New Year

Just a quick note before I go off.

Happy New Year, everybody! 

Here's little something to brighten the new year.

It's a segment from the News Hour featuring DIY bio

Rest

 Got back late night yesterday, and slept until ten in the morning today. I spent the rest of the day sitting at my couch with my laptop on my lap (a distinct advantage portable computers have over desktops, the matter of comfort), reading through variety of physics and mathematics related websites and ebooks I've been meaning to go through for a while now. It's nice to be able to rest like this. 

I also got out my lab note and did some leisurely note-taking on some of the maths and people I've read about on the net, like Aleksandra M. Walczak, postdoc studying Stochastic Biology at Princeton. Maybe someday I'll be able to study in the frontiers of sciences like her (the whole issue of stochastic biology itself, which is actually statistical mechanics applied to biology, is intriguing enough on its own, btw). 

This evening (or late afternoon, really, it's only around three pm right now) I plan to finish some of the books I got for Christmas (yes, I read ridiculously fast when I'm not distracted), and the Invention of Hugo Cabret. I'm completely captivated by that book. The only reason I;m not finishing it in a single day is so I can savor the book in slow, controlled pace. The experience of reading the Invention of Hugo Cabret is like watching an old classic movie that you can't keep you eyes off of. I'll place this book on the same level with the Ghost in the Shell series and Videodrome in best use of the medium/captivating the audience. A good hot coco definitely adds to the experience. 

The weather is almost hot today. 60 something degrees. It's like a cold summer day, with the rain/cloud and all. I kind of like it. I'm a snow person but it can't hurt to have mild weathers like this once in a while. Besides, there's something in the air that brings back some beautiful memories in my mind, like how a gentle wind stirs up a pile of leaves into vibrant foliage of colors. I can't quite figure out the individual memories, but they are beautiful nonetheless.

Maybe I'll cook up something decent tonight, and get a bottle of wine. The day just seem to call for that sort of thing. 

vacation

I'm taking something of a break from work today, until the new year. I've even dropped out of my conventional twitter circle and stopped checking my google reader. And another tab in background is running play videos of persona 4 (quite hilarious, by the way), something I might as well continue to watch into the afternoon... I might go out in the evening to the MoMA  Friday, but otherwise I feel like acting a little lazy for the few days I have.

I wonder what I should do with my time? I hate TV... I might run some nonstop Videodrome on the DVD player. Maybe I should dig through the mathforums topics on music and mathematics?


Ugh, I get a decent vacation once in a while, and I feel like there's nothing to do. maybe I should play something? I need to finish that P3 and the FFXII is still in the closet somewhere. 

Amazon certificate

 Just got an email from Amazon telling me that I have $3 credit toward amazon market place mp3 or movies becuase I was gracious enough to do my holiday shopping with them. 

Hmm. I already got boxes of DVD for Christmas... Now I just need an unlocked G1 phone :)

I wonder what I should get from amazon? Classic anime? TV shows? I haven't watched Dexter in a long time. Maybe I should download an episode or two, since they seem to be going at around 99 cents each. I just wish they'd send me a $3 book instead though. Or even, $3 credit toward a new kindle. A discount on kindle would be awesome. 

Indie game recommendation

 I just played two indie games I picked up from the www.tigsource.com webpage (it's a veritable goldmine of indie game info and demos. Make sure to check it out).

Two interesting games worth pointing out. 

Lovecraft's commonplace book-inspired typing game. It's basically a typing game where you need to type up words in appropriate locations as the list comes floating down from deep within your psyche (you are supposed to transcribe them using your typewriter, and you'll be paid by each coherent ideas you can piece together). A little rough around the edges, but it might really be something if the author can take more time to flesh out the feature set.

Knytt stories. At surface it's a simple enough platformer, that doesn't eat up processor cycles or memory so it can be played while my computer's busy compiling through large piles of data depo. Quite possibly the best indie game I've ever played, right next to Aquarion (which you should also try if you haven't already). 

Both Knytt Stories and the Clatter of Keys are only available for Windows platform. Aquarion recently had a Mac release from Aspyr games. Makes me a bit glad that I didn't pick up that MacBook when I had the chance. 

wikipedia

 Just a quick note. 

Wikipedia seem to be going through some sort of financial crunch lately. I guess volunteer based community service like the wikipedia isn't structured to weather the recent international financial log (though there are some other economic theories that suggest otherwise).

