Life, the Universe, and Sandwiches.
(Please note, there is very little discussion of the Universe and Sandwiches.)
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
The inevitable
There is a saying that states only two things in life are certain: death and taxes. Many of you who live in the United States will believe that I say this simply because today is the last day to file your taxes and it is amusing to be cynical at such times. However, for me it has yet another meaning. I have outlasted death by 28 years today, a feat I intend to extend for many years to come.
I know I haven't been blogging as much lately, and for that I do apologize. One could say that life has a tendency to get in the way. I would say that life isn't "getting in the way," but rather that I have left the computer to see to my life.
...
That sounded somewhat ominous. Nothing serious, and all good (in the grand scheme of things). I hope to one day regale you with the excruciating details, but for now I must assure you that I am busy and have had precious little time for such extracurricular activities. I probably wouldn't even be writing this, but it is my birthday and I felt that I should mark the occasion. I consider it a present to myself as I have missed it and I have missed you guys.
A while ago, there was a television advertisement for Coca Cola. There was a young man sitting next to a young woman. The young man starts humming the tune of a popular cell phone ring tone and then begins searching, as if looking for his phone. The woman, meanwhile, glances at him as though he's slightly off his rocker. Finally, the young man reaches into his backpack, produces a bottle of Coca Cola (all the while humming the annoying tune), twists the top and, as though it were his phone, he stops humming. He puts the bottle up to the side of his head, as though it were a phone, says "Hello?", then turns to the young woman and offers her the bottle, saying "It's for you."
It's a slightly clever little pickup line. My wife, however, thought he was an idiot up until he spoke. When he offered the woman his drink, he spoke with a British accent. At that point, he went from being an idiot to being cute. It turns out that she loves European accents. This makes sense to me. Irish, Scottish, British, French, Spanish, Italian, German, when people from those regions speak English, for some reason, it's pretty hot. My wife had a Bosnian roommate in college who sounded awesome! I like hearing a British accent come from someone who's Indian or Black. (I'm thinking of the movie Bend It Like Beckham and interviews with the man who played Mr. Eko on the television show Lost.) I should mention that the Aussie accents are great, too.
However, why Europe and Australia? I don't hear anyone rave about too many American accents. From what I've heard, the American Southern accent can charm some people, but for the most part, American accents aren't known for making people melt. Do Americans just have unsexy voices or is it because I, as an American, am entrenched in the American accent and, therefore, see foreign accents as exotic and interesting?
Rumors of my death may have been slightly exaggerated.
That does not stand for Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms to the power of Mass. It is a modem initialization string. Now, I know what you're thinking: What on Earth is a modem!? Isn't string used for sewing or something? First, I'll explain the string (it's easier and requires less ancient history). Computer programmers call text "strings". If you're working with text, then it's called a string. That's all. Second, the modem. Modem stands for modulator/demodulator and it is a fascinating little device that people used to connect via telephone lines to a large network of computers called the Information Superhighway. It's what we now simply call "The Internet". Modems, like computers in general, were both revered and reviled, often simultaneously. They allowed people to download information (or porn) at seemingly incredibly slow speeds. I say "seemingly" because the speeds were actually pretty fast if you just sat down and thought about it. You could get data to travel from England to the United States in a matter of minutes. If you had a relatively large amount of data (such as a music file), it could take hours. However, the alternative would be to store the file to some medium (such as a floppy disk or CD) and send that medium via some courier and that could take days! (Remember: Light and electrons can circumnavigate the globe in seconds. This is something that DHL absolutely cannot do.)
