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Today Wired magazine published a well-written history of non-egalitarian commercial practices on the Internet, it even mentions the spat between Level 3 and Cogent that made headlines last year. Unfortunately none of the solutions discussed in the article call for deregulation. At the same time, the author does not try to white wash the issue in favor of either stakeholder involved with net neutrality.

Interestingly enough, back when cable modems were first being rolled out onto the scene, some of my friends set up IRC and ftp servers. In fact, they even set up dedicated game servers to host Doom and Quake matches. Their party was crashed however, as several months later they began to receive “cease and desist” orders; they were apparently using up “too much bandwidth” — more than what the fine print said they were allocated. And this song and dance has been replayed all over the country, time and again.

And limits of “unlimited” services are seen in other industries as well. To the chagrin of its power users, Netflix was shown to be throttling “unlimited” rentals earlier this year. Where is the call to arms for a nationalized Movie Rental Neutrality policy? Where are the petitions to prevent Hollywood and Blockbuster video from charging higher rates than Netflix… after all, the DVD’s are all the same, right? And what about those lonely independent kiosks found in grocery stores?

Anyone else remember the episode where Homer Simpson did not get all that he could eat from the Frying Dutchman, the seafood restaurant?

A cave has to have at least one entrance, right? Well, researchers in Israel recently managed to enter a sealed-off cave and in the process discovered some rather curious creatures — in particular those that no longer have eyes, yet belong to the scorpion family in a quasi-pseudo kind of way.

In April, I mentioned a similar story about a team of explorers traveling near the Himalayas, who discovered a region of land left untouched from mankind. They too found all sorts of creepy crawly critters (plus a golden monkey) that had thus been uncatalogued.

And just two months prior to that, I discussed yet another land — a remote virgin island of New Guinea - that is home to hundreds of new species including a tree kangaroo, that have evolved in order to adapt to their unique environment.
One wonders when that Darwin guy and his finches will be taken seriously…

Norway is apparently building a vault near the North Pole to store a copy of every plant seed in the world. This sounds somewhat similar to Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow sans the punk-diesel theme.

And as the politicians note, of course it’s a fantastic idea — it isn’t funded out of their own pockets (its fairly easy to spend someone elses money).

This is perhaps one of the weirdest video games I have ever seen — moreso because of who makes it and how they plan to use it as an evangelical tool.

I wonder, will there be cheat codes?

The Economist is reporting that superbugs Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and Clostridium difficile are wreaking havoc in the general public — causing all sorts of unpleasantries including death.

Last November, BetterHumans noted that where traditional antibiotics fail, “good” bacteria - the kind found in yogurts - might be just what the doctor ordered in fighting pathogens like MRSA.

See also Wired magazine’s article, People are Human-Bacteria Hybrid.

What do you get when you have Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist and a net neutrality proponent, and former White House spokesman Mike McCurry, who heads a phone industry group, debate net nationalization? Unsurprisingly, an adolescent argument similar to ones you had in elementary school.

Mr. McCurry does a decent job explaining the capital investments, scarcity and economics involved in maintaining a large network infrastructure; however his “Hands off the Internet” movement does not represent a free-market solution to this problem. Absolutely no regulation or oversight is the free-enterprise answer to this quagmire. And the Internet providers he represents are protected through “legal” geographical monopolies and subsidies, which is unfortunately not being questioned.

Mr. Newmark is so close that it hurts in terms of what the Internet providers seemingly refuse to offer or use. Rather than pointing out that these telecom companies are legal monopolies that should be privatized, he jumps up on the egalitarian horse and uses the cliche emotional argument of “fairness” to substantiate his claims.

In retrospect, The Wall Street Journal should have selected individuals such as Declan McCullagh and Bram Cohen to represent the “hands off” laissez faire approach; in addition, Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee would probably have done a better job at the pro-nationalization side.

See also:

• Who Owns the Internet?
• Terminating Net Neutrality
• Net neutrality needs a swift round-house kick from Chuck Norris

The Washington Times is reporting that a scientist has apparently found the “God gene” — the gene that regulates the ability to experience spirituality. The kicker is, the volunteers whose genetic material was analyzed, were asked a series of 226 questions to determine how “spiritually connected to the Universe” they were.

