Be ready to be here for quite some time

Note the following article dealing with space travel. The key point I take away from the article is that we are never getting out of our solar system. No technology works to give rapid travel and without rapid travel, humans would have to go into space for hundreds if not thousands of years in an outdated spaceships with no hope of ever getting new equipment. That's the biggest downside to conventional travel to far away places, in my opinion - no way to get the latest technology to the travelers. Imagine if the Apollo program was actually to go to some far away planet. They would still be in the middle of nowhere while look how the technology progressed in the last 40 years. They would have to basically make do with technology that now is beat by any run of the mill graphic calculator. Same applies to any ship leaving now. Advances are so rapid, and space travel is so slow that even if someone decided to dedicate their entire lives to it, they would basically be stuck techonologically unless they themselves develop something new (which given the limitations of being in a ship with limited resources is virtually impossible). Any thoughts?

Same Subject, Different Reception

Ever wonder what makes a movie popular? Most times, if not always, it's not scientific accuracy but spectacular effects and/or big name actors. Two prime examples: Deep Impact/Armagedon and Volcano/Dante's Peak. Both pairs of films came out within a few months of each other. Both Armagedon and Volcano did much better financially in the theatres than Deep Impact (which to be fair, had a bigger opening) and Dante's Peak, even though the later ones where much more scientifically accurate - Dante's Peak so much so that it drew praise from volcanologists. Deep Impact was also praised by astronomers. Surprisingly, both Armagedon and Volcano was not a hit with the critics, but the general public loved the amazing effects (at least at that point they were) and one can say bigger stars in Armagedon and Volcano. Now, over time, both of the underdogs drew grudging respect and even when they were in theatres, many people preferred them over the more popular pair. Nevertheless, we have those pesky box office results. Money talks, or so they say. And although I cannot think of another similar situation where two movies so alike in subject matter coming out within months of each other, if Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is any indication, fans still prefer larger than life experiences when going to the movie theatre, and saving more scientific movies, hopefully, for their Netflix or DVRs. Any thoughts?

Space, the Final Frontier

I found this graphic fascinating: http://dvice.com/archives/2009/12/humbling-video.php

It's a shame that we can't see anything in real time and are stuck seeing things as they were in the past. Any thoughts as to ways to overcome this problem? I personally do not see any. Even if we send out billions of tiny satellites all over the universe, they would only be able to send radio waves back that also travel at the speed of light and by the time they arrive in most places, we may not even exist anymore to receive either the radio waves or the satellites if they return.

It's interesting how it even takes the sunlight 8 minutes to reach us. For all we know, our sun may have blown up and we wouldn't know it for 8 minutes. Ah, bliss.

Why the Olympics should say YES to PEOPLE like Oscar Pistorius

A recent article was posted at Dvice.com. See http://dvice.com/archives/2008/08/shift_why_the_o.php#more

I disagree with the article and posted this at the bottom of the article:

Until the steroid issues at the Olympics are truly resolved, the concern over
double amputees competing is a bit premature at best and prejudiced at worst.
The same issues have arisen with the new swim suits for swimmers that give, one
could say, an unfair technological advantage to people with the money to buy
them as opposed to diving with just speedos. And there is a difference between human power prosthetics and self-powered prosthetics that artificially recreate muscles. That's a pretty simple line. Artificial recreation of muscles allows one to make a stronger and faster prosthetic that will easily beat a human. A self-powered
prosthetic that does not artificially recreate the muscles in the foot can
hardly provide an advantage.

Agree or disagree, all constructive comments welcome.

Robots' Recognition of Beauty and Creation of Art

Hello everyone,

For the inaugural post, I thought I'd start out with something that has been both brought up in the Will Smith movie I, Robot (and, of course, Asimov's works, but in various places) and the Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. In I, Robot, there is the following exchange:

Detective Del Spooner: You are a clever imitation of life... Can a robot write a symphony? Can a robot take a blank canvas and turn it into a masterpiece?
Sonny: Can you?

The implication being, of course, that Will Smith character could not himself do all of the thing he was claiming that Sonny could not do. Regardless of the somewhat faulty implication, as Spooner likely meant (or should have likely meant) that robots do not have capability to do these things, the question remains: Will robots likely have the ability to write a symphony that rises above a simple "smooth jazz" category and create a truly beautiful art piece? Could the robots then appreciate it as we do?

In The Sarah Connor Chronicles, there this quote spoken by Sarah in one of the ending montages:

"We all have weak moments. Moments where we lose faith. But it's our flaws, our weaknesses that make us human. Science now performs miracles like the gods of old. Creating life from blood cells or bacteria or a spark of metal. But they're perfect creatures and in that way they couldn't be less human. There are things machines will never do. They cannot possess faith. They cannot commune with God. They cannot appreciate beauty. They cannot create art. If they ever learn these things, they won't have to destroy us, they'll be us."

Again, same questions arise. Of course, Asimov's works have several examples of Robots who accomplish these things. One of my favorites is Dors from the Foundation series. But there too, you have to wonder if she ever truly loved Seldon or was it really just her duty to protect him that made it seem like she loved him. Protectiveness is certainly one aspect of love.

So, any constructive thoughts are welcome.