60 years ago, on January 30, 1948

The Mahatma was assassinated in the garden of a house in Dehli.

Einstein said of him:
Future generations will scarce believe that one such as this did, in flesh and blood, walk upon the face of the Earth.

In view of the current situation, with very rough patches behind us and ahead of us, it is quite reasonable to just want to give up and say humans are hopeless.

But watch "Gandhi" and it might kindle a flicker of hope...

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/father-of-the-nation-laid-to-rest-the-afterlife-of-mahatma-gandhi-776189.html

On the other hand, there are many people who are just invincibly stupid. It's genetic (I'm not joking). They are doomed to be like that until they die. Ignore them and stop wasting your time.

Watch the very short clip by Daniel Dennett.

http://thesciencenetwork.org

Then, click on Beyond Belief: Enlightenment 2.0.

Then, click on WATCH.
There are many talks discussing the study of religion.

You absolutely must watch this... because there will be blood

Crude: the Incredible Journey of Oil

You have got to watch this. The only explanation for the origin of oil that makes any sense to me.

You can see it online for free. The DVD costs about 30 dollars.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/crude

(And I hate to tell you, but Bush said last week that if the Saudis say the cannot pump any more than they are, they can't. The head of Shell Oil said oil demand will outstrip supply within 7 years. If that doesn't scare the hell out of you, it will after you watch "Crude".)

Nearly 200 years of ever-increasing fossil fuel use is peaking. The 60-year superboom in the US economy, produced by ever-increasing use of ridiculously cheap oil, is coming to an end.

The only possible light at the end of the tunnel is the continuing exponential growth in computing power. This will lead to computer-designed, and/or computer-evolved, photovoltaic panels that perform at reasonably high efficiencies and are very inexpensive. The improved computing power will also increase the ability to bioengineer microorganisms to convert plant materials (such as grass) into biofuels. (The current use of grain to make ethanol is simply nonsense and is driving up food prices. What sense does it make if gasoline is a little cheaper but food is more expensive?)

How difficult it is to see even 15 years into the future

Even science fiction writers have difficulty seeing into the future... even 15 years into the future.

In the 1987 episode The Naked Now of Star Trek: The Next Generation, nearly everyone on board goes loopy due to a virus. First Officer Riker vaguely recalls a similar disease and tells Mr. Data to scan the Starfleet database. Mr. Data starts reading at the console very fast and tells Riker it will take a few hours.

Now, everyone just yells: "Google it, you idiots!"

The urn

A slight modification of a line from a poem by Sarah Williams, 1868... I suppose, what it will say on my urn (but in the 29th century, thank you... and no, I am not joking)

I have loved the stars too well to be fearful of the night.

Some people think I am a pessimist

But that is exactly, perfectly wrong.

I am an optimist. That is why I fuss about things. The world does not have to be this way, so an optimist tries to improve it.

Pessimists wouldn't try to fix anything, ever.

Hmm, more than 50% of our DNA is from viruses

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/science/08angi.html

One in three over 65 falls annually

One in there people over the age of 65 falls annually, with sometimes disastrous consequences. The solution may be very simple.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/08/health/08brod.html?_r=1&oref=slogin&ref=health&pagewanted=print

Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.

Michael Pollan's answer to the question of what we should eat.

His drawing of our attention to the bizarre world in which we find ourselves eating is shocking... something like realizing in the middle of a day-long power outage that not having electricity was, until a century ago, called "normal".

I would add that I think a very serious problem is that fruits and vegetables are now completely protected from insects and fungi, and the plants have therefore ceased to produce normal protective chemicals which have always been part of our diet.

Many people say, "If it's got a few bug holes in it, it's safe to eat."
I would go further and say, "If it's got a few bug holes in it, is a little bruised, and looks a little stunted, it probably has the chemicals that were once part of a normal diet and that reduce risk of cancer by inducing DNA checking and repair in our cells."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jan/07/health.foodanddrink

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/jan/08/health.foodanddrink

Hau'oli Makahiki Hou!

Believe it or not, everyone in Hawaii used to do this at midnight! You would not believe how noisy it was. It is so loud in the clip below that the mic is simply not recording properly. The actual sound is deafening... no joke... you have to cover your ears.

1971. The economy had boomed. All the kids got fireworks for Christmas. The smoke and the noise were unbelievable.

Just say to anyone from Hawaii:
"I wen' light one ten tausand! Aunty wen' buy 'em fo' me at Arakawa's (or Gem's)."

Mochi. Makizushi. Turkey from the kamado. Potato salad.
Christmas tree still up. The smell of Douglas fir.
The dog freaking out (or passed out on a tranquilizer).
Hanging flares from threads so they would spin around like rockets. Making rockets out of a match head (or a firecracker with almost all the paper peeled off), a piece of foil, and a broom straw. Baby Camels. Uncle's boxes of skyrockets smuggled from the Big Island ("They are only illegal if you get caught!" he would say). Lighting a pack and trying to throw it up in the air as high as you could. Getting burned by the punk. No wind. "Cold". Yelling "Car!" when a car was coming so no one would light a pack. Getting a big bamboo pole and hanging the #10,000 in the driveway... and dad giving you his cigarette and letting you light it for the first time. The way it would stop just when it got to the head. The road and driveway covered in red paper from the firecrackers. Raking it all up. The "duds" going off from time to time.

The remembrance of things past... a world we can see now only in memory...