Regardless as to how they answer, you cannot aggregate and average out any of the numbers as you might in a “hard-science” study. The answers the respondents give are entirely subjective to the internal preferences of each individual. In terms of Likert scales, one person’s 2 is different than another person’s 2.

Be sure to read “The Bowl Championship Series: A Case Against Subjectively Aggregated Statistics” for more discussion on this flawed methodology.

I have mentioned this topic several times, including what I consider perhaps the best non-academic article on the subject from The New Yorker and also a lengthy essay from the Mises Institute. Today’s lesson involves a high school graduation ceremony in North Dallas.

Prior to my younger brother walking across the stage, the principal at his school introduced the valedictorian — a peppy, petite girl. The principal remarked that she and her twin sister (who is graduating 3rd in the class) were both going to attend MIT. Upon hearing this, the entire auditorium let out a collective “WHOA.”

As funny as this sounds, the unseen aspect to the exasperation is that schools such as MIT have done a great job at promoting their pedigree as the gold standard — a lofty position held by the Crème de la Crème.
Other notes of interest:

• Podcast lectures for University Students: the instructor does not hold classes anymore, he simply has the students download the lectures and meet in small groups
• Educators Vilify Technology In Attempt To Preserve Outdated Model: while I do not support plagiarism, academic dishonesty, cheating or using technology to partake in these behaviors, one wonders when the Ivory Tower will modify the way tests are given (i.e. replace multiple-choice scantron with practical hands-on work experience). Perhaps even a simple essay exam…
• Why American College Students Hate Science: while not necessarily revolutionary or breath-taking, this NY Times article shows one way colleges can market STEM more effectively. Note: some argue that there is already an over-supply of scientists and mathematicians saturating the job market

Since my academic allies are few and far between (every techno law professor is apparently pro-net nationalization), I’d like to point out that our good ‘ol friend Bram Cohen of BitTorrent fame has thrown down the gauntlet on the issue.  And surprisingly he grasps the economics of scarcity.  One down, 300 million more to go.

So the game over six million people play and some consider “the new golf” has been analyzed for Higher Education usage patterns: MapWoW.  No big surprises as the largest schools (in terms of enrollment) correlate with a high percentage of student usage.

It is kind of weird to see A&M ranked 13th… why would you attend a college with so many coeds and real-life social networks and then play video games all day?

Perhaps the players read Wired’s recent article on resumé building and guild responsibilities…

The Dallas Fed recently published a surprisingly good article on the issue of supply, demand, scarcity and economic intervention within the petroleum market.

Note: the always entertaining MythBusters television show aired an interesting episode on alternative fuels a couple weeks ago. The biodiesel solution made of used cooking oil from french fries worked fairly efficiently (~90%) in an unmodified diesel engine.

Via The Perfect Substitute.

I see no economic law being violated or market failure occurring when the concept of “scalping” is lorded around. Every price point above zero is technically “scalping.” There is no thin red line or grey area that this emotionally-based argument can be justifiably used. In fact, among others, investigative reporter John Stossel argues that “price gouging” ensures that scarce resources go only to those who really need it.

With this said, it appears that everyone’s favorite ticket-selling business is now joining the Reality-based community and will auction off back-row seats rather than merely sell at “below market prices.” In effect, they are trying to knock the wind out of the sails of competitors who are reselling their tickets at higher than face value (management just got a memo on the whole “scarcity” thing).

This whole quagmire smacks of ignorance to how prices come about. Although this is a fairly complex issue, it’s a microcosm of socialism in action — the fiat declaration of what something is valued. In fact, I discuss this issue in my recent article on Net Neutrality.

Variable pricing, based upon the relative demand of a service, is effectively used to price cell phone minutes, seats in an airplane, and even where you will sit at a baseball game. Consequently, this is an issue that has been debated for decades by economists, however for a non-academic overview regarding the conundrum in the sport world see: “Case 7.1: Variable Ticket Pricing, Should the Minnesota Twins Catch the Wave?”

