Tag Archives: technology

Science and Tech Advances in 2016, Part II

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I tweaked my knee while exercising a couple days ago.  Today it hurt so bad I was housebound for the whole day.  As it’s almost the middle of the night as I write this I’ve had an opportunity to think and do some research I had been neglecting.  For this entry I decided to continue on in the vein of science and tech advances that have happened in 2016 that may or may not have gotten the press exposure they should have.  So here goes:

  1. Scientists at Florida Atlantic University have found gene responsible for sleep deprivation and metabolic disorders.
  2. Scientists in China have discovered that coating solar cells with graphene will allow solar panels to generate energy from rain drops.
  3. Scientists at the University of Southern California have learned that drinking coffee can lead to a lower risk of developing colorectal cancer.
  4. Scientists in Belgium have discovered three potentially habitable planets orbiting a red dwarf star approximately 40 light years from Earth.
  5. Scientists announce Breakthrough Starshot, a concept that would send fleets of small centimeter sized crafts to Alpha Centauri at 15 to 20 percent the speed of light, taking approximately twenty years to travel to our interstellar neighbor and approximately four years to send word back.
  6. Scientists discuss creating a synthetic human genome.
  7. An extensive study by the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine have found no substantial evidence of different health risks between Genetically Modified Crops and traditionally bred crops.
  8. Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital developed a procedure to allow long term cultivating adult stem cells.
  9. Carbon nanotube transistors outperform silicon transistors for the first time.

These are just a few examples of the scientific breakthroughs made this year that may have gone unnoticed.  I hope to make another post similar to this soon.

I’ve Lost Interest In Politics but Gained Interest In Science

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I must be the only man in America who won’t be watching the Presidential Debates tonight.  I’ve had my fill of politics months ago.  I am so tired and frustrated how hateful and divided politics has become.  I can’t even talk about politics with close friends and family any more without feeling frustration.  But politics and sports are all many people I know want to talk about anymore.  There is a lot more going on in the real world than politics and sports.  But it’s the abnormal that gets the most attention.  Few people can throw a football 80 yards or charm thousands of people in a speech.

I readily admit I do not understand neurotypical thinking.  I have spent years trying to figure the average people out and have even point blank asked people why they think the way that they do.  Alas, I haven’t gotten any concrete answers or come to any real conclusions.  I definitely believe the Tommy Lee Jones line from ‘Men In Black’ when he said, “The individual is smart but people are dumb and panicky animals.”  I see this everyday.  I do much better dealing with only one or two people at a time rather than trying to deal with crowds.  I don’t understand why for the last year and a half about all I see on my newsfeed and friends’ Facebook comments have to do with politics.  Some pretty cool stuff has happened in other fields just in that time, namely in science and technology.  But no one likes to discuss any of that.  About the only people I can discuss science with are my parents who had extensive science backgrounds because of working in the medical fields.  Even then I am convinced they don’t like discussing science that much and do it just to humor me.

I have always been interested in science and technology.  I pursued a career in medical research until it became painfully obvious that my mental illness wouldn’t allow me to continue this path.  It helped that I had some good science teachers in school that were willing to put up with my endless questions.  But after spending over a dozen years in the adult world, I painfully realized that most people didn’t have that luxury.  Most people do not see the beauty and wonder of science and the natural world.  I think that if people like this were to take a few evenings to watch some presentations by the late Carl Sagan and Michio Kaku on youtube instead of whatever sports ball game or political news is trending this week, we’d have a much more informed and enthusiastic populace.  We’d also have more interesting people too.  And isn’t being interesting a worthy goal?

Since the fall of communism and the rise of information tech in the early 1990s, we have lived in some really interesting times.  It seems hardly a week goes by anymore that some breakthrough is happening.  Sadly, most people I associate with on a daily basis are blind to these wonders.  And it seems that the few that are paying attention are worried about some dystopian future.  Personally I am very angry with Hollywood and popular culture for selling people these horrible visions of the future.  Visions like that are intellectually lazy and probably dishonest. And it’s not like there isn’t a market for good science fiction that shows a possibly cool future.  Star Trek has been around for fifty years and is going as strong as ever.  People are worried about machines that have no empathy or compassion?  Please, most people I know lack empathy and compassion and our world still works.

