I am a regular reader of both PZ Myers and /r/science. On those two sites, a heated debate has developed during the last week over Ray Kurzweil’s claims of the possibility of reverse engineering the human brain by 2030.
Finally a neurologist, Steven Novella, has joined the debate in “Myerz vs Kurzweil on Brain Complexity.” He does a good job of deescalating the debate, and has a similar stance to mine. Both Myers and Kurzweil don’t completely understand each other’s point of view. Myers is correct in saying that Kurzweil does not understand how the brain works. Kurzweil is also correct in saying that Myers doesn’t understand exponential growth of information technology. I also think that Myers has been too harsh on Kurzweil, who is not a the complete moron that Myers makes him out to be. Despite what either Myers or Kurzweil has to say, the reverse engineering of the brain is currently happening, and we can only wait and see what the people working on it come up with in the future. The future is hard to predict, and the only way to know for sure what is going to happen is to wait and see. The singularity may or may not be near.
I normally hate motivational speeches. Most of them are filled with too many analogies that are taken too far, and contain little substance.
On the other hand, this short clip by John Cleese is definitely worth a watch. He briefly describes his creative process, and shares a few tips that are actually feasible to implement.
Last night’s futurama episode had a heavy evolution vs creationist theme. Although these kinds of comedy bits normally just make me depressed about the state of the world, this one was actually pretty funny. I was able to not get mad at the fact that creationists exist, and actually have a bit of fun with it.
I found the best part of the episode up on youtube. Check out the clip here. Sorry, embedding was disabled.
In other news, I’ve added a shelfari widget to the right side bar. It shows the books that I’m currently reading. Now that exams are over, it will actually be getting updated now as I finish books.
Last tuesday, Apple announced the Magic Trackpad. For those of you who ignore apple news, the magic trackpad is basically a larger version of the trackpad found in the macbook pros. It is marketed at desktop users, and from some of the pictures on apples’ site, it is being marketed as a mouse replacement. Some bloggers are even claiming that this is the end of the mouse era.
There is no way that this trackpad will completely replace the mouse. It is likely that something will eventually replace the mouse, but this is not it. I could see the Magic Trackpad becoming a common peripheral, maybe finding its home on the left side of a keyboard, but it will never replace the mouse.
A trackpad will never be as precise or as fast as a conventional mouse. This is due to some simple biomechanics. A trackpads precision and speed could potentially be increased by some smart motion sensing algorithms, but if these algorithms existed, they could be applied to mouse-movements as well, making those even more precise and speedy.
Shelfari is a great site for sharing your bookshelf with friends. It’s an awesome way to discover new books, and see what your friends are reading. Check out my new profile and add me to your friend list.
It is summer-time here in Victoria, BC, and we are getting a pretty good batch of nice weather. That means it’s steak time. I really like steak, but I also really like science, so I am usually still thinking about science while eating steak.
There has been advice around that recommends warming up a steak to room temperature before cooking it. I have always subscribed to this advice, and I am a little bit embarrassed to say that I had never really give it much thought before. The concept makes sense. I like rare steak, and I wouldn’t want the interior of that steak to still be cold after I barely cooked it.
After a quick recall of heat transfer equations, I remembered that most heat transfer rates have a factor comprised of temperature differentials in them. An equation for heat transfer rate in conduction follows:
Disregard everything except for the T1 and T2 at the top. T1 – T2 is the temperature differential between the two materials. In this case it is the temperature of the BBQ and the meat. Let’s assume that the BBQ is a constant 300 degrees C. Meat straight from the fridge is around 2 degrees, and meat left out in a room would probably be around 15 degrees. Meat straight from the fridge would have a factor of 298, and meat left out in the room would have a factor of 285. Because cooking a steak doesn’t take very long, I don’t think that the difference between these two factors would make much of difference.