A widget is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it and apparently, Ticketmaster has been leaving money on the table. While there are numerous statistical methods used for determining how to set prices for products (which try to take into account variables like weather, time of day, location, opponent, etc.), the fact remains that the consumer has the ultimate authority, as they vote for prices with their wallets.

In 1980 astronomer Carl Sagan televised a production he had worked on the previous two years. It was the study of life on the grandest scales as seen with galaxies and at the smallest, as seen with atoms (ala Powers of Ten) — and was appropriately called Cosmos.

I’m not entirely sure how I missed its broadcast and its subsequent showings year after year, however, thanks to the internets, you can see all 13 episodes (with Spanish subtitles no less).

Below are a few comments I noted while watching the first two episodes.

While it is my understanding that there was a revised and updated version recently released last year (the 25th anniversary edition), this edition lacked several notable headline items that would probably excite any astrobiologist such as extrasolar planets.

These were first discovered in 1992 and over 150 have been discovered thus far. While most of these planets are larger than Jupiter, new telescopes are being developed which can shrink the measurable size (mass) to that of earth itself.

In fact, recently a planet merely 5 times the size (mass) of earth was discovered. This is in addition to 3 planets the size of Neptune recently found as well. And while I do not have the resources to fund it, one could argue that this is an area that should be included in any update.

In episode 2, Sagan discusses the Heikegani crab from Japan. Its shell looks like that of a scowling samurai warrior. Apparently over the years it has been a tradition to throw crabs back into the water if their shell looks like this scowling samurai, whereas those that did not were then consumed. And as a result of this artificial selection, many of the crabs populating the sea floor have shells with these scowling warriors on them, simply because they had a chance to reproduce and flourish.

While Sagan then goes on to discuss other parallels in the natural world, one historical note that popped into my head was that of Gresham’s law, “how bad money drives good money out of circulation.” The debasement of currency through fiat has been done through a process of artificial selection. The classic example is the case of dimes and quarters minted prior to 1964; they actually were comprised of about 90% of silver. Post-1964 they were made with copper and nickel. As time passed and people learned of the changes, these denominations were removed from circulation by individuals of every political stripe, creed, religion and so on. Why? Because they were worth more than their replacements which were being pumped into circulation. As a result, the “bad money” effectively drove the “good money” into the safety boxes of history.

Mid-way through the episode, Sagan put together a rather neat illustration of how the “option tree” of life separated into different organisms. He did this through the use of computer morphing and looked vaguely similar to what Will Wright has done with the upcoming game of “Spore.” In fact, this episode highlighted many of the early stages that a player will encounter in the game — from fragile water-bound cell to an intelligent multi-organ creature capable of walking and even flying.

If you missed it, I recall watching a show on the Discovery Channel several years ago that fleshed out Sagan’s theory of life existing in the seemingly inhospitable climates of gas giants. He called these hypothetical organisms, floaters, hunters and sinkers. Neat to see where this original idea first came from — nor is it too far fetched considering extremophiles here on earth.

The only two major distractions I have had thus far is the way Sagan speaks. He sounds and talks a lot like Agent Smith from The Matrix. His slight stammering and accent immediately set a light off in my head — I wonder if he likes the smell of humans?

The other annoyance was his little desk in the spaceship. I don’t quite get how or why he gets up out of his seat to look at the screen. I wonder if subsequent cinematic space operas used this tactic to emphasize dramatic events. While it might have worked for Star Trek Voyager, it really didn’t work on me… he had me with “I fly a space ship the size of a dandelion.”

See also: Maybe I’ll Grow A 3rd Leg and Bananas and Neo-Creationists and Selective Videos and Computer Simulation.

So where do you get authority to be a bioethicist? Is there some curriculum and instruction you have to master to become an official bioethicist? Or is it simply academic welfare for washed-out has-been pseudo-intellectuals?

I have a theory that anyone can be a bioethicist, just like anyone can be a philosopher, football coach or campfire builder. You just need a mouth and an audience and wham-bam you’re a bonified bioethicist. It’s hard to see any kind of objective or meritable criterion one should posses to be an official expert on “bioethical” issues.

