Protest Planned for August 29th in New York
Posted 9:20 AM

This August, New Yorkers will witness the largest and most powerful RNC protest in history. The Bush administration has gone over the top with misguided, self-serving policies and so too will the people go over the top in their demonstrations against it.

Coordinated, in part, by United for Peace and Justice, there will be over 200,000 people converging on New York city.

The current situation with the permit to protest the RNC in Central Park on August 29th has been elegantly resolved.

Yes, we need a permit to organize a rally, with everone standing in one spot or marching along on a preset route, patting each other on the back - and being ignored by the media. But we don't need a permit for a distributed protest - one in which no one given location is converged upon.

Imagine, if you stepped outside your doors on August 30th, you saw, on every street corner, two or three people holding signs and handing out flyers - as far as the eye can see. From 8-12 people at each major intersection in Manhattan, talking, holding signs and handing out leaflets to passer's by.

200,000 people are coming to New York on August 29th to do just this. Instead of chasing the media... we're creating it!

Please print out these instructions for the August 29th protest in New York, and notify others of this unique and powerful day. These instructions are a guide to making your own powerful statement while being safe, having fun and meeting people. Dozens of your friends and fellow protestors won't print this out or don't have access to the Internet. So remember to bring copies for others and let people know about this event.


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Sheltered and Spayed
Posted 9:15 AM

One horrifying institution that claims to be for the "welfare of animals" is the "animal shelter" or "animal rescue" shelter. The twisted idea is that it's better for an animal to die in a cage in a shelter from a lethal injection than it is for the animal to die on the street, fighting for food and survival.

There are no-kill shelters. These shelters round up animals, spay and neuter them, and then feed and house them in a shelter for their entire lives unless they are adopted. I would say that the best shelter would be one that somehow retrained the animals to survive in the wild, and then released them. But I can't imagine how that would be done.

Another screwy concept is that it's better to neuter a dog than to have lots of starving puppies all over the place. In other words... it's better to never be born than it is to be born and fight for survival in a difficult ecosystem.

Both of these arguments were used by Hitler-era eugenics experts.

We trap, cage, spay and neuter cats and dogs so that we don't have streets full of animals devaluing the real-estate of our septic cities. The landowners who promote these policies use moral reasoning to recruit philisophically naive volunteers. These kids then spend their free time helping to bolster landowner property values while complaining about skyrocketing rents.

People talk about alleviating suffering in the world. But suffering is an integral part of life. So anyone who says that they truly want to end all suffering is, indirectly, talking about an end to all life.

A more reasonable effort, if any, would be to promote the continued existance of life itself ... specifically diverse biota capable of sustaining the progeny, both memetic and genetic, of the interested parties. Diversity is necessary. We need a wide range of lifeforms, organizations and structures in existance to combat the natural degradation of matter into a stable state.

Labels: science

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The Next Multimilllion-Dollar Documentary
Posted 7:49 PM

The next big documentary moneymaker may not be Michael Moore's sensationalist film, Farenheit-911. Instead, viewers who appreciate sublety, cunning investigation, and a narrative that isn't skewed to make a point will enjoy The Corporation, this year's audience favorite at Sundance.
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The Tug-of-War for Control of China's Internet
Posted 9:21 AM

In a detailed analysis of the Chinese government's detention of Internet users, Bobson Wong comes to the conclusion that internet users in China comprise a disorganized and yet powerful lobbying group that can exert some pressure on the Chinese government. Full Article.
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ESC Teratoma
Posted 7:15 AM

I just learned of a peculiar kind of tumor called a teratoma. It forms in the testicles or ovaries due to the presence of pluripotent cells in those regions. These cells, basically, start dividing and forming new organs, with the DNA of the progenitor cell. A mature, differentiated teratoma can contain, teeth, hair, skin and even a tongue. Here's an X-ray of a woman's pelvis where a tumor formed that contains mature teeth. These tumors occur in nature on a regular basis, occuring in newborns about 1 in 20,000 births, in adult males about 1 in 700,000, and in adult females about 1 in 300,000.

This is also what happens if embryonic stem cells are allowed to differentiate unchecked within an adult body. For a long time, I figured that the environmental cues of the body would be enought to coax ESC's into differentiating correctly. Apparently that's not the case.

I don't think anyone's tried injection of cloned ESC's, which would be more likely to accept differentiation signals from the host, and probably dosages would have to be very low to prevent clustering. If there were some way to create an electrostatic colloid or suspension, such that no two cells were adjacent, then the chances of feeback cues would even be lower. I suspect that feedback cues are (partly) responsible for the formation of teratoma's. This is still a line of experimentation that deserves further inquiry.

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Hasidic Visit
Posted 11:58 AM

Every Friday Zalman and, sometimes, Joe come by to put tefillin on Mike. We met them outside the building. I'm not allowed to participate becaue my mother wasn't Jewish. But maybe it's because I haven't asked? I'll ask next week.

