Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

Science Daily has an article talking about how researchers at Sydney’s Centenary Institute in Australia have managed to view (in real time) and film the process of a parasite infecting an immune cell. Click here to read the article, and see some photos of the process.

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• Sciencedaily.com: Inner Workings Of The Immune System Filmed

Today, while at work, I was filming a site using a new high definition camcorder with face recognition technology. The camera is impressive, and usually good at picking up faces: front profiles, side profiles, on weird angles — it usually recognizes a face. So what interested me was when it started indicating that there was a face in a piece of fiberglass insulation, which was being removed from a wall. The indicator flashed two or three times, but only very briefly. While I doubt that the camera saw the face of Jesus, it made me start to wonder how in our pursuit to design machines that mimic the human brain, what type of other human phenomena we would see begin to appear in our technology.

This article was linked to on Digg recently, and there has been some misunderstanding of its content. It concerns a discovery of a new catalyst that could make it possible to use sunlight to directly split water into hydrogen and oxygen. This might turn out to be quite important in the future (if we start using hydrogen as fuel, and if this turns out to be more efficient than other ways of producing hydrogen, etc.), but you can’t mention “water” and “energy” in the same sentence without certain people assuming that the useable energy is in the water itself. I know I’ve said this before, but it bears repeating: water is already in its lowest chemical energy state. You cannot extract energy from water using chemical* means. That means no water-powered car engines, no water-powered batteries, etc.

Of course this discovery is interesting enough in itself. Storing solar energy for later use has always been a bottleneck in this particular form of alternative energy, so if you could store it as chemical energy in hydrogen, it could potentially surpass the standard lead-acid or lithium-polymer battery solution. However, this remains to be seen. For the time being, this technology is still in experimental stages.

*Other forms of energy are routinely extracted from water in order to generate electrical power, for example kinetic/potential energy in a hydroelectic station, or thermal energy at a geothermal plant. The hydrogen in water could also be used as fusion fuel**, thus releasing nuclear energy.

**Note that a fusion reaction would far surpass (by several orders of magnitude) the energy required to split the hydrogen and oxygen apart, thus avoiding the problem that makes it impossible to get a surplus of chemical energy from water.

I recently read this article on organic foods over at quackwatch.org. Following the article, the author had posted a reader protest complaining how it was unfair to lump organic farmers/foodies in with other “quacks”. The reader asks:

Honestly, is it so nutty to think we would be better off eating food that ISN’T full of chemicals and additives, preservatives and artificial colors?

Thinking about this question, I realized that the answer is “yes”. Nutty is probably not the word I would use to describe it, but it is a bit strange to think that we would be better off eating “food that isn’t full of chemicals, additives, preservatives, and artificial colors.” More accurately, it is a tad nutty to believe that so-called “natural” or “organic” products do not contain chemicals, additives, preservatives and artificial colors. The truth is that all foods — not just “artificial” foods — contain chemical preservatives and colors! The reader has simply assumed that because the chemicals found in organic foods are naturally occurring, they must also be safe.

This variation on the naturalistic fallacy is the foundation of naturopathy and a lot of modern new-age quackery. We have already explained in previous posts how natural is not always safe. Nature produces just as many harmful substances as it does nutritious substances… if not more. Furthermore, all “synthetic” compounds created by humans are merely variations on the chemicals we have already found in nature. The fact is that any distinction between the natural and artificial (insofar as it applies to the realm of biology and chemistry) is tenuous at best. In reality, human synthesis of chemicals usually involves nothing more than facilitating, or expediting, natural synthesis. Even when we create elements not found in nature, we produce them using other natural elements. Anyways, it is not as if you would find Ununpentium on the ingredients list of your favorite cereal. Conversely, finding all natural Uranium-238 on the ingredients list might be cause for concern.

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Why do we drive like jerks, and behave like assholes on the internet?

Some of the more seemingly sophisticated arguments for God (or some type of higher power) revolve around the mysterious nature of human morality. Dismissing evolutionary explanations for morality, some people believe that we simply cannot explain traits like altruism through the evolution of selfish motives. They believe that reciprocity is only a small part of what we like to think of as decent behavior. However, if this is the case, why do we behave like jerks when we obtain a small amount of anonymity?

To the best of my understanding, the current theory is that we evolved altruistic tendencies in response to our social environments. Just as speed, strength and agility can confer a survival advantage in a natural environment, so can altruistic behavior and honesty¹ confer a survival advantage in a social environment. In turn, the reciprocal relationship in any social environment confers a survival benefit in most natural environments. Because evolution and natural selection will operate to select for traits in any type of environment, our morality is merely a product of our evolution in our given social environment.

