You know you had a wild vacation when it takes two days to recover from it. You’d think that hanging out with a bunch of neuroscientists would be intellectually stimulating but perhaps a little light on the wild partying. You’d be wrong, at least about the partying part. The social scene surrounding the Marine Biological Laboratory is really something to behold. It was a long weekend, so there were parties every night for four straight nights, and all the parties were too good to leave before the wee hours. I ended up averaging about 5 hours sleep a night, which is nowhere near enough. Somehow biologists simply have better parties than physicists. I think it has to do with the average level of social skills. I know some very socially smooth physicists, but let’s face it – the average physics geek is a little on the dorky side, and a bunch of slightly dorky people all in the same place tend to condense into a big glob of mutually reinforcing dorkiness. Biology dorks don’t undergo the same transition, probably because they are fermion dorks, while physicists are boson dorks. Or something. There’s actually a coherent explanation for why biologist dorks should be fermionic (having to do with the greater degree of distinction between different subfields of biology), but something tells me that it would be better not to go there. Maybe I’m not yet fully recovered from my vacation 🙂
All posts by Andrew Case
That’s So September 10th
So anyway, it turns out that Wood’s Hole, being one of the nations finer scientific establishments, actually has internet access. Who’d a thunk it? A technological widget developed for the transmission of porn, spam, and offers from deposed Nigerian dictators, being used by scientists as a means of remote collaboration. Just goes to show the innovative and unexpected uses to which researchers can turn everyday objects.
Obviously I’m being a little ironic above. More seriously, my wife just showed me a really cool little trick that allows a >$10,000 piece of scientific equipment to be replaced by common items costing under $100. It’s a neat little illustration of nonlinear thinking and creative problem solving on the part of a graduate student who simply did not have enough money to buy the high end gear, so she tried to figure out a way to do it on the cheap. Nobody told her it wouldn’t work, and she was really keen on getting the work done, so she kept trying until she made it work. It’s a very cool little application, so why am I being evasive about details? Well, it involves a basic technique for genetic engineering. If this was September 10th 2001, I’d blissfully blog away. In the current environment I think dropping the cost of making genetically modified organisms by over $10,000 is not necessarily in the best interest of anyone. I had a nice little post all lined up to talk about technology and creativity and the importance of persistence, but I think I’ll just leave well enough alone.
It’s only a matter of time before genetic engineering techniques come within reach of basically anyone with a couple million dollars. The long pole in the tent right now is just the sheer amount of time it takes to carry out all the work, and the scattershot nature of the results. Given time, and especially given volunteers willing to die, a terrorist attack using GMOs is a real possibility. Technology is advancing rapidly, and established technologies are becoming cheaper and more accessible. The only effective way of reducing the risk of a mass casualty attack is to undermine the ideas behind the ideologies that drive the attackers. There will always be people who want to cause destruction, but the fewer collaborators they have the lower their chances of success.
That’s So September 10th
So anyway, it turns out that Wood’s Hole, being one of the nations finer scientific establishments, actually has internet access. Who’d a thunk it? A technological widget developed for the transmission of porn, spam, and offers from deposed Nigerian dictators, being used by scientists as a means of remote collaboration. Just goes to show the innovative and unexpected uses to which researchers can turn everyday objects.
Obviously I’m being a little ironic above. More seriously, my wife just showed me a really cool little trick that allows a >$10,000 piece of scientific equipment to be replaced by common items costing under $100. It’s a neat little illustration of nonlinear thinking and creative problem solving on the part of a graduate student who simply did not have enough money to buy the high end gear, so she tried to figure out a way to do it on the cheap. Nobody told her it wouldn’t work, and she was really keen on getting the work done, so she kept trying until she made it work. It’s a very cool little application, so why am I being evasive about details? Well, it involves a basic technique for genetic engineering. If this was September 10th 2001, I’d blissfully blog away. In the current environment I think dropping the cost of making genetically modified organisms by over $10,000 is not necessarily in the best interest of anyone. I had a nice little post all lined up to talk about technology and creativity and the importance of persistence, but I think I’ll just leave well enough alone.
It’s only a matter of time before genetic engineering techniques come within reach of basically anyone with a couple million dollars. The long pole in the tent right now is just the sheer amount of time it takes to carry out all the work, and the scattershot nature of the results. Given time, and especially given volunteers willing to die, a terrorist attack using GMOs is a real possibility. Technology is advancing rapidly, and established technologies are becoming cheaper and more accessible. The only effective way of reducing the risk of a mass casualty attack is to undermine the ideas behind the ideologies that drive the attackers. There will always be people who want to cause destruction, but the fewer collaborators they have the lower their chances of success.
That’s So September 10th
So anyway, it turns out that Wood’s Hole, being one of the nations finer scientific establishments, actually has internet access. Who’d a thunk it? A technological widget developed for the transmission of porn, spam, and offers from deposed Nigerian dictators, being used by scientists as a means of remote collaboration. Just goes to show the innovative and unexpected uses to which researchers can turn everyday objects.
