Good Article, Bad Example

Naomi Wolf wrote a good How-To article on how to turn a democracy into a fascist state. However, her example of the 2006 Thailand Coup as an example of a process of turning Thailand into a fascist state is wrong. It's closer to the truth to view the coup as turning a proto-fascist government of Thaksin Shinawatra into a proto-democratic state. In this respect, the U.S.A. is in even more trouble than Thailand since there's nobody to stop the process of fascism. It might be wise to heed the advice of this retired soldier.

I wrote my voluminous impression of the coup in the past. After a year, I have to say that I'm quite disappointed with the result. There are so many things that could have been done by the people who seized power to prepare Thailand for a stable democracy. Instead, it's quite likely that Thailand will go into more vicious cycles of failed democracy after this coming election since many of the same politicians who bought votes will likely be in the parliament again.

BTW, you can see Naomi Wolf in talking about her book in this video clip.

If You Have To Die, Try To Die In Chilled Liquid

It seems that injecting cold saline solution into the body after the heart stops can prevent enough cell death that you can be resurrected!

There is another related news article about reviving the dead here.

Here is an excerpt from the first news article:

61-year-old Bill Bondar is living proof that people can be brought back from the dead.

"I didn't know I died, I didn't feel anything, I still don't believe it," Bill said.

"I looked at his face, and I was looking at a dead man," Bill's wife Monica said.

It happened just after the couple left a jam session. Bill collapsed outside their home, lifeless.

"That was the most frightening thing I ever saw in my life and I knew my husband was gone. He was gone," said Monica.

Paramedics were able to restart his heart, but that's just part of the battle. Cells continue to die, and there can be damage to vital organs like the brain, that could be fatal.

ทำไมการดูชะตาชีวิตด้วยวันเดือนปีเกิดจึงไม่น่าจะทำได้

ย้ายไป http://witpoko.com/?p=497 แล้วครับ

Bizarre Experiments

See how far people were willing to go in the name of science! Here are twenty very surprising/strange/horrifying/or just plain cool experiments collected by Alex Boese, the author of Elephants on Acid: And Other Bizarre Experiments.

I especially like #2, #7, #12, #16, #17, and #19.

The World Really Needs Peaceful Muslims' Help

These pictures left me speechless and very sad. We should all be able to live and let live, but fundamentalist nuts from various religions are spoiling it for everyone.

“We will have to repent in this generation not merely for the hateful words and actions of the bad people but for the appalling silence of the good people.” – Martin Luther King Jr.

Top Censored Stories

Top 25 Censored Stories of 2008, of 2007, of other years. You can find out about Project Censored here.

It's good to hear news that didn't make it to the mainstream. It sharpens my conspiracy theory instinct and it is true quite often :-)

In Thailand, it seems that most mainstream news outlets exist only to make money and keep the population numb enough for the Pyramid of Capitalist System. We should have a list for Thailand too.

A Few Useful Tips Forwarded To Me

How to use salt to tenderize steak,
Many uses of tennis balls,
Solar cooling and heating of your home,
How to make your own biodiesel, and
HOW TO BECOME INVISIBLE (for only $24.95, with free bonus books: SECRETS OF SEXUAL SEDUCTION and THE WIZARD'S BOOK OF ANIMAL SECRETS!!!)

If you buy the last one, please tell me how the it works. We can share a Nobel Prize, or two :-)

Superstition Is Not Limited To Human!

In 1948, there was an experiment by B.F. Skinner that showed that pigeons appeared to exhibit superstitious behaviors.


Full paper is here.


I think the result might be applicable to why human perform rituals, pray, bribe karma wheel, buy lotteries, etc. I also wonder whether animals have their religious thoughts too.


I like to collect these animal examples because, based on what we learn from animal and human behaviors, I believe that biology created human morals and religions through evolution of societal units and it's up to the us, not supernatural mechanisms, to make sure that bad deeds got punished and good deeds got rewarded. I don't believe that human require special treatment from nature in terms of mechanisms that shaped us.


A few books that shaped my thinking about this matter:

• Chimpanzee Politics: Power and Sex among Apes
• Peacemaking among Primates
• Sociobiology: The New Synthesis, Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition
• Moral Minds: How Nature Designed Our Universal Sense of Right and Wrong
• Journey to the Ants: A Story of Scientific Exploration
• The Evolution of Cooperation

In the last book, bacteria show cooperative behaviors that might be examples of what we would call moral behaviors. That book, along with The Blind Watchmaker started my education in evolution.

Lastest Batch Of Pictures From Aor

Once again, my wife Aor has posted many of our family pictures on Tabblo (a very easy to use picture sharing and printing website.)

Here are the pictures:

Mother Day in Thailand

Titus' 4th Birthday

Titus and Tatia's Water Color Adventure

Titus' Field Trip at Khao Yai

มีหนังสือมาแนะนำครับ

หนังสือ "X-Ray คนไทย 360 องศา" ครับ เขียนโดยคุณ พงษ์ ผาวิจิตร

เป็นข้อสังเกตว่าลักษณะของคนไทยเป็นอย่างไร และควรจะแก้นิสัยอะไรให้ดีขึ้น เขียนได้แสบๆ คันๆ แต่มีสาระดีครับ อ่านไปก็หัวเราะหึหึไป ผมอ่านแล้วก็สำรวจตัวเองและพบว่ามีนิสัยไม่ดีเยอะเหมือนกัน ถ้าไม่ได้อ่านก็คงไม่ได้เห็นนิสัยเสียของตนเองชัดๆ

เล่มไม่ใหญ่ 240 หน้า ราคา 200 บาท ถ้ามีเวลา ลองอ่านดูครับ

Sometimes Experts Don't Know Much

The Rosenhan experiment showed that psychiatric hospital staff couldn't reliably distinguish between the sane and the insane in the hospital. The full paper can be found here.

According to another study at Cornell, you can implant false memories into preschool children to make them think the memories are true, and experts cannot distinguish, by interviewing the children, which memories are true and which are false.

So, when experts' claims conflict with reality, you should be careful in checking whether the claims are true or not. Most people (yes, including me) appear (or pretend) to know more than they actually know.

--- - ---- - ----- ---------
P.S. How to believe anything? That's a hard question that cannot be completely solved. I think we can only hope to converge closer and closer to the truth. Gotama Buddha tried to teach the Kalamas people using the list we know as Kalama Sutra. Personally, I like the Bayesian approach of updating my belief on whether something is true or false as I gain more and more evidences. A short overview of Bayesian inference is here. A reading list can be found here.

A Surprisingly Honest Interview

In this 2005 Spiegel interview, Pan Yue, China's Deputy Minister of the Environment described how China's fantastic growth in GDP has tremendous environmental cost.

More info about Pan Yue can be found on Wikipedia. Here is another article by him in English in July 2007.

