It has happened before but let’s hope it does not happen again

There have been periods of extreme partisanship before. One need only look to the years before the Civil War to see plenty of violence practiced by political partisans. I’ll pick one that is very personal in its intent.

Read about the severe beating an anti-slavery Senator from Massachusetts received at the hands, and cane, of a pro-slavery Congressman from South Carolina.

The Southerner beat the Northerner so badly in the chambers of the Senate that he broke his thick cane. The Senator did not return to the Senate for 3 years. The Congressman was hailed as a hero by the South and had several new canes sent to him by admirers.

Pretty much all we have had so far are some windows broken, some children threatened and lots of hot talk. I’m hoping that cooler heads prevail but given our history, it seems unlikely.

I’m just hoping we don not end up with something resembling Bloody Kansas.

iTunes University – learning’s future

by Eldar

Harvard joins Apple’s iTunes U program
[Via Edible Apple]

Apple’s iTunes U program is a special area within iTunes that lets Universities provide educational content (lectures, lab demonstrations etc.) typically available only to paying students to the public at large. While some of the content is restricted to students who attend a specific university, the breadth and diversity of information available to the masses is simply astounding.

One of the more popular courses on iTunes U is an iPhone programming course from Stanford University that is typically taught by current Apple engineers and is made publicly available as a video podcast just 2 days after each class session. While iTunes U doesn’t garner a lot of press, it has certainly attracted a lot of user attention, with the aforementioned Stanford iPhone course generating over 1 million downloads in just a few months. Meanwhile, the cumulative number downloads from iTunes U surpassed 100 million back in December.

Now comes word that Harvard University will make some of its course content available for public consumption via iTunes U. And it’s in good company – in addition to Stanford, some of the other top flight universities already participating in iTunes U include UCLA, MIT, Oxford, and Princeton.

“Knowledge quickly becomes inert without a means of easy and open access. The new iTunes channel is yet another fantastic way of allowing everyone from the curious amateur to the professional scholar to explore the amazing intellectual breadth of Harvard,” said Cherry A. Murray, dean of the Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and John A. and Elizabeth S. Armstrong Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

You can check out Harvard’s launch page at itunes.harvard.edu.

[More]

There are a lot of useful audio tracks at iTunes U, covering almost all aspects of higher education. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Carbon-eating concrete may not be all its cracked up to be

by pareeerica

Exclusive: Science reporter Eli Kintisch, excerpts his book, “Hack the Planet,” on carbon-eating cement
[Via Climate Progress]

Science magazine reporter Eli Kintisch, sent me a blog post based on the research he did on Calera company for his new book, “Hack the Planet.

So startup Calera, who seeks to turn CO2 exhaust into limestone for “carbon negative” cement, has struck a $15 million deal with coal giant Peabody. And Monday you reported on various issues facing the technology.

I thought I’d offer more: Harvard geochemist Dan Schrag says its CEO is “pulling numbers out of his a##.” And other independent experts have their doubts as to various aspects.

I cover Calera closely in Hack the Planet, my new book on geoengineering. For a chapter on carbon called “The One-Ton-Sucking Challenge,” I spent a day at Calera’s offices in Los Gatos, California and met its business-saavy and brash CEO, Stanford geologist Brent Constanz.

[More]

One important aspect of many geoengineering proposals to always remember is that they will not be simple and may have all sorts of unintended consequences. So be wary of anyone who does suggest they have an easy fix.

Getting CO2 back into the Earth, by recreating the limestone that used to house some of it, has some really interesting possibilities. But it also involves a lot of complex problems with some important unknowns, as shown in this article.

And it will not be really useful if it requires a lot of energy to accomplish. Unless we have carbon neutral power sources, geoengineering projects should be carefully scrutinized for their energy usage.

It will not help us much if we have to burn more fossil fuels, thus generating more CO2, simply to be able to put in back into the ground.

It’s almost like it creates my photos for me

Content-Aware Fill on Photoshop 5 is the Shiznit
[Via Edible Apple]

In anticipation of the April 12th release of CS 5, Adobe has released a number of videos highlighting some of the more compelling features in its suite of design and editing software. One such feature, Content-Aware Fill on Photoshop 5, is particularly tantalizing. Check out the video below and prepare to be amazed.