It's scary to think of the world without wikipedia, but recent turn of events had been forcing me to think that such future is fully possible... Maybe it's a time to pitch in a bit and donate? 

Maybe this is a kind of problem that the government can get involved in, like NSF funding without political clause. 

Attraction of transhumanism

 Here's an interesting blog post I came across titled "Why I want to be transhuman."

Nevermind the content of the post itself (it's an interesting read, but it's not the point of my post). I want to point out the Marvin Minsky's quote lifeted from his book the Emotion Machine. Here's the quote posted in the blog article I linked above.



"I was once giving some lectures on longevity and immortality. I noticed that people didn't like the idea much, so I actually took a poll of a couple of audiences. I asked how many of you would like to live for 200 years. Almost no one raised their hand. They said because you'd be so crippled and arthritic and amnesiac that it would be no fun. So I changed the question. How would you like to live 200 or 500 years in the same physical condition that you were at half your age. Guess what, almost nobody raised their hand. But when I tried the same question with a technical audience, scientific people, they all raised their hand. So I did ask both groups. The ordinary people, if you'll pardon the stereotype, generally said that they thought human lifetime was just fine. They'd done most of the things they wanted to do. Maybe they wanted to visit the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan, but they could live without that. And surely another 100 years would be terribly boring."


The lesson is simple. Regardless of the validity or moral conviction regarding transhumanism and life extension, people who lead mostly 'normal' conventional lives thinks longer lifespan is not really necessary. People who've chosen intellectual pursuit as the primary way of life, however, tend to support artificial longevity more readily. I am not saying that those of academic pursuits somehow value life more than the 'vulgar' normal people who just happen to live out their lives. Douglas Hoffstadter, one of the most learned man of our time (and someone I greatly admire) once criticized the transhumanism movement and many of its leaders to be way too obsessed with death (something I agree with, despite my support for transhumanism movement in general. I mean, Kurzweil avoid trips to reduce his chance of death. That's just sick, considering the scope of things he's supposedly trying to accomplish). 

I just want to point out certain mindset that I find disturbing. People who feel no pressing need of longer lifespan may be the silent majority of the society we live in. This brings in my mind pictures of luddites who protest against advancements of medical technologies because they feel 'simpler' life is better, while third-world people die in droves because of lack of our ability to manufacture more effective medicines more cheaply. Or how about the college kids I knew a few years ago? Who regarded higher learning and pursuit of grand life-time goals with frank cynicism and suggested a 'simpler' life with a day job working at the groceries or community farms, living out their lives with those they love? I always wanted to point out that their parents were paying for their college tuition while they purchased expensive coffee from a single mother working three jobs to support her child.  

I think the culture of overtechnology is dangerous. Thinking of technical advances as some sort of panacea that will solve all of humanity's problems is a twisted and shortsighted thinking that later generations might have to pay a hefty price for. Just as dangerous, however, is the culture of pseudo-philosophy and half-baked soul searching that takes on the superficial trappings of transcendent wisdom while lacking substances of foresight, action, and compassion towards all of humanity...  

Holidays and information overload

 The holidays are here. And despite the crazy schedule that has a number of deadlines starting right from January third, I am swept up in variety of end-of-the-year parties and such, including a two day ski trip to the upsate area. Might even end up visiting Boston sometime in the January of the new year. 

Lately I'm beginning to feel the pressure of some information overload. There are just so many interesting new things to learn and experiment with, and not enough time to even gloss over all of them. I want to try bunch of new games (with the added power of my new laptop it should be possible to play some newer games), read dozens of books, try my hand at learning some new mathematical analysis techniques, apply the said mathematical technicques to composing, brush up on my drawing skills with my wacom tablet, brush up on my violin playing skills, write a novel, experiment with the processing language and etc etc...

And there are quite a number of things I'm actually doing as a part of my job as well, like learning /using the mathematica language, learning/using python, learning more math, learning more plasma physics, digging through molecular biology texts, digging through mathematics texts, digging through plasma physics texts, learning complex systems analysis and digging through related texts, learning wet-lab techniques for possible future iGEM involvement, attending interactive technologies and arts exhibitions and lectures, maintaining two blogs (one personal and one more 'official'), maintaining a tumble log, trying to keep up with art museum programs, part time counseling with underprivileged kids, tutoring, 2 NASA related contests, reading through a number of novels all at once, and a number of other things. 

