Apparently we still haven't reached the day when I'll stop posting about the status of patents I'm on.
My second patent (which I'm also first inventor on) was just granted! And the version with pretty pictures. (8/16/2011 link fixed)
Friday, August 12, 2011
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Mystery Solved
Ok, mystery solved. Not so surprisingly it is the family members I've been playing phone tag with since my birthday. Yay now it is time to use my birthday present!
Friday, July 15, 2011
Yoda USB Drive
Someone was nice enough to buy a Yoda USB drive for me. I like the little Yoda statue so it is sitting on my stereo next to my computer. And according to the box it has a huge amount of memory. It showed up right around my birthday so I'm assuming it is a birthday present.
However, I have no idea who it is from. I'd like to use it, but this is how nuclear reactors get taken down (yeah, I know the US and Israeli governments aren't looking to put a virus on my computer, but I'm still going to avoid plugging in a random USB drive).
So if you bought it for me or know who did, please let me know cause I'd like to say thank you and I'd like to start using it. For now I'll just use it as a figurine, maybe if I don't find out who it is from I'll go to an internet cafe and see if there is anything on there.
Oh, and around the same time I got a DaVinci shirt with the guy playing a guitar. Luckily that one I can just wash and then use, but I'd like to thank whoever got it for me.
However, I have no idea who it is from. I'd like to use it, but this is how nuclear reactors get taken down (yeah, I know the US and Israeli governments aren't looking to put a virus on my computer, but I'm still going to avoid plugging in a random USB drive).
So if you bought it for me or know who did, please let me know cause I'd like to say thank you and I'd like to start using it. For now I'll just use it as a figurine, maybe if I don't find out who it is from I'll go to an internet cafe and see if there is anything on there.
Oh, and around the same time I got a DaVinci shirt with the guy playing a guitar. Luckily that one I can just wash and then use, but I'd like to thank whoever got it for me.
Thursday, July 07, 2011
Google+
So far google+ seems a lot like facebook, but with more email. And less people.
I don't really feel like setting up yet another profile and stream of info. And I know no one is forcing me, but I like to keep up with the crowd. It is nice that google tries to be kinda smart about who is in your network and how they are connected to you.
BUT this is GOOGLE, I don't want it to make suggestions about who I know. I want it to scrape the entire series of pipes and tubes for information and media about me and create a profile and on going log of my activities that is a more active and realistic view of me than I could create.
Ok, that would be a little scary, and there should be some controls on it. But google should really take advantage of the fact that they know a whole lot about people when they make a personal info sharing site.
Oh, yeah, that uproar over google buzz, never mind, back to picking out a picture for google's facebook.
I don't really feel like setting up yet another profile and stream of info. And I know no one is forcing me, but I like to keep up with the crowd. It is nice that google tries to be kinda smart about who is in your network and how they are connected to you.
BUT this is GOOGLE, I don't want it to make suggestions about who I know. I want it to scrape the entire series of pipes and tubes for information and media about me and create a profile and on going log of my activities that is a more active and realistic view of me than I could create.
Ok, that would be a little scary, and there should be some controls on it. But google should really take advantage of the fact that they know a whole lot about people when they make a personal info sharing site.
Oh, yeah, that uproar over google buzz, never mind, back to picking out a picture for google's facebook.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Disarming Nuclear Bombs
Hm, for some reason this post never got published. Made a lot more sense the week I saw three nuclear weapons disarmed on TV, but here it is:
Disarming a nuclear weapon pops up occasionally on TV and in movies (I'm looking at you Chuck, Castle and even SGU). They always make it seem like a super complicated task. I'm not sure that it is all that difficult (this is one of those posts where I'm way outside my realm of knowledge).
What I'm willing to concede:
-Even if you know how to disarm a nuclear bomb it would be crazy scary.
-Conventional bombs may have fake wires and components that will cause the bomb to explode if tampered with and it is possible that a nuclear bomb would also have this.
But:
Nuclear weapons are really hard to make. Getting the material may be the hardest part, but even with the material it is quite a task. My understanding is those scientists at Los Alamos (many of the greatest in American history) were provided the radio active material. Today a semi-trained bomb maker with some parts from radio shack and a lawn store can make a conventional bomb, but only certain governments have made nuclear weapons.
Something that hard to make shouldn't be too hard to stop.
Typically nuclear weapons work by using a conventional explosive to smash two pieces of radio active material together. Dirty bombs work by having a conventional bomb spread radio active material. So the key is just to separate the radioactive part from the conventional weapon.
