Search Is on for Original Apollo 11 Footage

The Search Is on for Original Apollo 11 Footage:

Almost everyone on the planet who had access to television watched the first moon landing, back on the night of July 20, 1969. What the TV viewers didn't know is that they weren't seeing the best images.

The astronauts actually beamed higher-quality footage back to Earth, but it was only seen by a small number of people at three tracking stations.

Those original images were recorded and put into storage — somewhere. Now, a small crew of retirees, space enthusiasts, and NASA employees are searching for a moon landing that the world has never seen.

How did they convert the high-quality image to a TV-ready image?

To convert the originals, engineers essentially took a commercial television camera and aimed it at the monitor. The resulting image is what was sent to Houston, and on to the world.

A Nation of Wimps

Hara Estroff Marano says we're raising A Nation of Wimps:

Parents are going to ludicrous lengths to take the bumps out of life for their children. However, parental hyperconcern has the net effect of making kids more fragile; that may be why they're breaking down in record numbers.

Here's how it works:

The 1990s witnessed a landmark reversal in the traditional patterns of psychopathology. While rates of depression rise with advancing age among people over 40, they're now increasing fastest among children, striking more children at younger and younger ages.

In his now-famous studies of how children's temperaments play out, Harvard psychologist Jerome Kagan has shown unequivocally that what creates anxious children is parents hovering and protecting them from stressful experiences. About 20 percent of babies are born with a high-strung temperament. They can be spotted even in the womb; they have fast heartbeats. Their nervous systems are innately programmed to be overexcitable in response to stimulation, constantly sending out false alarms about what is dangerous.

As infants and children this group experiences stress in situations most kids find unthreatening, and they may go through childhood and even adulthood fearful of unfamiliar people and events, withdrawn and shy. At school age they become cautious, quiet and introverted. Left to their own devices they grow up shrinking from social encounters. They lack confidence around others. They're easily influenced by others. They are sitting ducks for bullies. And they are on the path to depression.

While their innate reactivity seems to destine all these children for later anxiety disorders, things didn't turn out that way. Between a touchy temperament in infancy and persistence of anxiety stand two highly significant things: parents. Kagan found to his surprise that the development of anxiety was scarcely inevitable despite apparent genetic programming. At age 2, none of the overexcitable infants wound up fearful if their parents backed off from hovering and allowed the children to find some comfortable level of accommodation to the world on their own. Those parents who overprotected their children — directly observed by conducting interviews in the home — brought out the worst in them.

A small percentage of children seem almost invulnerable to anxiety from the start. But the overwhelming majority of kids are somewhere in between. For them, overparenting can program the nervous system to create lifelong vulnerability to anxiety and depression.

How Legalizing Drugs Will End the Violence

Norm Stamper, former chief of the Seattle Police Department, explains How Legalizing Drugs Will End the Violence:

Virtually every analysis of the Mexican "drug problem" points to the themes raised here: the inducements of big money and wide fame; the crushing poverty of those exploited by drug dealers; the entrepreneurial frenzy of expanding and protecting one's markets; the large, unquenchable American demand for drugs; and the complicity of many in law enforcement.

But something's missing from the analysis: the role of prohibition.

Illegal drugs are expensive precisely because they are illegal. The products themselves are worthless weeds — cannabis (marijuana), poppies (heroin), coca (cocaine) — or dirt-cheap pharmaceuticals and "precursors" used, for example, in the manufacture of methamphetamine. Yet today, marijuana is worth as much as gold, heroin more than uranium, cocaine somewhere in between. It is the U.S.'s prohibition of these drugs that has spawned an ever-expanding international industry of torture, murder and corruption. In other words, we are the source of Mexico's "drug problem."

The remedy is as obvious as it is urgent: legalization.

Regulated legalization of all drugs — with stiffened penalties for driving impaired or furnishing to kids — would bring an immediate halt to the violence. How? By (1) dramatically reducing the cost of these drugs, (2) shifting massive enforcement resources to prevention and treatment and (3) driving drug dealers out of business: no product, no profit, no incentive. In an ideal world, Mexico and the United States would move to repeal prohibition simultaneously (along with Canada). But even if we moved unilaterally, sweeping and lasting improvements to public safety (and public health) would be felt on both sides of the border. (Tragically and predictably, just as Mexico's parliament was about to reform its U.S.-modeled drug laws, the Bush administration stepped in, pressuring President Vicente Fox to abandon the enlightened position he'd championed for two years.)

With drugs stringently controlled and regulated by our own government, Mexico would once again become a safe, inviting place for American tourists — and for its own citizens, who pay the steepest price of all for our insistence on waging an immoral, unwinnable war on drugs.

Ampakines Reverse Brain Aging In Rats

Ampakines Reverse Brain Aging In Rats — even after the drug itself has left the body:

A drug made to enhance memory appears to trigger a natural mechanism in the brain that fully reverses age-related memory loss, even after the drug itself has left the body, according to researchers at UC Irvine.

Professors Christine Gall and Gary Lynch, along with Associate Researcher Julie Lauterborn, were among a group of scientists who conducted studies on rats with a class of drugs known as ampakines. Ampakines were developed in the early 1990s by UC researchers, including Lynch, to treat age-related memory impairment and may be useful for treating a number of central nervous system disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease and schizophrenia. In this study, the researchers showed that ampakine drugs continue to reverse the effects of aging on a brain mechanism thought to underlie learning and memory even after they are no longer in the body. They do so by boosting the production of a naturally occurring protein in the brain necessary for long-term memory formation.

The Expert Mind

Philip E. Ross notes that when cognitive scientists want to study The Expert Mind, they study chess masters:

Skill at chess, however, can be measured, broken into components, subjected to laboratory experiments and readily observed in its natural environment, the tournament hall. It is for those reasons that chess has served as the greatest single test bed for theories of thinking — the 'Drosophila of cognitive science,' as it has been called.

The take-away message of the article is that prodigies are made, not just born:

The one thing that all expertise theorists agree on is that it takes enormous effort to build these structures in the mind. Simon coined a psychological law of his own, the 10-year rule, which states that it takes approximately a decade of heavy labor to master any field. Even child prodigies, such as Gauss in mathematics, Mozart in music and Bobby Fischer in chess, must have made an equivalent effort, perhaps by starting earlier and working harder than others.