It will be good for everyone on this earth when policy makers are smart enough to ponder the true cost of development and have enough inner strength to do the right things. Measuring GDP without the cost to environment is simply incorrect, and we will ultimately pay the price.

Tatia's Underwater Demolition Training Commenced

She is on her way to be in a special force in the future. You can see her rare training photos here.

Danica McKellar Is My Hero

I remember Danica McKellar playing the part of Winnie Cooper in the TV show The Wonder Years in the late 1980s to early 1990s. She has a new book out called Math Doesn't Suck to promote mathematics to young people.

She said, "When girls see the antics of Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan, they think that being fun and glamorous also means being dumb and irresponsible, but I want to show them that being smart is cool. Being good at math is cool. And not only that, it can help them get what they want out of life." and "I want to tell girls that cute and dumb isn't as good as cute and smart."

By the way, Ms. McKellar has a theorem named after her. It's called the "Chayes-McKellar-Winn Theorem," and you can see the paper here. She also tutors kids online at Danica's Corner.

She also appeared in lingerie for Stuff magazine.

Cute + Dumb < Cute + Smart, indeed.

--- - ---- - ----- ---------

P.S. My beautiful and smart wife approved this post.

แนะนำให้อ่านครับ

ถ้าใครสนใจว่าประวัติความเป็นมาของประเทศไทย และสนใจประวัติวีรสตรีที่ไม่จอมปลอม รีบไปซื้อ นิตยสาร สารคดี ฉบับ ที่ 269 กรกฎาคม 2550 เลยนะครับ หน้าปกเป็นรูปท่านผู้หญิงพูนศุข พนมยงค์ ถูกตำรวจคุมตัวไปขังด้วยข้อหาที่ไม่เป็นความจริง

ท่านผู้ หญิงพูนศุข ภรรยาของรัฐบุรุษอาวุโส ปรีดี พนมยงค์ ผู้ ก่อการอภิวัฒน์สยามประเทศ ท่านเป็นผู้ หญิงตัวเล็ก ๆ ที่กล้าต่อกรกับ ทหารอาวุธครบมือ แม้ใน ยามที่เผชิญมรสุมทางการเมืองครั้งแล้ว ครั้งเล่า ท่านก็ยัง เด็ดเดี่ยว ยึดมั่นใน สัจจะ กล้าประกาศความ จริง และให้ อภัยกับ ทุกคน ตลอดชีวิต ท่านได้ ทำหน้าที่ภรรยา และ แม่อย่างเข้มแข็ง ใช้ ชีวิตเรียบง่ายเยี่ยงชนธรรมดามาโดย ตลอด ใน บั้นปลายชีวิตยังช่วย งานสังคมใน ทุกโอกาส ท่านคือแบบอย่างของความ สูงสุดคืนสู่สามัญโดย แท้ แม้จนวาระสุดท้ายของชีวิต ก็ยัง “ไม่ ขอรับเกียรติยศใด ๆ ทั้ง สิ้น” คงไม่ เกินจริงที่จะ กล่าวว่า สตรี “ผู้ ยิ่งน้อย” ท่านนี้เองที่ชนรุ่นหลังกราบไหว้ได้ อย่างสนิทใจ

Autistic People Cannot Lie (Easily)

I found this essay by Simon Baron-Cohen (the psychologist whose cousin is Borat's Sacha Baron-Cohen) about people with autism and Asperger's syndrome and their lack of lying skill very interesting.

From the essay:

"And then there are people with autism. Their neurological condition leads not only to difficulties socializing and chatting but also to difficulties recognizing when someone might be deceiving them or understanding how to deceive others. Many children with autism are perplexed by why someone would even want to deceive others, or why someone would think about fiction or pretense. They have no difficulty with facts (version 1 of reality) and can tell you easily if something is true or false (“Is the moon made of rocks? Yes! Is the moon made of cheese? No!”). But they may be puzzled by version 2 of reality, that “John believes the moon is made of cheese.” Why would a person believe something that is untrue?"

By the way, the inventor of BitTorrent, Bram Cohen also has Asperger's syndrome.

Interesting Point/Counterpoint: Did Islamic Civilization Propelled The World Through The Dark Age?

The argument for: How Islam has kept us out of the ‘Dark Ages’

The argument against: What Arab Civilization?

My favorite word derived from Arabic is "algorithm" which, according to Wiktionary, comes ... from Medieval Latin algorismus, a mangled transliteration of the name of the Islamic mathematician al-Khwārizmī (Arabic: الخوارزمي, "native of Khwarezm.")

Examples for English words derived from Arabic can be found here. Admiral, adobe, alchemy, alcohol, algebra, etc. are among them.

Understanding Something Is More Than Just Knowing Fancy Words

An anecdote by Richard Feynman:

For example, there was a book that started out with four pictures: first there was a windup toy; then there was an automobile; then there was a boy riding a bicycle; then there was something else. And underneath each picture it said, "What makes it go?"

I thought, "I know what it is: They're going to talk about mechanics, how the springs work inside the toy; about chemistry, how the engine of the automobile works; and biology, about how the muscles work."

It was the kind of thing my father would have talked about: "What makes it go? Everything goes because the sun is shining." And then we would have fun discussing it:

"No, the toy goes because the spring is wound up," I would say. "How did the spring get wound up?" he would ask.

"I wound it up."

"And how did you get moving?"

"From eating."

"And food grows only because the sun is shining. So it's because the sun is shining that all these things are moving." That would get the concept across that motion is simply the transformation of the sun's power.

I turned the page. The answer was, for the wind-up toy, "Energy makes it go." And for the boy on the bicycle, "Energy makes it go." For everything, "Energy makes it go."

Now that doesn't mean anything. Suppose it's "Wakalixes." That's the general principle: "Wakalixes makes it go." There's no knowledge coming in. The child doesn't learn anything; it's just a word!

What they should have done is to look at the wind-up toy, see that there are springs inside, learn about springs, learn about wheels, and never mind "energy." Later on, when the children know something about how the toy actually works, they can discuss the more general principles of energy.

So, when you try to understand how something works or comes to be, and some authority say to you it's because of X, you better know how X operates.

If you haven't read a book called "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman", you should really read it at least once in your life. It contains a lot of fun adventures by the great scientist Richard Feynman.

T3 Is Near Completion

We have the latest 4-D ultrasound of the T3 project today. This is her 23rd week and she should come out around October 26 or so. You can see an exciting movie of her sleeping here.

As usual, we went to Bangpo General Hospital in the morning to meet Dr. Vichit who brought Titus and Tatia to this planet. We are quite certain he will do the same for T3.

Titus was born before we had access to the 4-D ultrasound so he doesn't have his pre-natal movies. Tatia's movies can be found in my previous posts here and here.