Yes it is good to stop the conventional weapon as well to avoid any damage and yes the bomb maker might make that tricky, but then the scary part is disarming a bomb, not disarming a NUCLEAR bomb.
Ok, maybe it isn't super easy, but definitely seems more straight forward than whatever they end up doing on TV. Plus while they are screwing around with guessing which wire they could be trying to get the material and conventional bomb as far away from each other as possible.
I took a look on the web to see what others think and here's wired's take.
Disarming a nuclear weapon pops up occasionally on TV and in movies (I'm looking at you Chuck, Castle and even SGU). They always make it seem like a super complicated task. I'm not sure that it is all that difficult (this is one of those posts where I'm way outside my realm of knowledge).
What I'm willing to concede:
-Even if you know how to disarm a nuclear bomb it would be crazy scary.
-Conventional bombs may have fake wires and components that will cause the bomb to explode if tampered with and it is possible that a nuclear bomb would also have this.
But:
Nuclear weapons are really hard to make. Getting the material may be the hardest part, but even with the material it is quite a task. My understanding is those scientists at Los Alamos (many of the greatest in American history) were provided the radio active material. Today a semi-trained bomb maker with some parts from radio shack and a lawn store can make a conventional bomb, but only certain governments have made nuclear weapons.
Something that hard to make shouldn't be too hard to stop.
Typically nuclear weapons work by using a conventional explosive to smash two pieces of radio active material together. Dirty bombs work by having a conventional bomb spread radio active material. So the key is just to separate the radioactive part from the conventional weapon.
Yes it is good to stop the conventional weapon as well to avoid any damage and yes the bomb maker might make that tricky, but then the scary part is disarming a bomb, not disarming a NUCLEAR bomb.
Ok, maybe it isn't super easy, but definitely seems more straight forward than whatever they end up doing on TV. Plus while they are screwing around with guessing which wire they could be trying to get the material and conventional bomb as far away from each other as possible.
I took a look on the web to see what others think and here's wired's take.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Patent Granted!
For those who missed it on the twitter feed, I'm first inventor on a patent that was just granted!
For those who did see it on the twitter feed this link includes the pretty pictures along with the text:
MULTIPLE BATTERY CONFIGURATIONS IN AN IMPLANTABLE MEDICAL DEVICE.
Actually the link above is the application, here's the link to the granted patent.
For those who did see it on the twitter feed this link includes the pretty pictures along with the text:
MULTIPLE BATTERY CONFIGURATIONS IN AN IMPLANTABLE MEDICAL DEVICE.
Actually the link above is the application, here's the link to the granted patent.
Sunday, June 05, 2011
The Magicians
I read The Magicians during a pause between installments of the wheel of time. It is a twist on Harry Potter/Narnia. It presents these stories based on what would "really" happen if someone was transported off to a magical land where they learn that they can cast spells.
This book's take is that learning to do magic would be very difficult and tedious, much like studying any other difficult subject and would eventually become a standard task rather than an exciting adventure.
The other big difference starts with the observation that typically the main characters in these stories aren't happy in the real world then find happiness in the magical world. This book claims that if the characters aren't happy people they aren't going to be happy no matter what world they end up in. Part of this is the book shows how relationships with others as well as various mundane aspects of life do much more to influence a person's happiness than the world that surrounds the person.
On one hand it is somewhat humorous and a change of pace to see this take on the genre. However, a book that shows a character being unhappy in a series of settings really isn't much fun. Also as part of the "real" take there isn't a clear goal or direction at any point in the book so I often found myself asking if the story is going anywhere or if I'm just meandering around in this world. There is a somewhat interesting plot line running through the book, but it isn't really revealed till near the end. I also thought that the book made the main points through the story, then made them a bit more obvious, then stated them outright in dialogue. I think it would have had more impact if it stopped when the message was a little more subtle.
I'm tempted to recommend this book to anyone who reads a lot of fantasy as something different to throw into the mix. However, if someone reads a lot of fantasy it is probably because they enjoy those magical worlds and don't want to read a book where those worlds aren't that great.
This book's take is that learning to do magic would be very difficult and tedious, much like studying any other difficult subject and would eventually become a standard task rather than an exciting adventure.
The other big difference starts with the observation that typically the main characters in these stories aren't happy in the real world then find happiness in the magical world. This book claims that if the characters aren't happy people they aren't going to be happy no matter what world they end up in. Part of this is the book shows how relationships with others as well as various mundane aspects of life do much more to influence a person's happiness than the world that surrounds the person.