According to this view, the proliferation of chess prodigies in recent years merely reflects the advent of computer-based training methods that let children study far more master games and to play far more frequently against master-strength programs than their forerunners could typically manage. Fischer made a sensation when he achieved the grandmaster title at age 15, in 1958; today's record-holder, Sergey Karjakin of Ukraine, earned it at 12 years, seven months.

Ericsson argues that what matters is not experience per se but "effortful study," which entails continually tackling challenges that lie just beyond one's competence. That is why it is possible for enthusiasts to spend tens of thousands of hours playing chess or golf or a musical instrument without ever advancing beyond the amateur level and why a properly trained student can overtake them in a relatively short time. It is interesting to note that time spent playing chess, even in tournaments, appears to contribute less than such study to a player's progress; the main training value of such games is to point up weaknesses for future study.

Even the novice engages in effortful study at first, which is why beginners so often improve rapidly in playing golf, say, or in driving a car. But having reached an acceptable performance — for instance, keeping up with one's golf buddies or passing a driver's exam — most people relax. Their performance then becomes automatic and therefore impervious to further improvement. In contrast, experts-in-training keep the lid of their mind's box open all the time, so that they can inspect, criticize and augment its contents and thereby approach the standard set by leaders in their fields.

Where does motivation come from? From doing well early on:

Furthermore, success builds on success, because each accomplishment can strengthen a child's motivation. A 1999 study of professional soccer players from several countries showed that they were much more likely than the general population to have been born at a time of year that would have dictated their enrollment in youth soccer leagues at ages older than the average. In their early years, these children would have enjoyed a substantial advantage in size and strength when playing soccer with their teammates. Because the larger, more agile children would get more opportunities to handle the ball, they would score more often, and their success at the game would motivate them to become even better.

Folk Science

In Folk Science, Michael Shermer explains why our intuitions about how the world works are often wrong:

Folk astronomy, for example, told us that the world is flat, celestial bodies revolve around the earth, and the planets are wandering gods who determine our future. Folk biology intuited an élan vital flowing through all living things, which in their functional design were believed to have been created ex nihilo by an intelligent designer. Folk psychology compelled us to search for the homunculus in the brain — a ghost in the machine — a mind somehow disconnected from the brain. Folk economics caused us to disdain excessive wealth, label usury a sin and mistrust the invisible hand of the market.

The reason folk science so often gets it wrong is that we evolved in an environment radically different from the one in which we now live. Our senses are geared for perceiving objects of middling size — between, say, ants and mountains — not bacteria, molecules and atoms on one end of the scale and stars and galaxies on the other end. We live a scant three score and 10 years, far too short a time to witness evolution, continental drift or long-term environmental changes.

Causal inference in folk science is equally untrustworthy. We correctly surmise designed objects, such as stone tools, to be the product of an intelligent designer and thus naturally assume that all functional objects, such as eyes, must have also been intelligently designed. Lacking a cogent theory of how neural activity gives rise to consciousness, we imagine mental spirits floating within our heads. We lived in small bands of roaming hunter-gatherers that accumulated little wealth and had no experience of free markets and economic growth.

Healing power of electricity raises hope of new treatments

From Healing power of electricity raises hope of new treatments:

In preliminary lab tests, researchers showed that by controlling the weak electrical fields that arise naturally at wound sites, they could direct cells to either close or open up a wound at the flick of a switch. By making the cells move faster, they were able to speed up wound healing by 50%.

The role of electricity in wound healing has received scant attention from the scientific community since the German physiologist Emil Du Bois-Reymond cut his arm and measured the electrical field across the wound in the mid-1800s. But in the journal Nature today, an international team of scientists led by Aberdeen University not only confirms the effect but also unravels the genetic machinery behind it.

Using sheets of skin in dishes, Min Zhao and Colin McCaig show that electricity flows from the edges of a wound as soon as an incision is made. The current is triggered by positively charged sodium ions coursing through the tissue in one direction and an opposing rush of negatively charged chloride ions, together creating a voltage across the wound about 15 times weaker than an AA battery.

Baby Pygmy Slow Loris

Today's dose of cute comes from this Baby Pygmy Slow Loris:

This photo provided by the Zoological Society of San Diego shows a baby pygmy slow loris at the San Diego, Calif., zoo's nursery Thursday, July 27, 2006. The male was born June 24, and is now on display in a larger enclosure as it becomes more active. When the baby was born, it weighed 17 grams, and was one of the smallest babies the nursery has cared for. The loris, which now weighs 60 grams, was taken to the nursery after his mother was not giving him proper care.

Iron Grasshopper

It looks to me like Richard Sandrak, the Little Hercules, may have his job outsourced to China.

Young Lu Di's kung-fu is strong:

Lu Di, 6, flexes his muscles as other students watch at a kungfu school in Songshan, central China's Henan Province July 26, 2006. According to the school's president Shi Yongdi, Lu did 10,000 push-ups in three hours and twenty minutes on July 22, 2006. Shi said the school was waiving his tuition for ten years due to his outstanding performance.

Rogue Captains Built First Global Market

Rogue Captains Built First Global Market by ignoring their superiors' orders:

In the 17th and 18th centuries, the East India Company established a monopolistic trade network on the high seas, gaining immense wealth and influence at home in England. Their ships sailed from Europe with silver and bullion, returning months or years later with exotic goods from Asia and Africa. Along the way, enterprising ships’ captains engaged in private trading of their own, abusing company resources for personal gain. Now, researchers at Columbia University have shown that it was this illicit trading, rather than officially sanctioned activity, that was directly responsible for the creation of the first global market and the success of the East India Company."

The researchers analyzed data from 4,572 voyages undertaken by the East India Company between 1601 and 1833, totaling over 28,000 port-to-port journeys. In a paper in this month’s American Journal of Sociology, they describe how many rogue captains ignored orders to trade in established markets and then return directly to England, choosing instead to explore new locations and trade between local Asian ports for their own personal profit. Although they were breaking the law by appropriating supplies and ship crews for this private trading, in doing so they ultimately benefited the East India Company by building a larger market and gaining a unique knowledge of local market fluctuations.

