For those who, like me, sometimes want to write a book:

If you want to write, kill the magic: a book is just a bunch of writing. Anyone can write a book. It might suck or be incomprehensible, but so what: it’s still a book. Nothing is stopping you right now from collecting all of your elementary school book reports, or drunken napkin scribbles, binding them together at Kinko's for $20, slapping a title on the cover, and qualifying as an author. Want to write a good book? OK, but get in line since most pro authors are still trying to figure that out too.

Writing a good book, compared to a bad one, involves one thing. Work. No one wants to hear this, but if you take two books off any shelf, I’ll bet my pants the author of the better book worked harder than the author of the other one. Call it effort, study, practice, whatever. Sure there are tricks here and there, but really writing is a kind of work.

I intend to print this out, put it on my wall, and review regularly (from The Berkun Blog).

Good Friday links

RBC has an astoundingly interesting point-by-point comparison of the (two) trials of Jesus Christ leading up to his execution (widely believed to be miscarriages of justice) vs. two sets of trials at Guantanamo Bay, using 22 criteria from Human Rights First. A fascinating read, but I'm inclined to disagree with one of the scoring conventions, where the author counts 'not applicable because anachronistic' as equivalent to 'meets this criterion.' In other words, legal rights that are now recognized in the US count against the Gitmo trials and in favor of the JC trials, since these rights weren't recognized in ancient Jewish or Roman law. I guess this is an okay way to compare 'adherence to proper legal procedure,' since this attribute is defined by which procedures were in place at the time, but certainly not for comparing 'fairness' or 'justice,' unless by these terms you only mean 'adherence to proper legal procedure' with no substantive expectations.

More info on the political context of Jesus' trials.

Coolest web fact I did not know:

Via Wikipedia:

reCAPTCHA supplies subscribing websites with images of words that optical character recognition software has been unable to read. The subscribing websites (whose purpose is generally unrelated to the book digitization project) present these images for humans to decipher as CAPTCHA words, as part of their normal validation procedures. They then return the results to the reCAPTCHA service, thereby contributing to the digitization project. The result is that the university receives approximately 3,000 man hours per day of free labor to help in the preservation of books.

I always thought those words with squiggly lines were just especially clever CAPTCHA tests; I had no idea they were actually part of an incredibly cool distributed processing scheme. Spammers, of course, have learned how to use a reversed version of this system where a program entices real humans to decipher CAPTCHAs, in return for which they get to view racy images for free.

Friday fun links: time travel and economics

Tyler Cowen and Glen Whitman think about the effects of time travel on, respectively, interest rates and immigration. The conversation started when Tyler linked to Paul Krugman's 1978 paper, The Theory of Interstellar Trade (PDF).

Reflexive inactivity

Brian Moore, in a good post about us 'crazy legalizing libertarians':

This might be a bit nitpicky, but I also like the abuse of the term “reflex,” as if cultural libertarians were reactively doing something in this situation. It works for cultural moralism — when confronted with the stimulus of prostitution, they spring into action by calling for prohibition. When the cultural libertarians hear of prostitution, they say, “So?” You can’t reflexively do nothing.

I dunno -- I suppose amongst the blogger community the libertarians are a bit more considered and thoughtful about their preference for private action, but most regular, workaday libertarians I know are actually exactly like this: present them with a new potential policy problem, and their gut reaction is, "So what?" In other words, "please now provide arguments for why this problem needs solving on a coercive, governmental scale." In fact, I'd go so far as to argue that this is the distinguishing characteristic of the natural-born libertarian -- a robust intuition that the burden of proof is always on the party proposing new/more governmental action.

How to deal with know-it-all philosophy majors:

Eliezer Y. introduces a technique bound to make college parties much less violent (if somewhat less fun):

When you are faced with an unanswerable question - a question to which it seems impossible to even imagine an answer - there is a simple trick which can turn the question solvable. Compare:

"Why do I have free will?"

"Why do I think I have free will?"

The nice thing about the second question is that it is guaranteed to
have a real answer... [...]

