I find it shocking that after 500 years growth of the field of medicine, there is still no good way to repair nerve damage. One break of your spine and everything below the break is lost to you forever. Meanwhile, a (mad) researcher can do a freaking head transplant, which would be useful if it didn't render all monkeys involved quadriplegic.
Meanwhile, neurologists are experimenting with nerve grafts, there's a few attempts at pills, even computer chips. (what the hell?)
There is everything to gain by succeeding in this. People could transplant limbs to repair amputation, cure paralysis forever, or even transplant human heads. (We put your perfectly good head off the old diseased body and onto a body whose owner smashed his skull. Everybody wins except him, but he smashed his head. There's not much we can do to fix that.)
And then there's Dr. Sakiyama-Elbert's nerve gel that can be squirted around nerve injuries. The nerves them repair around the gel, reconnecting and restoring the use of what was previously numb and paralyzed. Just a few more years testing to see if it really works. Sweet.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Compound Failure
Here's a time worm joke on poor planning. This was supposedly a city council meeting in Mississippi, according to the quoted book. (Although I've seen it attributed to various cities throughout 40 of the 50 states on the web, possibly mis-attributions of the same story). The council planners make a three-part plan. Any two of the three alone would have been an excellent plan, but mixing the three suddenly becomes pure idiocy. (And aspect 2 wasn't very smart to begin with, I say get rid of that one.)
Presumably next month's meeting was about the strange and alarming increase in jail escapes.
Now like I said, any two of those alone would have worked. (Albeit combining two or three alone would basically be waving your hands and yelling "TADA!!!") Plans 1 and 3 would be the best combination, in which the city builds a new jail from new materials, presumably of higher quality, and then move the inmates to the new one upon creation. Plans 1 and 2 would involve moving the inmates to another facility temporarily while the materials get recycled.
The material recycling is the least important part because jail components are quite cheap. Steel for the bars, concrete for the floors, walls, and ceilings, maybe some brick. At most, $20/ft^3, and that's assuming that we do something like have sophisticated electronic locks.
I see this kind of thinking all the time. Sometimes people just don't grasp the implications of some of their statements. Sometimes it's because they don't want to understand the implications, especially when this means harder work or less profit for them. Sometimes it's because they're working far outside of their expertise. Sometimes it's because they're not used to making connections.
As an example of purposely not understanding the connections, chickens are not legally animals in Louisiana. Although the legislators do understand that chickens are animals, they have ruled otherwise because cockfights are quite popular there, and they need a loophole from the animal cruelty laws to continue them. So their loophole is that chickens are not animals, they are something else and therefore exempt. (Food, I suppose? Living...food?) So an insane conclusion is required to preserve the status quo.
1. Resolved, by this council, that we build a new jail
2. Resolved, that the new jail be built out of the materials of the old jail.
3. Resolved, that the old jail continue to be used until the new one is finished.
Presumably next month's meeting was about the strange and alarming increase in jail escapes.
Now like I said, any two of those alone would have worked. (Albeit combining two or three alone would basically be waving your hands and yelling "TADA!!!") Plans 1 and 3 would be the best combination, in which the city builds a new jail from new materials, presumably of higher quality, and then move the inmates to the new one upon creation. Plans 1 and 2 would involve moving the inmates to another facility temporarily while the materials get recycled.
The material recycling is the least important part because jail components are quite cheap. Steel for the bars, concrete for the floors, walls, and ceilings, maybe some brick. At most, $20/ft^3, and that's assuming that we do something like have sophisticated electronic locks.
I see this kind of thinking all the time. Sometimes people just don't grasp the implications of some of their statements. Sometimes it's because they don't want to understand the implications, especially when this means harder work or less profit for them. Sometimes it's because they're working far outside of their expertise. Sometimes it's because they're not used to making connections.
As an example of purposely not understanding the connections, chickens are not legally animals in Louisiana. Although the legislators do understand that chickens are animals, they have ruled otherwise because cockfights are quite popular there, and they need a loophole from the animal cruelty laws to continue them. So their loophole is that chickens are not animals, they are something else and therefore exempt. (Food, I suppose? Living...food?) So an insane conclusion is required to preserve the status quo.
Friday, June 5, 2009
The Art of Smuggling
Sailor's magazine Marine Buzz has an article about smuggling boats. Smuggling is an area in which insane projects are the norm, because sane ones inevitably get caught.