On one hand it is somewhat humorous and a change of pace to see this take on the genre. However, a book that shows a character being unhappy in a series of settings really isn't much fun. Also as part of the "real" take there isn't a clear goal or direction at any point in the book so I often found myself asking if the story is going anywhere or if I'm just meandering around in this world. There is a somewhat interesting plot line running through the book, but it isn't really revealed till near the end. I also thought that the book made the main points through the story, then made them a bit more obvious, then stated them outright in dialogue. I think it would have had more impact if it stopped when the message was a little more subtle.
I'm tempted to recommend this book to anyone who reads a lot of fantasy as something different to throw into the mix. However, if someone reads a lot of fantasy it is probably because they enjoy those magical worlds and don't want to read a book where those worlds aren't that great.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
Banker To The Poor
I read Banker To The Poor over the last few days. Thanks Mom for lending it to me.
The book is interesting and I think contains some good lessons. However, there are several aspects of it that I take issue with.
First the good stuff:
-It is very impressive to see how the author started from nothing and built this huge organization that does a ton of good.
-I like the focus on serving the absolute poorest people in society. So often there is a focus on helping the middle class. Helping the middle class is nice, but the society's focus should really be on the poor.
-He has a focus on how money tends to get pulled toward the already well off. So it is important to make sure that money intended to help the poor should go directly to the poor.
-There is a decent amount of information about how microfinance works (although this is not a microfinace how to).
-There is some discussion of social entrepreneurship which seems to be picking up significant popularity. And at the end he provides an outline of how socially focused business should be run. Although I do think his suggestion may be a little too utopian.
-In general I liked any portion where he talked about how he built Grameen Bank, but had issues when he made broad comments about the role of government and put down other ways of helping the poor.
Parts I have some issue with (here's me telling a Nobel Prize winner what he got wrong in his book about his career):
-He is very down on the role of government in helping the poor. I can see where he is coming from, but at the same time it was government money and involvement that helped Grameen Bank take off. Sure now that it is able to finance itself it no longer needs government help, but that doesn't mean the government has no role to play in helping the poor or other organizations trying to help the poor.
-Often times he states how little money the loans were that turned people's lives around. But when he converts these numbers to dollars he doesn't relate them to the difference in cost of living. If he was trying to get people from the US to donate money then that's fine to say just $500 will pull this person in Bangladesh out of poverty. But he's not looking for donations, he is talking about a self sustaining bank so I feel like the numbers should be adjust to give a sense of how they big they are to the locals of the country under discussion. There is a portion where he talks about microfinace in the US, but most of the examples are set in Bangladesh.
-He repeatedly makes the case that the poor don't need training, just support (such as credit). He believes that given the opportunity they are entrepreneurs and can figure out how to make money. Clearly this has worked on a large scale for him. But I have to imagine that training has its place. The examples of businesses started for the most part don't sound like something that can expand very much. So it helps pull that person out of poverty, but it probably doesn't provide jobs for the neighbors. But I think that business started by people with more training would have more growth potential. In addition he even has stories of ventures that Grameen Bank started that required getting its staff trained and then training the local workers (such as running the fisheries). So I'll believe that training isn't as important as most people think, but I think he goes too far in putting it down.
-I appreciate that this is his story that he is telling. And he is good at giving credit to people who supported him along the way. But I would have appreciated more context of what else was going on in the world of microfinance over this period (which stretches from the mid 70s to mid 2000s). Did he really come up with the idea and implement it and all other microfinace programs are just based on his work? Or more likely, was there other work in the field and other efforts going on around the same time?
-He talks a little bit about the obstacles along the way, but he focuses heavily on the success. I think it would have been more informative to hear more about the issues he had and how they were over come. In many ways this book felt like a sales pitch.
-Well, it felt like he was giving a sales pitch without having anything to sell. A lot of what I got out of this book is most of what I'd normally try to do to help the poor is no good. And I really didn't see many suggestions on what I should do if I do want to help. Ok, he does suggest starting a company with minimal profit motive, but short of that I sorta feel like he's saying don't bother trying to help. Which doesn't seem right. There must be some middle step.
That's a lot I took issue with but overall I really did like the book and do think the author put some incredible ideas to use to do a huge amount of good.
The book is interesting and I think contains some good lessons. However, there are several aspects of it that I take issue with.
First the good stuff:
-It is very impressive to see how the author started from nothing and built this huge organization that does a ton of good.
-I like the focus on serving the absolute poorest people in society. So often there is a focus on helping the middle class. Helping the middle class is nice, but the society's focus should really be on the poor.