You know, T3 looks very much like Tatia, so maybe the ultrasound machine always draws the same face every time :-D

ความสามารถของธีธัช

อาทิตย์ที่ผ่านมา ธีธัชแต่งเนื้อเพลงไว้สองเพลง แต่ยังไม่มีทำนอง โดยพยายามร้องในรถ และโต๊ะอาหาร:

ค้างคาวเอ๋ย
เจ้านอนท่าไหน
นอนห้อยหัว
แสดงว่าถูก

และ

ยีราฟเอ๋ย
ทำไมไม่กินเนื้อ
แต่สิงโตกินเนื้อ
สัตว์อื่นๆ

นอกจากนี้หลังจากธีธัชดูหนังตัวอย่าง Transformers ไปหนึ่งรอบ เมื่อเห็นรูป(นางเอกหนัง Transformers)นี้ในหนังสือ Movie Time:

ก็เรียกผมให้ดูว่าเป็นหนังหุ่นยนต์

เข้าใจจำนะลูก

Pound = lb. and Ounce = oz. Why?

This is one of the questions that kept me wondering, but not enough to actively look for the answer. Today, my RSS feeder found a short article by the World's Smartest Human Being, Cecil Adams:

"Lb." stands for libra, the basic unit of Roman weight, from which our present-day pound derives. The libra weighed a little under 12 ounces avoirdupois.

"Oz." stands for the Italian onza, ounce. It came into use in the 15th century. Ounce comes from the Latin uncia, a 12th, which is also the source of the term "inch."

Of course, in the end, it does not explain why pound comes from pondo while lb. comes from libra. I guess random accident of human decisions got stuck with us again.

I have read the Straight Dope in physical book format since 1987 and found it very interesting. You might want to visit the website.

A Debate About Life After Death

Michael Shermer gains my respect as a great proponent and educator against irrational beliefs.

Deepak Chopra is very likely one of the greatest (and very rich) living charlatan of our time. He is a real medical doctor, by the way.

They had a debate about Life after Death. You should be able to guess which side I am on.

A moral of the story is: Even if a person is a real medical doctor, it does not mean that he is not a bullshitter and we should always question authority.

If there is life after death, there is no evidence for it. Given what we have observed in the world, I don't think it's likely there is such a thing. It's not depressing to me that after I die, I would feel exactly like before I was born and that I should live the best/most useful life I can during the short time I have. Many people I talked to don't feel the same way and prefer that there is an afterlife.

Skepticality Podcast

Everytime I visited the USA, I would always buy the current issues of Skeptic magazine. The magazine is the official publication of the Skeptics Society, a scientific and educational organization of scholars, scientists, historians, magicians, professors and teachers, and anyone curious about controversial ideas, extraordinary claims, revolutionary ideas, and the promotion of science.

I was looking for something interesting to listen to on my computer and mp3 player, and I found out about Skepticality, which is the official podcast of Skeptic magazine. I was very happy to see the podcast archive that should feed me for a year.

There are two things that currently annoy me greatly and make me think that skepticism should be more widely practiced in Thailand:

1. The "Jatukam Ramathep" hype in Thailand.
2. Books such as "ไอนสไตน์ถาม พระพุทธเจ้าตอบ" which short-change the intricacy and beauty of science in the public's mind by confusing various religious claims with scientific ideas.

In the first annoyance, I am quite pissed that people who claim to be Buddhists blatantly ignore Gautama Buddha's teaching and give in to superstition and worship to attain their well-being. It's as if Buddha never existed and never taught us what he discovered.

For the second annoyance, I usually found gross inaccuracies about what we know about the world through scientific investigation in this type of books. Given the authors' sloppiness about being well-informed and accurate about science, I think it's prudent to assume that they are similarly sloppy about their religion too. The uninformed readers would be fooled by the authors' eloquence and misunderstand our universe in the end. A mind poison, indeed.

Of course, the two annoyances are just the latest fads that reflect our society's preference, and I think the more people consciously become a skeptic, the more we can dispel ignorance and superstition from our society. I firmly believe that democracy critically depends on a large number of informed citizens that can make logical decisions. Sadly such a prerequisite seems to be absent from Thailand.

Anyway, I would like to end on a more positive note and would like to introduce you to a very entertaining video of Michael Shermer giving a talk titled "Why people believe strange things." If your Internet connection is not fast, you would probably want to download the file and play it later.

M81

Here is a beautiful description of what the M81 galaxy meant to an astronomer when he looked at it.

High resolution pictures and more info about M81 can be found here.

If you are not sure what a galaxy is, you should really check this Wikipedia article.

Billions and billions (and billions...) of galaxies, each with billions and billions (and billions...) of stars. Our Sun is just one of these stars. All life on Earth's surface derive their energy input from the Sun.

By the way, M81 is considered quite close to us at about 12 million light-years away. Now, to put that distance in perspective, it took light 12 million years to travel from M81 to Earth. Meanwhile, the speed of light is so great (to us) that light can travel around the Earth 7 times in one second. (Light travels about 300,000 kilometers per second, or about a billion kilometers per hour.)

We live in a really big universe.

ความสุขใจเล็กๆน้อยๆ

คุณสาธิต (Atrium's system administrator extraordinaire) ส่งเมล์มาบอกผมว่ามี blog สองแห่ง (ที่ไม่ใช่ผมเอง) เขียนถึง SaiJai.net:

http://oatato.exteen.com/20070511/entry
และ
http://pourboire.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!E380E0F17AF2445!7285.entry

ถ้าใครรู้จักคนอื่นๆที่ชอบ SaiJai.net อย่าลืมบอกกันนะครับ หรือถ้ามีคำแนะนำติชมให้ปรับปรุงอะไรก็ช่วยบอกด้วยครับ

SaiJai.net: อุปกรณ์เลี้ยงลูกช่วยลดปัญหาเด็กพ่อแม่ไม่สั่งสอน
SaiJai.net: ดูแลการใช้คอมของลูก แม้คุณจะนั่งอยู่ที่ทำงาน :-)

Design For The Other 90%

“The majority of the world’s designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10% of the world’s customers. Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%.”

—Dr. Paul Polak, International Development Enterprises

This website contains very cool products that should ease the suffering of most people in the world. I think many can be used or adapted in Thailand.

My favorites include:

Pot-In-Pot Cooler, which is a simple refridgerator using only water and pottery,

LifeStraw, which is a straw that will filter unclean water into drinking water,

Ceramic Water Filter, which supplies clean drinking water,

One Laptop Per Child, which (will be) a $100 durable laptop suitable for child exploration and learning, and,

Solar Dish Kitchen, which cooks with sunlight.

On a related note, Ancient Persia discovered a way to use the wind to cool their living space using windcatchers. The modern evolution is the planned Burj al-Taqa building in Dubai that will use wind and sunlight to save energy.