“In the end they had a much larger trade network pioneered by these malfeasant captains, had more goods in their networks, and were better able to respond to the changing market in the East,” says Emily Erikson, the study’s lead author. By weaving together a complex network of ports, the opportunistic captains created a connection between Europe and East Asia whereby events in one region immediately affected the other. “They were engaging in criminal activity but that was actually necessary to build up what was the first instance of the global market,” says Erikson. She and co-author Peter Bearman argue that not only did these entrepreneurial individuals enable the East India Company to completely dominate East Asian trade by 1760, they also paved the way for the Industrial Revolution and the rise of capitalism by illicitly creating the first modern competitive market.

Because a market is a decentralized structure, it must consist of many individuals who can act in their own interest. “We sort of take the process for granted at this point,” says Erikson. “We live in a capitalist society, we think markets are good, we believe in individual freedom. But back then, people didn’t believe individual initiative was a good thing, especially in the context of a monopoly organization.” As East India Company captains acted in their own interest, they inadvertently expanded their market, generating more demand for manufactured products of the West and building England’s wealth — thereby catalyzing the Industrial Revolution. “In short, before the invention of steamships, the East India Company laid down the commercial ties that served as a template for the modern world-trade system,” write the authors.

(Hat tip to Jesse Walker at Reason.)

Designer Jeans From Designer Genes

Before discussing Designer Jeans From Designer Genes, Dr. Henry Miller notes the many "green" uses of gene-splicing, including three unrelated uses mentioned in a recent biotech journal:

The first of these involved moving two barley genes into rice, which increases more than four-fold the yield in alkaline soil (a problem in thirty per cent of arable land worldwide).

The second showed that moving a single gene from the petunia into tomato markedly increases the concentration of antioxidant compounds called flavonols, the consumption of which in food appears to be correlated with a decreased risk of cardiovascular disease.

The third was a proof-of-principle experiment that demonstrated that the addition of a single bacterial gene to a mammal (in this case a mouse, used as a model system) enables the animal to more efficiently metabolize phosphates from feed, thereby reducing the phosphate content of their excreta. Adapted to large animals like cows and pigs, this approach could lower the phosphate content of manure from intensively farmed livestock and reduce the phosphate runoff into waterways and aquifers.

The Novel Moscow Feared

John Miller explains that The Novel Moscow Feared was "the ur-text of science-fiction dystopias":

Authors sometimes gripe about the long wait between the completion of a book and its publication. Perhaps the sad case of the Russian writer Yevgeny Zamyatin will help them put things in perspective: He finished his novel "We" in 1921, but it didn't appear in print in his native land until 1988.

The problem wasn't that Zamyatin and his manuscript were obscure or unknown. Rather, it was that they offended communist censors, who correctly understood "We" to be a savage critique of the totalitarianism that was starting to take shape in the years following the Russian Revolution.

They managed to suppress "We" inside the Soviet Union, but they weren't able to keep it from making a deep impression elsewhere: Two of the most iconic novels in the English language — "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley and "1984" by George Orwell — owe an enormous debt to Zamyatin.

That's because "We" is the ur-text of science-fiction dystopias: It described an Orwellian society almost three decades before Orwell invented his own version. Although the book has never been especially hard to find in the U.S. — editions have been in print since 1924 — it will now become even more readily available, thanks to Natasha Randall's new translation, published this month by the Modern Library.

In case you don't use the prefix ur- on a regular basis, here's a definition:

Ur- is a German prefix meaning "prot(o)-", "first", "oldest", "original" when used with a noun. In combination with an adjective, it can be translated as the intensifier "very".

10 questions for Charles Murray

Gene Expression's 10 questions for Charles Murray opens with this amusing comment on scientists and human nature:

The geneticist J.B.S. Haldane famously remarked that important theories went through four stages of acceptance: "i) this is worthless nonsense; ii) this is an interesting, but perverse, point of view; iii) this is true, but quite unimportant; iv) I always said so."

Charles Murray is, of course, responsible for quite a bit of "worthless nonsense":

This process would be quite familiar to Charles Murray, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who has gained a reputation for staking out controversial positions a decade before they become mainstream. Starting with Losing Ground in 1984, later with Richard Herrnstein in 1994's The Bell Curve, and most recently with In Our Hands, Murray has made his name as a public intellectual by dropping well-researched bombshells onto policy debates. In between, he's published shorter books on political philosophy and a thorough historical study of human accomplishment in the arts and sciences.

In In Our Hands, he notes that the US is "awash in money," but there's a better way to redistribute it — if that's your goal:

Instead of sending taxes to Washington, straining them through bureaucracies and converting what remains into a muddle of services, subsidies, in-kind support and cash hedged with restrictions and exceptions, just collect the taxes, divide them up, and send the money back in cash grants to all American adults. Make the grant large enough so that the poor won't be poor, everyone will have enough for a comfortable retirement, and everyone will be able to afford health care. We're rich enough to do it.

Why would he recommend this?

Mancur Olson and other public-choice theorists taught us that sugar farmers can get sugar subsidies because they care passionately about getting their benefit while no other constituency cares enough about preventing them from getting it. Under the Plan, the grant will be the only game in town (every other transfer is gone), and will affect every adult in the country. Every time Congress debates a change in the grant, it will be the biggest political news story in the country, and a very large chunk of the population — and people holding a huge majority of the monetary resources for fighting political battles — will lose money if it's raised. Compare the prospects for jacking up the grant with the certain knowledge we have of the trends in spending under the current system. They have sky-rocketed and will sky-rocket, through classic public choice dynamics. The Plan uses the only strategy I can conceive to get out of the public-choice box.

Britain's kids sweat it out in new mini-gyms

Britain's kids sweat it out in new mini-gyms:

"I just want to get fit," she says.

She goes to the gym five times a week.

She is nine years old.

Bradley's parents suggested she join this gym in Potters Bar, southeast England, to help make new friends when they moved into the area.

She is now one of a growing band of children across Britain — some as young as five — who have been bitten by the gym bug.