In the beginning, people wanting to bring over illegal goods did so on foot. Typically, they were caught. This annoyed the kingpin, because his goods were confiscated, and the mule, who got severely punished. (I'm not naive enough to believe that the kingpin gave a hoot about the mule.)
So then, planes. For a little while this worked. Then problems emerged first with dropping the goods in the wrong places, where it hit people. Hitting people with illegal things kind of draws the wrong kind of attention. Also, planes tend to have things like transponders that make them extremely blatant.
So then the idea of ocean-based smuggling occurred. The perpetrators built really narrow boats with a flat, ocean-color-painted top. The boats were then stuffed with guidance electronics, loads and loads of illegal goods, and an operator. The operator would sail the boat to an obscure shore where it would be unloaded and then abandoned. (The boat was apparently cheap enough that a new one could be built every smuggling operation.) The boat sounds no larger than my bathroom in total, but still had hundreds of millions of dollars worth of goods on it.
And for a long time, the boats worked, because they were extremely hard to see. And when they were seen, they were confused with other things, or sunk with the operator escaping, thus destroying all the evidence. Then the coast guard developed a way of capturing these boats, by finding their most common materials via sonar and abruptly inserting a commando before the operator notices.
So the next idea? Goddamned submarines. Professional navies have difficulty finding enemy submarines, and a litany of technologies have been developed to make them even more invisible. The thing runs under complete radio-silence, making at most a whirring noise from the propulsion engines, and there are ways of suppressing that, too. Even this will eventually be caught by the coast guard, and probably whatever they discover will revolutionize submarine warfare forever.
In the beginning, people wanting to bring over illegal goods did so on foot. Typically, they were caught. This annoyed the kingpin, because his goods were confiscated, and the mule, who got severely punished. (I'm not naive enough to believe that the kingpin gave a hoot about the mule.)
So then, planes. For a little while this worked. Then problems emerged first with dropping the goods in the wrong places, where it hit people. Hitting people with illegal things kind of draws the wrong kind of attention. Also, planes tend to have things like transponders that make them extremely blatant.
So then the idea of ocean-based smuggling occurred. The perpetrators built really narrow boats with a flat, ocean-color-painted top. The boats were then stuffed with guidance electronics, loads and loads of illegal goods, and an operator. The operator would sail the boat to an obscure shore where it would be unloaded and then abandoned. (The boat was apparently cheap enough that a new one could be built every smuggling operation.) The boat sounds no larger than my bathroom in total, but still had hundreds of millions of dollars worth of goods on it.
And for a long time, the boats worked, because they were extremely hard to see. And when they were seen, they were confused with other things, or sunk with the operator escaping, thus destroying all the evidence. Then the coast guard developed a way of capturing these boats, by finding their most common materials via sonar and abruptly inserting a commando before the operator notices.
So the next idea? Goddamned submarines. Professional navies have difficulty finding enemy submarines, and a litany of technologies have been developed to make them even more invisible. The thing runs under complete radio-silence, making at most a whirring noise from the propulsion engines, and there are ways of suppressing that, too. Even this will eventually be caught by the coast guard, and probably whatever they discover will revolutionize submarine warfare forever.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Mechanical Motion
The number one obstacle in automating anything is a naive attempt to mimic what hands do in the manual version. Which the machine really cannot do, since mechanical hands exist mostly as prosthetics and would require a human brain to make them really work their best anyway.
In the 1700s and before, clothing had to be hand-sewn by a tailor, and was super expensive. Most people owned at most two outfits. Or sometimes even just one. If it got damaged, they would hand-sew patches on to repair it, because they sure as hell couldn't afford another pair.
The tailors were all overworked, and sewing was a task outright itching for automation. And so starting in the 1600s, people attempted to create automated sewing machines, recognizing that such an invention would revolutionize the clothing industry. So they watched people hand sew, and tried to make a machine copy that movement. None of them worked. Always, something would jam, break down, or fail.
The real innovation didn't hit until 1846. The modern sewing machine uses both a needle and a bobbin to sew from both sides of the cloth at once in a way that would be quite impossible for a human to copy. And that is the lesson I would like to teach today: Mechanical movements are quite different from their human counterparts.
Or, let us take the vacuum cleaner. The human-wielded device is a cart, with a vertical attachment to a bag, and a handle for human direction. So to automate it, I suppose people first tried mechanical legs and arms, only to have the whole contraption repeatedly fall over. And then when automated vacuum cleaners were invented, they look nothing like the hand-pushed kind of yesteryear. They look more like a security droid from a sci-fi movie.