กฏแห่งกรรม* มีจริง แต่เกิดจากคน ไม่ใช่ปาฏิหาริย์

ถ้าปล่อยไปตามยถากรรม รอให้คนชั่วตายไปก่อนได้รับโทษ กฏแห่งกรรมก็จะไม่ทำงาน

ผมเชื่อว่า กฏแห่งกรรมเป็นคุณสมบัติที่เกิดขึ้น (emergent property) เมื่อสมาชิกในสังคมมีความเป็นมนุษย์ถึงระดับหนึ่ง

กฏแห่งกรรมไม่ใช่สิ่งศักดิ์สิทธิ์ ที่เราเพียงหวังพึ่ง แล้วก็จะดลบันดาลให้มีผล

สมาชิกในสังคมดี -> กฏแห่งกรรมทำงานเสมอๆ (ทำดี highly correlated กับ ได้ดี) -> สังคมดี

สมาชิกในสังคมไม่ค่อยดี -> กฏแห่งกรรมทำงานเป็นบางครั้ง (ทำดี somewhat correlated กับ ได้ดี) -> สังคมไม่ค่อยดี

สมาชิกในสังคมแย่ -> กฏแห่งกรรมไม่ทำงาน (ทำดี uncorrelated กับ ได้ดี) -> สังคมแย่

สมาชิกในสังคมเลว -> กฏแห่งกรรมทำงานแบบกลับข้าง (ทำชั่ว highly uncorrelated กับ ได้ดี) -> สังคมเลว

--- - ---- - ----- ---------

*Of course, "กฏแห่งกรรม" in a trivial sense of causality already exists, since we live in a reasonably predictable universe governed by physical laws, not an arbitrary universe like Harry Potter's.

hakia Search Engine

I found a new search engine called "hakia" that seems not to be worse than Google and seems to be better at handling natural questions (such as "How to stream flash video from website?", "How to find the age of the universe?", etc.)

So, if you search for information a lot, you might find this useful. You can see the examples above the search box for more ideas.

Cellulose-Based Personal Armor System From AAI (Aor Armory International)

See the pictures here. I was stunned.

Titus the Artist & Tatia the Bully

Yes, my wife updated her Tabblo again. You can see Titus' water color painting here. Also, Tatia's crime was reported here.

Evidences For Life's Common Ancestors & The Tree Of Life

A good friend of mine asked me what evidences I have for my belief in the idea that all living things on earth have common ancestors. This is an excellent question since it's very important to base our judgement about reality on good evidences, or we can easily be led astray by our commonsense, biases, and other extremely appealing ideas that don't match reality.*

My specific belief is this: All living things on Earth descend from one or small number of groups of ancestors. (I would like to say one group, but I'm open to the possibility that there are unknown life forms that have independent ancestors, distinct from our group.)

For this particular belief, a very good summary of evidences can be be found here (29+ Evidences for Macroevolution: The Scientific Case for Common Descent.)

Also, a very informative depiction of known life on Earth can be found at the Tree of Life Web Project. Make sure that you read this page about the interpretation of the image.

An implication of the belief is that I am a (mostly distant) relative of bacteria, mushrooms, blue-green algae, jasmine rice, earth worms, monitor lizards, cows, starfish, mangoes, octopuses, fire ants, bees, dogs, monkeys, gorillas, parrots, sharks, triceratops, T-Rexes, the slaves that built the pyramids, Ghenghis Khan, and you, the reader.

Another implication that if there are extra-terrestrial beings (which I really hope there are, although I don't have any evidence for that yet) it's very unlikely for them to look very similar to us. Even if we and ET have the same common ancestors, that ancestors must have come to earth billions of years ago and will have enough time to evolve into us and myriads forms of animals and plants. Similarly, the ET would descend from the common ancestors over the similarly long time period. So, Captain Kirk in Star Trek should not be able to mate with those ET chicks if he is not really, really into inter-planetary bestiality. (Same reasoning applies to Superman and Lois Lane.**)

Yet another implication is that human is not the apex of evolution. There will be other lifeforms in the billions of years ahead if we don't destroy all life first. We are the first Earth lifeform that can destroy all life on Earth using our technology, but we are not necessarily the best lifeform. To think that we are the peak of all possible lifeforms is just extremely arrogant.

Finally, my body is made of atoms from things (living/dead, never-alive) from the past. Therefore, I also believe that when I die, some atoms that used to be me will be recycled into other living things in the future but the atoms won't carry any of my memory there, since my memory is not stored in specific atoms, but in the patterns of how atoms are arranged. This is supported by the fact that, atoms inside my bodies are very likely to have been in bodies of people of the past, yet I don't share their memory. Conversely, with very high probability, atoms that are in my body now weren't the same atoms that were in my body when I was a child, yet I still remember many things from my childhood. This gives me a hope that, in principle, human can preserve identity/memory by capturing the memory patterns and upload them to more permanent substrate and become relatively immortal.

--- - ---- - ----- ---------
* The great Richard Feynman summed it up (in this book) thus: "... there are many reasons why you might not understand [an explanation of a scientific theory] ... Finally, there is this possibility: after I tell you something, you just can't believe it. You can't accept it. You don't like it. A little screen comes down and you don't listen anymore. I'm going to describe to you how Nature is - and if you don't like it, that's going to get in the way of your understanding it. It's a problem that [scientists] have learned to deal with: They've learned to realize that whether they like a theory or they don't like a theory is not the essential question. Rather, it is whether or not the theory gives predictions that agree with experiment. It is not a question of whether a theory is philosophically delightful, or easy to understand, or perfectly reasonable from the point of view of common sense. [A scientific theory] describes Nature as absurd from the point of view of common sense. And it agrees fully with experiment. So I hope you can accept Nature as She is - absurd.

I'm going to have fun telling you about this absurdity, because I find it delightful. Please don't turn yourself off because you can't believe Nature is so strange. Just hear me all out, and I hope you'll be as delighted as I am when we're through."


**Larry Niven wrote a very funny essay called "Man of Steel,Woman of Kleenex" on the problems involved when Superman and Lois Lane try to mate.

Two Ways To Combat Ignorance Promulgated By Religious Fundamentalists

Lately, religious fundamentalists of all types are trying to force schools in many countries to either stop teaching evolution as an explanation of how life and species were formed, or to spend equal time teaching nonsense that is amply contradicted by evidences.

Here are two ways to combat such vile attempts:

1. A rational way: Explain the frequently misunderstood aspects of evolution, and,
2. A sublime way: Convert the infidels to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

If you are interested in evolution, you can start here.

The book that changed my view of how the world came to be is The Blind Watchmaker, by Richard Dawkins. I read it when I was 19 and I'm so glad I did. Dawkins wrote in the book: "I want to persuade the reader, not just that the Darwinian world-view happens to be true, but that it is the only known theory that could, in principle, solve the mystery of our existence."

You can learn more about the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster here (Wikipedia), here (Uncyclopedia), and here (the official website.)