-He has a focus on how money tends to get pulled toward the already well off. So it is important to make sure that money intended to help the poor should go directly to the poor.
-There is a decent amount of information about how microfinance works (although this is not a microfinace how to).
-There is some discussion of social entrepreneurship which seems to be picking up significant popularity. And at the end he provides an outline of how socially focused business should be run. Although I do think his suggestion may be a little too utopian.
-In general I liked any portion where he talked about how he built Grameen Bank, but had issues when he made broad comments about the role of government and put down other ways of helping the poor.
Parts I have some issue with (here's me telling a Nobel Prize winner what he got wrong in his book about his career):
-He is very down on the role of government in helping the poor. I can see where he is coming from, but at the same time it was government money and involvement that helped Grameen Bank take off. Sure now that it is able to finance itself it no longer needs government help, but that doesn't mean the government has no role to play in helping the poor or other organizations trying to help the poor.
-Often times he states how little money the loans were that turned people's lives around. But when he converts these numbers to dollars he doesn't relate them to the difference in cost of living. If he was trying to get people from the US to donate money then that's fine to say just $500 will pull this person in Bangladesh out of poverty. But he's not looking for donations, he is talking about a self sustaining bank so I feel like the numbers should be adjust to give a sense of how they big they are to the locals of the country under discussion. There is a portion where he talks about microfinace in the US, but most of the examples are set in Bangladesh.
-He repeatedly makes the case that the poor don't need training, just support (such as credit). He believes that given the opportunity they are entrepreneurs and can figure out how to make money. Clearly this has worked on a large scale for him. But I have to imagine that training has its place. The examples of businesses started for the most part don't sound like something that can expand very much. So it helps pull that person out of poverty, but it probably doesn't provide jobs for the neighbors. But I think that business started by people with more training would have more growth potential. In addition he even has stories of ventures that Grameen Bank started that required getting its staff trained and then training the local workers (such as running the fisheries). So I'll believe that training isn't as important as most people think, but I think he goes too far in putting it down.
-I appreciate that this is his story that he is telling. And he is good at giving credit to people who supported him along the way. But I would have appreciated more context of what else was going on in the world of microfinance over this period (which stretches from the mid 70s to mid 2000s). Did he really come up with the idea and implement it and all other microfinace programs are just based on his work? Or more likely, was there other work in the field and other efforts going on around the same time?
-He talks a little bit about the obstacles along the way, but he focuses heavily on the success. I think it would have been more informative to hear more about the issues he had and how they were over come. In many ways this book felt like a sales pitch.
-Well, it felt like he was giving a sales pitch without having anything to sell. A lot of what I got out of this book is most of what I'd normally try to do to help the poor is no good. And I really didn't see many suggestions on what I should do if I do want to help. Ok, he does suggest starting a company with minimal profit motive, but short of that I sorta feel like he's saying don't bother trying to help. Which doesn't seem right. There must be some middle step.
That's a lot I took issue with but overall I really did like the book and do think the author put some incredible ideas to use to do a huge amount of good.
Thursday, April 07, 2011
All I needed was stick figures!
Remember my Shoulder Tapping post from November? No? Ok, fine, well that's what the link is for.
Apparently all that post needed was some stick figures and I'd have written an xkcd comic! (Remember to place the mouse over the comic for a second to get the final message).
Alright, alright, I see how he expressed what took me several paragraphs of text in a series of simple images and how he added extra humor. But still, I think it is kinda awesome. Now I feel like I should go off on more crazy rants on the off chance that Randal will one day go off on a similar rant.
Oh, shit, the irony of being excited after the fact of seeing similarity between one of my 484 blog pots and one of Randal's 882 xkcd posts is just now hitting me. At least it wasn't this post.
And now I'm kind of disturbed that I sometimes think about situations based on blog posts I wrote three years ago. I'm going to try to get back to that excitement I had at the start of this post or maybe just try to get some sleep.
Apparently all that post needed was some stick figures and I'd have written an xkcd comic! (Remember to place the mouse over the comic for a second to get the final message).
Alright, alright, I see how he expressed what took me several paragraphs of text in a series of simple images and how he added extra humor. But still, I think it is kinda awesome. Now I feel like I should go off on more crazy rants on the off chance that Randal will one day go off on a similar rant.
Oh, shit, the irony of being excited after the fact of seeing similarity between one of my 484 blog pots and one of Randal's 882 xkcd posts is just now hitting me. At least it wasn't this post.
And now I'm kind of disturbed that I sometimes think about situations based on blog posts I wrote three years ago. I'm going to try to get back to that excitement I had at the start of this post or maybe just try to get some sleep.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
My App "Made Money"!
