dork.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Friday, March 9, 2007
my favorite robot
i had goose bumps the whole time i read this article about mini medical robots. they are inserted into the human body thru an incision then they can creep off to some deep area to take pictures and deliver drugs. i'm a little creeped out that they look like roaches or little beetles! but i'm also weary with the realization that humans are actually approaching the technological level where debate over our ethical responsibility regarding these robotic creations must commence.
i work with advanced technology for pure scientific research. i perform no tests on humans and, other than collaboratively contributing a wee bit to our universal knowledge base, what i do right now doesnt affect anyone in their day to day lives. i wonder what scientists and engineers think about when developing robotic technology that is used to alter and save lives... or when they create robots that mimic our skills, but lack our consciousness.
is the development of robotic technology inevitable? are there any kinds of robots that shouldnt be created (because they would take away jobs? because they could cause harm to humans?)? can conscious robots exist? if so, what makes a human a human and a robot a robot? consciousness and free will seem to me to be the phenomena most difficult to duplicate. science tells me that my body and brain are complicated collections of atoms that work together thru inevitable chemical reactions that i have seemingly no control over. but... i *can* contemplate the universe (as a career!) and decide what i want to do when i grow up and whether or not to commit a crime or drink a beer or where to go on vacation or anything. how does that happen? to the best of my knowledge, no one has figured that out, so how could this ability possibly be implemented in a robot? and if robots develop consciousness or relative independence, who decides the proper ethical behavior toward robots?
isaac asimov introduced three laws of robotics in his 1942 short story, runaround:
south korea has just devised the first government-supported ethical code for robots (probably loosely based on asimov's laws). the "robot ethics charter" will set guidelines for how robots will be treated assuming service robots will eventually become part of daily life..... although they havent been bold enough to tackle the discussions brought forth last year by the European Robotics Research Network (EURON): should sex-toy robots be designed? Henrik Christensen from EURON claims "people are going to be having sex with robots within five years." this possibility has already been introduced to us by movies and TV shows... including the humanoid cylons on battlestar galactica (the only tv show i watch anymore... thanks itunes)!
anyway, i still think the medical beetle is creepy.... but the technology is definitely cool. it guides us to further consider the benefits of space exploration with the aid of explorers that are not nearly as fragile as our humanoid selves. my very favorite robots were developed by NASA to explore our rocky red neighbor: the mars rovers. They were designed to explore mars for 90 days.... but miraculously today is day 1130 for the spirit rover!!! this is absolutely astounding! go team go!
here's a video about the rovers from discovery news:
you can see the entire NASA-created animation of the rover from take off to landing on mars here.
i work with advanced technology for pure scientific research. i perform no tests on humans and, other than collaboratively contributing a wee bit to our universal knowledge base, what i do right now doesnt affect anyone in their day to day lives. i wonder what scientists and engineers think about when developing robotic technology that is used to alter and save lives... or when they create robots that mimic our skills, but lack our consciousness. is the development of robotic technology inevitable? are there any kinds of robots that shouldnt be created (because they would take away jobs? because they could cause harm to humans?)? can conscious robots exist? if so, what makes a human a human and a robot a robot? consciousness and free will seem to me to be the phenomena most difficult to duplicate. science tells me that my body and brain are complicated collections of atoms that work together thru inevitable chemical reactions that i have seemingly no control over. but... i *can* contemplate the universe (as a career!) and decide what i want to do when i grow up and whether or not to commit a crime or drink a beer or where to go on vacation or anything. how does that happen? to the best of my knowledge, no one has figured that out, so how could this ability possibly be implemented in a robot? and if robots develop consciousness or relative independence, who decides the proper ethical behavior toward robots?
isaac asimov introduced three laws of robotics in his 1942 short story, runaround:
1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
south korea has just devised the first government-supported ethical code for robots (probably loosely based on asimov's laws). the "robot ethics charter" will set guidelines for how robots will be treated assuming service robots will eventually become part of daily life..... although they havent been bold enough to tackle the discussions brought forth last year by the European Robotics Research Network (EURON): should sex-toy robots be designed? Henrik Christensen from EURON claims "people are going to be having sex with robots within five years." this possibility has already been introduced to us by movies and TV shows... including the humanoid cylons on battlestar galactica (the only tv show i watch anymore... thanks itunes)! anyway, i still think the medical beetle is creepy.... but the technology is definitely cool. it guides us to further consider the benefits of space exploration with the aid of explorers that are not nearly as fragile as our humanoid selves. my very favorite robots were developed by NASA to explore our rocky red neighbor: the mars rovers. They were designed to explore mars for 90 days.... but miraculously today is day 1130 for the spirit rover!!! this is absolutely astounding! go team go!here's a video about the rovers from discovery news:
you can see the entire NASA-created animation of the rover from take off to landing on mars here.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
german heritage
i guess my trip to germany really sank into my system. nearly every non-native english speaker i've met over the last several months has made an initial guess that i'm german!? it surprised me the first time, but then it seemed natural as my family name is bauer, and my mom's maiden name is driehaus... but the consistency of this claim is what has really amazed me! very interesting.
another interesting thing is that no one can seem to tell where i'm from within the US anymore. when i moved to austin almost 5 years ago, i purposely picked up the endearing "y'all" because i think its cute. but i guess i've lost all other regional nuance to my speech. i also feel like i'm forgetting english little by little. there are way too many instances when i cant think of the right word for something... too bad i havent stayed anywhere long enough to fully pick up another language yet!! spanish is slowly coming along. this chilean spanish is amazingly difficult to understand though!
another interesting thing is that no one can seem to tell where i'm from within the US anymore. when i moved to austin almost 5 years ago, i purposely picked up the endearing "y'all" because i think its cute. but i guess i've lost all other regional nuance to my speech. i also feel like i'm forgetting english little by little. there are way too many instances when i cant think of the right word for something... too bad i havent stayed anywhere long enough to fully pick up another language yet!! spanish is slowly coming along. this chilean spanish is amazingly difficult to understand though!