รำลึกถึงคนดี

ท่านผู้หญิงพูนศุข พนมยงค์ เคยให้สัมภาษณ์ในเรื่องนี้ไว้ครั้งหนึ่งว่า “นายปรีดีไม่เคยให้ของขวัญมีค่าแก่ฉันเช่นสามีหลายท่านกระทำกัน แต่ภายหลังวายชนม์ฉันค้นเอกสารได้พบพินัยกรรมที่นายปรีดีเขียนด้วยลายมือตนเอง ลงวันที่ 2 มกราคม 2509 ซึ่งเป็นวันคล้ายวันเกิดฉัน จึงทำให้ฉันได้รับบำเหน็จตกทอดนายปรีดีเป็นเงิน 123,960 บาท ขณะนี้มีชีวิตอยู่ นายปรีดีได้รับบำนาญเดือนละ 4,132 บาท ดังนั้นฉันจึงได้รับบำเหน็จตกทอด 30 เท่าของบำนาญ เมื่อฉันรำลึกถึงความหลังคราใดก็รู้สึกซาบซึ้งที่นายปรีดีได้เสียสละและไม่เห็นแก่ตัว ให้ความไว้วางใจฉันอย่างเต็มที่ และอดภูมิใจไม่ได้ว่าเป็นภริยานักการเมืองที่มุ่งบำรุงความสุขสมบูรณ์ของราษฎรโดยมิเคยฉ้อราษฎร์บังหลวงหรือกอบโกยผลประโยชน์เพื่อตัวเองและครอบครัวเลย”

ถ้ามีโอกาส ลองเข้าไปดูเว็บสถาบันปรีดี พนมยงค์ นะครับ ลองดูความคิดเรื่องคอคอดกระเมื่อปี 2501 แล้วจะตกใจว่าราคากี่บาท

ถ้าจะพยายามเข้าใจช่วงเวลานานๆ...

ย้ายไป http://witpoko.com/?p=528 แล้วครับ

Nuclear (Fission) Power To The Rescue?

I am very interested in this article proposing that appropriate nuclear fission reactors (fast reactors) can provide all the energy we will foreseeably need.

I'm brushing up my rusty nuclear physics knowledge to see if it's plausible.

The abstract reads:

"Nuclear fission energy is as inexhaustible as those energies usually termed "renewable", such as hydro, wind, solar, and biomass. But, unlike the sum of these energies, nuclear fission energy has sufficient capacity to replace fossil fuels as they become scarce. Replacement of the current thermal variety of nuclear fission reactors with nuclear fission fast reactors, which are 100 times more fuel efficient, can dramatically extend nuclear fuel reserves. The contribution of uranium price to the cost of electricity generated by fast reactors, even if its price were the same as that of gold at US$14,000/kg, would be US$0.003/kWh of electricity generated. At that price, economically viable uranium reserves would be, for all practical purposes, inexhaustible. Uranium could power the world as far into the future as we are today from the dawn of civilization—more than 10,000 years ago. Fast reactors have distinct advantages in siting of plants, product transport and management of waste."

I have a bias in that I really want solar (thermal and electric) energy to succeed because Thailand has plenty of sun light. Also, we would be using the Sun as our nuclear (fusion) reactor situated 150,000,000 km away instead of a nuclear (fission) reactor a few tens to hundreds km away. However, if this fast reactor approach is feasible and safe enough, it deserves serious consideration for future energy production.

บทความแนะนำเรื่องการใส่พุทธศาสนาไว้ในรัฐธรรมนูญ

บทความเต็มอยู่ที่นี่ครับ (อย่าลืมซื้อเนชั่นสุดสัปดาห์เพื่อสนับสนุนหนังสิอพิมพ์ที่เข้าท่า)

ข้อความน่าสนใจ:

"ถ้า พูดตรงไปตรงมา เราไม่ มีศาสนาพุทธเป็น ศาสนาประจำใจ ดูจาก อาชญากรรม ดูจาก ปัญหาคอร์รัปชัน ความ รุนแรงใน ครอบครัว การพึ่งพิงสิ่งศักดิ์สิทธิ์งมงาย ถ้า บัญญัติใน รัฐธรรมนูญจะ ทำให้ เรามองปัญหาผิดเป้า คือไปเรียกร้องแต่รัฐบาล เมื่อบัญญัติใน รัฐธรรมนูญแล้ว กฎหมายออกมาอย่างโน้นอย่างนี้ แต่ประชาชนยังไม่ได้ ทำอะไรเลย แค่เรื่องทำให้ วัดปลอดเหล้า รัฐบาลจะ ทำอะไรได้ ไหม ใน เรื่องนี้ อาตมาคิดว่าทำได้ น้อย เรื่องนี้เป็น เรื่องปกติมาก ที่วัดจะ มีการกินเหล้ากันใน เทศกาลผ้าป่า กฐิน งานวัด งานศพ ถามว่า รัฐ ตำรวจ จะ ทำอะไรใน เรื่องนี้ได้ ไหม ไม่ได้ นะ คนที่จะ ทำได้ คือพระและ ชุมชน แต่ตอนนี้ชุมชนอ่อนแอ พระก็ไม่ มีกำลัง"

"คือเรากลัวแต่ศาสนาอื่น แต่เราไม่ ตระหนักเลยว่า เราซึมซับวัตถุนิยม บริโภคนิยมมา แล้ว เวลานี้บริโภคนิยมเผยแพร่ไปทั่ว ปัญหาที่เป็น สิ่งคุกคามพุทธศาสนาไม่ใช่ ศาสนาอื่น แต่เป็น วัตถุนิยม ศาสนาจตุคามรามเทพ หรือ ว่าสิ่งศักดิ์สิทธิ์สะท้อนความ อยากจะ รวย อยากจะ มั่งมีมากๆ มีกูไว้ไม่ จน นี่คือคำขวัญของจตุคามรามเทพ"

"คนไทยอยากรวย และ นี่คือความไม่ พอเพียง นี่คือสิ่งที่ทำลายพรหมจรรย์ของพระสงฆ์ นี่คือสิ่งที่ทำลายคุณธรรมของคนไทย เรามีคอร์รัปชัน มีการฆ่ากัน ปล้นจี้กัน นี่คือบริโภคนิยม วัตถุนิยม ถามว่า ตรงนี้เราเห็นเป็น ปัญหาหรือ เปล่า ตรงนี้ไม่ใช่ ใครทำนะ เราทำกัน เอง ตรงนี้รัฐบาลช่วยได้ น้อย"