I remember when I was connecting to the Information Superhighway well over a decade ago. Has it been so long? I was using a cute little Internet Service Provider by the name of America Online. But there were problems finding the onramp, if you will. I had to call *gasp* tech support. You see, I wasn't always a tech geek. I got into the computer game a little late. When I was 16, I had to call tech support to get online. While talking to the particularly helpful gentleman on the other end of the phone, he directed me through the menus to find the modem initialization string. When he asked me what it was, I said something to the tune of "A, T, ampersand, F, carat, M, I, N, S, A, N, I, T, Y, ..." I'm positive that those weren't the exact letters I rattled off, but I do remember the support guy asking me where I got such an incredibly long initialization string. I told him that it was the string AOL was providing for my particular modem. He said "OK. Change it to this: A, T, ampersand, F, carat, it's shift and 6, M." I did this, thanked him, and hung up. He couldn't be on the phone with me, holding my hand, while I tested this because the Internet ran on phone lines back then. Our sole telephone line held a dual purpose. It was like a grizzled military veteran giving a list of instructions to some doe-eyed rookie, locking the young lad into a hostile situation, and praying that he would survive. Lo and behold, the simple initialization string, AT&F^M, had gotten me to the Internet. It was a brief moment in my life, but it came in useful a few months later. My father was helping my grandmother with her computer. She was ready to experience the World Wide Web, and he would help her to get there. Except that the modem wasn't initializing. A quick call to me, and I relayed the same set of commands. I had no need for reference material as the string had burned itself into my memory. I still recall his amazement that I held on to that bit of trivia. The data involved in this bit of lore is now all but obsolete, but I shall cherish the string AT&F^M as a symbol of one of the many nodes I passed through on my way towards geekdom.
The Japanese have a type of flour called Merikan flour. The reason for the name is because it comes from America. When the first Americans visited Japan, they called themselves Americans, but, because of the syllabic nature of the Japanese language, they heard 'Mericans (which I hear nowadays. Maybe it wasn't a language thing. Maybe it was an American pronunciation thing.) For some reason, whenever I think of things that are stereotypically American, it gets played in my head as 'Merican.
Anywho... Did any of you fellow 'Mericans enjoy the Super Bowl? Go Giants! I was at my parents' house for the game. There was a power outage. The power was out until there were 9 minutes left on the play clock. That's all for that.
Video games have brought to us the notions of very strange forms of weaponry. There are swords, swords that shoot light, fires that burn indefinitely, guns, guns that shoot light, chains, bats, oil drums, trash cans, and, if you've played Dead Rising, anything within arms' reach. However, according to games like Quake, Metal Gear Solid, and television shows like Battlestar Galactica, perhaps you've heard of the rail gun. Unlike fire flowers or light sabers, the rail gun uses a very real concept: electromagnetism. Have you heard of the Shinkansen? No? What about the bullet train in Japan? They're the same thing. It's a train that levetates because of a magnetic field. If you've ever played with magnets, then you probably know that putting like polarity together causes repulsion instead of attraction. This is the concept behind the floating bullet train. Also, you can uses the same property to propel the train in a particular direction while it glides on a relatively frictionless track. This is the same concept for the fictional rail gun. Place a magnetic "bullet" in a gun barrel. The barrel has an electromagnetic field. When fired, the "bullet" gets pushed toward the barrel opening. As it travels, more and more electromagnets turn on, increasing the speed of the "bullet". When it finally escapes the barrel, it flies with an incredible speed.
What's so interesting about this is that it can be created in the real world, and it has. The U.S. Navy has produced a rail gun. When a projectile is fired from the gun, it travels at 7 times the speed of sound. The F-14 Tomcat (the fighter jet from the movie Top Gun) was capable of flying at 1.8 times the speed of sound. A rail gun projectile can travel over 230 miles while only slowing down to 5 times the speed of sound. Current naval cannons can only fire at a target 23 miles away. Modern weapons use an explosive charge to cause damage. If a missile were to hit a ship, the only reason it would do as much damage as it would is because of the explosive force. Rail gun ammunition doesn't need explosives to cause damage. Their sheer speed is enough. Modern weaponry requires an initial chemical explosive charge as a propellant, while the rail gun ammunition only needs to have a magnetic polarity.