Cognitive science may not seem so lofty and glorious as metaphysics. But at least questions of cognitive science are solvable. Finding an answer may not be easy, but at least an answer exists.

Coming Up: Startup Weekend Boulder (Round Two)

Startup Weekend, in which a bunch of people spend one weekend building and launching a tech startup, was created here in Boulder in July 2007 (launching VoSnap). It's now spread to about 15 other cities, including New York, Los Angeles, Boston and London, and Boulder II is coming up next weekend, March 21-23, hosted by the University of Colorado. Register using the link above, or go read local rockstar-entrepreneur David Cohen's top ten reasons to go.

Somebody Put Something in My Drink

There's an AP investigative report out today detailing the wide variety of pharmaceuticals to be found in the American water supply -- we're talking about very very small concentrations, which seem to be harmless in the short term, but there's some reasonable concern about what consequences we might see in a decade or two from constant, low-level exposure to antibiotics, antidepressants, sex hormones and heart meds (among others).

One interesting thing about this: the AP article says these drugs are finding their way into the water after being incompletely metabolized by patients, but there's no mention of the drugs being dumped in, full-strength, by health care facilities. Speaking from my own experience, I can say that a single medium-sized nursing facility might dispose of thousands of pills a month from expired or discontinued prescriptions by flushing them down the toilet. Hospitals and pharmacies, who knows? What's frustrating about this, aside from issues of water contamination, is that there's no mechanism in place to convert these wasted meds into meds for developing-world medical projects. I assume there are several sophisticated political and economic explanations for this, but seriously, dumping wasted drugs into our own water supply seems nearly as smart as subsidizing farmers to not grow corn (which would go bad, because it can't be shipped off to staving countries, for similar reasons).

HT: Sand in the Gears

Maps: Starbucks, Walmart, and more

Via Marginal Revolution, maps representing per capita distribution of Starbucks and Walmart, respectively:

An interesting feature of these maps is that while most areas seem to be saturated with either WM or SB, there's a relative lack of saturation on the east coast -- neither Starbucks nor Walmart has acheived high per capita distribution here. Do east coast shoppers and coffee drinkers have a stronger preference for independents or regional chains?

Here are a couple more maps for comparison--

Median household income (2006 data):

Deaths from heart disease (white males, based on 1997 CDC data):

A Beginner's Guide to Muslim Bioethics

Too interesting to relegate to the link sidebar; via Wired. Excerpt, from a Brown University anthropologist:

Of course there are always people who are extremists and who take absolutist positions -- but as a scholarly orthodox tradition, Islamic scholars have generally incorporated social contingencies into their opinions about the permissibility of modern practices, especially with the legal tool of "maslaha" -- which is a calculus of weighing particular benefits against risks (measured both socially and spiritually) [...].

The detailed breakdown provided by a bioethicist from King Faisal University (Saudi Arabia) is also highly educational. Although its phrasing is on the strict side, the actual range of technologies permitted is surprising.

'Bout time somebody sorted this out

Oxford to Study Faith in God:

University of Oxford researchers will spend nearly $4 million to study why mankind embraces God. The grant to the Ian Ramsey Center [sic] for Science and Religion will bring anthropologists, theologians, philosophers and other academics together for three years to study whether belief in a divine being is a basic part of mankind's makeup.

Here is a summary of the project from the Ramsey Centre. In addition to the areas listed above, there will also be a psychologist on the team, but how come there are no neuroscientists? Evolutionary biologists? It seems like these fields would be kind of relevant.

Just not shaping up to be a great week for CU

First, the Board of Regents votes to accept oil-industry exec Bruce Benson as President of the University of Colorado. Here in Boulder, this move is somewhat unpopular -- from anywhere in town, you can feel a kind of menacing rumbling coming from campus. I assume plans for protests are already underway.

UPDATE: This just in, in a memo from the CU Board of Regents:

The Board of Regents recognizes that this decision is unpopular among some important groups. We believe Mr. Benson will reach out to constituents in the first months of his presidency to build bridges and create partnerships, both inside and outside the university.

That Benson had better be one smooth-talkin' sonnuva gun, I say.