"ตอนนี้เรากำลังหวังทางลัด เหมือนคนที่อยากจะ รวย แต่ไม่ ทำงาน ได้ จตุคามรามเทพมาดีแค่ไหน ก็ไม่ มีทางรวยได้ อย่างแท้จริง คนที่เป็น ห่วงพระพุทธศาสนา ก็อยากได้ ทางลัด ยืมมือรัฐเข้า มาจัดการ แต่อาตมาคิดว่าไม่ได้ แก้ปัญหา เพราะ ว่าชาวพุทธเราตั้งแต่คณะสงฆ์ลงมา ปล่อยปละละเลยไม่ สนใจ เพราะ ฉะนั้น ถ้า เราไม่ ทำตรงนี้ แม้รัฐจะ ปรารถนาดีอย่างไร ก็ทำไม่ได้"

"อาตมาคิดว่า แทนที่จะ หันไปมองรัฐว่ารัฐควรจะ ทำอะไรบ้าง ควรถามตัวเองว่า เราชาวพุทธจะ ทำอะไรได้ บ้าง เป็น ไปได้ ไหม วัดที่มีเงินเยอะๆ หลายพันล้าน หมื่นล้าน จะ เผื่อแผ่ไปยัง วัดที่ยากจน ให้เขา มีการอบรมพระเณรให้ ดีขึ้น เมืองไทยเวลานี้ไม่ได้ ขาดเงิน ใน วงการคณะสงฆ์ไม่ได้ ขาดเงิน ไม่ จำเป็นต้องได้ เงินจาก รัฐแม้แต่สตางค์แดงเดียวก็ได้ เพราะ ว่าเงินทำบุญ เงินที่ได้จาก ญาติโยม มากมายมหาศาล"

"แต่เราไม่ แบ่งกัน เราไม่ได้ใช้ใน ทางที่ถูกต้อง คือเราไปสร้างวัตถุ แต่เราไม่ สร้างพระเณร เราไม่ใช้ใน การอบรมการศึกษาเยาวชน แล้ว พอมีปัญหา เราก็บอกว่า รัฐบาลช่วย หน่อย รัฐบาลต้อง เข้มแข็งกว่านี้ อาตมาคิดว่าตรงนี้เป็น การมองแบบไม่ ตรงจุด"

One More Step Toward My Cyborg Future!

This IBM's report indicates that their scientists used the 4096-processor BlueGene/L supercomputer to simulate 8 million neurons of mouse brain with 6,300 synapses per neuron at 1/10 the real-time speed.

Human brain has about 100,000 million neurons, so there is a factor of 12,500 in the number of neurons to go, and a factor of 10 for the simulation speed. Let's say we need 1,000,000 times more computing power to simulate the human brain in real time, that will take only 20 doublings in processing power to achieve. Therefore, a supercomputer in 20-30 years might be able to simulate a human brain!

Further understanding of how the states of the brain are stored in neuron configurations, and how to read the state of a living human and upload the state to the simulator would be the limiting steps in our ability to backup our brain states.

Hopefully, in the next few decades, nanotech + biotech will allow us to either repair our biological body or build a more durable artificial body for our backup brain states.

I think if I can live another 40-50 years, I will be able to upload and backup myself repeatedly to live for a really long time.

I might as well dream a little bit more. I might even download my brain to a diplodocus body with Titus in an allosaurus body and we can really walk with the dinosaurs. Maybe I can live for a while in a plesiosaur body to reduce my fear of the ocean. :-)

Why Does Iron Kill Stars? ทำไมเหล็กถึงฆ่าดาวฤกษ์

Watch the video clip here.

สรุปภาษาไทย:

ดาวฤกษ์ส่องแสงได้เพราะน้ำหนักของดาวกดให้ธาตุเบาๆ (ไฮโดรเจน ฮีเลียม ... ดูตารางที่นี่) รวมตัวกันเป็นธาตุที่หนักขึ้น

เช่น H + H -> He (ไฮโดรเจน + ไฮโดรเจน กลายเป็น ฮีเลียม)

ปฏิกริยาเหล่านี้จะคายพลังงาน (นี่ก็คือ ระเบิดนิวเคลียร์ดีๆนี่เอง) ฉนั้นแรงระเบิดจะทำให้ดาวฤกษ์พองอยู่ได้ไม่ยุบตัวตามน้ำหนักของดาว และส่องแสงสว่างมากอย่างที่เราเห็น

ในตอนเริ่มต้นดาวฤกษ์มีแค่ไฮโดรเจนและฮีเลียม ไม่มีธาตุอื่นๆเลย แต่เมื่อเวลาผ่านไปธาตุที่หนักขึ้นเรื่อยๆก็จะถูกสร้างภายในดาวฤกษ์ด้วยการรวมตัวของธาตุเบาๆ

เราจะได้ธาตุหนักขึ้นเรื่อยๆ แต่จะเริ่มมีปัญหาเมื่อถึงธาตุเหล็ก เพราะการเปลี่ยนจากธาตุเหล็กให้เป็นธาตุที่หนักกว่าจะต้องใช้พลังงาน แทนที่จะคายพลังงาน

ดาวก็ไม่มีแรงระเบิดนิวเคลียร์ที่ทำให้ดาวพองตัวอยู่ได้ แล้วดาวก็จะหดตัวลงอย่างรวดเร็วจากการกดทับของน้ำหนักของตัวเอง

ถ้าดาวหนักมากพอ ความเร็วในการหดจะสูงพอที่จะทำให้เกิดปฎิกริยาอีกแบบที่ทำให้เกิดการระเบิดอย่างรุนแรงทำให้ชิ้นส่วนของดาวกระเด็นไปไกลๆๆๆๆ การระเบิดนี้เรียกว่า Supernova

ถ้าดาวหนักมากเกินขีดหนึ่ง แรงระเบิดอันรุนแรงนั้นก็ยังไม่พอที่จะทำให้ชิ้นส่วนของดาวกระเด็น และดาวนั้นก็จะเป็นหลุมดำ

ข้อสังเกตุที่ผมชอบก็คือ

1. อะตอมทั้งหลายในร่างกายเรา ในต้นไม้ ในสัตว์ ในน้ำ หรือในเกือบทุกอย่างในโลก เคยอยู่ภายในดาวที่ตายไปและระเบิดเป็น supernova มาก่อน (ก่อนอะไร? ก่อนดวงอาทิตย์จะเกิด ดวงอาทิตย์เราค่อนข้างจะมีอายุน้อยที่ประมาณ 5 พันล้านปี จักรวาลน่าจะมีอายุประมาณ 1.3 หมื่นล้านปี (คุณอาจจะสงสัยว่าเรามีวิธีรู้อายุหลายวิธีไหม--คำตอบคือมีครับ))

2. เวลาเรามองดวงอาทิตย์ เรากำลังมองระเบิดนิวเคลียร์ขนาดยักษ์ ที่หนักเกินไปที่จะกระเด็นกระดอนไปทุกทิศทาง

3. ถ้าเราฉลาดพอที่จะใช้พลังงานแสงอาทิตย์ เราจะไม่มีปัญหาขาดแคลนพลังงานเลย (หรือจนกว่าเราจะเริ่มหาทางจะเดินทางไปดาวอื่นๆ)

The US's High Cost Of Killing (Iraqi Fighters)

I saw this headline: "US Forced to Import Bullets from Israel as Troops Use 250,000 for Every Rebel Killed" and I was trying to have some understanding of the magnitude of this stupendous number.