With child-sized treadmills, exercise bikes and resistance weight machines, mirrors on the wall and pop music pumping out, this gym in Potters Bar looks and feels just like its larger adult version.

Children are attracted by its grown-up feel, but also say they want somewhere to go with their friends, somewhere to do some new kinds of exercise.

At least 80 such gyms have opened in Britain in recent years, and one of the leading kid gym companies, Shokk, says it alone is opening new ones at a rate of around three a month.

With memberships reaching the hundreds for each one, tens of thousands of children across Britain are expected to pump weights and sweat it out on running machines this summer.

Evidently the idea was exported from America. Who knew?

Dominic Lacasse

You must watch this Amazing Acrobatics Video of Dominic Lacasse.

Bears seeking food near people in Denver

Listen to Colbert, people. From Bears seeking food near people in Denver:

Triathlete Sabrina Oei was speeding downhill at nearly 40 mph, cycling through the Colorado foothills during a race, when something brought her to a sudden, painful, stop: a bear.
[...]
Oei's encounter is the latest anecdotal evidence coming in from around the West this year: In Nevada, near Lake Tahoe, a bear climbed into a vintage convertible July 2 and snacked on pizza and beer as a crowd gathered. In Alaska, a bear charged a jogger in an Anchorage city park this month. In Colorado Springs, a woman last week came home to find a bear rummaging through her refrigerator.

Edwardian Poverty

In Edwardian Poverty, Tim Worstall explains one reason why many anti-poverty programs — like those suggested by Senator John Edwards — are guaranteed not to reduce poverty:

So how can all of these things be true? That there are people in poverty, we spend a lot to help them out of it and even when we propose (as some of the above plans are) entirely sensible things, they have no effect on the number of people in poverty? No, this isn't an effect of moral hazard, or "welfare doesn't work" or anything so contentious. It's a simple artefact of the way in which poverty is defined. From the Census:

Poverty definition [...] The official poverty definition uses money income before taxes and does not include capital gains or noncash benefits (such as public housing, Medicaid, and food stamps).

The EITC has, as cited above, made a real difference. But not to the number of people counted as being in poverty; because we count only pre-tax income: something which does not include tax credits, just as it does not include taxes paid. Housing vouchers make no difference because they are not included — i.e. they are non-cash transfers. Food stamps do not count because ... well, you get the picture. We could in fact print up housing vouchers like there was no tomorrow, spend on food stamps like Ted Stevens does on bridges, double, triple, even quadruple the EITC and do you know what? There would still be 37 million people defined as being below the poverty line in the USA. All that spending would have absolutely no effect whatsoever on that number.

Maybe Now We'll Get It

Ralph Kinney Bennett hopes that Maybe Now We'll Get It:

Maybe, as this terrible business in Lebanon unfolds, we'll finally get it:

Guerrillas like to hide behind civilians.

Muslim guerrillas take it a step further: "Civilians" are a weapon to them — as much a part of the fight as the AK-47 or RPG they carry.

Those who have visited any Hezbollah installation in Lebanon over the years always remark on the fact that there are families, women and children, in and around the place. "Secret" bases are usually hidden in plain site. Houses or apartment buildings become weapons storage or even operations centers. An innocent shed or garage may contain a Toyota or a missile launcher.

Seldom, if ever, has a guerrilla movement been able to so openly and exquisitely weave itself into the fabric of a society as Hezbollah has done in Lebanon.

The next real estate boom

"Future Boy" Chris Taylor suggest that the next real estate boom may be in the pleasantly urban settlements Robert McIntyre has dubbed "New Villages":

Rising oil prices notwithstanding, sprawling car-culture cities and vast suburbs simply do not make economic sense in the long run. As much as 50 percent of the land surface area in any given city or subdivision — we're talking prime real estate — is taken up by roadways. For developers, less space given over to roads means more space for housing.
[...]
While you might assume that a higher density community would have more traffic, you'd be wrong. When neighborhoods are dense and walkable, studies show, people make fewer car trips. And some may even forgo owning a second car, especially as families realize that living with one less car can save them $6,000 a year on average (and again, that's not counting price rises at the pump).

And then there's simple math. While standard subdivisions have five units per acre, transit villages tend to pack in 20 to 25 per acre — still mostly single-family dwellings or townhomes, but without the vast lawns and backyards of suburbia. And with transit village homes selling for more than similar houses in traditional, sprawling suburbs, developers will make considerably more per acre, while fostering community and being kinder to the environment.

Nerdy questions Tyler Cowen has taken to asking new people he meets

Nerdy questions Tyler Cowen has taken to asking new people he meets:

1. What do you maximize?
2. Can you offer a simple model of yourself, using one a few equations or a paragraph or less?
3. What is it you hate? (NB: My colleague Bryan C. suggests there are fine but important distinctions between hating, despising, mocking, and scorning. I might add that I am not much of a hater. More generally, many people's hates are only 'pretend hates,' and what they hate is perhaps the fact that they don't really hate their stated hates at all. But I will settle for a 'pretend hate' answer to this question.)
4. What is your most absurd view?

Stanford professor stumps for electoral alternative

From Stanford professor stumps for electoral alternative:

A Stanford University computer science professor has come up with an idea to circumvent the more than 200-year-old Electoral College system and institute a national popular vote to elect the president of the United States.

The proposal by John Koza, who also invented the scratch-off lottery ticket, is receiving serious consideration by lawmakers in several states. Legislators in California, New York, Colorado, Illinois and Missouri have sponsored bills to enact such a plan.

Koza's scheme calls for an interstate compact that would require states to throw all of their electoral votes behind the winner of the national popular vote, regardless of which candidate wins in each state. The plan doesn't require all 50 states to join, but a combination of states that represent a majority (at least 270) of the electoral votes. If the largest states join in the agreement, only 11 would be needed.

'Not it!' More schools ban games at recess

Michael Blowhard rightly asks, What kind of adults are these kids going to grow up to be? From Not it!:

Some traditional childhood games are disappearing from school playgrounds because educators say they're dangerous.

Elementary schools in Cheyenne, Wyo., and Spokane, Wash., banned tag at recess this year. Others, including a suburban Charleston, S.C., school, dumped contact sports such as soccer and touch football.