I think my new year resolution would have to be to streamline my life a bit more, cut down on things I don't need and try not to overload myself. Hmm.

Some links of note

 A quick write-up before I go off to work/last minute shopping

I've been really into tumblr lately. Tumblr+twitter had been my medium of choice for past month or two. 

I want you to check out two links I put up at my tumblr on the subject of augmented reality. 

http://bookhling.tumblr.com/post/66220823/books-infused-with-augmented-reality-illustrations

http://bookhling.tumblr.com/post/66220638/augmented-reality-graffiti-heres-a-cool-idea  (this one's especially cool)

Amazing article

If you are even remotely interested in education you should read this article. 
In case you didn't know, the author is the one who participated in the iGEM competition entry about banana-smell E.Coli culture. 

I found the part he wrote about his success being 'because he dropped out of high school' rather than 'despite dropping out of high school' to be especially compelling statement... Apparently most people seem to have disturbing tendency to equate schooling and education regardless of the educational content of the schools themselves. I can't speak for other parts of the country, but in nyc many kids really do waste their life away in third rate schools and third rate colleges with scarcely any education being given in the process... I mean, I've had numerous experiences of sitting in a cafeteria for six hours staring at a wall since half the teachers didn't come to school because of the weather, and from what I'm seeing many kids today go through the same experience today. And for the children who really do opt out of the inefficient school system the city  practically spits them in the face by providing them with 'job education.' Sure, it would be nice to provide some job training to a thirty/forty years old homeless man. But to bunch of teenagers with their whole lives ahead of them? How can you tell if they aren't interested in more intellectual pursuits? And yes. The bureaucrats will probably cringe at the mention of 'intellectual pursuit' despite their higher-than-thou stance on matters of education. They'll probably say 'intellectual pursuit' have no place in real life. In their world learning to fix other people's toilet for a lifetime is considered more realistic compared to learning to develop a vaccine, or teaching children.

Here is the vicious cycle.

The people who run the education system are so severely undereducated that they force little children to live upto subpar standards and punish anyone who deviates toward a better life using methods they do not have the ability and the will to comprehend. The undereducated children then graduate and come back to run the system, the same way as they were taught.

In this society fondling little children is considered the height of perversity while relegating them to what is for all intends and purposes a life of bonded servitude under their 'betters' is considered normal. I consider them to be the same in terms of potential psychological damage to the child.


The world as a whole seem to be too caught up in demons of its own to be able to understand just what knowledge and education is. Mathematics and Sciences are pretty darn easy. Perhaps even easier than the arts, because you don't need as much 'gift' to be successful in the matters of maths and sciences. 

Quadratic equation was once the height of mathematical pursuit, solved only by people devoted to the mathematical arts. Now middle school children and moderately well educated gradeschoolers can solve that as part of the standard curriculum. 

Quadratic equation itself didn't somehow magically become easier. Human beings didn't suddenly evolve better brain in last few centuries (and if any teachers are doubting this please quit your job now. You are a threat to little children). The mathematical method for solving and teaching quadratic equation however, became easier, more streamlined and to the point compared to its archaic predecessors. The same goes for the basic Newtonian physics. 

It's only logical to assume that whatever we consider to be height of learning today will inevitably end up in high school curriculum in a century or two. 

The education system as a whole is deliberately pushing people away from pursuit of anything that cannot be understood in a ten minute  glance because they think future middle school/ high school curriculum topics are too difficult for the masses to understand. In the end, it all works out as a self-fulfilling prophecy, and the so called educators and public servants gets to sleep at night while generation after generations of children are assigned to a fate they did not choose and does not comprehend. 
   

cellphone novels

 Cellphone novels are quite a hit with Japanese female demographic, as outlined in this article. This might sound strange to westerners who until recently considered a bare-minimum camera phone as a luxury item and live in places where bluetooth still isn't the standard on many laptops and cellphone models being offered. As the common stereotype suggests, North Eastern Asia in general is in state of some unusual acceleration of integration of technology into the basic fabrics of the society, starting with the higher than double the concentration of robot population density in Japan compared to anywhere else in the world and my Grandpa in Korea who knows how to install custom firmware for the GPS in his car, which isn't all that unusual in that country.... Sigh. The level of technological proficiency in America is difficult to understand since most of the high-tech being used in Eastern markets came right out of American universities, like MIT media lab and NYU ITP program (I attended their show yesterday and took bunch of pictures. Quite a blast. I might post something someday. The pictures are on my flickr account). 