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
nincompoop
here's a direct quote from newt gingrich:
"How can you have the mess we have in New Orleans, and not have had deep investigations of the federal government, the state government, the city government, and the failure of citizenship in the Ninth Ward, where 22,000 people were so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane."
how insensitive can a single person possibly be?!?! this is absolutely unacceptable behavior.... especially for someone who cut educational funding in every way possible.
why are people even listening to him anymore?
he is my LEAST favorite potential presidential candidate in 08... and that says a lot.
"How can you have the mess we have in New Orleans, and not have had deep investigations of the federal government, the state government, the city government, and the failure of citizenship in the Ninth Ward, where 22,000 people were so uneducated and so unprepared, they literally couldn't get out of the way of a hurricane."
how insensitive can a single person possibly be?!?! this is absolutely unacceptable behavior.... especially for someone who cut educational funding in every way possible.
why are people even listening to him anymore?
he is my LEAST favorite potential presidential candidate in 08... and that says a lot.
Saturday, March 3, 2007
every human that has ever lived
i've discussed before the huge influence carl sagan has had on my perspective of the universe. i wanted to share a video representation of an excerpt (shown below) from his fantastic book, Pale Blue Dot.
"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."
gives me chills every time i read it!
"We succeeded in taking that picture [from deep space], and, if you look at it, you see a dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.
The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.
Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity -- in all this vastness -- there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It's been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known."
gives me chills every time i read it!
Friday, March 2, 2007
lunar eclipse
in two nights, saturday night, march 3rd, there will be a total eclipse of the moon! folks lucky enough to be in western europe and africa will see the whole eclipse, while those in the americas can look to the moon as it rises to see the orange-ish moon, already passing thru the earth's shadow. the eclipsing moon rises just as the sun sets... this makes sense because a lunar eclipse occurs when the earth is directly between the sun and the moon. the moon passes right thru the shadow created by the earth. partial lunar eclipses occur when the three spheres arent exactly alined and the moon passes thru only a fraction of the earth's shadow.
i got the diagram on the right from NASA's eclipse home page.
enjoy!!
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
cosmic variance
i'm still in brasil, but heading home to la serena tomorrow. it's been a fun and humid trip... many more details later along with more regular posts again!
i wanted to take a minute to point out, again, my new favorite blog... cosmic variance! the contributers have been discussing many interesting issues... the best of which are easily digestible physics and astronomy blogs! i'm happy to admit that i've had very fun and enlightening discussions over beers at conferences with a few of the contributors and i'm so delighted to have the opportunity to read more of their thoughts on things ad stuff.
i thought some of you would be interested in a recent post, why does E = mc^2?
UPDATE: photos here
i wanted to take a minute to point out, again, my new favorite blog... cosmic variance! the contributers have been discussing many interesting issues... the best of which are easily digestible physics and astronomy blogs! i'm happy to admit that i've had very fun and enlightening discussions over beers at conferences with a few of the contributors and i'm so delighted to have the opportunity to read more of their thoughts on things ad stuff.
i thought some of you would be interested in a recent post, why does E = mc^2?
UPDATE: photos here
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Thursday, February 15, 2007
instinctive morality
i tried to write something up the other day regarding the recent "debate" on CNN about atheism. i was/am extremely disappointed by CNN's one-sided approach and confused by the panelists' notion that human morality can only be derived from religious foundations.
CNN received so much negative feedback about their reporting that paula zahn later invited the well-known atheist, richard dawkins, on the show for an interview.
i was pleasantly surprised by how well he answered her questions and responded to her claims. he can be a bit strong for my flavor of debate, but i think i understand why he does it.... as i said, i tried to write about it and failed. it turns out that my idea involves the potential to shift the range of acceptable political debate, encompassed by the overton window. i had never heard of this term, or even the concept until i read this great post at cosmicvariance.com. check it out. it's excellent and recommended!
CNN received so much negative feedback about their reporting that paula zahn later invited the well-known atheist, richard dawkins, on the show for an interview.
i was pleasantly surprised by how well he answered her questions and responded to her claims. he can be a bit strong for my flavor of debate, but i think i understand why he does it.... as i said, i tried to write about it and failed. it turns out that my idea involves the potential to shift the range of acceptable political debate, encompassed by the overton window. i had never heard of this term, or even the concept until i read this great post at cosmicvariance.com. check it out. it's excellent and recommended!
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
darwin
happy darwin day!! not only is today the birthday of my lovely older sister... it's the day charles darwin was born, 198 years ago! he also published "On The Origin of Species" on this day 148 years ago.
"The objective of Darwin Day Celebration is to encourage existing institutions worldwide, such as municipalities, public and private schools, colleges and universities, libraries, museums, churches, private organizations and individuals to celebrate Science and Humanity every year, on, or near, February 12."
so.... here's a video, by the eloquent carl sagan, explaining the theory of evolution (7:55)
"The objective of Darwin Day Celebration is to encourage existing institutions worldwide, such as municipalities, public and private schools, colleges and universities, libraries, museums, churches, private organizations and individuals to celebrate Science and Humanity every year, on, or near, February 12."
so.... here's a video, by the eloquent carl sagan, explaining the theory of evolution (7:55)
thinker upper
i dont read it every week, but i really enjoy the comic this modern world. i happened to see this morning's comic and the first panel made me laugh out loud! you can read the full comic by going to salon.com getting the free day pass.maybe i could use that phrase for my PhD defense...
"Mass Assembly History of the Universe"
Amanda E. Bauer
Thinker Upper
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