[More]

What an amazing video! Watching him doing the clean ups was fun.

But when he removed the tree – Wow. BUt it was the final one where he fixed up a multiple photo panorama which had a lot of white space.

The resulting photo looked like an original, even though more than 10% of it had been generated by the program.

Now if they just had a button that took a snapshot nd made a professional grade photo out of it in just a single click …

The Cube is truly American

Someone in a discussion I had today brought up the criticism the design for the new American Embassy in London. Lots of professional critics do not like it, although the tenants (our government) are really happy.

As I was reading up on a lot of the commentary about the Embassy building, it reminded me of the attitudes Tom Wolfe talked about in From Bauhaus to Our House – that much of the architectural world was more interested in exotic forms rather than useful structures and in buildings that appealed to artists rather than were useful for their inhabitants. The supposed second choice may have looked great to artists but would most likely not have been a fun place to work.

And anything has to be better than the building we have been using.

The structure itself reminded me of another building, one that has developed iconic worldwide and is the fifth most photographed landmark in New York City, beating out the Statue of Liberty – the Apple Store at Fifth Avenue.

The designer of the Apple building, as is the design firm of the Embassy, is also from Philadelphia. So it seems appropriate that such iconic structures come from the birthplace of American liberty.

Perhaps the new Embassy really is a nice representation of where America and American industry is going now that Apple is poised to be the third largest company in America, by market capitalization.

Perhaps a reason for being in first place

by miss_hg

Robotic test reconfirms Apple’s iPhone touchscreen superiority
[Via AppleInsider]

A new test of touchscreen smartphones with a precise laboratory robot has confirmed what a human test already concluded: Apple’s iPhone touchscreen is far and away the most accurate touch panel on the market.

[More]

All touchscreens are not the same.

I guess if you are going to make a touchscreen smartphone that can rack straight lines. Perhaps by having the best technology it provides the best experience.

Perhaps there is a reason for it being number 1 than great marketing.

TCM and Kurosawa

by snappybex

Last night, while I was working on some posts, I had on TCM, which was having an Akira Kurosawa festival. So I got to watch both Yojimbo and Sanjuro back to back. The original “man with no name” movies whose remakes shot Clint Eastwood to stardom.

Two of my favorites from one of my favorite directors. Kurosawa was always in complete control of what happened in any frame, whether it was leaves blowing across the street or a scene in the distance framed by an open doorway.

Both films are played for comedic effect, even though there are very serious aspects to the narratives of each. They make quite an amazing pair, especially when seen right after each other.

There are a couple of iconic scenes in each – one that starts the narrative in Yojimbo and one that ends the narrative in Sanjuro – that had a real effect when combining the two movies.

In the first movie, the character we come to know as Kuwabatake Sanjuro (which literally means thirty-year-old Mulberry Field) comes upon two paths along a road. In order to decide which road to take, he picks up a random stick, tosses it blindly in the air, and then travels along the direction it indicates.

So, sheer chance takes him to a town, one where his actions not only result in the death of many bad guys but where his one unselfish act, the one that fits the sorts of heroes we expect, results in him getting the living crap beat out of him.

And Kurosawa makes sure we know how beat up he is, with bloody face and swollen eyes. This is no heroically beat up guy by any stretch of the imagination. It is almost believeable that Kurosawa actually had the actor, Toshiro Mifube, beat up.

In the second movie, the same character, who now calls himself Tsubaki Sanjūrō (thirty-year old Camellia Tree), finds himself spending the whole movie being forced to work on a good deed due to the youthful incompetence of a group of nine samurai. At the end of the movie, he must fight his primary antagonist even though he does not want to.

The resulting fight is anti-climactic in its extent but absolutely mesmerizing in its presentation. It is the best duel in cinema.

The men stand within arms length of each other. One could reach out and strike the other. But neither does. For over 25 seconds!