Whoa, apparently back in September Apple deposited just over $20 in my bank account because of ad revenue from my App! I did have to pay $99 for a developer's license so it is quite a way from making a profit (even counting the $20 it has made since then), but at least there's some revenue offsetting the loss!
On one hand I'm impressed by the app development process because as a part time hobbyist I was able to create an app I'm rather happy with and that has been downloaded over a thousand times. On the other hand I just now found the section of iTunes Connect that told me that they paid me back in September. I'm sure if someone was doing this professionally they'd have taken the financial portion of the site more seriously and found that page immediately, but at the same time apple is normally all about making interfaces that anyone can easily understand. My bigger complaint is now that I have the app, every few months I want to make a minor change, but each time I end up spending so long getting the new SDK and figuring out the new setup it uses up all the time I intended to spend on it.
I mentioned the number of downloads, but I don't actually think that's a very interesting metric because someone can download an app and never use it. What I do find interesting is in the last week iAds has registered the following number of requests for ads per country (not sure if requests happen when someone goes to main menu or just on opening) for a total of 402:
Unknown 145
US 66
Korea 30
Japan 24
UK 23
Brazil 14
Netherlands 12
Taiwan 9
Turkey 8
Canada 7
Australia 6
Saudi Arabia 6
Thailand 6
China 5
Finland 5
France 5
Hong Kong 5
Czech Republic 4
Morocco 4
Singapore 3
Austria 2
Spain 2
Denmark 1
Kuwait 1
Mexico 1
New Zealand 1
I think iAds is a cool way to track if anyone is actually opening the app, although it is unfortunate that even though they track requests from countries outside the US, they only serve ads to the US.
On one hand I'm impressed by the app development process because as a part time hobbyist I was able to create an app I'm rather happy with and that has been downloaded over a thousand times. On the other hand I just now found the section of iTunes Connect that told me that they paid me back in September. I'm sure if someone was doing this professionally they'd have taken the financial portion of the site more seriously and found that page immediately, but at the same time apple is normally all about making interfaces that anyone can easily understand. My bigger complaint is now that I have the app, every few months I want to make a minor change, but each time I end up spending so long getting the new SDK and figuring out the new setup it uses up all the time I intended to spend on it.
I mentioned the number of downloads, but I don't actually think that's a very interesting metric because someone can download an app and never use it. What I do find interesting is in the last week iAds has registered the following number of requests for ads per country (not sure if requests happen when someone goes to main menu or just on opening) for a total of 402:
Unknown 145
US 66
Korea 30
Japan 24
UK 23
Brazil 14
Netherlands 12
Taiwan 9
Turkey 8
Canada 7
Australia 6
Saudi Arabia 6
Thailand 6
China 5
Finland 5
France 5
Hong Kong 5
Czech Republic 4
Morocco 4
Singapore 3
Austria 2
Spain 2
Denmark 1
Kuwait 1
Mexico 1
New Zealand 1
I think iAds is a cool way to track if anyone is actually opening the app, although it is unfortunate that even though they track requests from countries outside the US, they only serve ads to the US.
Monday, March 07, 2011
Inception 2
I don't know why I ever wrote posts about movies before seeing what Dana Stevens had to say.
Sunday, March 06, 2011
Inception
I just watched Inception (I know, so last year) and this post will include spoilers.
Maybe I just expected too much from it and maybe I had heard enough little spoilers that it wasn't as surprising as it would have been in the theater. But I wasn't that impressed. I actually hope that there is something I missed that makes it awesome.
-My biggest complaint was that I didn't care about any of the characters. No one had enough of a back story or connections to others to care about them. I don't expect every movie to be Serenity, but even the Matrix with its awkward dialog was able to give viewers a reason to care about nearly every major character. Same with Memento where the main character doesn't even know his own story.
-One of the main attractions was a mind bending journey through levels of dreams. But once they said they can have dreams in dreams, everything past that seemed reasonably straight forward. I thought Memento was awesome so I can be impressed by Nolan's mind bending style. They linearly dropped from one dream level to the next then back up. Did I miss the bendy part? Also when a show/movie ends with someone waking up from one dream to find themselves in another it is cliche. So why is a whole movie about multilevel dreams ground breaking? What would have been awesome is if they split off on different dream paths. Then they could create ways to cut between the different dream worlds, or even create dream circles where they go from one level to the next and end up at the first one. Then they'd have to deal with dropping back out of that circle. And it would be truly difficult to sort out if you'd made your way back out of all the dreams. Ok, I guess it is telling that I'm not impressed by a linked list and I think the movie would be improved by exploring some of the more difficult problems with complicated linked lists. Oh, or what if there are two groups in shared dreams and then they are connected together and the dreams have to some how merge and then people could move between the two group dreams. I was going to say that this could have been a cool dollhouse like TV show, but dollhouse actually touched on quite a bit of this already.