Hell, can you imagine the absurdity of the following conversation:

Cop: sorry to interrupt your evening sir, but we have reports that you were practicing bioethics without a license

Bioethicist: but I submitted the proofs-of-purchase to the local chapter of skull-drudgery

Cop: ahh, but it’s not official unless it’s been notarized by the president of the Super Adventure Club

Actually, if you’ve watched South Park there is one episode that pokes fun of people claiming to be certified telepaths.* Eric Cartman bonks his head and after coming out of a coma, several detectives use him and his supposed “telepathic abilities” to track a serial killer. At one point his is confronted by some yahoos claiming to have similar powers and they complain that he never filled out the necessary forms to be a legitimate telepath.

Anyways, while that is neither here nor there, MSNBC published an article on how some bioethicists’ are concerned with the “social injustice” brought about by medical technologies that allow humanity to live longer, healthier lives.

In truth, the only “social injustice” that occurs with such longevity is when other people coercively prevent individuals from living longer. After all, who can have the authority to tell someone how long they should live, or can live?

I’ve mentioned the terrible god-awful movie, Logan’s Run before. The basic premise is that a small group of humans commits mandatory euthanasia at the age of 30. Their justification is not much different than the bioethicists quoted in the piece.

For instance, a friend noted that this age-longevity debate could be made into a science-fiction critique of modern day fundamentalism: a battle between rabid fundies and the first generation of “immortals.” The plot would likely involve court battles, whereupon judges and juries are asked to make the ethical decision and seek the death penalty for individuals living too long… past their “natural lives.”

“You’ve had your fun on earth, lived a rich and productive life, now make room for a new generation.” - Generalissimo Paul Ehrlich

Fortunately, the late economist Julian Simon did this world a great service by doomslaying many of the fallacies surrounding Malthusian “overpopulation” and a decline in the standard of living that are touted by proponents of anti-longevity (the same supporters who mysteriously receive medical treatment for illnesses and ailments, thus artificially thwarting a “natural death”).

At any rate, I for one am going to practice what I preach and continue working towards prolonging my life, long enough to see the actual retail release of Duke Nukem Forever.

*[Note: the same can be said for any kind of licensed profession whether it is medicine or law. In fact, would it not be insane to hear: "sorry sir, but you were practicing history without a license"?]

Yea, they won a seemingly tough series against the defending champs, in overtime no less. However, despite having been born and raised in Dallas, I will honestly say that I have never been a hard-core fan of the team — I’m no hater either. In fact, I’ve only attended one game (at the mothballed Reunion Arena) and swear that they have lost every game I ever watched on tv (jinx).

With that said, I have followed the last few seasons with a genuinely reserved level of interest, primarily due to my friends’ renewed enthusiasm. I’ve even been known to patronize sports bars during these festive times…

But this kindred spirit was dampened due in part to ESPN’s Skip Bayless spotlight on how Mark Cuban has arguably bullied referee’s into submission at home. No bueno.

Mr. Bayless’s thesis reminded me of an analogy used by one of my economics professors comparing regulation in the market place to officiating in sports. When companies use regulations and State intervention to get their way, it is no different than team managers manipulating officials for their own ends. If the integrity of officiating was a matter of on-field lawyering, then coaches and players would be recruited not based on athleticism or talent, but debate and acting skills.

And on that note, the “official” governing body for soccer in Nigeria recently ‘okayed’ the act of bribing officials.

Can’t wait to see this trickle down into the tee-ball leagues.

I’d give the win to Berry after the first round. It really didn’t take much to KO this hype.

Last month I discussed organisms that live and thrive in environments that are relatively inhospitable.  The California Academy of Sciences has an interesting exhibit in the museum of natural history which illustrates the various alienesque creatures we have living throughout the planet.  Be sure to check out the Snottites.

Here is a great remix of the classic, Charlton Heston’s Ten Commandments, with a modern romance-drama-comedy theme.

A friend just sent this interactive zoom thingy to me.  Pretty slick use of Shockwave.

Anyone know what the technical name for this looping effect is?

EE Times is reporting that many biologists-cum-engineers are excited about the future uses of nanotechnology in their field. No surprises there.

Oddly enough, economist Arnold Kling points to another study suggesting the trade-offs that both disciplines have and will to continue to encounter. His prediction, biotech will eventually overtake nanotech.