In other cities, including Wichita; San Jose, Calif.; Beaverton, Ore.; and Rancho Santa Fe., Calif., schools took similar actions earlier.

These kids are not going to grow up to hold the pass against Xerxes' Immortals.

Fear of Snakes Drove Pre-Human Evolution

UC Davis anthropologist Lynne Isbell contends that a (justified) Fear of Snakes Drove Pre-Human Evolution:

To avoid becoming snake food, early mammals had to develop ways to detect and avoid the reptiles before they could strike. Some animals evolved better snake sniffers, while others developed immunities to serpent venom when it evolved. Early primates developed a better eye for color, detail and movement and the ability to see in three dimensions — traits that are important for detecting threats at close range.

Humans are descended from those same primates.

Scientists had previously thought that these traits evolved together as primates used their hands and eyes to grab insects, or pick fruit or to swing through trees, but recent discoveries from neuroscience are casting doubt on these theories.

100 SF Books

Theordore Sturgeon once defended science fiction, a genre that includes some truly awful works, by noting that "Ninety percent of everything is crud." This instance of the Pareto principle is known as Sturgeon's Law or Sturgeon's Revelation.

Phobos Entertainment presents a list of 100 SF Books that fall into the non-cruddy 10 percent:

1. Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke
2. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
3. Dune by Frank Herbert
4. Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick
5. Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
6. Valis by Philip K. Dick
7. Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
8. Gateway by Frederick Pohl
9. Space Merchants by C.M. Kornbluth & Frederick Pohl
10. Earth Abides by George R. Stewart
11. Cuckoo’s Egg by C.J. Cherryh
12. Star Surgeon by James White
13. The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K. Dick
14. Radix by A.A. Attanasio
15. 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke
16. Ringworld by Larry Niven
17. A Case of Conscience by James Blish
18. Last and First Man by Olaf Stapledon
19. The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham
20. Way Station by Clifford Simak
21. More Than Human by Theodore Sturgeon
22. Gray Lensman by E. E. “Doc” Smith
23. The Gods Themselves by Isaac Asimov
24. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
25. Behold the Man by Michael Moorcock
26. Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon
27. The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
28. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Jules Verne
29. Heritage of Hastur by Marion Zimmer Bradley
30. The Time Machine by H.G. Wells
31. The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester
32. Slan by A.E. Van Vogt
33. Neuromancer by William Gibson
34. Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
35. In Conquest Born by C.S. Friedman
36. Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
37. Eon by Greg Bear
38. Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
39. Journey to the Center of the Earth by Jules Verne
40. Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein
41. Cosm by Gregory Benford
42. The Voyage of the Space Beagle by A.E. Van Vogt
43. Blood Music by Greg Bear
44. Beggars in Spain by Nancy Kress
45. Omnivore by Piers Anthony
46. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
47. Mission of Gravity by Hal Clement
48. To Your Scattered Bodies Go by Philip Jose Farmer
49. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
50. The Man Who Folded Himself by David Gerrold
51. 1984 by George Orwell
52. The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyl And Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
53. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
54. Flesh by Philip Jose Farmer
55. Cities in Flight by James Blish
56. Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe
57. Startide Rising by David Brin
58. Triton by Samuel R. Delany
59. Stand on Zanzibar by John Brunner
60. A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
61. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
62. A Canticle For Leibowitz by Walter Miller
63. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
64. No Blade of Grass by John Christopher
65. The Postman by David Brin
66. Dhalgren by Samuel Delany
67. Berserker by Fred Saberhagen
68. Flatland by Edwin Abbot
69. Planiverse by A.K. Dewdney
70. Dragon’s Egg by Robert L. Forward
71. Downbelow Station by C.J. Cherryh
72. Dawn by Octavia E. Butler
73. Puppet Masters by Robert Heinlein
74. The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
75. Forever War by Joe Haldeman
76. Deathbird Stories by Harlan Ellison
77. Roadside Picnic by Boris Strugatsky & Arkady Strugatsky
78. The Snow Queen by Joan Vinge
79. The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury
80. Drowned World by J.G. Ballard
81. Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
82. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
83. Upanishads by Various
84. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
85. Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
86. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin
87. The Midwich Cuckoos by John Wyndham
88. Mutant by Henry Kuttner
89. Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
90. Ralph 124C41+ by Hugo Gernsback
91. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
92. Timescape by Gregory Benford
93. The Demolished Man by Alfred Bester
94. War with the Newts by Karl Kapek
95. Mars by Ben Bova
96. Brain Wave by Poul Anderson
97. Hyperion by Dan Simmons
98. The Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton
99. Camp Concentration by Thomas Disch
100. A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

I haven't read the entire list — not by a long shot — but I can second many of the lists recommendations — and I can disagree with a few as well: Frankenstein and Snow Crash may be influential works, but they're not necessarily good.

Getting an Education Online for Free

Getting an Education Online for Free shares a number of resources for the modern autodidact, from Berkeley's webcasts to educational freeware applications.

Star Wars' Origins in Frank Herbert's Dune

Star Wars Origins in Frank Herbert's Dune:

Star Wars	Dune
Princess Leia	Princess Alia (pronounced a-leia)
Villain turns out to be hero's father	Villain turns out to be hero's grandfather
Tatooine a desert planet	Arrakis (Dune) a desert planet
Sandcrawler - Vehicle piloted by Jawas, "left over from a forgotten mining era long ago"	Sandcrawler - Vehicle piloted by Arrakins, used to mine for spice
Moisture Farmers (like Uncle Owen)	Dew Collectors: "...used by Fremen to line concave planting depressions where they provide a small but reliable source of water"
Spice Mines of Kessel (mentioned in passing)	Spice is the most valued commodity in the universe, mined from Dune
Jedi Mind Trick - Jedi ability which controls the actions of others	The Voice - Bene Gesserit ability which controls the actions of others
Jedi Bendu, the Jedi training technique which gives them excellent internal control as well as supernatural prowess in combat	Prana Bindu, the Bene Gesserit training technique which gives them excellent internal control as well as supernatural prowess in combat2
Vision of Obi-Wan appears to Luke on Hoth, while he's seemingly dying	Vision of Pardot Kynes appears to Liet-Kynes in the desert, while he's dying
The Trade Federation has a monopoly on shipping in space	The Spacing Guild has a monopoly on shipping and transportation in space
Luke practices his lightsaber technique against an automated training remote	Alia practices her sword technique against an automated training dummy
Millennium Falcon barely escapes from the jaws of giant, sightless space slug before it falls back into the asteroid.	The Duke's ornithopter barely escapes from the jaws of a giant, sightless sandworm before it falls back into the dunes.
Luke spies on the Sandpeople using electrobinoculars	Paul spies on the Fremen using electric binoculars
Repulsors - Small devices which counteract gravity (used in the landspeeder, speeder bikes, pod racers and Jabba's barge)	Suspensors - Small devices which counteract gravity (used to suspend the Baron Harkonnen and Glowglobes)
Jabba (1983) is a worm/slug thing, about 15 feet long, with human-like facial features, arms and hands, who sits atop a dais	Leto II, God Emperor of Dune (1981), is a worm/slug thing, about 15 feet long, with human-like facial features, arms and hands, who sits atop a dais

Make Way for The Sidewalk SUV

According to Make Way for The Sidewalk SUV, "Motorized scooters for the disabled are finding a lucrative new market: People just sick of walking." Sigh.

What caused the Agricultural Revolution?

Tyler Cowen asks, What caused the Agricultural Revolution? and notes that he "long assumed (without much evidence) that mankind invented agriculture about 10,000 years ago because we suddenly, for some reason, became smarter" before encountering this alternative explanation, in Richard Manning's The Oil We Eat:

It is no accident that no matter where agriculture sprouted on the globe, it always happened near rivers. You might assume, as many have, that this is because the plants needed the water or nutrients. Mostly this is not true. They needed the power of flooding, which scoured landscapes and stripped out competitors. Nor is it an accident, I think, that agriculture arose independently and simultaneously around the globe just as the last ice age ended, a time of enormous upheaval when glacial melt let loose sea-size lakes to create tidal waves of erosion. It was a time of catastrophe.

Tyler Cowen says, "Most of the article is terrible." The anti-human, anti-farming bias is pretty sophomoric:

Corn, rice, and wheat are especially adapted to catastrophe. It is their niche. In the natural scheme of things, a catastrophe would create a blank slate, bare soil, that was good for them. Then, under normal circumstances, succession would quickly close that niche. The annuals would colonize. Their roots would stabilize the soil, accumulate organic matter, provide cover. Eventually the catastrophic niche would close. Farming is the process of ripping that niche open again and again. It is an annual artificial catastrophe, and it requires the equivalent of three or four tons of TNT per acre for a modern American farm. Iowa'’s fields require the energy of 4,000 Nagasaki bombs every year.

Here is Manning's primary point, where the title of the piece comes from:

Ever since we ran out of arable land, food is oil. Every single calorie we eat is backed by at least a calorie of oil, more like ten. In 1940 the average farm in the United States produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil energy it used. By 1974 (the last year in which anyone looked closely at this issue), that ratio was 1:1.

Manning argues that modern Green Revolution farming techniques are not sustainable, because oil energy won't be cheap and plentiful forever.

The Era of Hostage States

Arnold Kling opens The Era of Hostage States with this passage from YNET news:

The [Israeli Military] has found that Hizbullah is preventing civilians from leaving villages in southern Lebanon. Roadblocks have been set up outside some of the villages to prevent residents from leaving, while in other villages Hizbullah is preventing UN representatives from entering, who are trying to help residents leave. In two villages, exchanges of fire between residents and Hizbullah have broken out.

As he points out, "civilians often are used as human shields," and "if Hezbollah were to follow the Geneva Convention, and differentiate its military operators from civilians," its military operators would go up in a puff of smoke. It's only Israeli restraint that keeps Hezbullah in the game.

Of course, we have to ask, are the Lebonese people innocent victims?

It is safe to assume that most Lebanese do not like what is happening to their country now. But up until recently, the Lebanese government seemed to have no objection to Hezbollah's weapons arsenal and control over territory. Based on the actions of their elected government, one might infer that the Lebanese people were quite willing to tolerate a heavily armed, radical independent militia in their country.

Strong Opinions, Weakly Held

Bob Sutton argues that the key to wisdom is Strong Opinions, Weakly Held:

Perhaps the best description I’ve ever seen of how wise people act comes from the amazing folks at Palo Alto’s Institute for the Future. A couple years ago, I was talking the Institute’s Bob Johansen about wisdom, and he explained that — to deal with an uncertain future and still move forward — they advise people to have “strong opinions, which are weakly held.” They've been giving this advice for years, and I understand that it was first developed by Instituite Director Paul Saffo. Bob explained that weak opinions are problematic because people aren’t inspired to develop the best arguments possible for them, or to put forth the energy required to test them. Bob explained that it was just as important, however, to not be too attached to what you believe because, otherwise, it undermines your ability to “see” and “hear” evidence that clashes with your opinions. This is what psychologists sometimes call the problem of “confirmation bias.”

Hezbollah's Strategy

Hezbollah's Strategy as reported in The Battle Joined:

Hezbollah's strategy appears to be threefold. First, force Israel into costly attacks against prepared fortifications. Second, draw Israeli troops as deeply into Lebanon as possible, forcing them to fight on extended supply lines. Third, move into an Iraqi-style insurgency from which Israel -- out of fear of a resumption of rocket attacks -- cannot withdraw, but which the Israelis also cannot endure because of extended long-term casualties. This appears to have been a carefully planned strategy, built around a threat to Israeli cities that Israel can't afford. The war has begun at Hezbollah's time and choosing.

Israel is caught between three strategic imperatives. First, it must end the threat to Israeli cities, which must involve the destruction of Hezbollah's launch capabilities south of the Litani River. Second, it must try to destroy Hezbollah's infrastructure, which means it must move into the Bekaa Valley and as far as the southern suburbs of Beirut. Third, it must do so in such a way that it is not dragged into a long-term, unsustainable occupation against a capable insurgency.