So when a task is automated, it often is accomplished in a way different way than it would be if a human was doing it. Imagine if there were no windshield wipers. If it rained, you'd regularly have to pull to the side of the road, get out of the car, and wipe the windows with a dry cloth. And you had better hope that you had a large supply of dry cloths. Imagine if then somebody tried to create a windshield wiper that moved a cloth and then wrung it out. Probably wouldn't work very well.
PS: The invention of the sewing machine has reduced a pair of the typical kind of shirt I wear to $7, and the cost of a pair of pants to $10. I own tens of each.
In the 1700s and before, clothing had to be hand-sewn by a tailor, and was super expensive. Most people owned at most two outfits. Or sometimes even just one. If it got damaged, they would hand-sew patches on to repair it, because they sure as hell couldn't afford another pair.
The tailors were all overworked, and sewing was a task outright itching for automation. And so starting in the 1600s, people attempted to create automated sewing machines, recognizing that such an invention would revolutionize the clothing industry. So they watched people hand sew, and tried to make a machine copy that movement. None of them worked. Always, something would jam, break down, or fail.
The real innovation didn't hit until 1846. The modern sewing machine uses both a needle and a bobbin to sew from both sides of the cloth at once in a way that would be quite impossible for a human to copy. And that is the lesson I would like to teach today: Mechanical movements are quite different from their human counterparts.
Or, let us take the vacuum cleaner. The human-wielded device is a cart, with a vertical attachment to a bag, and a handle for human direction. So to automate it, I suppose people first tried mechanical legs and arms, only to have the whole contraption repeatedly fall over. And then when automated vacuum cleaners were invented, they look nothing like the hand-pushed kind of yesteryear. They look more like a security droid from a sci-fi movie.
So when a task is automated, it often is accomplished in a way different way than it would be if a human was doing it. Imagine if there were no windshield wipers. If it rained, you'd regularly have to pull to the side of the road, get out of the car, and wipe the windows with a dry cloth. And you had better hope that you had a large supply of dry cloths. Imagine if then somebody tried to create a windshield wiper that moved a cloth and then wrung it out. Probably wouldn't work very well.
PS: The invention of the sewing machine has reduced a pair of the typical kind of shirt I wear to $7, and the cost of a pair of pants to $10. I own tens of each.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
Rebuild New York
New York is America's largest city, boasting 8 million people, and claiming to be a serious cultural center. This much is the good news.
The bad news is that in the 200 years since the filling out of the city, much of it is old, ugly, and falling apart. Construction grows more difficult by the day due to the virtue that half the infrastructure consists of things that no one is quite sure what it is, but is afraid of inconveniencing millions of people if they break it. Thousands of miles of obsolete gas, pneumatic, and other pipelines crisscross the city. New York is watered by two enormous pipelines. The pipelines have been in use continuously for over a hundred years, and the engineers are afraid that if they shut one down for inspection, that they might not be able to start it up again. Bad. A third pipeline is underway, estimated to be complete in 2010.
I think that all of the city landowners should pool their money with the city's for a massive rebuild. We would take a census of every person, every business, every structure in the city and what humans live and work there. Then we would move all 8 million people out into temporary structures (either in upper New York or in Montana) and level the city to the ground. We would then rebuild the city with all structures twice as tall and with better infrastructure. (Many buildings were built before such things as air conditioning and internet access, and retrofitting is proving a problem. These new buildings would be built with those in mind.)
Having rebuilt every last structure, and new pipelines and subway, we would then get out our census notes and move people back into the addresses that they once occupied. The census would enable people to continue to rent at the same address at the same rate as before. However, the twice as large building could accommodate new tenants as well, thus earning the landlord additional money. (This should be pleasing to all parties involved.)
We would, of course, insist on all the replaced buildings be up to code, with all the latest safety standards in wiring, fire prevention, and waterproofing. (New York is technically in a hurricane zone.)
I think that the increased quality, comfort, and lack of decay would revitalize the city. In addition, improvements to the subway system would make it faster and easier to get to work, as well as reach neighboring regions (such as pennsylvania and new jersey) for additional economic opportunities.
This would of course cost a ludicrous sum of money. Still, between all the building owners and the city, I think it could be achieved.