Meanwhile, Max Karson is back again -- locals will remember his name from last year when, as a junior at CU-Boulder, he was arrested, suspended and banned from campus after making 'threatening' remarks about the Virginia Tech shootings. (Wikipedia entry describing several other incidents resulting from Karson's enthusiastic exercising of his First Amendment rights.) The latest news is his 'satirical' anti-Asian column in the Campus Press, which has CU officials stepping all over themselves trying to apologize.

UPDATE: Here is a 2006 article in which Karson explains why he works so hard at being inflammatory.

MEANWHILE, the last surviving faculty member who was fired during CU's McCarthy-era Communist witch-hunt died this week.

Ugh.

Friday 'philosophy of sci-fi' links:

Several interesting bits of writing on the purpose and meaning of science fiction:

Clive Thompson on Why Sci-Fi Is the Last Bastion of Philosophical Writing (Wired)

Ender's Game: The Book That Cannot Be Adapted (Nerd World blog)

Was Kipling the first modern SF writer? (Biology in Science Fiction blog)

News: Biofuels STILL not the answer

Recent research supports what tech-savvy enviros have known for awhile now: biofuels have alot going for them -- they're cool, easy to understand, easy to engineer and easily integrated into our current car-addiction -- but they are not particularly green. I'll concede that biofuels might be a necessary stop-gap solution, and might at least help decouple the US from the middle east. Unfortunately, the biofuels bandwagon has all the makings of a great political initiative, for the reasons listed above, and is certainly acting to decrease the sense of urgency around the clean energy issue.

The great thing about the research community, though, is that it consists partly of people who like to optimize current solutions (marginally better biofuels, solar power, etc.) and partly of people who like to invent brand-new solutions that will take decades to be ready for scale-up. From a distance, this transition (from re-engineering old energy sources to adopting all new ones) will probably look very neat, the way things do in history texts, but personally I wouldn't mind sitting out the next 30 years or so, which won't look so smooth up close.

Neurotic robots better at strategy games

Mind Hacks points to some fascinating AI research:

[Researchers] used the popular strategy game Age of Mythology and created four software 'bots' to play the computer which were loosely based on the 'big
five' personality traits.

When they compared their successes, the version designed to simulate 'neurotic' personality traits came equal first in number of games won, but was the clear winner when the average time to victory was compared. It was deliberately designed to overestimate the value of current resources and had a tendency to resort to extreme playing styles - tending at times towards aggressive play, and at other times, overly defensive strategies.

Research slides here. So how come a neurotic computer player (as opposed to aggressive, defensive, or normal players) did better vs. a standard rational computer player? I guess if you're a computer playing a computer, any 'element of surprise' works in your favor, even when it sacrifices some of the gains you could win from playing with maximum rationality. As a human playing a 'neurotic' AI script, is there a comparative advantage to being even more neurotic?

Related link: algorithms for winning rock-paper-scissors.

Microsoft : Google : : Clinton : Obama

Via Wired:

Microsoft employees have donated a total of about $130,000 to Clinton, far more than any of the other six major candidates, according to a searchable database of the political donations at Fundrace, a project of the Huffington Post. At Google, donations favored Obama over the New York senator by $97,771 to $46,610. Yahoo staff also donated more money to Obama's campaign by almost two-thirds.

An interesting stat, if accurate, but possibly not too surprising, since it seems to indicate that employees of the (technologically and culturally) conservative Microsoft support the mainstream, respectable,workhorse candidate, while employees of the (technologically and culturally) progressive Google organization support the more progressive and far-out guy. Another stat reported in the Wired story: the only 'Republican' candidate to receive a sizable chunk of money from any of these three groups was Ron Paul (Microsoft employees lead the charge here too, closely followed by Google employees).