From the news, between 2002 and 2005, the US used 6,000,000,000 bullets in Iraq. This is almost one bullet per each person on earth, since there are about 6,500,000,000 people on Earth.

Assuming the weight of the bullet is 4 grams*, the total weight of bullets is 4 grams per bullet x 6 billion bullets = 24 billion grams, or 24 million kilograms, or 24,000 tons! or 20,000 Toyota Yaris!**

Assuming the bullet is very cheap at 10 cent each, it takes $25,000 or about one million baht to kill one Iraqi fighter. The actual cost is probably at least 2-3 times my estimate.

Now, of course, that was just the cost of bullets. There are other costs such as bombs, planes, tanks, fuels, personnel, food, etc. There is an estimate of the total cost of Iraq Invasion at the National Priorities Project ($400 billions+, or more than 14 million million baht.) Of course, there are various estimates as described here***, but the cost is at least in hundreds of billions of dollars or trillions of dollars.

If it costs this much to invade Iraq to control their oil, wouldn't it be cheaper just to bribe everyone (26 million) in Iraq and buy oil at a fair price? For each $100 billion, each Iraqi will receive approximately $4,000 which is about the per capital GDP ($3,600 in 2005.)

I told you, stupid & evil leaders are very harmful to the world. Lee Iacocca does not think there are any US leaders left in the White House though.

--- - ---- - ----- ---------
*Using the data from http://www.onlineconversions.com/weight.php,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.223_Remington, and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5.56_mm_NATO, to calculate the weight (and look up the performance) of each bullet.

**For comparisons, a small car like Toyota Yaris is about one ton each. A bigger car like Mercedes Benz E weighs about two tons.

***Just search Google for "cost of iraqi war" to see the various estimates.

Microsoft Is Dead, Or Not

Paul Graham* said, "Microsoft Is Dead."
Don Dodge said, "No, Microsoft is not dead."
Paul Graham replied, "Microsoft is dead, metaphorically."


Well, I suppose the "Microsof Is Dead" argument might be simpler to understand if we say that Microsoft is not likely to be relevant to the future innovation related to computing and the Web, but that would not be a good headline for an article, wouldn't it?

On the other hand, Don Dodge said that Microsoft is very strong financially and is in many emerging markets. He is incidentally the Director of Business Development for Microsoft's Emerging Business Team, so if he agrees with Paul Graham, Microsoft would definitely be dead.

As for me, my judgement is clouded by my anger at how mediocre Windows Vista is. My (over)reaction would be Microsoft is no longer relevant to the innovation, and thus I tend to agree with Paul Graham's claim.

I'm also known for being often wrong but never in doubt.

--- - ---- - ----- ---------
*Paul Graham is responsible for, among other things, raising awareness of applying Bayesian inference to the problem of email spam in his "A Plan for Spam" essay.

"Not Even Wrong" And How My Mathematical Mediocrity Accidentally Saved Me A Lot Of Grief

Not Even Wrong* by Peter Woit is a book about how string theory monopolizes the attention and resources of theoretical particle physics for the past 20 years while producing no testable prediction to decide whether the idea is correct or not. I have just finished reading the book this week, and found it to be a very interesting book. Aspiring physic students should definitely read it before they choose their research fields**.

To understand the overview of the history of particle physics in the first half of the book, the reader should be a layman interested in physics or has at least an undergraduate science training. However, any rational, scientifically-minded person can follow the conclusion of the book. The most striking passage of the book that I found is:

"Now matter how things turn out, the story of superstring theory is an episode with no real parallel in the history of modern physical science. More than twenty years of intensive research by thousands of the best scientists in the world producing tens of thousands of scientific papers has not led to a single testable experimental prediction of the theory. This unprecedented situation leads one to ask whether one can really described superstring theory research as scientific research in the field of physics. This question tends to take on two different forms. One form of the question that many physicists ask is whether superstring theory should not perhaps be described as mathematics rather than physics. A second form of the question asks whether the theory is a science at all."

In 1990, I was a junior physics undergrad at Caltech and was contemplating whether I should go into theoretical particle physics or not. At the time, string theory seemed to be the only game in town for particle theorists who want to have any chance of a tenure professorship. After a lot of investigation, I just could not see the internal beauty of the theory as claimed by many, many smarter people advocating the theory. To me, with my mediocre mathematical skills, it just seemed very complex and difficult, with no accessible physical interpretation. I decided to go into biomedical physics and software instead and followed the theoretical ideas from the sideline.

That decision turned out to be good for me in the long run. I had enough time to explore a wider range of human knowledge such as computer science, evolution, history, signal processing, statistical inference, handgunning, and Buddha's discovery. I didn't have a chance to discover the ultimate building blocks of the universe, but given that thousands of smarter people working for two decades and failing to have any testable prediction, I doubt that I would have done any better.

Well, the morals of the story are:

1. Even if you don't have great skills, you can be quite happy doing what you find personally interesting;
2. A scientific theory must make predictions that can be tested by experiments or observations. If it cannot do so, we cannot know whether it's correct or not;
3. There are infinitely many internally consistent mathematical objects. To know which one corresponds to our physical reality, we should humbly ask Nature through suitable experiments;
4. Monoculture, for living things and for ideas, is harmful. For monocultured living things, a single strand of virus can wipe out the entire population. For monocultured ideas, a fashionable but misguided idea can do a lot of damages, even to geniuses among us.

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*The famous physicist Wolfgang Pauli (of Pauli Exclusion Principle) usually proclaimed "wrong" (falsch) or "utterly wrong" (ganz falsch) when he disagreed with a scientific idea. He reserved "That is not even wrong" (Das ist nicht einmal falsch) for vague ideas that could not be confirmed or refuted, and therefore did not belong in science.