Hasidim, by walking around wearing their religion on their sleeve, inspire others to think and talk about philosophy. One thing that all religions have in common is that contemplation of religion, itself, is holy. Some call it prayer, and Muslims stress that it must be done all day long. It's something that I enjoy doing, and I always feel grateful for the conversation and inspiration they bring to the office.

Joe is concerned about his Google ranking, and talks about it a lot. He sells disposable cameras on his website.
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No Soldiers in Hell
Posted 7:20 PM

Sung to a simple tune on a strumstick:

They've got
No soldiers in hell
Because there's
Nothing left to die for
and everything is dead

They've got
No fires in hell
Because everthing that's flammable
Has already been burned

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Food Head Phenomenon
Posted 11:06 AM

If you email me pictures of animals with food on their heads, they will be posted to this website, with attribution. We will be maintaining a FoodHead archive.

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Government Sponsored Oral Sex Lessons
Posted 6:16 AM

A government study has found that encouraging teenagers to experiment with oral sex is the most effective way of curbing teenage pregnancy rates. Full article here. It's apparently more effective than abstinence or contraceptive training.

Labels: politics

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Extensive List of Nick Berg Discrepencies
Posted 12:39 PM

Kuro5hin has done a good job of summarizing all of the current controversy surrounding the videotape of Nick Berg.
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Libertarianism versus Socialism
Posted 3:02 PM

Pure libertarianism results in aristocracy. How? Because in absence of public oversight, wealthy individuals can easily exploit the population, and maintain control over them. For example: a food company can merge or acquire 50% of all food companies, and then start adding addictive substances to the food. The government, hobbled by libertarianism, would not have the resources to investigate the food. If executed carefully, this would result in a single company or collection of companies owning all access to food production. The company could use this power to pay for politicians, and corrupt the state to the point where it, and all the citizens, are puppets of the corporation.

Pure socialism results in aristocracy. This is more obvious. Suppose a socialist state controls all food production. People have input and it's democratic. But the people who run the food production could secretly a drug to keep citizens sedate, preventing them from running for office or from being inspired to challenge authority. The result is a population that is ruled over by an elite few, and whose citizens believes that it is a "democratic" system.

The only solution is one in which neither Libertarianism nor Socialism rules. No single ideology can dominate, or the system collapses to either corporate or government aristocracy.

Labels: politics

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Spamming and Skydiving and Ozone Therapy
Posted 12:42 PM

Spamming on our servers is at an all-time high. 95% of the mail we receive is spam. We attempt to reject some of it, but a lot gets through. Some people have complained that they don't want us filtering their mail. The problem is that we can't actually continue to do business at this time without autorejecting spam, since it would require us to purchase 10 times as many mail servers. So we're stuck policing mail, and dealing with attacks and mailbombs.

Most of the problem would go away if:

1) People, like you, ran Bayesian filters, such as K9 and Spamassassin. This reduces the impact and revenue from their messages.

2) ISP's implemented the new Sender Policy Framework standard. This is a protocol that makes it so that your email address cannot be easily forged. If you're reading this, I'm inviting you to email your ISP and insist, as a customer, that they help protect your identity and fight SPAM by implementing SPF on their mail servers. The can learn about it at spf.pobox.com.

Also, I'm going skydiving Sunday. Freefall adventures is going to take me up to 14,000 feet and then kick me out of the plane. And I'll be paying them to do it! Since it's my first time, and I haven't been certified, I'm going to be "tandem jumping". I'l let you all know how it works out.

Finally, at this week's Transhumanism Meetup, we discussed a lot of things, and it was a bit chaotic. We're going to organize the debate better next time. Roger said he was going to try Ozone Therapy and report back on its effectiveness.

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Viruses: Damned If You Do
Posted 11:30 AM

You'd better run antivirus software, or you could get arrested and have your daughter taken away from you. At least, that's the lesson that was learned by Julian Green, who was arrested for possession of child pornography, and had his daughter taken into custody. He was released after it was discovered that a trojan horse (a breed of virus) was actually responsible for downloading all the pornography on his machine.

The lesson to be learned here is that our government must not have the power to arrest and convict someone solely on the basis of computer evidence.

On an unrelated note, if a company runs antivirus software that unpacks ZIP/GZ files, it's trivial to DOS their mailserver. ZIP/GZ files contain patterns and length multipliers. It's possible to craft a 1K file that uncompresses to 1000 MB. Mailing variants of highly compressed archive files in a very light mailbomb would be able to cripple even the largest corporate mailservers equipped with antivirus sofware. In testing, AER/sec discovered that this vulnerability exists in most major antivirus utilities. Exploiting the behavior of underlying software to multiply the intensity of an attack is a typical tool used by DOS hackers.

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Nick Berg "Kidnapping"
Posted 7:18 AM

1. There's nothing like viewing a live beheading to manufacture deep-seated fear of authority and deepen conservatism in a population of people.

2. At this point, every time our administration says "Al-Qaeda", you can just translate it in your head to "a CIA-sponsored terrorist group".