I guess in my ranting frustration I have to take heart in the fact that the entire world doesn’t have to be inventors or scientists or artists or humanitarians.  The politicians, freaks, cranks, and creeps may get the lion’s share of the attention from the media.  But it’s the scientists, engineers, health care workers, artists, humanitarians, and incurable dreamers that make living better and more meaningful.  I end this article with a few thoughts from the late Buckminster Fuller about how it often doesn’t take a great multitude or following the crowd to make a positive difference. buckminster-fuller-earn-living-technological-breakthrough

Midnight Rants Against Stupidity

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It’s the middle of the night as I write this. I’m going off the regular path and just going to rant for this entry. I just got back home from a midnight deli run so my stomach is full and I am wide awake.  Been seeing a lot of people online and in real life complain lately.  Some people complain about how much their jobs suck.  Some people complain about their marriages or relationships.  Many people complain about politics, especially during this election year.  People are just complaining about the dumbest nonsense but not doing anything to change their situations.

I know people who have so much “stuff” in their houses they accumulated over the years they can barely move or find anything.  They acknowledge they need to get rid of some things.  But they never do.  People complain about how dumb their coworkers are, how unreasonable their customers are, and how corporate policies hinder productivity and suck the life out of them.  But do they ever consider quitting their lousy job and starting their own business?  Of course not.  People complain about their significant others but do they ever consider fixing the relationship or opting out of relationships at least temporarily.  No, not at all.  Some people are even longing for the “good old days” of yesteryear.

For those who long for the past, what parts of the past are to be yearned for?  Do you want to bring back Jim Crow laws and children working in mines and factories to go along with gas costing only ten cents a gallon and most people spending Sundays in church?  Do you think modern medicine is a mess when people die from cancer or heart disease in their sixties or seventies while ignoring that many people died from infectious diseases at much younger ages just a few generations ago?  Most marriages did last for a lifetime in the old days, but most lifetimes didn’t last that long to begin with. They never had the time to grow apart and get divorced.  Many families were mixed in the old days, not from divorce, but from parents dying at young ages.  One of my favorites is modern medications make people sick and are ineffective.  People are living longer than ever in spite higher rates of obesity, largely because of medical advances.  Good old days my foot!  The good old days sucked, especially if you were a woman, racial minority, religious minority, or a child.

As a mentally ill man who has spent many years observing nuerotypical people and the things they do much like a zoologist studying a pack of apes, I’ve come to the conclusion that normal people often act in incredibly stupid ways. What’s even more amazing is that some of these people know these are stupid actions yet keep on doing them anyway. You hate your job, then quit and try something different.  You can’t stand your significant other, drop them and maybe be single for a while.  There’s no law saying you can’t be single.  We’re not taxing bachelors or throwing them in jail.

As far as politics go, if you think your politicians are morons and sell outs to big money interests, then vote for third party unknowns who aren’t taking money from lobbyists.  Or better yet, realize that a politician isn’t going to do anything to enrich your life.  They are just along for the ride. Slavery and serfdom would have never gotten abolished if there wasn’t first grass roots sentiments that thought these needed to go.  Same goes for civil rights. They don’t act unless there is sentiment among the citizens that change is needed.  All politicians can do are pass laws and spend tax money.  Even Hitler and Stalin would have never gotten away with what they did if there weren’t those kinds of sentiments among the populace of their countries to begin with.

Simply put, politicians can’t engineer better computers or design structures that won’t fall apart in earthquakes.  Politicians can’t bring clean drinking water to rural Africa or even inner city America.  Politicians can’t build better infrastructure.  If things are to improve, it’s going to be scientists and engineers who develop better and cheaper ways of doing things.  I would love to live in a world where scientists, engineers, architects, doctors, teachers, etc. are better known than politicians and athletes.  Uber just started putting out self driving taxis this week. The Gaia satellite has identified one billion more stars in our galaxy.  We recently found a possible Earth like planet just a few light years away.  Virtual Reality tech is set to take off big any time now.   Yet all that anyone wants to talk about are athletes who won’t stand up for ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ or whatever unfulfillable campaign promises a politician made when speaking at a union hall this week.  Seriously, normal people priorities suck.  I am glad I am not normal.  After studying normal people for most of my life, I see that they are obsessed with the stupid and mundane and they are really out of touch with what is really going on in the world around them.  I never want to be normal.