However, the idea of reciprocity breaks down when you become an anonymous actor. If the evolutionary theory of morality is correct, then our morality works in such a way (or at least initially involved in such a way) that we behave in certain ways towards other people in the hopes that they will return the favour. For example, we do not lie to other people in hopes that they will be truthful with us, and we do not steal from them in the hopes that they too will not steal from us. The reciprocal relationship does not even have to be symmetrical, which is why somebody might endanger themselves in order to save another person. They do not necessarily expect the same in return from the person they saved, but rather do so in the hopes that they might receive help if they were ever in need of saving. The key to this reciprocal relationship is that the people or society we are behaving kindly towards in turn must know to whom they should reciprocate. If we act in an anonymous fashion, they would not know to whom they “owe” their reciprocal action. Similarly, we would not have to fear harmful reciprocation should we do something inappropriate or harmful.

Interestingly, this matches the behavior that we see in social atmospheres when people are granted anonymity. As mentioned at the start of this post, people are (or at least perceive themselves to be) anonymous when they are in their cars, or on the internet. When in these situations, people tend to behave like jerks; and do thinks that they would never think of doing to somebody’s face. However, when you keep the environment constant, but take away the factor of anonymity – say on a social networking site like Facebook -the behavioral differences seem to vanish².

So why do we drive like jerks, and behave like assholes on the internet? Because our morality evolved in a system of reciprocity, and when placed in an anonymous environment where reciprocity becomes irrelevant, our moral instincts break down.

The BBC has published this follow-up on the legality of Google Street View in the UK, which I had previously written about here. Thankfully, the Information Commissioner has ruled on the side of sanity by upholding Britain’s privacy laws as they are written, as opposed to how they are sometimes interpreted by certain police officers and concerned citizens on the lookout for terrorists.

The project drew criticism from privacy campaigners worried it could breach data protection laws.

But the Information Commissioner said it was “satisfied” that Google had put in place safeguards to avoid risking anyone’s privacy or safety.

In a lot of places, but especially in the UK, there seems to be a growing gap between how the people on the street interpret privacy laws, and how the judicial and institutional levels of government uphold them. For now, the opinion of the latter group seems to be prevailing, but all it could take is a strong push of public opinion for the laws to change. It is of the paramount importance that free democratic societies not lose such basic rights as the ability to take pictures and video in public. Privacy laws making it illegal to do these things could strike a crippling blow to our freedom of speech, and more specifically, the free press. Privacy laws exist to protect citizens from surveillance and observation by their government; not to allow the government to censor free activity.

It said the safeguards Google was putting in place, such as blurring faces and registration plates, were sufficient to allay worries about privacy.

The statement said: “Although it is possible that in certain limited circumstances an image may allow the identification of an individual, it is clear that Google are keen to capture images of streets and not individuals.”

It’s refreshing to see that somebody is finally recognizing that Google Street View is not a sinister plan to go around violating people’s privacy by catching them in embarrassing situations and profiting off of their images, but rather an attempt to catalogue images of streets.

Every once in a while some sort of consumer/privacy watchdog group decides to criticize Google over matters of privacy, not fully appreciating how far Google goes to protect the privacy of their users. Naturally, privacy issues are going to arise when you’re in the business of collecting and sorting through information, but none of Google’s past actions have shown them to be a threat to anybody’s privacy. Fears that Google will pull an AOL are completely unwarranted.

“We’ve always said we will not launch in UK until we are comfortable Street View complies with local law,” they added, “and that we will use technology, like face-blurring, license plate blurring and operational controls, such as image removal tools, so Street View remains useful and in keeping with local norms wherever it is available.”

I won’t delude myself into thinking that as a company, Google can do no wrong. At the end of the day, they’re still a for-profit organization looking out for their interests, and the interests of their shareholders. However, Google is smart enough to know that its success in the information trade depends almost exclusively on its ability to keep user information confidential. The only reason it can compile as much information as it has is because people trust Google with that information; and the instant they do anything to betray that trust, their user base will instantly evaporate. So we don’t have to trust that Google will behave in a moral fashion out of the goodness of their hearts; we know that they’ll do it, because it’s good for business.

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• BBC.co.uk: Google Street View gets go ahead
• Lintbox.com: Quit Touching My Privacy
• BBC.co.uk: Innocent photographer or terrorist?
• Wikipedia.org: AOL Search Data Scandal

Privacy advocacy group ‘Privacy International’ in the UK is all up in arms about Google Street View’s recent endeavor to start mapping out the streets of England. The BBC writes about it here.

Privacy debates are always interesting to me, because despite the legitimate points that can be raised on either side of the issue, I find that arguments are always riddled with false analogies and fallacies galore¹. Take this argument, for example:

“In our view they need a person’s consent if they make use of a person’s face for commercial ends,” said Simon Davis of the group.

The problem with this argument is that Google does not intend to use peoples’ faces for commercial ends. If anything, the people (and their faces) are in the way of what the Street View teams are trying to accomplish — the faces are incidental to the purpose of the project. This is an example of a false premise; Privacy International is assuming that the purpose of Street View is to take pictures of people to use commercially, when they are actually taking pictures of streets and buildings to use commercially. Furthermore, you can always ask Google to remove your image if you don’t like all of the fame and wealth associated with being an internet celebrity. I’m fairly certain that the people over at Privacy International are aware of the false premise, but they will continue to make this argument because it’s one that will allow them to challenge Google on a legal basis (if it ever comes to that).