Anyway, back to the cellphone novels, it's an interesting concept. Now I know somepeople are already scoffing at the notion of having a fully pledged novella that's actually written on a cellphone for a cellphone... That would be shortsighted for a number of reasons. It's like comparing a full length essay and a poetry based on their length and word count. Cellphone novels are written to be brief, to be read briefly on the go... Most people don't hang onto their cellphones when they're in their homes. They read it when they are using subways and commuting from work, a bit of breaktime between classes and etc. Within the constraints of the medium people found a unique way to convey coherent story and characters the readership can sympathize with (which is probably one of the reasons why cellphone/microprose novels aren't catching on with the European/American crowd. We need a whole new set of word use and prose styling to write a decent microprose novella, and not that many people are working on that)... We are looking at a medium that's adapting to its physical manifestation like a living being, originating from something familiar (full size fiction), yet turning into something else that only retains superficial similarity to its origin while developing an entirely different DNA of its own.

What I am really excited about cellphone/microprose fiction isn't in being able to write stuff down and read on a cellphone. We've had that in some form since 90's, late 80's if you consider some of the experimental works limited to college labs.
Rather, I am excited about the streamlining of the story writing medium this change represents. Even those people who needs to go to work everyday and don't have the time to sit down and write a full-prose novel might be able to tell a decent, compelling story using certain techniques and vocabulary. What kind of story will people be able to write if they can spend less time writing and more time imagining it? 


  

sky crawlers screening

Just got back from nyc Sky Crawler's screening. I'm a little burned out, so let me just jot down a couple of points for further recollection tomorrow.

1)The screening opened with a recorded message from the venerable Mamoru Oshii himself. He said that the movie was about people who stopped/refused to grow up, and drew a parallel between the immortal pilots and the mindset of the current generation. Despite being spoken in Japanese, his words felt well thought out and serene. He obviously gave a lot of thought into this.

2)The basset hound, the major Kusanagi look-alike, gothic architecture in part of the film, strange machinery possibly playing music, lot of thoughtful dialog, and reference to the Albert Camu's the stranger. This film has Mamoru Oshii written all over it, and that's a good thing. 

3)Everybody smokes a cigarette. Seriously, I think I saw someone lighting up practically every five minutes (the film was two hours long). It's definitely intentional, but to what end? I think I know what Mamoru Oshii wanted to say, but won't write it here since there's a spoiler.

4)Lot of daring here folks. Remember that the main characters are immortal teenagers that must be killed through violence. These teenagers don't shy away from adult situations, and Mamoru Oshii might have done some intentional dare to the censorship system. I like the realism, but some people might have issues with it. Of course, nothing perverted here. Nothing we wouldn't expect teens in kill-or-be-killed situations to do.

5)The movie was two hours long, and in typical Mamoru Oshii style there's a lot of philosophizing dialog, blank stares, and silent scenes. Amazingly though, I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. And the characters, despite not saying very much, felt very alive and understandable through their facial expressions and motion. This movie isn't boring. If someone does find this boring, they will probably find anything that has thoughtful dialog to be boring.

6)This is a movie adaptation of a novel and it shows. Time to time I needed to glean a lot of information from a simple scene or two, the kind of things the novel might have spent a chapter describing. I think the overall transitions were done masterfully, but it is noticeable.

7)The musical scores are done by Kenji Kawai (who also did the Ghost in the Shell soundtrack), and it's beautiful. I know I'm hunting down an ost for this one.

Will I get a DVD once this comes out? Yes. Definitely. Do I expect this movie to make full theater circuit in America? Unfortunately, that's very unlikely considering the subject matter. As stupid as the censorship is, it's not going away anytime soon, and this film has a few things that might make your normal High School Musical lovers feel uneasy (not that there's anything wrong with High School Musical).

I think I had a couple of other points I wanted to make, but my brain is all mushy right now. Gotta go to sleep for tomorrow's lab session.

Japan: Robot Nation

A new documentary from Current TV. Unlike some other (let's be honest. MOST other) Japan/robot documentaries, this one focuses on the social conditions leading to the Japan's apparent love of robotics. It sheds something of a harsh, yet realistic view on the state of Japanese society and their labor market, something I am somewhat familiar on indirect level through experiences of those close to me. Only at about twenty or so minutes long, this is a worthy watch, I think.

