So It's Reckoned

This is an awe-inspiring journey out to the limits of the known universe, put together by the American Museum of Natural History:



If you're wondering, as I was, why the moon is barely visible in that film, take a look at this brilliant image by Drew Olbrich that shows the Earth and Moon, and the distance between them, to scale:

As Drew says, its amazing to think of the astronauts of the Apollo space program going all the way from there to there.

The 'Known Universe' video is reminiscent of the 1977 classic Powers of Ten, which takes a similar journey out, and also an additional journey down to the microscopic. Powers of Ten is sporadically available on YouTube, or else see the official site.



And no journey out to the limits of the universe is complete without this:

Climate Debate

(This was originally a comment in this metafilter thread about the University of East Anglia's email leak)

I'm an environmentalist, and I'm a big supporter of looking at rationalism and science as opposed to ideological hand waving. And I think the 'scientific method' is one of the best tools we have in this world.

But the scientific method as applied to, say, early 20th century physicists exploring properties of sub-atomic particles - with easily repeatable experiments - is very different to the 'scientific method' as applied to climate science - which basically boils down to peer review of papers that deal with large complex data sets from many different sources.

A lot of the 'climate denier' stuff does seem to be just shrill finger-pointing that doesn't look at the bigger picture. But if you look at some of the more reasonable analysis by sceptics, there are some valid points to consider. (Nigel Lawson's Appeal to Reason is a good short summary - I wouldn't agree with all his points, but some are reasonable).

It seems feasible that there is bias in the way the IPCC puts together its reports. It seems feasible that scientists might cherry-pick their data or their analysis of the data in a way that could be biased, and that such distortions could easily pass through peer review. Although fantastically complex, our climate models have significant holes in them - e.g. how to treat clouds, or the heat-storing properties of oceans - that are big enough that the resulting uncertainty probably offsets most of the data we get out of them.

As Anthropological Climate Change becomes more accepted politically, it seems to me that the scientific debate has entered a new phase. As the likelihood of real political action grows, people are going to look back over the climate science in fine-combed detail. That a lot of problems with data and methodology are apparently coming to light now, just when it was all supposed to be 'settled' should be no surprise. The stakes are very high in both directions, and everything is going to be scrutinised like never before.

I say problems apparently coming to light, because for me personally, it is very hard to validate the scientific arguments being made on either side. Take, for example, the Hockey Stick controversy - RealClimate's handling of it (see articles from Dec 2004 and Aug 2006) has the feel and tone of a solid rebuttal. But the defence, inevitably, always has to consist of defending one paper of fantastically complex climate science by pointing to another one that is equally complex.

Without taking a degree in climate science, a masters in statistical analysis, building my own supercomputer climate model, and personally visiting all of the data gathering stations to see if they are working right, there is no way for me personally to validate any of this.

So it just comes down to which side you believe in. And to me, both sides have the smell of bias and the feel of higher political beliefs that are interfering with clear thinking. Which isn't that surprising given the stakes.

As an environmentalist, I feel that even if Anthropological Climate Change doesn't turn out to be happening (on balance, the ACC theory being wrong is unlikely but definitely possible, in my view), some sort of environmental limit or feedback is definitely going to get us eventually. You can't just endlessly expand resource usage without hitting some sort of crisis point in a closed system.

So I think we definitely do need to change our large-scale behaviour as a species. But proving whether Anthropological Climate Change is happening or not is way beyond us at the moment. We are not experiencing the last frail complaints of a minority against an overwhelming consensus - the scientific debate here is so complex that it is going to run and run and run and run.

Quotes

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
- Dalai Lama

The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.
- Albert Einstein

No wise man ever wished to be younger.
- Jonathan Swift

Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world.
- George Bernard Shaw

After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it?
This is how I answe when I am asked - surprisingly often - why I bother to get up in the morning.
- Richard Dawkins

Take a music bath once or twice a week for a few seasons, and you will find that it is to the soul what the water bath is to the body.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

There's nothing I like less than bad arguments for a view that I hold dear.
- Daniel Dennett

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree does.
- George Bernard Shaw

Nothing is so difficult as not deceiving oneself.
- Ludwig Wittgenstein

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
- Douglas Adams

There is nothing dreadful in life for the man who has truly comprehended that there is nothing terrible in not living.
- Epicurus

You only lose what you cling to.
- Gautama Siddharta (The Buddha)

We are just an advanced breed of monkeys on a minor planet of a very average star. But we can understand the universe. That makes us something very special.
- Stephen Hawking

All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others.
- Douglas Adams

Any fool can handle a crisis; it’s the day-to-day living that wears you down.
- Anton Chekhov

Do not regret growing older. It is a privilege denied to many.
- Anon

Only the wisest and stupidest of men don't change.
- Confucius

Not a single one of the cells that compose you knows who you are, or cares.
- Daniel Dennett

Avatar and the virus with shoes

I really liked Avatar, in a kind of - "if we are going to have blockbuster movies, I'd rather they be like this" kind of way. Something like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, or I Heart Huckabees, or Memento or (insert your favourite thoughtful movie here) will always impress me more than a blockbuster like Avatar, but its still a very fine film and I'm impressed by Cameron's talents, which stretch from the very technical side right the way across to the artistic realm.

Everyone pretty much agrees that the visuals are amazing. Plot and story wise: although I knew quite a lot about this movie from watching the trailers and reading the various leaks over the last six months, and I pretty much knew how the story was going to play out (I mean, you can figure that out from the trailer) there were still lots of parts that made me think 'oh, thats a neat way of doing that'.