Why Can’t You Just Be Normal?

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I admit I have never been what most people would consider normal.  I have been much bigger and physically stronger than most people I know most of my life.  I have usually been one of the smartest people in every group I’ve been part of.  Smarts and strength do not ‘normally’ go together, at least not according to popular stereotype.  I have also always been one of those rare kids who never stopped asking ‘why’ to everything.  I just turned thirty six years old and I still ask ‘why’ to everything just like I did when I was eight years old.

I’m sure most of you who are parents and have dealt with grade school children get asked ‘why’ to everything.  Why is the sky blue?  Why is the grass green?  Why did my dog die?  Why do people fight wars? Why do people dump toxic sludge into the ocean?  And on it goes.  Tragically most people quit asking why entirely about the time they hit puberty and become interested in sex, sports, and popular culture.  I never developed a strong appetite for any of these three aspects of life.  My friends and I were discussing economics, science, and foreign policy when we were thirteen years old, right about the time most of our peers and elders outcasted us.  I think we were outcasted because we didn’t care about the latest episode of ‘Friends’ or ‘The Simpsons’ or how bad the football team lost on Friday night.

My close friends and I were never popular or considered normal, especially in high school.  While most of my rural school was listening to Garth Brooks, Faith Hill, and Alan Jackson, my friends and I were listening to Metallica, AC/DC, Green Day, Marilyn Manson, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and other hard rock groups that were big in the late 1990s.  People thought it was odd that my best friend was a girl.  Most people figured we were having sex (which we never did) just to wrap their minds around the foreign concept that platonic friendships can exist between teenage boys and teenage girls.

I am not what most people would consider normal, mental illness or not. I never have been normal and I certainly don’t care to start being normal now.  I never want to engage in normal behavior, especially with what I have seen out of normal people just from my previous jobs and some of my normal friends’ Facebook postings.  I care about the plight of the poor.  I also do not envy the wealthy.  I believe climate change is real and we  are contributing to it.  But I also believe we will adapt to climate change, manage it, and even solve it.  Our species has survived small pox epidemics, bubonic plagues, malaria, famines, hundreds of wars, the Dark Ages, and several ice ages with only a pittance of the science and knowledge we have even today.  And our knowledge is only continuing to grow with each passing day.  Science and knowledge are not static, don’t fool yourself.  We have knocked problems down for thousands of years.  We are knocking down problems even as you read these passages.  We will continue to knock problems down.  It is what our species does.  Birds can fly, lions can hunt, fish can breathe underwater, we humans see problems and solve them.  One of the most encouraging things I tell myself everyday is “many people much smarter than me are thinking things up.”

I support renewable energy. I don’t buy the whole “drill baby drill” nonsense, climate change or not. I believe we are and will keep advancing and find far better ways of powering civilization and doing things.  If Henry Ford just listened to public opinion, he’d just sold faster and stronger horses.  If Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla would have just listened to public opinion, we would not have gotten electricity when we did. I also believe we would have never gotten to where we could use renewable energy without using fossil fuels first.  But like the use of whale oil and wax candles, we will move beyond oil to even better energy sources.  I believe we will leave the oil age long before we run out of oil, just like we left the bronze age three thousand years ago and yet we still use copper and tin.

I am not afraid of foreigners and immigrants.  Ninety five percent of planet Earth does not come from America already.  I guarantee you my ancestors from Germany weren’t fluent in English (nor were they doctors or engineers) when they first set foot on Ellis Island.  If anthropologists are correct, we’re all immigrants one way or another.  I don’t watch regular news casts because I am convinced the regular news reports only bad news and only a fraction of what could be reported.  But bad news is reported on so much only because that is what we humans are predisposed to notice.  It’s in our genes.  Our minds can only take in so much information and survival is priority number one of all species.

