than your Papa earned all last year!…")

    The apocryphal plan reminds me of one of my favorite Sarah Silverman gags (as quoted in the NYer):

    I, this past summer, sent fifteen really fun cowl-neck sweaters to this village in Africa, in really fun colors—expecting nothing, by the way—and they culled their money together, whatever they call it, and bought a stamp and sent me a postcard thanking me, and it said thank you and that they had enough sweaters for every single member of the village to get one and that they were delicious.

    (P.S. Holly, I hope you do your yarn activities with the Tanzanian orphans *after* lunch.)

  • Step 3: Don’t open the box.

    Schrodingers_catUsually my coworkers and I are too busy at the office to use IM for anything non-work-related, but occasionally it serves as a virtual water cooler, like yesterday.

    matt: how was your date
    matt: is that why you were late
    jay: no, i had a doctor's appointment this morning.
    matt: was the doc appt related to the date?
    jay: i wish.
    carlin: there's a male morning after pill now?
    matt: it seeks out and destroys your sperm wherever it happens to be
    carlin: it's a homing and killing device.
    jay: yeah. the guy takes the pill, the woman's pregnancy terminates.
    jay: does your sperm have to be pre-installed with self-destruct devices?
    matt: no the spewed sperm are quantum-entangled with your remaining sperm. it reads those.
    carlin: bingo
    jay: "quantum entangled" – i'm not familiar with that term.
    matt: simple physics.
    jay: yeah, sounds real simple
    matt: collapse of the wave function, etc.
    carlin: it's a sperm, it's a particle…
    matt: it's a spermicle
    matt: we should do a charticle on spermicles
    jay: and how does it work? the man swallows a pill?
    carlin: it's a spermcicle
    carlin: yum
    jay: or he goes to the window and releases it?
    matt: he jacks off into a black box
    matt: with a cat in it

    EPILOGUE

    Jay laughs so loudly at this that another coworker asks Jay to share with the group.
    jay: what should i say?
    matt: MAKE SOMETHING UP
    jay: give me something!
    Carlin distracts the coworker with a question about the flowers on her desk.
    carlin: drop it
    matt: um, tell her you found a picture of a monkey that looks like a dog
    jay: should i seriously forward that to her?
    carlin: no drop it!!!!
    matt: looks like she's over it
    jay: ok. thanks. nice work, carlin.

  • So THAT’S what Windows is for!

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    Now that Apple has Boot Camp, my friend Glen did this mockup of what the online Apple Store would look like if they sold Windows XP along with their Macs. It notes, helpfully: "You’ll need to add this option to run Minesweeper, Notepad or anything ending in .EXE."

    (Here‘s what the original page looks like.)

  • Mindfuck

    Ncaa_1

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    Um, guys, last I checked, you were there to officiate the NCAA title game, not ponder the nature of infinity.

  • I like my humour dry and my yolks runny.

    Chakras_cancerFor a few years there has been a recipe on the Internet that describes how to cook an egg using two mobile phones. Here it is. Basically, you place two phones on a table, place an egg between their antennae, and call one phone from the other. Assuming a power output of two watts, the egg should be cooked in three minutes. Oh, you’re also supposed to play a radio in the background at "a comfortable volume."

    As far as comedy goes, this piece is pretty dry. I can see people missing the joke completely. (Especially those suspicious that cell phones cause cancer or harm chakras.) Well, it has been making the rounds again, and I was surprised this week to find that a couple of my favorite bloggers who happen to write professionally about science and technology are among those who missed the joke. (I will not name names, as they have already been shamed by their readers.)

    Okay, without doing any research whatsoever, here are three easy ways to use your own common sense to debunk the hoax.

    1.) If mobile phone antennae can cook an egg, why don’t you feel the slightest heat from them on your ear after using them for even an hour? You’re better off using heat from the battery.

    2.) Microwave ovens have several HUNDRED watts, and THEY take several minutes to cook an egg. How could a phone cook one in the same time with two watts?

    3.) Have you heard of cell phone towers? Cell phones communicate with them. Cell phones do not communicate directly with each other. That’s what walkie-talkies do. (Bonus, not as obvious: Cell phones don’t send data solely in a straight line to cell towers either. Do RAZRs have homing devices that know where the towers are and aim transmission straight to them as you bumble about? No, they emit signals in all directions.)

    If you do a little Googling, you’ll find more technical reasons why the gag won’t work, but any one of the above three should be sufficient.

    So before you go fiddling with the radio stations on your hifi, wondering why your egg is still cold (would smooth jazz work better?), please recognize that not everything you read on the Internets is true. And if you’re really worried about brain tumors, forget phone phobia and stay the hell away from any radio playing Beyoncé’s new single, "Check On It". That shit is toxic.

  • When Ledes Mislead

    CuckoosnestGood science writing for a popular audience needs to be (at least) two things: entertaining and informative. Starting your article with a catchy headline and a snappy opening is always good, as long as they’re not misleading. Yesterday I encountered a prime example of snap over substance.

    It’s an article in Wired News about an emerging treatment for depression.