To give you an idea of how this could revolutionize naval warfare, I'll recount a tale I heard. An engineer (a civilian) had to train some sailors regarding some new piece of equipment that had been built for them. The training took place on a submarine in the room where they kept the torpedoes. Do you know how they store torpedoes on a submarine? They all point towards the center of the room. This engineer is surrounded by explosives and they're all pointing at him. (Of course, none of the torpedoes are armed, but still!) And there's a reason for why they all point towards the center of the room: if one of them fires for any reason, then it goes towards the center of the room and the accident remains localized. If they faced different directions and a random torpedo malfunctioned and "launched" itself towards whatever wall it was facing, then the damage becomes more unpredictable. The purpose to this story and how it relates to the rail gun is as follows: the Navy has had to take into account the possibility of their own explosive weapons becoming a liability on a ship. As a result, they have to take steps to attempt to minimize any damage in the unlikely event of an accident. On the other hand, if the ammunition is simply a piece of dense metal with a magnetic charge, the potential for an explosive accident is drastically reduced.
Another potentially damaging situation involves the firing mechanism for modern weaponry. A shell is fired because a combustible chemical is stored in the shell casing. When the temperature gets high enough, the chemical ignites and explodes, the force of which causes the shell to be forcibly ejected from the shell casing. When used properly, this is acheived by having a piston slam into the back of the shell casing with enough force to cause a spark to ignite the chemical in the casing. However, a fire on board the ship can also cause the temperature to reach the critical level which could result in a more catastrophic event than burns. Since the firing mechanism behind the rail gun is not a combustible agent, once again, the potential for an explosive accident is drastically reduced.
Finally, the speed with which the projectile travels is greater than most aircraft (just about all aircraft if you exclude high atmosphere sub-orbital craft, experimental aircraft, and space craft). Since there is no rocketry, there should be a drastically reduced heat signature. It is highly destructive solely because of the speed with which it is fired. This should make tracking it by heat very difficult if not impossible, while the small size of the projectile may make it difficult to see on radar.
Here's a video of their test:
That whole post was written in bits and pieces. I don't even know if it was written coherently! (I'm too lazy to re-read it to check.)
Proemptosis: n. addition once in every three centuries of one day to the lunar calendar.
Two news posts caught my attention. First, the hopeful one: Scientists in Helsinki used stem cells found in a patient's fat to grow a jawbone. Part of the patient's jaw had to be removed in order to remove a benign tumor. However, rather than do a bone graft, they just grew a new bone. And what sort of environment do you need to grow a body part? The human body! They used the patient's abdomen to grow a new jaw in nine months! It's all human. It's the patient's own bone. It's all the same DNA. They haven't noticed any signs of rejection. Awesome!
Next, the funny one: Woolworth's department stores in London have decided to drop the sale of a bed designed for six year old girls. The reason? The name of the bed is "Lolita". For those of you who are unfamiliar (as were the staff of all of the Woolworth's department stores) Lolita is the name of a 1955 novel by Vladimir Nabokov about a man who becomes sexually active with his 12 year old stepdaughter. As the story progresses, it is discovered that she's as much of a sexual deviant as he is (I've never actually read it, but as I understand from a synopsis of the story and what little academic discourse I've heard about it, there are arguments that she had sexually "victimized" him as much as he did her.) Because of this highly controversial novel, the name "Lolita" has become synonymous with sexually active pre-teens. I think it's understandable, when put in this light, why Woolworth's would want to discontinue the sale of the beds. However, what I want to know is why did the manufacturer name the bed set "Lolita"? At least as far as I know, it's not exactly a common name anymore (which I think is due to the novel).
sextern: n. six sheets of paper folded in two for binding together.