I believe that decades from now, future generations will be amazed that people used to work in manufacturing, farming, and customer service instead of letting machines and computer programs do most of this repetitive work.  It’s an election year in my country and all sides are talking about bringing back jobs to America.  Most low to mid level manufacturing jobs are never coming back to America.  Many manufacturers in China and other countries where we outsourced our manufacturing are replacing their human workers with machines even as we speak.   And this is before 3D printing becomes mainstream, which it will within ten years. The days of people going straight from high school to a manufacturing job for the next forty five years with a pension, union protection, and insurance are just as dead as the days of the blacksmith and wagon maker.  So also are gone the days of a family with eight kids being able to make a living on 40 acres of farmland.  We simply no longer need ninety percent of our population working in farming or manufacturing like we did during the Industrial Revolution.  And these people had really low standard of living by modern standards anyway.  Hans Rosling gives some pretty good TED talks about how standards of living are rising all over the world, not just in North America and Western Europe.

Change is the only real constant.  Trying to hold onto the old tried and true may be normal but it merely delays the inevitable. The US banned stem cell research several years ago only to see that research go to countries like South Korea and China.  Now that stem cell research can be done without aborted fetuses, the US welcomed it back but will be playing catch up in this field for years to come.  Normal people talk about building walls, closing off the national borders, and isolating.  Yeah, that worked miracles during the Cold War and ancient China.  If normal people would have had all the say, we’d have never gotten rid of slavery, we’d be systematically discriminating against women, religious, and racial minorities far more than we are now, children working in mines and mills would be considered ‘character building’,  we’d still have the divine right of kings and emperors, and we would have never entered the Industrial Revolution, let alone our current Information Revolution.  These same people who fear change and machines taking their jobs don’t seem to be rushing to join Amish communities or throw away their smart phones.  But it’s normal to be selective, have cognitive biases, and to overestimate how great the past was while underestimating the possibility for the future.  Normal is common.  Normal does not change the world, especially not for the better.  Normal is boring.  And dare I say normal sucks.

 

Reflections On Being a Recovering Doom Junkie

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As I’ve been laid up for the last few days with a sore foot that is only now starting to clear up, I have been allowed the opportunity to reflect back on all the changes that have happened over the last several years in my lines of thinking.

I turned 35 years old this summer.  Even after being a college graduate, working for several years, and being on my own for a dozen years, I’m still not as smart as I thought I was at age 18.  But, I enjoy being an adult.  I also have enough years of experience that I’ve survived several supposed “end of the world and collapse” type scenarios that I chuckle every time I see such drivel. After seeing the ’88 Reasons for the Return of Jesus in 1988′, the Branch Davidians, the Hale Bop Comet cult, Y2k, 9/11, the tech bubble, the stock market bust of 2008 and subsequent Great Recession, the Mayan apocalypse of 2012, listening to my grandparents’ stories of the Great Depression, Dust Bowl, and World War II, and seeing ‘evidence’ that every U.S. president since at least JFK was supposed to be the Anti-Christ, I’ve developed the attitude of “Meh, let it come.”

I suppose this is an advanced line of thinking, especially since I am prone to unhealthy paranoia.  But the older and wiser I get, the less time I have for doom and gloom nonsense.  I spent a couple years researching some of that doom nonsense myself and even thought some of it possible.  But then, I used to think that Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, magical elves, pixie dust, and Disney fairy tales were possible too.  When I was a child I thought and acted as a child.  Now that I am a man I put foolish and childish things aside.  Wise words, St. Paul.

As I’ve experienced changes over the course of my 35 years I’ve come to the conclusion that change is the only constant.  I’ve come to embrace it and actually hope for even more. I’ve also accepted that there are always going to be hustlers and well meaning fools that are convinced that the ends of civilization and humanity are just around the next corner.  If I live long enough I’m probably going to see blogs and youtube videos, or the successors to blogs and youtube, about how the manned missions to Mars are hoaxes, how greedy elites are hoarding the proceeds from asteroid mining for their evil purposes, how we’re all going to die from nanotech and anti-matter experiments gone bad, etc.  I’ve seen enough of this before.  Nothing new.  Since our ancestors survived several ice ages and bubonic plagues I know at least some people will be able to whatever comes our way in the future.  One could make a fortune not betting against humanity.