That is right. Neither man moves at all. Here we have a motion picture with no movement. We start feeling tense after 10 seconds. At 15 we are afraid sheer destruction will be unloaded at any seconds. By 20 we are almost screaming from the tension.

Then, in a flash of action, a rapid movement of blades and a huge gout of blood, it is over. If the stare off lasted perhaps 600 frames, the duel might be 12.

Now, I have seen this duel before and remembered its iconic gush of blood from the loser. However, one thing had always puzzled me – how did Sanjuro draw his sword out the scabbard and kill his opponent so fast? It was just there in his hand on the other side of the dying man’s body.

I always thought it was some sort of cinematic trick. That there was a hidden jump cut.

But last night, I was able rewind and watch it again and again. No jump cut, just some really creative sword play by the actor Mifune.

Again, both men are close enough to touch so how can they pull out a 4 foot sword and attack the other without backing away? Both men are right handed and have the sword at their left side.

The loser draws his sword as anyone would – right hand across the body to the hilt and pull forward. This puts the blade already past Sanjuro’s body, meaning that the attacker would have to take some more time and pull back the blade to attack.

Sanjuro does something entirely different – he grabs the hilt with his left hand and pulls it straight out. He kills his opponent on the initial drawing of the blade.

Doing this is faster but gains him little ability to strike with a heavy blow. Try it. Stand arm’s length from a wall and imagine drawing up with the sword pointing down in your left hand.

Hard to see generating a killing blow by just raising the sword from the scabbard with the left hand.

But, to get the strength to produce a killing blow, Sanjuro places his right hand on the blade and uses it to accelerate the sword up and pushing it across, slicing deeply into the losing fighter.

Thus he gains both time and strength by a very creative use of the sword, helping explain just why he is a force of nature when it comes to sword play.

And what a testament to Mifune’s ability. Watching this move, it makes absolute sense and explains why he is able to kill so fast. Such creativity displayed in a split second. What we expect from Kurosawa and his frequent collaborator, Mifune.

Why I want one

No. 1 planned use for Apple iPad: working on the go
[Via AppleInsider]

A new survey of wireless device users has found that the top intended use for Apple’s forthcoming iPad is getting work done while on the road, suggesting the multimedia device could serve as a netbook replacement for many consumers.

[More]

I wrote about this when the iPad first came out. Looks like 53% of the people in the survey feels the same way.

No blogging on Tuesday

by etharooni

I spent most of Monday evening and Tuesday working on a project for Xconomy. Luke Timmerman asked me to write an opinion piece on some of the sections of the Healthcare Reform bill that dealt with biotechnology. I wrote some more about it at SpreadingScience.

I’ve known Luke for quite some time and have always enjoyed working with him. He takes the science in science journalism very seriously and has worked really hard to be as aware of the current progress of research in biotechnology as is possible.

Xconomy is also a great example of where new media may be going. Very tightly focussed areas of interest in cities that can support that interest. So if you want to know anything about high tech or biotech, Xconomy is the place to go. It is really the only ‘newspaper’ whose multiple newsfeeds I read every day.

The fact that their online pages all look like they are done with more or less standard blogging software (i.e. look at the names for each of the web pages) is very endearing to me. I hope their model is successful because it not only employs people who are committed in ways not seen in the MSM, it is able to inform communities in ways the MSM can not.

The denialist’s tool kit

by DerrickT

Confronting Deniers & Denialists
[Via The Devil's Chaplain]

Denialism: what is it and how should scientists respond?

Black is white and white is black

HIV does not cause AIDS. The world was created in 4004 BCE. Smoking does not cause cancer. And if climate change is happening, it is nothing to do with man-made CO2 emissions. Few, if any, of the readers of this journal will believe any of these statements. Yet each can be found easily in the mass media. The consequences of policies based on views such as these can be fatal.