Something that hasn't got many mentions so far:

**spoilers**

I knew this was a film where the humans were the invaders and the bad guys, but it took that concept to quite an extreme. The line near the end of the movie: "The Aliens were sent back home to their dying planet" ... think about that line and the implications ... the movie doesnt really spell it out, but it hints earlier on that Earth is in deep shit and Unobtainium is so valuable because its helping to solve that problem, or work around the problem. Avatar ends with Jake leaving his human body behind, and a couple of his scientist friends staying with the Na'vi. The rest of the humans are sent back to their wrecked planet, where presumably they will die as a species unless they find another planet like Pandora to exploit, or come back and try to take Pandora again. This film's happy ending is basically hinting at the end of the human race. Thats pretty radical for a blockbuster that millions of people will see.

I thought this film would be more like the humans and the na'vi coming to an understanding, learning how to co-exist in the universe, or something. But thats not how it ends.

Think about other big sci-fi films/franchises: Independence Day - humans win there, by being human. Sure, there are some bad humans in that film, but overall humanity wins through. Or, say, Transformers - the giant robots find some useful and spirited allies in some of the humans, and they fight on together. Star Trek - humans rock, in those stories. Doctor Who - the doctor admires the human spirit, and is generally very interested in protecting them.

Granted, the idea that humans suck as a species is not particularly original in Sci-fi, but its pretty unusual in big-budget blockbuster seen-by-millions Sci-Fi.

In the final confrontation with Quaritch, when he says "How does it feel to be a traitor to your race, Sully?", Quaritch is literally right. Its not just that he sees things differently from Jake, a political disagreement about the best way forward for the human race. It is literally true - Jake's actions, in getting the planet to unite against the humans, may well lead to the destruction of his (former) race.

Also, artistically, there's something obvious but powerful going on in parallel with this message - as a viewer you naturally identify more and more with Jake and the Na'vi, and enjoy the Pandora scenes much more than the grey, dull human scenes in the base. So at the end when you see your race being packed off home to oblivion, you totally go with it.

A lot of reviews have said that the movie has an environmental message - and thats true, but its sortof more than that. Its like a meta-environmental message: that humans are fatally flawed, will most likely mess up this planet, and then if the universe is really unlucky, they'll make it into space and start messing up other places too. Avatar, like Bill Hicks, views humans as basically 'A virus with shoes'.

I could go on about that for a while (like, is Cameron just choosing such a message because its topical, or has all his underwater nature study made him really believe that?). In a time when we real humans are struggling to make an agreement to (rightly or wrongly) limit Co2 emissions, which is a short step along a road we have to face someday - that is, learning how to live as a race on a planet with limited resources - and in a week where we failed quite badly to even make short steps along that path, this aspect of the film really affected me.

(originally a comment in this metafilter thread)

Useful Research Paper Phrases (With Translations)

I'm a great believer in the 'Scientific Method', however its important to remember that most of the value of the method is that it offsets the shortcomings of scientists and their weaknesses (making mistakes, jumping to conclusions, etc). So the Scientific Method can be seen as a check-and-balance against the human and psychological factors that get in the way of clear reasoning.

In that spirit, I present 'Useful Research Paper Phrases'. Variations of this list seem to have been going viral in research labs, stuck up on the wall with drawing pins, for at least 50 years.

Useful Research Paper Phrases (With Translations)

1. It has long been known	I didn't bother to look up the original reference
2. A definite trend is evident	Matlab will fit a curve to anything
3. Of great theoretical and practical importance	Interesting to me
4. While it has not been possible to provide definite answers to these questions	The experiment didn't pan out, but maybe I can still get a publication out of it
5. three of the samples were chosen for detailed study	The results of the others didn't make any sense
6. A careful analysis of obtainable data	Spilled beer on lab notebook, three pages illegible
7. Typical results are shown	The best results are shown
8. These results will be included in a subsequent report	I might get around to these some day
9. The most reliable results are those of Jones (1987a)	He was my graduate assistant
10. It is believed that	I think
11. It is generally believed that	A couple of other guys think so too
12. Much additional work will be required before a complete elucidation of the phenomenon is reached	I can't explain these results
13. Correct within an order of magnitude	Wrong
14. It is hoped that this study will stimulate further investigation in this field	This is a lousy paper, but so are all the others on this miserable topic
15 Thanks are due to J. Jones for assistance with the experiment and to S. Smith for valuable discussions	Jones did the work and Smith explained to me what it meant

Global Finance System

It seems to me that the 'global finance system' is like a big stack of software entities, all interacting with each other, all written by different people and at different times, and with new patches applied often. No one can figure out the big picture of the whole system, but they have theories about parts of it. For a long time it has seemed to work and all hang together. Hackers and viruses exploit loopholes as they find them.

Then, about a year ago, we hit a blue screen of death. The illusion that the system was self-repairing was lost.

We managed to reboot in safe mode, but we're not sure when we'll hit the next big bug.

(and although this is meant as metaphor, bear in mind that large parts of the global finance system literally are software entities these days)

Spaced

(From Spaced Season 2, Episode 1, aired Feb 2001)

Daisy: "So how are you then, you big bloody man?"
Tim: "I'm good, I'm good ... I just ... I've had a few things to work through ... you know"
Daisy: "With Sarah?"
Tim: "No, with George Lucas"

(cut to scene of Tim in the forest in the dark, using a flaming torch to light a large bonfire labelled "Star Wars Stuff", while the slow Star Wars theme plays....)

(cut back to Tim in the kitchen looking lost, distressed)

Daisy: "Tim, its been over a year..."
Tim: "Its been 18 months Daisy ... and it still hurts."
Daisy: "Well, I didn't think Phantom Menace was that bad."

(zoom in on Tims face, looking increasingly angry)

- originally a comment from this metafilter thread