The bad news is that in the 200 years since the filling out of the city, much of it is old, ugly, and falling apart. Construction grows more difficult by the day due to the virtue that half the infrastructure consists of things that no one is quite sure what it is, but is afraid of inconveniencing millions of people if they break it. Thousands of miles of obsolete gas, pneumatic, and other pipelines crisscross the city. New York is watered by two enormous pipelines. The pipelines have been in use continuously for over a hundred years, and the engineers are afraid that if they shut one down for inspection, that they might not be able to start it up again. Bad. A third pipeline is underway, estimated to be complete in 2010.
I think that all of the city landowners should pool their money with the city's for a massive rebuild. We would take a census of every person, every business, every structure in the city and what humans live and work there. Then we would move all 8 million people out into temporary structures (either in upper New York or in Montana) and level the city to the ground. We would then rebuild the city with all structures twice as tall and with better infrastructure. (Many buildings were built before such things as air conditioning and internet access, and retrofitting is proving a problem. These new buildings would be built with those in mind.)
Having rebuilt every last structure, and new pipelines and subway, we would then get out our census notes and move people back into the addresses that they once occupied. The census would enable people to continue to rent at the same address at the same rate as before. However, the twice as large building could accommodate new tenants as well, thus earning the landlord additional money. (This should be pleasing to all parties involved.)
We would, of course, insist on all the replaced buildings be up to code, with all the latest safety standards in wiring, fire prevention, and waterproofing. (New York is technically in a hurricane zone.)
I think that the increased quality, comfort, and lack of decay would revitalize the city. In addition, improvements to the subway system would make it faster and easier to get to work, as well as reach neighboring regions (such as pennsylvania and new jersey) for additional economic opportunities.
This would of course cost a ludicrous sum of money. Still, between all the building owners and the city, I think it could be achieved.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Capacitate Lightning
Lightning often strikes the Earth's surface. Sometimes it hits a person. Sometimes it causes property damage. The status quo sucks, let's change it.
In the 1700s, Benjamin Franklin did many experiments about the nature of electricity, although the thing with the kite was actually just a thought experiment, and not actually done. In the course of these experiments, he invented the lightning rod. Not only did it protect a house from being struck by lightning, it also harnessed the energy to ring a bell, mostly as proof that it was protecting you. This was later disabled when the repeated bell ringing annoyed his wife and his friends.
Churches at the time often denounced the lightning rod as interfering with the wrath of God. They stopped doing so when churches quickly became the #1 most often struck structure in existence, which made their argument look, at best, patently insane.
Anyway, lightning has considerable energy. Essentially a built up, over sized version of static cling, lightning strikes with around 500 MegaJoules of energy. This is enough energy to run my computer for about 2 months. However, it is all delivered at once, which leads to major grid-problems when the electric grid itself is struck. Equipment literally fries from the sudden burst of energy all at once.
So I propose placing a large metal rod in a lightning-prone area. This rod is connected to a very high capacity diode, then to a very large bank of capacitors. Then another, more conventional, diode, then a bank of batteries. When lightning strikes the rod, the capacitors suck up the energy, then slowly drain it into the batteries. The batteries can slowly power the electrical grid after passing through, yes, another diode. The diodes are to ensure that this setup does not drain backwards, which would uselessly suck energy from the grid. The capacitors store energy, but not very well. Capacitors are mostly useful for their ability to quickly charge and discharge. The batteries should be the deep-cycle kind that can be charged and drain without annoying side effects like battery-memory.
This structure would supplement the energy grid slightly, but not well. Its primary purpose would be to absorb lightning strikes in the area to prevent them from damaging other structures. The added power is just a minor side benefit.
In the 1700s, Benjamin Franklin did many experiments about the nature of electricity, although the thing with the kite was actually just a thought experiment, and not actually done. In the course of these experiments, he invented the lightning rod. Not only did it protect a house from being struck by lightning, it also harnessed the energy to ring a bell, mostly as proof that it was protecting you. This was later disabled when the repeated bell ringing annoyed his wife and his friends.
Churches at the time often denounced the lightning rod as interfering with the wrath of God. They stopped doing so when churches quickly became the #1 most often struck structure in existence, which made their argument look, at best, patently insane.
Anyway, lightning has considerable energy. Essentially a built up, over sized version of static cling, lightning strikes with around 500 MegaJoules of energy. This is enough energy to run my computer for about 2 months. However, it is all delivered at once, which leads to major grid-problems when the electric grid itself is struck. Equipment literally fries from the sudden burst of energy all at once.