-Along the lines of the previous point another attraction was the mystery ending. But I don't really see the mystery. There was no point I saw where it seemed like he could have gotten stuck in a dream. I figured that the reason we didn't see the top stop spinning is that the main character decided he didn't care, then reading Nolan's quotation in wikipedia it seems he agrees. The only point that made me think it was a dream is that the Grandpa was back in America instead of in Paris, which seemed more like over editing than a hint that he was stuck in a dream world.
-I read something that mentioned that the movie doesn't really get dreams right, but that's ok, because it is almost impossible to create a reasonable movie that accounts for the full weirdness of dreams. But I would have appreciated a little more attention paid to the true weirdness of dreams. And if I spend 50 years in a dream world where I can build whatever I want, there are going to be some way crazier architecture. One of the only movies/tv episodes I've seen that comes anywhere close to getting the strangeness of dreams right is the last episode of season 4 of Buffy and now that I think about it, it is a shared dream between several people and involves multiple levels of dreaming (and it is Whedon so viewers care about the characters). How's that for throwing down the gauntlet, I'm claiming that an episode of Buffy is a better shared multilevel dream story than Inception. Hm, really didn't mean to make this a post about how everything Whedon has ever done is better than this movie.
-They spent some time training the architect. The scenes were cool and the character was important to the story. But I thought they should have showed off those skills she learned during the mission. Show us how the city or hotel folds in on itself. Or have her make some adjustments on the fly. Otherwise those training scenes just seem like a moment to play with visual effects and provide an excuse for involving the character.
-There were some reasonably cool action scenes, but nothing that the Matrix trilogy didn't do better years ago. And in the ice scene it wasn't just that I didn't care about the characters, I could hardly tell who was who.
-Not only didn't I care about the characters, I also didn't care about the mission. They spent a whole sentence establishing why planting the idea would be a good thing, given to us by the guy the main character just tried to steal from.
Ok, now what is it that I'm missing that everyone else liked so much and found so mind bending and discussion inspiring? Is this a Big Lebowski where a second viewing magically transforms the film? Or did other scifi fans have the same, ho hum, reaction that I did? Have years of Philip K Dick inspired stories caused an immunity to the trippiness of dream and reality questioning tales?
Maybe I just expected too much from it and maybe I had heard enough little spoilers that it wasn't as surprising as it would have been in the theater. But I wasn't that impressed. I actually hope that there is something I missed that makes it awesome.
-My biggest complaint was that I didn't care about any of the characters. No one had enough of a back story or connections to others to care about them. I don't expect every movie to be Serenity, but even the Matrix with its awkward dialog was able to give viewers a reason to care about nearly every major character. Same with Memento where the main character doesn't even know his own story.
-One of the main attractions was a mind bending journey through levels of dreams. But once they said they can have dreams in dreams, everything past that seemed reasonably straight forward. I thought Memento was awesome so I can be impressed by Nolan's mind bending style. They linearly dropped from one dream level to the next then back up. Did I miss the bendy part? Also when a show/movie ends with someone waking up from one dream to find themselves in another it is cliche. So why is a whole movie about multilevel dreams ground breaking? What would have been awesome is if they split off on different dream paths. Then they could create ways to cut between the different dream worlds, or even create dream circles where they go from one level to the next and end up at the first one. Then they'd have to deal with dropping back out of that circle. And it would be truly difficult to sort out if you'd made your way back out of all the dreams. Ok, I guess it is telling that I'm not impressed by a linked list and I think the movie would be improved by exploring some of the more difficult problems with complicated linked lists. Oh, or what if there are two groups in shared dreams and then they are connected together and the dreams have to some how merge and then people could move between the two group dreams. I was going to say that this could have been a cool dollhouse like TV show, but dollhouse actually touched on quite a bit of this already.
-Along the lines of the previous point another attraction was the mystery ending. But I don't really see the mystery. There was no point I saw where it seemed like he could have gotten stuck in a dream. I figured that the reason we didn't see the top stop spinning is that the main character decided he didn't care, then reading Nolan's quotation in wikipedia it seems he agrees. The only point that made me think it was a dream is that the Grandpa was back in America instead of in Paris, which seemed more like over editing than a hint that he was stuck in a dream world.