All of these examples have one feature in common. There is an overwhelming consensus on the evidence among scientists yet there are also vocal commentators who reject this consensus, convincing many of the public, and often the media too, that the consensus is not based on ‘sound science’ or denying that there is a consensus by exhibiting individual dissenting voices as the ultimate authorities on the topic in question. Their goal is to convince that there are sufficient grounds to reject the case for taking action to tackle threats to health. This phenomenon has led some to draw a historical parallel with the holocaust, another area where the evidence is overwhelming but where a few commentators have continued to sow doubt. All are seen as part of a larger phenomenon of denialism.

[More]

There are nice mention of five tactics that denialists almost always resort to – conspiracy theories, fake experts, cherrypicking, moving the goalposts, and lies/logical fallacies. I have talked about a lot of these before.

This discussion ends with a wonderful point:

Whatever the motivation, it is important to recognize denialism when confronted with it. The normal academic response to an opposing argument is to engage with it, testing the strengths and weaknesses of the differing views, in the expectations that the truth will emerge through a process of debate. However, this requires that both parties obey certain ground rules, such as a willingness to look at the evidence as a whole, to reject deliberate distortions and to accept principles of logic. A meaningful discourse is impossible when one party rejects these rules. Yet it would be wrong to prevent the denialists having a voice.

Instead, we argue, it is necessary to shift the debate from the subject under consideration, instead exposing to public scrutiny the tactics they employ and identifying them publicly for what they are. An understanding of the five tactics listed above provides a useful framework for doing so.

Engaging with them, expecting normal discourse, is usually futile (I’m not talking about people who are skeptical but can be reached by a logical discussion. Denialists portray a specific pattern that often makes them unreachable by rational means.)

That is why I write about their tactics. They are not ones that rely on scientific principles but are, most often, based on lawyerly, rhetorical techniques.

Cool idea for wind-driven light

Flow Lamp
[Via Social Design Notes]

Flow Lamp. A self-powered lamp post for illuminating public spaces in developing countries, this bamboo wind turbine charges LEDs, and is both cheap and recyclable. What started out as a graduate thesis will be going into production soon.

[More]

This is still in the prototype stage and may not be suitable for everywhere but using the wind to provide lighting means that areas removed from the grid can be lit. And it looks like it would be visually interesting also.

I wonder if it can include a battery source to store power if it is windy during the day but not at night?

Another in a continuing series of how science deals with the real world

from AMSU-A Temperatures

A peer-reviewed response to McLean’s El Nino paper
[Via Skeptical Science]

A paper published mid-2009 claimed a link between global warming and the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) (McLean et al 2009). According to one of it’s authors, Bob Carter, the paper found that the “close relationship between ENSO and global temperature, as described in the paper, leaves little room for any warming driven by human carbon dioxide emissions”. This result is in strong contrast with two decades of peer-reviewed research which find ENSO has little influence on long-term trends. Why the discrepancy? A response has now been accepted for publication in the American Geophysical Union (Foster et al 2009) explaining why McLean 2009 differs from the body of peer-reviewed research.

First, let’s examine how McLean et al arrived at their conclusion. They compared both weather balloon (RATPAC) and satellite (UAH) measurements of tropospheric temperature to El Niño activity (SOI). To remove short-term noise, they plotted a 12 month running average of Global Tropospheric Temperature Anomaly (GTTA, the light grey line) and the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI, the black line).

Figure 1: Twelve-month running means of SOI (dark line) and MSU GTTA (light line) for the period 1980 to 2006 with major periods of volcanic activity indicated (McLean 2009).

[More]

A very nice example of how science works. Someone publishes a paper that goes against the general consensus. Another report demonstrates the errors that were made in the first paper – errors that result in a faulty conclusion.

Science models the natural world in fits and starts. But as we gain a better understanding of an area, our models do a much better job of describing what is really going on.

Making big mistakes tends to happen early on. We have been working on climate change for 100 years now. We made several big mistakes early on but as we have gotten better data, we have created a better model.

It becomes harder and harder to overturn the model simply because it does such a good job. If you hope to overturn the model, you have to present a theory that does a better job of describing the real world.

Look at Relativity. Einstein proposed this theory because we were generating data that could not be explained by Newtonian mechanics. But, while relativity is a better description, it did not negate Newtonian mechanics. They just became a subset of the overarching theory – a theory that did a better job explaining ALL the data

To overthrow climate change and its human origins, someone must come up with something that can explains ALL the data that has been generated over the last 100 years and does it better than the current theory.