Obviously I’m being a little ironic above. More seriously, my wife just showed me a really cool little trick that allows a >$10,000 piece of scientific equipment to be replaced by common items costing under $100. It’s a neat little illustration of nonlinear thinking and creative problem solving on the part of a graduate student who simply did not have enough money to buy the high end gear, so she tried to figure out a way to do it on the cheap. Nobody told her it wouldn’t work, and she was really keen on getting the work done, so she kept trying until she made it work. It’s a very cool little application, so why am I being evasive about details? Well, it involves a basic technique for genetic engineering. If this was September 10th 2001, I’d blissfully blog away. In the current environment I think dropping the cost of making genetically modified organisms by over $10,000 is not necessarily in the best interest of anyone. I had a nice little post all lined up to talk about technology and creativity and the importance of persistence, but I think I’ll just leave well enough alone.
It’s only a matter of time before genetic engineering techniques come within reach of basically anyone with a couple million dollars. The long pole in the tent right now is just the sheer amount of time it takes to carry out all the work, and the scattershot nature of the results. Given time, and especially given volunteers willing to die, a terrorist attack using GMOs is a real possibility. Technology is advancing rapidly, and established technologies are becoming cheaper and more accessible. The only effective way of reducing the risk of a mass casualty attack is to undermine the ideas behind the ideologies that drive the attackers. There will always be people who want to cause destruction, but the fewer collaborators they have the lower their chances of success.
Massachussetts
I made it safely to Wood’s Hole after driving for nine hours. A good stereo system is a bulwark against madness.
One observation I’ve made every time I come here (this is the fourth summer) – Massachussetts drivers suck. It’s not that they are incompetent a-holes like the drivers in DC. It’s that they yield with absolutely no rhyme or reason. For some reason the basic principle that safety in traffic is enhanced by everyone behaving in a predictable manner is just lost on them[*]. My sample is pretty biased, so maybe this is just a Cape Cod phenomenon, but I’ve already had two incidents in which a dangerous situation was created by someone deciding that despite the fact that they have right of way, they’ll stop and let me go. They are trying to be nice, oblivious to the fact that the people behind them think they are turning, so move to pass, just as the benevolent dimwit is waving me to move into a position to be T-boned. Perhaps its that this area is a vacation spot, so there are people from all over the place, each bringing their own local interpretation of how to behave in traffic.
[*] Incidentally, if you ever get a chance to drive in Brazil – don’t do it. At least don’t do it until you’ve aclimatized to the local driving customs. I thought Africa was bad, but Brazilians drive according to an unwritten set of rules which are universally understood by other Brazilian drivers and which bear only a passing relationship to the written traffic laws. The lack of carnage on the streets is due to the fact that everyone knows the unwritten rules, knows what to expect, and knows how other drivers will react.
Off to Wood’s Hole
I’m going on vacation for a week, so I may not post anything for a while. OTOH, I’m going to Wood’s Hole, where my wife is doing research at the Marine Biological Institute and there are all kinds of fascinating people to talk to, so there may be interesting stuff to blog about when I get back.
Off to Wood’s Hole
I’m going on vacation for a week, so I may not post anything for a while. OTOH, I’m going to Wood’s Hole, where my wife is doing research at the Marine Biological Institute and there are all kinds of fascinating people to talk to, so there may be interesting stuff to blog about when I get back.
Off to Wood’s Hole
I’m going on vacation for a week, so I may not post anything for a while. OTOH, I’m going to Wood’s Hole, where my wife is doing research at the Marine Biological Institute and there are all kinds of fascinating people to talk to, so there may be interesting stuff to blog about when I get back.
Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion
The reason I’ve been a little quiet these past few days is that I’ve been preparing a talk for presentation at the IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science, held in Baltimore this year. I presented yesterday, and it was generally well received. The topic was technical and boring, so I won’t gn into details here. The talk that ended the session I was at was particularly interesting, though, so I thought I’d blog about it.
The talk in question was presented by J. E. Brandenburg of the Florida Space Institute, titled Microwave Enhancement of Inertial Electrostatic Confinement of Plasma for Fusion: Theory and Experiment. Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (IEC) uses two (or more) nested spherical grids charged to a high relative voltage to accelerate ions towards the common center of the grids, where they collide and fuse. Philo Farnsworth patented an IEC concept he called the Fusor, and there are all the usual conspiracy theories about suppression of his research surrounding the history of the Fusor, though I suspect the truth of the matter has a lot to do with the fact that it didn’t really work very well, at least for power generation.
A Few Interesting Items
First, a little bit of Blue Origin Kremlinology: They are advertising for a crew systems engineer. There are rumors that they are working on a manned suborbital ship but then again there are also rumors that they are working on a transdimensional intergalactic warp drive. Either way, it looks like they want to put humans on it.
Clark Lindsey has an interesting item on the development of GPS, with lessons for RLV development.
…and Derek Lyons starts strong out of the gate with a piece on the business practicalities of space access.
Update a few hours later: Check out Dr. Day’s detailed comment on GPS, which is meatier than either my post or the one I linked to. Good Stuff.