-I read something that mentioned that the movie doesn't really get dreams right, but that's ok, because it is almost impossible to create a reasonable movie that accounts for the full weirdness of dreams. But I would have appreciated a little more attention paid to the true weirdness of dreams. And if I spend 50 years in a dream world where I can build whatever I want, there are going to be some way crazier architecture. One of the only movies/tv episodes I've seen that comes anywhere close to getting the strangeness of dreams right is the last episode of season 4 of Buffy and now that I think about it, it is a shared dream between several people and involves multiple levels of dreaming (and it is Whedon so viewers care about the characters). How's that for throwing down the gauntlet, I'm claiming that an episode of Buffy is a better shared multilevel dream story than Inception. Hm, really didn't mean to make this a post about how everything Whedon has ever done is better than this movie.
-They spent some time training the architect. The scenes were cool and the character was important to the story. But I thought they should have showed off those skills she learned during the mission. Show us how the city or hotel folds in on itself. Or have her make some adjustments on the fly. Otherwise those training scenes just seem like a moment to play with visual effects and provide an excuse for involving the character.
-There were some reasonably cool action scenes, but nothing that the Matrix trilogy didn't do better years ago. And in the ice scene it wasn't just that I didn't care about the characters, I could hardly tell who was who.
-Not only didn't I care about the characters, I also didn't care about the mission. They spent a whole sentence establishing why planting the idea would be a good thing, given to us by the guy the main character just tried to steal from.
Ok, now what is it that I'm missing that everyone else liked so much and found so mind bending and discussion inspiring? Is this a Big Lebowski where a second viewing magically transforms the film? Or did other scifi fans have the same, ho hum, reaction that I did? Have years of Philip K Dick inspired stories caused an immunity to the trippiness of dream and reality questioning tales?
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Why School Science Experiments Should Be Replaced By Engineering
Disclaimer: This post is a bunch of stuff I just thought up and is mostly about education. I did ok as a student, but know almost nothing about teaching. So the bullshit meter on this post is higher than usual. And I'm really just writing this as a way to put off doing taxes (as a side note, if Republicans wanted to destroy Democrats they'd move elections to mid April).
The build up to this post is the general concept of evaluating information, especially who to trust (school, scientists, religious leaders, parents, no one decide for self...). I'm going to try to skip past my giant set of rants on this topic, especially since I've touched on it in several posts. But the starting off point is that most of these sources often end up saying just trust me and then can't believe when people put their trust in an alternate source (school and science that includes you).
While school is not a perfect source of information, it is generally better than any of the others and is at least a good starting point. So I'd say that two things schools should aim for are showing why school should mostly (but not absolutely) be trusted and more generally teaching how to evaluate sources of information.
I think that science education is a logical starting point for teaching how to evaluate sources of information and demonstrating the validity of information from school. Especially since it is generally the only subject that has demonstrations of any kind (name another subject in which what is being taught is actually tested in any way, except maybe self consistency in mathematics but that's rather abstract). This means that science experiments are far more important as a piece of education as a whole than they might appear at first.
Problem is, I'd claim, that school science experiments are flawed. Let's say students are doing the time an object falling experiment. The hypothesis is something like "gravity accelerates objects near Earth's surface at approximately 9.81m/s^2" right? Wrong! Everyone knows that's correct and if the experiment proves it wrong the student doesn't get to publish an article in Nature, she/he gets to repeat the experiment again till the "hypothesis" is proved true. That's about as far from science as you can get. The real hypothesis is something along the lines of "what teachers tell me is generally correct and provides information about how the world works", and increasingly has the add on of "science/school is fun".
Well, if that's the hypothesis then doing the object drop experiment is still bad science. Why? Well, let's take another example. Someone on the street says the way to add two numbers is to just add 5 to the first number. Now to prove it try doing 6+5, ok how about 7+5. See the rule works, now trust me. The natural reaction should be, let me come up with a set of numbers to add to test this rule and it would quickly be proven false.
So doing a proscribed experiment doesn't go very far in answering the true hypothesis. The students need to design their own experiments. But the answer to any experiment most students would do is already well known and they'd still be expected to get the correct answer. It is a step in the right direction, but I'd claim that far better would be to ask a student to design something using the knowledge they've been given. When a student is able to use their knowledge to create something that works that is a powerful moment. It shows the knowledge they have works even when tested in the way the student chooses. It means that the student isn't just repeating whatever they do till they get a right answer. And I'd claim it is more fun (although that may just be my opinion).