So I propose placing a large metal rod in a lightning-prone area. This rod is connected to a very high capacity diode, then to a very large bank of capacitors. Then another, more conventional, diode, then a bank of batteries. When lightning strikes the rod, the capacitors suck up the energy, then slowly drain it into the batteries. The batteries can slowly power the electrical grid after passing through, yes, another diode. The diodes are to ensure that this setup does not drain backwards, which would uselessly suck energy from the grid. The capacitors store energy, but not very well. Capacitors are mostly useful for their ability to quickly charge and discharge. The batteries should be the deep-cycle kind that can be charged and drain without annoying side effects like battery-memory.
This structure would supplement the energy grid slightly, but not well. Its primary purpose would be to absorb lightning strikes in the area to prevent them from damaging other structures. The added power is just a minor side benefit.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Male Birth Control Pills
A contraceptive pill, taken by the male partner of a heterosexual relationship, is currently a big goal of biochemical medicine. (Because it would make so much money.) Currently, most birth control techniques weigh more heavily on the female partner. A female-taken contraceptive pill definitely prevents pregnancy, but also causes some strange side effects. Weight gain, menstrual alteration, and water retention are common side effects. While some women take the pill for some of the beneficial effects alone (the pill has been known to clear up acne, and sometimes reduces the severity of menstruation), women who suffer side effects must either endure them or switch to condoms.
Hormone alteration has been the first angle into this. By altering hormonal balance, male fertility is deliberately impaired, until this is reversed by ending the medication. So far so good. This also tends to kill his sex drive. The hypothetical man's hypothetical girlfriend would not hypothetically be pleased.
So the next attempt was to mix estrogen, a "female hormone" with testosterone, a "male hormone." (Actually, both genders have both compounds, but in different ratios.) Hypothetically, the estrogen increase decreases fertility, and the testosterone reestablishes sex drive. (Testosterone causes sex drive in both genders.) However, the testosterone may also increase male fertility, in which case back to the drawing board.
A clever doctor, Dr. Christina Wang, at UCLA has discovered that a mix of progesterone, a "female" hormone, and testosterone, seems to be working the trick. So far, none of the usual side problems (loss of sex drive, gynecomastia, has been noted, and the worst side effect seems to be night sweats. However, testing could take another five years. After all, it would suck if there was some horrible side effect hidden in this, and suddenly millions of men are subject to this all of the sudden.
The female based pill works by simulating pregnancy. Since her body thinks she is pregnant, she does not ovulate, and if she has sex, there is no egg to be fertilized. The male pill seems to likewise stop sperm production, so there can be sex but not fertility. To the relief of heterosexual couples everywhere.
People should note that the male birth control pill does precisely nothing to stop STDs, and should not be relied on in sketchy situations. Just like the female pill.
I, as a man, look forward to it.
Hormone alteration has been the first angle into this. By altering hormonal balance, male fertility is deliberately impaired, until this is reversed by ending the medication. So far so good. This also tends to kill his sex drive. The hypothetical man's hypothetical girlfriend would not hypothetically be pleased.
So the next attempt was to mix estrogen, a "female hormone" with testosterone, a "male hormone." (Actually, both genders have both compounds, but in different ratios.) Hypothetically, the estrogen increase decreases fertility, and the testosterone reestablishes sex drive. (Testosterone causes sex drive in both genders.) However, the testosterone may also increase male fertility, in which case back to the drawing board.
A clever doctor, Dr. Christina Wang, at UCLA has discovered that a mix of progesterone, a "female" hormone, and testosterone, seems to be working the trick. So far, none of the usual side problems (loss of sex drive, gynecomastia, has been noted, and the worst side effect seems to be night sweats. However, testing could take another five years. After all, it would suck if there was some horrible side effect hidden in this, and suddenly millions of men are subject to this all of the sudden.
The female based pill works by simulating pregnancy. Since her body thinks she is pregnant, she does not ovulate, and if she has sex, there is no egg to be fertilized. The male pill seems to likewise stop sperm production, so there can be sex but not fertility. To the relief of heterosexual couples everywhere.
People should note that the male birth control pill does precisely nothing to stop STDs, and should not be relied on in sketchy situations. Just like the female pill.
I, as a man, look forward to it.
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