Why I Am Grateful For Tech And Science Advances

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Just a few days ago I was chatting with one of the older residents in my complex and the subject of technology and scientific advances came up.  He made the statement to the effect that ‘besides making people easier to monitor, manipulate, and kill, tech advances have done little for the betterment of humanity.’  I wanted to laugh at this short sighted statement. How forgetful and often ungrateful we can be.  I’ve alluded to tech advances by and large improving things for people in previous posts.  In one I made the parallel between what technologies we in 2015 take for granted and what various U.S. presidents didn’t have (i.e. Jefferson not having railroads, Lincoln not having electric lights or telephones, FDR never having a credit card, JFK never having a microwave oven, etc.).  And these were things I just came up with at a moment’s notice.

There are drawbacks at times but these are often offset by the benefits of advances over previous techs. Sure antibiotics are often over used and can make some people less resistant to future sickness.  But how many people on this planet that are living full, content, and productive lives that would have died if it weren’t for the development of antibiotics to begin with?  Or automobiles?  Who seriously wants to go back to the late 1800s when cities like London and New York where having problems with the stench, diseases, flies, and rodents that resulted from entire lots piled high with horse manure?  I grew up around farming and often worked on my uncle’s farm during the summers.  I can tell you that farm animals like horses, cows, and pigs eat lots of grains and hay.  Since cars don’t eat wheat or hay, that frees up lots of crops to go to humans.  Yeah, I get the whole ethanol being made from corn argument.  But ethanol can be made from switch grass, sugar cane or anything else that ferments.

Another place I’m grateful for tech advances is in the field of medicine and health.  The two anti psychotic medications I’m currently taking weren’t available even in 2010.  And they have fewer side effects and the ones they have are less severe.  My current medications aren’t as bad in terms of promoting weight gain.  One medication I was on several years ago had sore joints and sleepiness as one of the side effects.  But because of the options made available due to advances in medical science I was able to switch to something different and the side effects went away quickly.  As far as the argument that psych meds promote mental health problems, have you looked at the history of mental illness treatments?  Before the 1950s about the only options for someone with my diagnosis were long term hospitalizations and electroshock therapy.  If I were born even in 1920 instead of 1980 with my mental health problems I would have either been long term hospitalization, homeless, or dead.  For the first three years of my mental illness problems I wasn’t on any kind of treatment.  Went through the last two years of public high school and the first year of college dealing with constant paranoia, depression, anxiety, and anger.  I was far more short tempered, argumentative, and paranoid without treatment.  It’s a wonder I didn’t assault one of my classmates or anyone else.

To suggest that modern medical tech advances have made us less healthy and lowered our quality of life is not only false, it’s stupid. Some will argue that we have more cases of cancer now than we did three generations ago.  For starters we have more people and people are living longer now than three generations ago.  In 1900 the average life expectancy even in USA and Western Europe was maybe 50.  Now we in USA complain that life expectancy is ‘only’ in the late 70s when in some places like Japan it’s the lower 80s.  Even in some of the poorer countries in Africa life expectancy is in the late 50s and even early 60s and that is with AIDS pandemics and civil wars. In the early 1900s these same regions life expectancy was in the early 30s.  Cancer is one of those things that the chances of getting go up with age.  My grandfather died of pancreatic cancer but he was 87 years old too.  He also had serious hepatitis during the 1940s.  Had he gotten that in the 1860s instead of the 1940s, he might not have lived past his twenties. What is worse, dying from a stroke at age 70 or dying from chorlea at age 25?