Some excerpts on this:

"I will reaffirm our commitment to basic research, invest in clean energy, combat global warming, create the millions of jobs that I think come from doing both of those, reemphasize math and science education, and ensure that America is training the future innovators of our country. America will once again be the innovation nation." (Clinton, Remarks at the Carnegie Institution for Science, Oct. 2007)

“Let us be the generation that reshapes our economy to compete in the digital age. Let's set high standards for our schools and give them the resources they need to succeed. Let's recruit a new army of teachers, and give them better pay and more support in exchange for more accountability. Let's make college more affordable, and
let's invest in scientific research, and let's lay down broadband lines through the heart of inner cities and rural towns all across America.” (Obama, Presidential Announcement Speech, Feb. 2007)

"I believe that [universal high-speed internet access] can be best accomplished through deregulation and allowing the free market to work. Federal grants and subsidies will only elevate certain providers while holding back others. If the high-speed Internet access market is allowed to work without interference, fierce competition will drive down prices, as it did with dial-up access. [...] The government has no constitutional authority to interfere in market transactions such as mergers. Legitimate concerns about the abuse of customer privacy should be addressed via private contracts between companies and consumers, with companies being held liable at common law for any breaches of their customer's privacy." (Paul, Cnet interview, Jan. 2008).

Democracy (what is it good for):

Tyler Cowen says:

The lesson is this: democracy is a very blunt instrument. Especially as it is found in the United States, democracy just isn't that smart or that finely honed or that closely geared toward truth or "progressive" values. (NB: Democracy in smaller, better educated, ethnically homogeneous nations is, sometimes, another story.)

But unlike one of my esteemed colleagues, I believe that we should revere democracy as one of the modern world's greatest achievements. [...] The future is far more likely to have "too little democracy" than "too much democracy." I do believe in checks and balances, but within a broadly democratic framework, such as we have in the United States.

That all said, we should not demand from democracy what democracy cannot provide. Democracy is pretty good at pushing scoundrels out of office, or checking them once they are in office. Democracy is also good at making sure enough interest groups are bought off so that social order may continue and that a broad if sometimes inane social consensus can be manufactured and maintained.

On the one hand, this means that, insofar as it can be considered to be at all goal- oriented (goals being things like fairness, high standard of living, etc.) democracy seems to function in a biased random-walk style, with each movement being more-or-less arbitrary and only corrected if a major error results. On the other hand, biased random-walk has turned out to be implicated in several neurological models for how we learn (here are more technical and less technical descriptions of some neuro models incorporating random-walk) as well as explaining how bacteria are able to locate food without a brain or sensory organs. So I'm inclined to find this similarity encouraging, since I think social processes are at their best when they replicate the interesting processes that have already evolved to solve astoundingly complex problems.

Two oddly interesting green sites

Here are two things I found more interesting than I expected to:

Latter-Day Sustainability: What it sounds like, environmentalism with a Mormon twist. (via Gristmill.) In the interests of comparison, I went looking for other religiously-tuned enviro blogs, and turned up one Jewish one which seems to be focused on living the sustainable lifestyle. Others?

Greenwashing Index: A site for viewing and rating (and occasioanlly debunking) ads making positive environmental claims on behalf of companies or products. A couple of examples:



(Currently rated 4.41 out of a possible 5 demerits)



(Currently a 4.2)

A newly discovered science blog:

This (from Adventures in Ethics and Science) makes me want to have children, immediately, right now. Although from what I hear, it takes a little while before they are old enough to converse at all intelligently about thermodynamics.

More on science, policy, and candidates

Following up on my Science Debate 2008 post, I've discovered a new resource for finding out what your representatives and preferred candidates have said about science and policy (good, bad and ugly): the Science, Health and Related Policies (SHARP) Network. It has a cool interactive wiki interface, and provides more depth than ontheissues.org. (HT: Scientific Activist.)

Related, here in Colorado the House is considering HB 1001, providing money for bioscience proof-of-concept research (following up on last year's HB1360, Bioscience Discovery Grant Program) and commercialization. Colorado is also providing funding for biofuels proof-of-concept work, and rumors abound that more money is coming along to solidify Colorado's foothold in renewable energy/cleantech, maybe from Governor Ritter's office. (Speaking of Ritter, I seem to be the only one who thinks it's funny when he uses his usual bullet-point style to talk about the four key growth areas he's identified for Colorado: Bioscience! [BAM] Energy! [BAM] Aerospace! [BAM] and... Tourism. One of these things is not like the others...)