Top ten bioscience advances of 2008

Here's the link.

cheap microfluidics

 Just a quick note before I go off to fire up a new report. (Cross posted from my tumblr feed)

Original article from the Wired.

Ok, here's my take on it.
There seem to be a way to build a cheap microfluidic array using household materials costing around three cents. The materials involved are standard double sided tapes and paper (which acts as the pump for the liquid), etched using off-the-shelf laser cutter, a process usually relegated to multimillion dollar semiconductor fabricator.

Provided that mTAS chip systems utilizing chemical fluids follow a law similar to the one that seem to govern standard silicon chips, we might be living in an age signaling the beginning of largest medical sciences revolution in human history. Cheap and effective medical testing and possibly production solutions that can be distributed all over the globe for practically anyone to build on. If such technology can be combined with the openscience movements like the science commons, well the humanitarian and commercial potentials will be endless.

I did think of doing a io9 madscience entry on synthetic biology-utilizing mTAS chip that can be used to manufacture minuscule amount of specified chemicals that can be used for periodic medications or for recovering out-house patients, but I scrapped it in favor of epigenetic production using extracellular matrices. Oh well.

science commons

Here's the link to the science commons video

Just a quick post before going to sleep (it's 2:45 in the morning and I have class at 10:00 ugh).

This is one of the coolest things I've seen on the net today. 120 second introduction to what science commons is.

I can think of lot of things that can explain why the idea of 'opensourced' science or science commons must be one of the coolest and most revolutionary ideas of the generation, but my brain is turning into a jello right now, so detailed post will have to wait.

Just one thing though. Library of Alexandria.

Just think about it. Why was library of Alexandria so important? Was it because it housed a lot of books? No, it isn't. If anyone believes that the significance of the library of Alexandria was about stacks of books he/she lacks the understanding of the origin of modern civilization. Books or any individual units of information pop into existence all the time. Libraries are meaningful because they centralize and organize those individual information clusters. Centralize and organize, meaning giving accessibility to.

Greatest threat to any knowledge is not in its misuse or incomprehension. It is in obscurity (as Cory Doctorow pointed out as he released his works under CC license). Libraries made human civilization by providing accessibility to knowledge that would have been forgotten otherwise by centralizing them in one geographic location and organizing them according to a system. From that location new ideas were born since people no longer had to spend their lifetime re-learning what someone else figured out half a century ago.

Science in general, lacks accessibility. Which is very weird when you think about it. Science is about accurate description of this universe, this universe every single member of the Homo sapiens sapiens share. Yet science lacks accessibility, both to the nonspecialists and specialists alike. It's like having limited access to one of your eyes or limbs or organs.

Accessibility is catalysing and empowering. When economic systems become accessible we get flourishing finances and trades system, with all the subsequent benefits of arts and culture. When human opinions become accessible we get one of the biggest human community ever, with subsequent benefits of policies and philanthropy. The first time academies and libraries became accessible we began a march toward a new civilization. What will we be able to accomplish once the sciences are truly open and known to every willing member of the humanity?

artscience rant

(((Just a little something I wrote up in a notepad a moment ago))) 


A machine to create as we know it can only a machine that follows certain mathematical patterns giving output that can be interpreted by both the machine and observers as being coherent. Would it imply that there is something missing in such interpretation of the acts of creation or that act of creation and all subsequent endeavors are in effect replicating mathematical algorithms/formulae? Moreover, what exactly is the drive behind the origin of the will to create? In case of artificial machines we can say that we coded its mind/body to act in certain expected way, but the same cannot be applied to the creators of the creating machines, since (as far as we know) we haven't been programmed by some entity in such specific manner as to will to create objects and ideas (and even that would create the question of who created the entities, so the whole line of questioning is more or less a dead-end). The obvious answer to the explanation of the behavior of creativity as things stand right now, would have to be drawn from the thermodynamic characteristics of the life-like intelligent systems themselves. Arts, and any type of object/idea creation by life-like intelligent systems must be a direct result of the thermodynamic system that forms the basis of the life-like intelligent systems themselves. In short, art is science.

megami tensei online IMAGINE

 I've known about this game since its release in Japan.... It was a commercial failure from what I hear.

Apparently they licensed it and released it in the states. I got an email telling me that I'm invited to the closed beta (I think about a million other people got the same email). Since I'm somewhat crazy about all things megaten I decided to take the jump and participate. 