There is an e-mail provider out there that uses directed advertising based on the content of your mail. Perhaps you've heard of it. Now, I'm a big fan of the Yum food franchise. You may have heard of their restaurants: Long John Silver's, A&W, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. One of these establishments will deliver food to your house, allowing for you to be as lazy as humanly possible. They will even allow you to order online, so you don't have to talk to anybody. Because I do this, I get e-mail from Pizza Hut. As a result, it should be established to my e-mail provider that I like bad food. Imagine my shock and surprise when the link to KentuckyFriedCruelty.com appeared before me. Yes, the contents of my e-mail seem to suggest that Pamela Anderson should tell me that Kentucky Fried Chicken is horribly immoral. The problem here is that I loves me my fried chicken. Especially in Canada. In America we get mashed potatoes and gravy, which I love, but in Canada, the Blessed Land of the North, they have the nectar of the gods themselves: poutine. Seeing that I use such words to describe KFC (or PFK as they sometimes say in Canada), should I really be receiving e-mail vis-a-vis the supposed cruelty performed by the evil corporation? Especially when the spokesperson for this campaign against fried chicken is a huge PETA supporter and would rather I be a vegan as opposed to a consumer of tasty animal meats! JUST ABOUT MY WHOLE DIET CONSISTS OF TASTY ANIMAL MEATS!
Man has virtually made himself obsolete. I use the gender of that sentence quite literally. Women are fine. Men no longer need to be.
Apparently, one Dr. Samuel Wood in La Jolla, California, has made a clone of a human embryo. This isn't that big of a deal since it's been done two years ago in the U.K. However, he did it using the DNA from skin cells injected into a human ovum. If I recall my high school biology correctly, there are generally two types of animal cells for a species that are vastly different from any other animal cell of that species in that they each only have half of the genetic material that the other cells would have. These would be egg cells and sperm cells. The idea, of course, would be that you have half of the code for creating a human in one of them, and the other half in the other. When the two combine, you have enough info for creating a human being. What's happening with these clones, though, is that you remove the DNA from the egg and replace it with fully combined DNA from some cell that is not meant for reproduction. In this case, it's DNA from a skin cell.
What piques my interest is that the egg is still necessary. The DNA should be able to come from anywhere or anyone. We should be able to take a skin cell (possibly from a woman), inject it into an egg (obviously from a woman), implant the egg into a womb (also obviously from a woman, and preferrably in said woman), and grow a human. The woman, here, is absolutely necessary. Until a fake egg can be created (which theoretically shouldn't be difficult; just get the lipids to line up properly and develop a membrane), and a fake uterus can be made (which, I imagine, should be extremely difficult, what with the menstrual lining and hormones and creation of a placenta and umbilical cord and whatnot), the woman is an inherently important part of the process. Men, however, do not have to be in the picture at all.
I must say that, since taking high school biology, I've always figured that males could be removed from the whole reproductive process if only there were some way to reconcile the combination of the DNA. In my scenario, the DNA half from one ovum was injected into another ovum, and the result would always be a baby girl. Women are naturally designed to give birth, so if we combine the DNA from two women and create the egg (from a woman) and allow it to develop (in a woman), then you should have a human child. One could theoretically combine the DNA halves of two sperm cells, but there are other factors to consider: You have to ensure that the two sperm cells have either two X chromosomes (female), or one X and one Y chromosome (male) (in the natural order of things, a two Y chromosome pairing does not exist), and even if you pair the chromosomes up correctly (which shouldn't be difficult), you would still need a surrogate woman to provide the egg and the development environment. Man will always need woman.
In my scenario, though, I didn't think of just using DNA that had already existed as a complete strand (i.e. cloning). In general, you want to avoid cloning as a means of reproduction. The idea is that evolution would seek to allow favorable DNA combinations to survive, while unfavorable combinations (those that create genetic conditions in offspring) would get weeded out. If you clone someone with such a genetic condition, then the condition gets propagated. If you combine half strands (which is what we do naturally), then it's possible that the condition won't get passed down. Or, if a virus appeared that fatally attacked by means of a particular genetic sequence, all clones with that sequence would be susceptible, while a variety of sequences would be more likely to allow for survivors of such a plague.
I guess what I'm saying is that I've always known that I wasn't necessary. Thank you for keeping me around!
Imagine a world of only women. It would be like a dream come true except that I cannot logically exist in such a place! Captain Berk is the only man I can think of who could ever get there, and they would worship him as though he were a god.