Iz sings Over the Rainbow at Times Square 2008

Why a third of people have difficulty learning from mistakes

About 30% of people have fewer D2 receptors in the brain because they have a gene variant called A1.

When people with many D2 receptors make a mistake, they feel satisfied that the mistake was a mistake.

When people with fewer D2 receptors make a mistake, they do not feel that the mistake was a mistake, so they continue to do the same wrong thing over and over again.

This would explain why many people are rigid, even in the face of black-and-white evidence. I knew a person who said sashimi was vinegared rice. I told her she had switched the meanings of sushi and sashimi. She said I was wrong. We looked it up in Webster's. She said the dictionary was wrong. If people are rigid about small meaningless things, they cannot possibly correct errors when the problems are big, complicated, and murky.

This is a very serious problem. If we test groups of people who cannot ever admit they are wrong and find that they have an unusual frequency of the A1 gene variant, we could see if there are ways to help them learn to overcome the feelings and be more effective, if they choose to do so. Or we can learn to just give up and let them watch a certain "news" station (Seriously, that "news" station is the saddest thing I have ever seen. They are doomed to stay that way for eternity, and it is all recorded, so people will be laughing at them as long as technical civilization exists, and since the transmissions escape the Earth, it is even being broadcast across the galaxy, so the entire universe will be laughing at them for eternity.)

http://news.scotsman.com/scitech/One-in-three-people-.3636016.jp

What is the cause of unhappiness?

A Buddhist answer would be:

The difference between expectation and reality.


Reality much worse than expectation = unhappiness

Reality much better than expectation = happiness

The most important factor in a long healthy life is not at all what you think

Now, this is truly astonishing.

What is the single most important factor in living a long healthy life?

We know what the diseases are and the causes of death, but I don't think you can possibly guess what the answer is.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17765003

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/03/health/03aging.html?hp&ex=1167886800&en=d82

(You will have to register to see the New York Times article, but it is easy and you should do it anyway.)

Read the above first

The most important factor in a long healthy life is:

It is not wealth. It is not health care.
It is Education.
The more the better. Even later in life, doing online learning will, on average, put off the day when you go into decline. And if we delay it enough, medical advances will really push it back!

Senator K. K. Ka'umanua

Kent Bowman passed away just before Christmas. We will no longer have the wisdom of Senator Ka'umanua to guide us.

My favorite: Senator Ka'umanua's campaign to install overpasses all around OCCC so that there will be no accidents when prisoners escape...

You can hear a few sample clips here.

http://www.mele.com/music/artist/kent+bowman/pidgin+english+children's+stories

Search for extraterrestrial signals when your computer is not in use

SETI at Home (Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence @ Home) has been running along for a decade. You create an account, download a small program to your computer, and the program automatically looks for potential extraterrestrial signals in the data from radio telescopes when you are not using your computer.

The amount of data to be analyzed is about to increase 500 times! And there will soon be thousands of times more data!

This is a good way to learn about "distributed computing". We learn best by doing.

At this rate, we will know the answer to the greatest question of all time: Are we alone?
Within the next 20 years of so, if all goes well, we will have brought to Earth either living bacteria from Mars, or at the very least fossil evidence of past life on Mars. We will also have either received signals from extraterrestrials, or we will have finished scanning a large part of our galaxy and will be able to conclude that civilizations transmitting in radio are rare.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-01/uoc--sru010208.php

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu

I must say that it used to work better when the program was standalone; the BOINC project of which SETI at Home has become a part is much buggier and unstable and has, in my experience, many more problems.

What is wrong with explanations of evolution

I think explanations of evolution usually don't get very far because issues are skipped over or are discussed in the wrong order. I would begin an explanation of evolution like this:

I don't want to die.

But my grandparents died, and I accept that they no longer exist. I think they are in the state they were in before they were born; that is to say, nothing.

Human consciousness requires a normally functioning brain. That is why a series of small strokes can produce such devastating changes to perception and personality. If your consciousness exists independently of your physical body, why are strokes even noticeable?

I wish everyone could exist for as long as they liked and were as happy as they liked.
But this world is not like that, and stories about the afterlife are made up. None of the stories about the afterlife and how to get there agree because each story is made up by a different group to assure themselves that they alone will not die (and, have you noticed, so that people will willingly give money).

You will be shocked to learn how many of the story elements (the crucifixion, rebirth, and many, many more) from the New Testament are copied from Egyptian and Indian literature. Not only that, but the priests learn about this in seminary, but never mention it in public. Ask someone who has been through seminary.

Recently, some evolution advocates have received death threats from creationists. I understand why this happens. Acceptance of evolution is a death threat to anyone who thinks that if evolution is true, it means there is no afterlife.

Some religious people accept that evolution is an established fact, but for many others, the implication that they are going to die and that there is no afterlife is simply overwhelming. Discussing how evolution works before that issue is addressed is simply a waste of time.

Evolution happens before our eyes: bacteria become resistant to antibiotics, insects become resistant to pesticides.

About 8 percent of our DNA is made up of viruses that infected our ancestors over millions of years. About 80% of human conceptions spontaneously abort after a few days because there are serious DNA errors in the fertilized egg.

Prayer produces no effect in controlled experiments (although it might make people feel better). The universe is billions of years old, the Earth orbits the Sun, the Sun is a star in the Milky Way Galaxy, the galaxies are moving apart at very high speed, the galaxies are distributed around huge voids... none of these things is mentioned in texts from the ancients. Why? Because they did not know.