For example:

Nick berg told his parents he was coming home. U.S. officials and Iraqi police then detained him for 2 weeks. His parents sued the U.S. government. Then a day or so later, he's kidnapped by Al-Qaeda and killed.

Apply translation from #2, and justification from #1.

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Why are we speding more money on nuclear weapons?
Posted 9:31 AM

The cold war is over. The IAEA slaps fines on new nuclear tests. Why then are we spending more today than ever before on new nukes?

Apparently, this country is run by messianical lunatics with death wishes.

Maybe somebody who actually likes being alive, is happy, and generally likes the people in this country should be in charge?

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Blogging and Cancer Screening
Posted 8:03 AM

Today I added my weblog to Blizg, where you can vote for it, if you like it. I also added ICBM metatags, and updated this site at geoURL, so if you've been wanting to stalk me, this will makes your life easier.

Read an article on an optimal shape-shifting sequence for a two-dimensional object moving through a viscous fluid momentarily repiqued my interest in nanotech. But, then again, the most advanced nanotech is still way behind even the most trivial biotechnology. My feeling is that information technology will bring us to the point where biotech and bio-computing begin to outpace development in this both nanotech and, eventually, information technology itself. Definitely leaning towards "green goo" versus "gray goo" singularity prediciton.

Gilbert Welch posits in his new book, that one possible outcome of current cancer screening policy is nearly every American being diagnosed with some form or cancer.

Here's how it works:

Early screening for cancer results in more cancer patients. Many of them are treated for a cancer that would not have actually harmed them (this is all the more likely given that they had no symptoms). Treatment for patients that would have lived anyway logically results in a much higher "cure rate" for patients with early screening. This, in turn, falsely biases the statistics. This results in more public funding for cancer screening, and the vicious cycle starts all over again.

What's more, misdiagnosed patients that die from radiation therapy aren't counted as cancer-related deaths. This rule skews the statistics even further in favor of more screening and more unnecessary treatment.

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Lamaze Improv
Posted 8:50 AM

We had our final Lamaze class at the Roosevelt Birthing Center. We practiced breathing, and foot-massage. We forgot to bring clean socks, so we didn't get a hands-on demonstration by the coach. Advice to all parents-in training: don't forget to bring clean socks to class for your free massage. I'm seriously thinking of hiring a doula, but that's wimping out.

Also, my next UCB performance is on Sunday at 5:30. It's a full Harold. I've stuffed a lot of information into my head in the last 8 weeks about this particular form. Hope I remember it all. If you're interested in seeing me make an ass out of myself, you may have an opportunity this Sunday. It will cost you a $5 cover (no drink minumum or anything).

I wrote an analysis of the purpose and formation of community. It applies to charity as well. It's not terribly well formed, but some guys at COV are helping me refine it.
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Coneheads and Tofu
Posted 9:35 PM

I worked on my Dad's website today, set up a coupon system and cleaned up the database. Played Nethack for a bit, and felt slightly guilty for wasting time.

Yvette did yoga, and then bought swimcaps, so we could go to the community pool. I chose silver. Yvette said, "Why silver? So you'll look like a bullet?" I said, "Yeah", but I really picked it because when I learned that you had to wear swimcaps, I looked in at the pool to verify that everyone there was wearing them. The one guy that didn't look awkward was wearing a silver one. I put it on. It made me look like an SNL actor playing an alien. I widened my eyes and peered about, doing my impression of an alien. Yvette said she got me a small/medium because I had a small head. I'd never thought of myself as having a small head, but now, looking in the mirror, I realize that I do. Amazing how you can live 32 years and not notice something like that.

Diane sent us all of Adam's old baby clothes. It was a lot of stuff. More than enough for one baby, it seemed to me. There was a high percentage of duck-themed clothing.

As we started going through them, the whole baby thing seemed even more real than ever before. Perhaps that's the real reason why it takes so long. Nine months is the time it takes for two adults to grow into the idea of caring for a baby. She would pop out sooner, but she's just waiting for us to get our acts together. She kicks when she notices we aren't making progress: "Hey, don't forget to pick out a pediatrician", and "Do you have childcare arranged yet?"

I cooked salted kale and tofu marinated in sesame oil and soy sauce. We watched some of "Winged Migration". The tofu came out great, but the kale was way too salty, which was sad. I ate it anyway, so it wouldn't be wasted.

Yvette gets nauseous when I try to give her vitamins now more than ever, so I've stopped trying. Then again, the level of vitamins I take would make most people nauseous.

She rocked in the glider chair tonight and fell asleep in it. That made me happy. It's a used chair. I found it on craig's list for $50 and carried it from the Upper West Side all the way back to Brooklyn. Yvette said it smelled like old lady, so I scrubbed it and washed it twice.

I put Yvette to bed by reading her book, "Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son's first Year". The author is really cynical and is a single mom. I don't think it's good for us to read such an obviously negative book, but I sometimes get tired of censoring things. Baby was kicking a lot tonight, squirming around, etc.

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