**My first blog post was about options that a highschool/college student might want to know about.

มีข่าวชมตัวเองมาบอกครับ

เมื่อวันเสาร์ที่ 24 มีนาคม บริการใส่ใจ ได้รางวัลชมเชยสาขาซอฟท์แวร์เพื่อสังคม ในการแข่งขันเพื่อ รางวัล เจ้าฟ้าไอที รัตนราชสุดา สารสนเทศ

ผมเศร้าที่ไม่ได้ที่หนึ่ง :-) แต่จริงๆแล้วข่าวนี้น่าตื่นเต้นสำหรับพวกเราชาวเอเทรียมอย่างมากด้วยเหตุผลดังนี้:

1. เราได้รางวัล แม้ว่าควรจะมีผู้ชนะรางวัล Grand Prize เพียงรางวัลเดียว ปรากฏว่าคณะกรรมการได้มีการเพิ่มรางวัลอีกสองรางวัล และเราก็ได้หนึ่งรางวัลจากสองรางวัลนั้น
2. คณะกรรมการให้คำจำกัดความรางวัลเราไว้ว่า "รางวัลชมเชยสาขาซอฟท์แวร์เพื่อสังคม" พวกเราดีใจมากว่ามีคนเห็นความพยายามที่จะทำประโยชน์ให้ส่วนรวม
3. คณะกรรมการให้กำลังใจเป็นเงินสนับสนุนถึง 100,000 บาท

เรายิ้มหุบไม่ลงอยู่นานทีเดียว

ถ้าท่านมีลูกหลานอายุสัก 7-8 ขวบขึ้นใปที่เริ่มใช้คอมพิวเตอร์ และต้องการจะปลูกฝังภูมิคุ้มกันทางอารมณ์ และทางสังคม ด้วยการเข้าใจและสอนให้ถูกทาง* ผมแนะนำให้ลองใช้บริการใส่ใจดูครับ จะได้ไม่เหมือนปิดตาเลี้ยงลูก มีสมาชิกหลายรายเขียนจดหมายมาบอกผมว่าคิดไม่ถึงว่าเด็กจะรู้เรื่องและสนใจเรื่องแปลกๆหลายๆเรื่อง ถ้าไม่ได้ใช้ใส่ใจ ก็จะไม่มีทางรู้เลย

เข้าใจลูกเสียก่อน จะได้สอนเขาให้ถูกทาง

ถ้าเราช่วยกันสอนลูกดีๆ สังคมไทยอาจจะพัฒนาได้อย่างเข้าท่าได้ในอนาคตอันใกล้**

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*ผมประมาณการว่าปัญหา 80%ของประเทศไทยมาจาก "สังคมแย่เพราะเด็กพ่อแม่ไม่สั่งสอน" เลยหาทาง optimize การสอนเด็กเพื่อลูกหลานเหลนโหลนของพวกเราจะได้อยู่ในสังคมที่ดีขึ้น

**ผมเขียนสรุปสิ่งที่ผมอยากจะสอนลูกผมไว้ที่นี่

A Reason To Live "Forever"*

I found an interesting article about what important ideas scientists want to tell us. Sir Martin Rees said this:

"I'd like to widen people's awareness of the tremendous timespan lying ahead — for our planet, and for life itself. Most educated people are aware that we're the outcome of nearly 4bn years of Darwinian selection, but many tend to think that humans are somehow the culmination. Our sun, however, is less than halfway through its lifespan. It will not be humans who watch the sun's demise, 6bn years from now. Any creatures that exist then will be as different from us as we are from bacteria or amoebae.

Our concern with Earth's future is, understandably, focused upon the next 100 years at most — the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren. But awareness of this longer time horizon, and the immense potential that human actions this century could foreclose, offers an extra motive for proper stewardship of this planet."

I hope scientists will learn about our biology and information processing fast enough to significantly extend our lives. Although I want to believe otherwise, all evidences so far tell me that I only have one life to live, so I better live a good, long one before this consciousness ceases to exist at my death. There is so much to explore and learn, so much potential in directly evolving our body and mind, and so little time to do it. But hey, if we succeed, maybe we will become something like Q!

Another two quotes that I think more people should know about are:

"I wish everyone understood Darwinian natural selection, and its enormous explanatory power, as the only known explanation of "design". The world is divided into things that look designed, like birds and airliners; and things that do not look designed, like rocks and mountains. Things that look designed are divided into those that really are designed, like submarines and tin openers; and those that are not really designed, like sharks and hedgehogs. Darwinian natural selection, although it involves no true design at all, can produce an uncanny simulacrum of true design. An engineer would be hard put to decide whether a bird or a plane was the more aerodynamically elegant." -- Richard Dawkins

"Science is not a catalogue of facts, but a search for new mysteries. Science increases the store of wonder and mystery in the world; it does not erode it. The myth that science gets rid of mysteries, started by the Romantic poets, was well nailed by Albert Einstein —whose thought experiments about relativity are far more otherworldly, elusive, thrilling, and baffling than anything dreamt up by poets.

Isaac Newton showed us the mysteries of deep space, Charles Darwin showed us the mysteries of deep time, and Francis Crick and James D Watson showed us the mysteries of deep encoding. To get rid of those insights would be to reduce the world's stock of awe." -- Matt Ridley
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*"Forever" because it's not really forever as in infinite years, just a few centuries to a few billion years :-)

My Wife Discovered Flickr and Tabblo

Click here to go to our pictures at Flickr.
Click here to go to our pictures at Tabblo.



I personally like Tabblo better because it is very easy for us to arrange pictures on the pages.  It is also made with my favorite programming language, Python.  (Well, Python and a lot of Javascript, I suppose.)

How Could You Not Listen To Jennifer Connelly?

I have been telling people about the stupidity and the immorality of buying and wearing diamonds for a few years while receiving mostly perplexed looks and polite smiles from the people I tried to convince. Needless to say, I am quite a failure at this.

However, in the movie Blood Diamond, Jennifer Connelly's character summed it up infinitely better than I could have done. She said, "People back home would not buy a diamond if they knew it cost someone their hand."

Wanting and buying diamonds, besides being an example of how we are fooled by brilliantly evil marketing strategy to pay enormous sum of money for artificially-scarce commodity, also provides great incentives for mistreatment of the poor and the children. Child enslavement, mutilation, and murder are done just to bring us some stupid shiny rocks. A good summary of all the various reasons we should stop wanting diamonds can be found in this article and this article.

I also would like to point out that we have the technology to synthesize diamonds atom-by-atom, resulting in better quality gems than any naturally occurring diamonds. (This reminds me that, once upon a time, aluminum was priced more highly than gold, due to the difficulty of extracting pure alumninum from rocks. Now, after appropriate technology was discovered in 1886, aluminum is abundant and cheap enough that we can throw away aluminum foils. I suspect that I will use diamond-based semi-conductors, diamond-powder coated electronic devices, and forever-sharp-diamond-edged knives in a decade or two.)

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P.S. Jennifer Connelly, besides being one of the most beautiful actresses in the world, can actually act, and very well at that. She got an Oscar for her role in A Beautiful Mind. I saw her movies since she was a teenager, and I thought, "Good thing this girl is pretty, she cannot act." I'm very happy to see that I'm completely wrong. Starting in the late 1990's, it became more and more apparent what a good actress she has become. Some of her roles I enjoy include a lesbian college student in Higher Learning, the leading role in Dark City (one of my top ten Sci-fi movies), a political activist in Waking the Dead, and a drug addict in Requiem for a Dream.