        The hed: "Shock Therapy, Version 2.0"

        The lede: "Shock treatment for depression is making a comeback, and it no longer resembles a scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest."

    Here’s the thing: The article is NOT ABOUT SHOCK TREATMENT.

    It’s about repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, or rTMS. In rTMS, a device that causes a focused magnetic field is held against the head.

    Shock treatment is electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT. In ECT, an electric current is briefly applied to the head to induce a seizure. (The therapeutic aspect actually results from the seizure, which lasts 30 seconds, not the jolt of current that triggers it, which lasts half a second. Originally, from 1933-1938, the seizures were induced by injecting chemicals.)

    The article says rTMS and shock treatment are "based on the same therapeutic principle." But they are very different. rTMS: magnets. Shock treatment: seizures. rTMS is not the "comeback" of shock treatment. It is a replacement for shock treatment.

    ShocktherapyI might also note that shock treatment has already had a comeback–the comeback began in the 1970’s, and ECT is still in wide use. To boot, it has not resembled the scene from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest since the early 1950’s. Patients are now given an IV carrying an anesthetic and a muscle relaxant, so they’re not awake, and their bodies don’t shake.

    Now, why would rTMS replace ECT? Both are safe and effective. In the short term they’re even better than Prozac. But ECT has this nasty side effect of memory loss and confusion.

    My mom had several sessions of rTMS in 1999 (with Dr. Alvaro Pascual-Leone, the leading American researcher in the field), and I could sit in the room and talk with her during her appointments.  Shock treatment, on the other hand, fucks you up. Between 1997 and 1999 my mom had 28 ECT sessions. In 1997, she had six sessions after doing her Christmas shopping for the year. Christmas morning, we would open gifts from her and she would say, with genuine surprise, "What a great gift! Who gave you that?" We could only grin and say, "You did, Mom. Thanks."

    Actually, it was quite funny.

  • Driven to Distraction

    CarphoneI was reading the DMV’s California Driver Handbook yesterday and found a chunk devoted specifically to the use of cell phones while driving. It is vaguely titled "Dealing With Technology." (And oddly categorized under "Avoid Highway Gridlock.") The handbook notes, "Use your cellular telephone in the following safe and responsible ways:", followed by several bullet points. Such as:

    "• Don’t engage in distracting conversations."

    Okay, that’s common sense. But does it rule out phone sex?

    "• Take advantage of your cellular telephone’s features."

    Awesome. My phone has Bowling AND Sky Diver. I never have time to play those at work.

    "• Be sensible about dialing."

    You hear that, kids? NO DRUNK DIALING while driving! It could lead to distracting conversations.

  • Voyage to Uranus (For Adults Only)

    RidingrocketsEver wanted the inside scoop on the NASA shuttle program? This month, astronaut Mike Mullane, who’s gone spaceborne three times, reveals some of the dirty details in his new book, Riding Rockets. Reuters published an interview with him today.

    On the business side of things, he claims the shuttle is "the most dangerous manned spacecraft ever flown, by anybody." (Obviously he hasn’t experienced Captain Whizbang’s Olde Time TNT Caboose to the Stars.) On the whimsical side of things, he provides TMI regarding the depth of his preparation for astronaut selection. "I was determined when the NASA proctologist looked up my ass, he would see pipes so dazzling he would ask the nurse to get his sunglasses." Hallelujah.

    Today, that level of preening might designate Mullane a metrosexual. But in close quarters, internal hygiene is not so trivial. In an account by astronaut Harrison Schmitt of his 1973 trip to the Moon, Schmitt describes a stinky side effect of lunar life support:

    All of us had to live with hydrogen gas in the water used to reconstitute various foods (basically the same as today’s trail foods)… Although the convenience of having a continuous supply of fresh water should be obvious, hydrogen going into our guts with the food had to come out, much to the discomfort of crew mates.

    (Overall, accommodations suited Schmitt better than some of the camps on his geological field trips in Norway and Alaska. "Certainly you had no black flies or mosquitoes to bother you on the Moon," he told me recently.)

    On Mullane’s website, we find the following bold announcement: "Riding Rockets is written for adult readers. It is inappropriate for children." For a more tame tale, check out Sally Ride’s To Space & Back, written for young readers. (Full disc: I work for her.) But, as it turns out, kids are interested in poop too. (Who knew?) Sally’s book has a full-page photo of a shuttle shitter. And when she speaks to kids, the most popular question is, "How do you go to the bathroom in space?" Very carefully.

  • Robots Are People Too

    ImethimatAnother thought on Natalie Angier’s exegesis of cuteness. (Recall: "The human cuteness detector is set at such a low bar, researchers said, that it sweeps in and deems cute practically anything remotely resembling a human baby…")

    The anthropomorphism of robots is especially revealing of our instincts and cognition. Eight years ago I went to a talk titled  "Emergent, Situated, and Embodied: alternative AI and the aesthetics of behavior." (I got a woody from the title alone. I know, I’m dork.) Here’s what I wrote about it afterward:

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