Hezbollah has implemented its strategy by turning southern Lebanon into a military stronghold, consisting of well-designed bunkers that serve both as fire bases and launch facilities for rockets. The militants appear to be armed with anti-tank weapons and probably anti-aircraft weapons, some of which appear to be of American origin, raising the question of how they were acquired. Hezbollah wants to draw Israel into protracted fighting in this area in order to inflict maximum casualties and to change the psychological equation for both military and political reasons.

What Does It Take to Win?

Demimasque asks, What Does It Take to Win?:

In fact, the international system as it currently exists tends to support the underdog blindly. In some case, this may be good, if the underdog was attacked (Bosnia, Kuwait, and Egypt in 1956); in others, it's probably not good, if the underdog is the aggressor (the occasional incursions by Pakistan). The only exception to this rule is that when Israel is the underdog but not the aggressor, it is not supported (1967, 1973).

A system which applies pressure for war to cease before a workable peace is possible merely buys time for the side that was about to lose. This is not to say whether that's good or bad, but at least in the case of post-1967 Israel, we're not talking any longer about states rubbing up against each other, jostling for land and/or resources. No, we're talking now about an enemy that intends for the complete and irrevocable eradication, not only of the Jewish state, but of any Jewish blood in the Middle East. Against that backdrop, a system that does not allow one side or the other to win is actually a way to lengthen the conflict, not to ameliorate it.

We go to great lengths to say that we want the war to stop because innocents are getting killed. But what we end up doing is forcing the parties to refight the same war every few years. When you add it up, the civilian casualties turn out greater than if we were to let the parties have a free-for-all, last man standing.

If you don't mind keeping the conflict simmering, then Israel is "overreacting". But keep in mind that essentially what you're supporting in this conflict by limiting Israeli options is the continued existence of Hezbollah.

If you want a real end, let Israel do what it must, and punish it later for its excesses.

Piglets with Ice Lolly

Today's does of cute comes from Pinky and Perky:

Pinky and Perky two four week old miniature piglets cool off at Pennywell Farm and Wildlife centre near Buckfastleigh, south western England Wednesday July 19, 2006 in this photo provided by the centre. The piglets were keeping cool with a huge lolly packed with carrots and other vegetables. 'The recent heatwave has been exhausting for everyone and animals are no exception,' said Catherine Tozer, assistant manager of the farm. 'All the animals have been struggling with the heat so we have just tried to do everything we can to make them more comfortable. 'After the initial shock and a bit of investigation, the ice lollies went down a real treat,' she said.

Have You Hugged a Hummer Today?

Have You Hugged a Hummer Today?

Spinella spent two years on the most comprehensive study to date – dubbed "Dust to Dust" -- collecting data on the energy necessary to plan, build, sell, drive and dispose of a car from the initial conception to scrappage. He even included in the study such minutia as plant-to-dealer fuel costs of each vehicle, employee driving distances, and electricity usage per pound of material. All this data was then boiled down to an "energy cost per mile" figure for each car (see here and here).

Comparing this data, the study concludes that overall hybrids cost more in terms of overall energy consumed than comparable non-hybrid vehicles. But even more surprising, smaller hybrids' energy costs are greater than many large, non-hybrid SUVs.

For instance, the dust-to-dust energy cost of the bunny-sized Honda Civic hybrid is $3.238 per mile. This is quite a bit more than the $1.949 per mile that the elephantine Hummer costs. The energy cots of SUVs such as the Tahoe, Escalade, and Navigator are similarly far less than the Civic hybrid.
[...]
As for Hummers, Spinella explains, the life of these cars averaged across various models is over 300,000 miles. By contrast, Prius' life – according to Toyota's own numbers – is 100,000 miles. Furthermore, Hummer is a far less sophisticated vehicle. Its engine obviously does not have an electric and gas component as a hybrid's does so it takes much less time and energy to manufacture. What's more, its main raw ingredient is low-cost steel, not the exotic light-weights that are exceedingly difficult to make – and dispose. But the biggest reason why a Hummer's energy use is so low is that it shares many components with other vehicles and therefore its design and development energy costs are spread across many cars.

It is not possible to do this with a specialty product like hybrid. All in all, Spinella insists, the energy costs of disposing a Hummer are 60 percent less than an average hybrid's and its design and development costs are 80 percent less.

How a statistical formula won the war

The lastest Gavyn Davies does the maths column in The Guardian explains "how a statistical formula won the war" — or how statisticians estimated the number of tanks the Germans could produce when the spy network couldn't directly observe factory output:

The statisticians had one key piece of information, which was the serial numbers on captured mark V tanks. The statisticians believed that the Germans, being Germans, had logically numbered their tanks in the order in which they were produced. And this deduction turned out to be right. It was enough to enable them to make an estimate of the total number of tanks that had been produced up to any given moment.

The basic idea was that the highest serial number among the captured tanks could be used to calculate the overall total. The German tanks were numbered as follows: 1, 2, 3 ... N, where N was the desired total number of tanks produced. Imagine that they had captured five tanks, with serial numbers 20, 31, 43, 78 and 92. They now had a sample of five, with a maximum serial number of 92. Call the sample size S and the maximum serial number M. After some experimentation with other series, the statisticians reckoned that a good estimator of the number of tanks would probably be provided by the simple equation (M-1)(S+1)/S. In the example given, this translates to (92-1)(5+1)/5, which is equal to 109.2. Therefore the estimate of tanks produced at that time would be 109.

By using this formula, statisticians reportedly estimated that the Germans produced 246 tanks per month between June 1940 and September 1942. At that time, standard intelligence estimates had believed the number was far, far higher, at around 1,400. After the war, the allies captured German production records, showing that the true number of tanks produced in those three years was 245 per month, almost exactly what the statisticians had calculated, and less than one fifth of what standard intelligence had thought likely.

Public Choice Television

I never got into HBO's Deadwood, but I may have to revisit it after reading Eric Crampton's Public Choice Television:

Deadwood is the best television series I’ve seen. I’m a big fan of Joss Whedon’s work, but this surpasses it. Read Mancur Olson on stationary and roving bandits, then read some Tullock [founder of public choice theory], then watch the show.