The game has rather modest system requirements. I run it in a window while I'm doing web browsing/writing/chatting etc and there's not even a hiccup, so that's a plus in this age of over specced computer games (and they wonder why people are moving to consoles?). Very stylish,with occult+cyberpunk influence like the good old SMT universe. though it's in beta stages so the character selections are limited at the moment. They seem to have an interesting story going on, leading Shin Megami Tensei 1's storyline to SMT2. I'll try to figure out what's going on as I play on.

I don't know how long I'll be able to play this with my schedule being what it is. I guess I'll enjoy it while it lasts. If there's anyone who wanted to take the plunge to the megaten-verse yet couldn't because of the console barrier, here's your chance. You can find the keys to the beta floating all around the net. If you can't find one for some reason, leave a message and I'll try to send an invite.

 

 Poor children brain activity=Stroke victims

All I can say is, I KNEW IT ALL ALONG!

I work with disadvantaged children in inner NYC (a part-time gig), and the amount of stress these kids go through from the moment of their birth would probably make most normal adults cringe. They see their parents get humiliated, and they see themselves get humiliated, usually by their own school faculty who usually live in upstate NY. There’s nothing for these kids to do in their school due to lack of funding and quite frankly, lack of effort on the part of the teachers. Even slight rainfall is enough to stop half the teachers from coming to school, after which the kids are forced to sit in a classroom or cafeteria all day doing nothing since the law requires the kids to stay off the streets (and the authority seem to place an abnormal amount of emphasis on kid staying off the streets, rather than giving them an actual education).

New York City is a city by the sea, yet many of the kids I’ve seen in inner city haven’t seen an ocean in their lifetime. Their parents are too busy pulling 12 hour shifts and the kids are intimidated to visit any place in the city that’s even remotely affluent. “I don’t feel like I belong there” they say. Whenever I bring them to a museum/library/bookstore etc they tell me that other people (security guards) are looking at them funny. Whatever the case might be, we are resigning an entire generations of children to very twisted social stereotypes and future that’s not quite worth living for. An entire generation who either has to choose to be dumb or brave the whole weight of their own society. Am I the only one seeing a problem in this?

Futurepast

Plenty of room

 This is a cross post from my other blog.

Just a quick note before I drift off to study for my exams.

I re-read the famous ‘there’s plenty of room at the bottom‘ speech made by Richard Feynman recently. Aside from being inspired by his genius and foresight (as usual) I think I hit on an interesting idea.

At the end of the speech Feynman half-jokingly proposes a contest for high school students with the goal of writing smaller than anyone else. I think we have enough industrial infrastructure and technical expertise to make that contest come true, albeit with possibly different goal than simply ‘writing small’ and perhaps geared towards undergraduate students. 

Those of you who have been following this blog or any other one of my web presence knows that I am deeply interested in synthetic biology, to the extent that I ventured into the recent Synthetic Biology conference 4.0 in Hong Kong armed with my meager knowledge of genetics and molecular biology. In fact, I’ve been so interested in the discipline that I’ve been driving my professors crazy with questions, delving deep into molecular biology texts and courses outside my proclaimed field of expertise (which is plasma physics), even touching up with a bit of wet work. I even have a very modest lab set in my own home.

The reason why I became aware of the field of synthetic biology and began taking its possibilities and my involvement with it seriously, was the International Genetically Engineered Machine competition or iGEM. It is an international competition for high school-to-undergraduate students to build the best synthetic organism (or genetically engineered machine) using opensource biological parts termed BioBricks, which can be pieced together like puzzle to form a working genetic system complete with chassis (usually E.Coli or Yeast). The quality of the competition entries have been phenomenal so far. The winning entry in this year’s iGEM competition actually prototyped a whole new vaccine against gastritis. It took undergraduates six months to come up with that stuff (with help of graduate level faculty). Just imagine what people will be able to do once we streamline the whole process and work out some kinks inherent in dealing with biological systems!

Now, let’s imagine something similar with nanotechnology. I believe that it is possible to put together some minimal nanotech components/chassis in the fashion of the BioBricks, opensource them, and apply it toward high school-undergraduate level competition. Of course, the things we can come up with using today’s technology won’t be as vibrant as the projects pursued by those of iGEM teams, but I still believe that we have enough room for ingenuity and improvisation in constructing minimal nanotechnological systems and parts. With suitable industrial support the international nanoengineered machine competition (iNEM?) might lend the field of nanotechnology accessibility and interest the field rightly deserves.