Some my argue that tech advances have led to the breakdown of the traditional family unit.  I know the stats state that divorce rates in many first world nations are at 50 percent or higher.  But traditionally many people were married more than once in their lives.  Men often remarried and had mixed families, not due to divorce, but because their wives dying from childbirth or any number of illnesses.  Women often remarried because of their husbands dying in wars, work related accidents, or illnesses.  If we were to take the numbers there are probably more people making to their 50 year anniversary celebration now than even 60 years ago, again due to more people and better health.  And sometimes men married more than once because they had more than one wife at a time.  Polygamy and not having one mate for life are as old as life itself.  It could be possible that someday, thanks to advances in medical tech, we could be seeing couples have 100th anniversary parties like some people have 60 year anniversary parties now.  What would you get a spouse who has been with you for an entire century?

I could go on but I won’t.  But we are often forgetful and even less than grateful.  I for one am grateful for tech advances.  I would love to see scientists, engineers, researchers, and health care workers get the attention that the media reserves all too often for politicians, musicians, and star athletes.  But that is probably not going to happen simply because bad news sells better than good.  Yet if you are a scientist, engineer, health care worker, researcher, or anyone who works to provide the essentials for modern living, I am thankful for all you men and women.  Keep up the good work.  If you are so inclined to see actual data on advances in health, wealth, and overall well being, check out humanprogress.org.

Technology Advances and U.S. Presidents

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I decided for today’s post to get off the subject a little bit.  Actually I’m off the beaten path a lot.  A couple of random events have gone into this post.  My grandmother will be turning 95 years of age in a few weeks and she made the off hand comment something to the effect ‘I’ve seen people go from Model T’s to Predator Drones just in my life time.’  I was also reading a history book that came out a few years ago that detailed all the U.S. Presidents from Washington to George W. Bush (it came out before Obama was elected).  As I was reading this book my grandmother’s comments just kept coming back to me.  And doing a little further looking into when some of the wonders of modern living that we take for granted were developed, I put together this list (which is by no means meant to be anything but for fun), of what the some of the leaders of the USA didn’t have even in the White House that you and I have even in our house and communities.  So here goes:

George Washington didn’t even have the White House as Washington D.C. didn’t become the nation’s capital until after his death in 1799.  New York was the capital at the time.

Thomas Jefferson may have wrote the Declaration of Independence, and approved the Louisiana Purchase, but he didn’t do with a ball point ink pin.  He and political rival John Adams (the second U.S. president), also have the distinction of having probably never ridden on a train but having died on the exact same day, July 4 1826.

Andrew Jackson may have won the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812 and be on the 20 dollar bill, but he never had a flushing toilet in the White House.

Abraham Lincoln never had electric lighting or a telephone but managed to be one for the ages anyway.

Theodore Roosevelt managed to complete the Panama Canal, win a Nobel Peace Prize, break up business monopolies, but never got to “speak softly and carry a big stick” before Hollywood could have filmed him in a color movie.

Woodrow Wilson got the Federal Reserve Bank and the League of Nations (the forerunner to the UN) pushed through, but never owned a black and white television set and probably never owned anything made of plastic.

Franklin D. Roosevelt had the New Deal, the TVA, the REA, the WPA, and was president during World War II but never shopped at a Wal-Mart, ate fast food, or had a credit card.

Dwight Eisenhower got the Interstate Highway System done, organized the Normandy Invasion,  but never owned a hand held calculator or a minivan.

John F. Kennedy may have stopped us from getting in a nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis but never so much as nuked a burrito in a microwave oven.

Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act but didn’t live to see the rise of cable television.

Richard Nixon opened relations to China, had his enemies list, and spied on practically everyone including himself but did so without personal computers, Skype, and those eye in the sky cameras you find on practically every intersection in every major city anymore.

Gerald Ford trips on the steps of Air Force One in the 1970s, it makes the 6 o’clock news.  Today it would have probably a hundred million hits on YouTube within a weekend.

Jimmy Carter was the first U.S. president born in a hospital (born in 1924).

Ronald Reagan may have been instrumental in bringing down the Iron Curtain, but he couldn’t ‘lol’ about it on Facebook or tweet #toredownberlinwall on twitter at the time they happened.  In fact, he couldn’t so much as receive a quick text message from Margaret Thatcher or anybody else for that matter.

I could list more examples, but these are just some off the top of my head.  I welcome others and discussions.