Have at it.

Oh, and just to add some more data, here is a graph of the daily global temperature from satellite records. This is the temperatures at 14,000 feet. The square box shows the temperature for March 20. It is at the end of a faint green line and is above all the other lines, including the purple line which represents the record highs over the last 20 years. So far every day in March has been above the 20 year record high line.

In fact, the yellow line, which is the 20 year average, does not reach the same temperature seen on March 20 until May 13.

So, March is almost 2 months warmer than normal.

Super inside joke

by normanack

The One Superhero the iPad Can’t Save
[Via Daring Fireball]

Super-nerdy joke from FoxTrot.

[More]

Click the ‘More’ link to see the comic. Foxtrot is really the nerd’s best comic. Even if they (we) are the only ones who get the joke. I may have to buy the Jason centered book, Math, Science and Unix Underpants.

Brick and mortar success in the era of the Web

The magic of 285 Apple Stores
[Via Brainstorm Tech]

How the company’s growing retail presence is driving Mac market share gains

Source: Morgan Stanley

In a report to clients issued overnight Monday about Apple’s (AAPL) opportunities for growth in China, Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty adds, almost as an oversight, the instructive charts at right (see also below the fold).

They show what she calls the “Positive Correlation Between Apple Store Expansion and Mac Market Share.”

Correlation does not mean causation, of course, but the trends do seem clear. Apple opened 123 stores in the U.S. between Sept. 2003 and Sept. 2009 while the Mac’s domestic market share grew from just over 3% to as high as 9% (before dipping below 8% last summer).

In Western Europe, the effect seems even more dramatic: 33 stores and a market share that grew from as low as 1.5% to more than 5%.

[More]

No other hardware manufacturer has been able to create such a successful set of stores,all that drive sales. Nice to see some data suggesting the effect this has had on the bottom line.

It takes time

by kevindooley

War on Film
[Via Eunomia]

Matt Steinglass at Democracy in America makes a good contribution to the debate over Iraq war movies:

No doubt there were many supporters of America’s war in Vietnam who found the 1974 documentary masterpiece “Hearts and Minds” unwatchable left-wing propaganda, who hated “M*A*S*H” and “Apocalypse Now”.

This is related to what I was saying in two previous posts. It is unlikely that making films about highly controversial, polarizing wars is going to be anything other than polarizing for both supporters and opponents of the war. It is even more unlikely that there are going to be filmmakers interested in making a film about a war they opposed in such a way that it treats architects of the war sympathetically. If the war in question is still going on, and the war’s loudest supporters are engaging in a lot of triumphalist rhetoric about how they were right all along, that is hardly the time when one can expect antiwar filmmakers to investigate the complex motivations of the war’s architects.

[More]

Once again Daniel has a nice post.

I remember when ‘Apocalypse Now’ came out. There was a lot of criticism of it because of its exaggerations and lack of verisimilitude. Because people on both sides of the War were still too ego-beholden to their own viewpoints to see.

By the time Platoon came out, seven years after Apocalypse Now, the general narrative had started to be formed. You could now make a movie about Vietnam that did not result in such criticism as Coppola’s.

The movies that make a point that war is awful, and makes men do things that are morally repulsive, are the ones that seem to last. Not only Apocalyspe Now, Breaker Morant, and Platoon, but also Paths of Glory, Galipoli, Schindler’s List, Saving Private Ryan, The Bridge on the River Kwai, The Great Escape, Glory and many others.   

As long as examinations of the complexities of war are kept to battles over a generation old, then many people can deal with them, most likely because they have to take no personal responsibility for the war. We just have a problem when the same approach is used for our most recent wars.

Because then people have to recognize their own culpability for the morally repulsive acts that take place. For torture. For the killing of civilians. For the lack of accountability for the leaders at the top. For he huge amounts of money spent.

Much easier to watch something about a distant war, one they can claim they had no responsibility for.