Al Swearengen, who owns the town’s bar and first brothel, essentially serves as Olson’s permanent bandit. Self-interest rules and he’s not above sending out a thieving party to rob a wagon coming into town if it suits him. But, he’s far more a permanent bandit. His success depends on the security of the gold claims, constraining rivals like the Hearst combine, on the growth and prosperity of the town, on keeping the hooples from acting up, and on ensuring that the rent-seekers from Yankton don’t take everything during the town’s accession to the Union. Swearengen invests in public goods, like getting a smallpox vaccine into town when a plague happens along. Cy Tolliver, a roving bandit, makes no such investments: instead, he extracts as much as he can as quickly as he can and works to set up the Hearst interests in place of Swearengen, calculating that life as lap-dog to Hearst is more lucrative than that of roving bandit in opposition to Swearengen.

Deadwood takes anarchy seriously. There’s no backdrop of the state to provide law and order, only the threat of possible future accession to the Union. In The Sopranos, by contrast, Tony is only able to operate because of the existence of the State. He earns rents due to his willingness to use violence and cut around the law; absent the law, he’d not exist. He’d be out-competed on every margin of his business. Without state prohibitions on gambling, what would happen to his numbers rackets? Normal rate of return only. Without state protections of unions, what would happen to his pension fund rackets and no-work contracts? Gone. Al Swearengen thrives because of the absence of government. Town needs law and order? Hire a sheriff who’s beholden to nobody and who can’t be bought. Hiring a corrupt sherrif would have you in a perpetual bidding war with Cy Tolliver; hiring one instead that cares about the best interest of the town ensures prosperity where you're the residual claimant. Doc Cochran feels for the town and cares about what’s best, but Al gets the job done, expecting (and generally receiving) naught but the derision of the soft-hearted. The hoople mob cannot be trusted to govern itself; it needs to be guided lest it fall victim to Cy’s rumour-mongering on behalf of Hearst.

The Wikipedia entry for Mancur Olson explains his notion of stationary versus roving bandits:

In his final book, Power and Prosperity, Olson distinguished between the economic effects of different types of government, in particular, tyranny, anarchy and democracy. Olson argued that a "roving bandit" (under anarchy) has an incentive only to steal and destroy, whilst a "stationary bandit" (a tyrant) has an incentive to encourage a degree of economic success, since he will expect to be in power long enough to take a share of it. The stationary bandit thereby takes on the primordial function of government — protection of his citizens and property against roving bandits. Olson saw in the move from roving bandits to stationary bandits the seeds of civilization, paving the way for democracy, which improves incentives for good government by more closely aligning it with the wishes of the population.

For more on Tullock and public choice theory, I recommend The Fundamentals of Rent-Seeking and the Wikipedio entry on Public choice theory.

Kiwiana

Eric Crampton is guest-blogging from New Zealand for his friend Bryan Caplan, who's on vacation in California. As he has recently taken up a position at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, he is in a wondeful position to share some Kiwiana:

• The safety nuts haven't yet taken over here. You're still free to injure yourself in interesting ways. Mountain roads to ski fields are exhilirating and terrifying; occasionally, cars fall off of them. The Department of Conservation might warn you against doing something particularly stupid, but you can feel free to ignore them. When folks win Darwin awards as consequence, there's no hue and cry for stricter safety regulations.
• Politics is more relaxed. The Prime Minister lent her voice to an episode of BroTown, a cartoon that sits somewhere between Simpsons and South Park. The leader of the ACT Party spent a few weeks on the NZ version of Dancing with the Stars.
• The Broadcasting Standards Authority is a good deal more relaxed than the FCC. Free to air broadcast television includes South Park, Deadwood and the Sopranos. In response to complaints, the BSA is far more likely to tell folks to stop whinging than it is to levy fines.
• Society failed to implode after the legalisation of prostitution and gay marriage (civil unions).
• I haven't had to worry about the terrorism alert status since I got here.
• It's an easy 25 minute commute from beach to school.

Car Fuel Efficiency Gains Used For Speed And Size

Randall Parker notes that car fuel-efficiency gains get used for speed and size, not for reducing fuel consumption:

6 speed transmissions, engines that turn off some cylinders while cruising, hybrids, new lighter materials, and other innovations plus the big rise in oil prices were not enough to change the average fuel economy of new cars. Attempts to increase efficiency get undermined in at least 3 ways by consumers:

• People choose bigger cars and SUVs.
• People choose models that accelerate more rapidly.
• People drive more miles.

As Brett Bellmore points out, all this is perfectly predictable, given that,

1. the price of gasoline isn't that much higher than historical levels, when adjusted for inflation, and
2. it today represents a smaller fraction of most people's incomes.

In fact, this is known as Jevons Paradox:

In his 1865 book The Coal Question, Jevons observed that England's consumption of coal soared after James Watt introduced his coal-fired steam engine, which greatly improved the efficiency of Thomas Newcomen's earlier design. Watt's innovations made coal a more cost effective power source, leading to increased use of his steam engine in a wide range of industries. This in turn made total coal consumption rise, even as the amount of coal required for any particular application fell.

Flesh Trade

Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt (Freakonomics) "weigh the repugnance factor" in Flesh Trade:

How's this for a repugnant situation? Take someone you love, perhaps your spouse or your sibling, and find a stranger who will accept a really big bet that your loved one will die prematurely — and if indeed that happens, you pocket a few million dollars.

This, of course, is how life insurance works. And most Americans don't find this idea repugnant at all. They used to, however. Until the mid-19th century, life insurance was considered "a profanation," as the sociologist Viviana Zelizer has written, "which transformed the sacred event of death into a vulgar commodity."

Obviously we're not above all such irrational repugnance today:

In the space of just a few decades, transplant surgery has become safe and reliable (to say nothing of miraculous). But success breeds demand: as more patients get new organs, more patients want them. In 2005, more than 16,000 kidney transplants were performed in the U.S., an increase of 45 percent over 10 years. But during that time, the number of people on a kidney waiting list rose by 119 percent. More than 3,500 people now die each year waiting for a kidney transplant.

To an economist, this is a basic supply-and-demand gap with tragic consequences. So what can be done to increase the supply of organs?

The obvious answer — put organs up for sale — is repugnant, so we need a clever solut