However, what really takes the cake is this next section:
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In the past, we’ve blogged about issues such as ISP bandwidth throttling, and net neutrality. According to the CBC, the Canadian government has formed an organization exclusively to deal with issues between telecommunications companies, and consumers/small businesses. Unfortunately, word of the organization still hasn’t gotten around.

The Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services was established a year ago, but few Canadians are even aware there’s an agency where they can take their cell phone and internet gripes.

Science and skepticism thrive on the exchange of information. The whole point of the skeptical movement is to make information available for those who choose to seek it out. Therefore, even though this might seem like a tangentially related issue to the science/skepticism focus of this site, maintaining a free and open internet through combating unfair telecommunications practices is just as important of a battle as fighting mysticism and pseudoscience. In Canada, unlike the United States, we don’t have competition to take care of unfair telecommunications practices; so it’s reassuring to know that our government hasn’t completely abandoned us.

From the CCTS website:

Please feel free to contact us in the following ways:

General Inquiries: info@ccts-cprst.ca
TSP membership inquiries: info@ccts-cprst.ca

Hours of Business: Monday to Friday 09:00 – 17:00 HRS Eastern Standard Time.

Toll Free: 1-888-221-1687
Ottawa local: 613-244-9585
TTY: 1-877-782-2384

Please note: CCTS policy prevents us from accepting complaints over the phone. However, we can provide advice on whether or not you should file a written complaint and how to file a written complaint.

Fax: 1-877-782-2924
Mail: P.O. Box 81088, Ottawa, Ontario K1P 1B1

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• CBC.ca: Telecom complaints agency celebrates birthday in obscurity
• Commissioner for Complaints for Telecommunications Services Inc.

Hearing Jenny McCarthy’s stance on vaccinations sickened me. This was no longer the innocent pseudo-science of UFO sightings and Free Energy, but rather a movement that has resulted in thousands of deaths world-wide, and outbreaks of previously-eradicated diseases in one of the most scientifically advanced countries in the world. Enraged, I decided to do something. I didn’t go out and hold a protest, or write an angry email. Rather, I decided to scour her Wikipedia article and see if I could find and fix any misconceptions. When I did, I found the following paragraph:

On April 2, 2008, she went on the Larry King Live special dedicated to autism, and engaged in a fierce, on-camera spat debating whether premature vaccines have contributed to the incidence of autism in previously unaffected babies. However, this opinion is in stark contrast to the scientific community opinion that no causal association exists between autism and childhood vaccines, such as the MMR vaccine,[15][16] although the US government has recently compensated a family whose child developed autism after receiving vaccines.

I took exception to the last part of that paragraph, and feeling that it was unnecessarily biased towards anti-vaccination sentiments, I modified it to read:

On April 2, 2008, she went on the Larry King Live special dedicated to autism, and engaged in a fierce, on-camera spat debating whether premature vaccines have contributed to the incidence of autism in previously unaffected babies. However, this opinion is in stark contrast to the scientific community opinion that no causal association exists between autism and childhood vaccines, such as the MMR vaccine,[15] although the US government has recently compensated a family whose child developed complications from a previously-existent disease, resulting in autism-like symptoms, after receiving a vaccination.[16] However, this is the only such case where a link has been established between autism and vaccination, and was most likely due to a pre-existing condition.¹

My addition was eventually removed due to the autism debate being deemed tangential to the rest of the article. That being said, I managed to start a process that would culminate in having the offended text removed. The current article now reads:

On April 2, 2008, she went on the Larry King Live special dedicated to autism, arguing that premature vaccines have contributed to the incidence of autism in previously unaffected babies. Her opinion contradicts the scientific consensus that no causal association exists between autism and childhood vaccines, such as the MMR vaccine.[15]

I feel satisfied knowing that I made a small difference. A minor victory, to be sure, but every little bit helps in the fight against medical hysteria — especially on a site like Wikipedia, which has become the go-to site for those unfamiliar with the topics they are researching.

Today I had two hard drives (one of them was my system drive) fail on me at the same time. With computers, it is common knowledge that if something is going to go wrong, then a bunch of things are going to go wrong all at the same time.

Of course, that’s not true. Computers constantly have problems, and usually the problems are easy to fix when they happen in isolation. All it usually takes is a few minutes of tinkering, or a fresh install of the OS, and all of my problems go away. However, the times that I tend to remember are the ones where multiple things go wrong all at once. These problems are usually more serious, result in a lot longer repair period, and usually mean a bunch of lost data (and a lot of inconvenience). It isn’t that these situations are more common, it’s just that they’re more memorable. This phenomenon applies to all events that we remember and not just computers (think, “When it rains, it pours”).

Now of course, there might be a certain amount of truth to correlations between computer components failing at the same time. Computers are large and complex systems, and for a component to function properly, it often depends on other components. Hardware malfunctions can cause software to appear corrupted, and one broken piece of equipment can sometimes damage other pieces of equipment. This is especially true when dealing with software where one corrupt program (especially if it is the OS) can cause a whole host of other problems; sometimes these failures are clustered. However, usually this is not the case.