Now there is a huge issue with building something. It very often won't work. If the project stops there then science is disproved, school is bullshit and it is time to start reading websites about how the moon landing was faked. However, if the student has to figure out why it didn't work and then redesign based on that info then the student is testing whatever science comes up rather than whatever was being taught that week. This becomes a much better test of the reliability of information taught in school. Additionally, many people don't consider science sufficiently "magical", and I think that finding unexpected issues and their causes can help demonstrate how mysterious and "magical" science can be.
Not to mention that if the design is sufficiently interesting the hypothesis can be adjusted to "what teachers tell me is generally correct and provides USEFUL information about how the world works".
In addition to increasing trust in school, now the student knows that some sources provide information that can be used in interactions with the world. Which means that other information sources can be tested for the same ability. Thus, giving the student a tool for evaluating sources of information in general.
Alright, I'll admit the argument doesn't hold together perfectly (not to mention being built on complete ignorance about teaching), but there it is. I guess I should also admit that it isn't surprising that I think the key to making people smarter (aka thinking more like me) is to get them to do more of what I do.
The build up to this post is the general concept of evaluating information, especially who to trust (school, scientists, religious leaders, parents, no one decide for self...). I'm going to try to skip past my giant set of rants on this topic, especially since I've touched on it in several posts. But the starting off point is that most of these sources often end up saying just trust me and then can't believe when people put their trust in an alternate source (school and science that includes you).
While school is not a perfect source of information, it is generally better than any of the others and is at least a good starting point. So I'd say that two things schools should aim for are showing why school should mostly (but not absolutely) be trusted and more generally teaching how to evaluate sources of information.
I think that science education is a logical starting point for teaching how to evaluate sources of information and demonstrating the validity of information from school. Especially since it is generally the only subject that has demonstrations of any kind (name another subject in which what is being taught is actually tested in any way, except maybe self consistency in mathematics but that's rather abstract). This means that science experiments are far more important as a piece of education as a whole than they might appear at first.
Problem is, I'd claim, that school science experiments are flawed. Let's say students are doing the time an object falling experiment. The hypothesis is something like "gravity accelerates objects near Earth's surface at approximately 9.81m/s^2" right? Wrong! Everyone knows that's correct and if the experiment proves it wrong the student doesn't get to publish an article in Nature, she/he gets to repeat the experiment again till the "hypothesis" is proved true. That's about as far from science as you can get. The real hypothesis is something along the lines of "what teachers tell me is generally correct and provides information about how the world works", and increasingly has the add on of "science/school is fun".
Well, if that's the hypothesis then doing the object drop experiment is still bad science. Why? Well, let's take another example. Someone on the street says the way to add two numbers is to just add 5 to the first number. Now to prove it try doing 6+5, ok how about 7+5. See the rule works, now trust me. The natural reaction should be, let me come up with a set of numbers to add to test this rule and it would quickly be proven false.
So doing a proscribed experiment doesn't go very far in answering the true hypothesis. The students need to design their own experiments. But the answer to any experiment most students would do is already well known and they'd still be expected to get the correct answer. It is a step in the right direction, but I'd claim that far better would be to ask a student to design something using the knowledge they've been given. When a student is able to use their knowledge to create something that works that is a powerful moment. It shows the knowledge they have works even when tested in the way the student chooses. It means that the student isn't just repeating whatever they do till they get a right answer. And I'd claim it is more fun (although that may just be my opinion).
Now there is a huge issue with building something. It very often won't work. If the project stops there then science is disproved, school is bullshit and it is time to start reading websites about how the moon landing was faked. However, if the student has to figure out why it didn't work and then redesign based on that info then the student is testing whatever science comes up rather than whatever was being taught that week. This becomes a much better test of the reliability of information taught in school. Additionally, many people don't consider science sufficiently "magical", and I think that finding unexpected issues and their causes can help demonstrate how mysterious and "magical" science can be.
Not to mention that if the design is sufficiently interesting the hypothesis can be adjusted to "what teachers tell me is generally correct and provides USEFUL information about how the world works".
In addition to increasing trust in school, now the student knows that some sources provide information that can be used in interactions with the world. Which means that other information sources can be tested for the same ability. Thus, giving the student a tool for evaluating sources of information in general.
Alright, I'll admit the argument doesn't hold together perfectly (not to mention being built on complete ignorance about teaching), but there it is. I guess I should also admit that it isn't surprising that I think the key to making people smarter (aka thinking more like me) is to get them to do more of what I do.
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