These days I see less and less utility of full sized laptops as a media tool, since it is technically possible to do most of the basic multimedia and creative works on a well-equipped mobile. I've been watching quite a lot of youtube videos using my blackberry which is surprisingly usable despite its limited memory and processing power. This is with a mobile that's already outdated and in process of being phased out, so the experience is only better on higher end handsets coming out these days... It's a little weird to have access to all the online research papers, video journals and dubbed animes (subtitles will turn me blind on this screen), not to mention IRC and instant messaging clients on the palm of my hand. The ubiquity of information is addictive when you're sufficiently exposed to it and that is a lesson the mobile/connectivity corporations should do well to remember. (That makes me think, the mobile market trend today might have turned out a lot differently if some innovative company could be in charge of both communications infrastructure and handset design, or even, handset design without having to worry about the politics of communications infrastructure. I played around a bit with virtualbox this afternoon. Usually I run vnc within windows to access alternative platforms but thought it would be interesting to be able to run a minimalistic linux/UNIX os within windows installation. I used #! linux, and the whole process took about 5 minutes. It's remarkable how simple it is compared to only a year or so ago. The virtualbox still has a bit of issue in resolving graphics driver that displays resolution higher than 800x600 so I had to do some manual tweaking that involved hosing down one system installation and reverting back to a previous session and reinstalling guest permissions/editing xorg.conf, but compared to some other installations it was all a minor hurdle. ...
More stuff on the state of minimal cell research.
Sent via BlackBerry by AT&T
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
It's funny, and somewhat unfortunate that I keep choosing two different topics to cover in a single day's post. Perhaps this type of indecision is the reason behind the stagnant state of my wordpress blog, which tend to demand a bit more quality and coherent thought compared to my livejournal?
I've been watching some Hunter S. Thompson biography materials on the net for the last few days, including a biography tv show on Hulu. An interesting person who gave birth to the style of writing we now refer to as gonzo... Basically a subjective, free form exercise in journalism unrestrained by traditional format. While some might cringe of subjective journalism but then what journalism is truly objective? When you get right down to it the difference is in the language used, and gonzo style journalism never makes any pretense towards their own objectivity. The technique of allowing the reader to gain a first person account of the experience in question was revolutionary in its time and it permeates throughout all sorts of different medium today, starting from the faux-reporting seen in Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan series, where the whole of the comic was more or less written through the eyes of Spider Jerusalem who was probably modeled after Hunter S. Thompson.
Compared to all the psychos and sickos out there Thompson certainly maintained certain method to his madness until the very end. It would have been really interesting to see what kind of things such character can do given the technological tools of the future/transhumanism. Maybe he might have ended up blowing his head off all the same due to psychological burdens?
I've been having some rekindled interest in Lovecraftian writing recently, mostly due to my little toy project of making a python based program that churns out random, endless stories drawn from expressions in its database. I call it the Monkeyshaker 1000, from an acquaintance's suggestion that 1000 monkeys typing randomly into a typewriter might really end up producing a Shakespear. I've been thinking of all sorts of different things for the program to draw upon and create, and the answer's one of the two.
1)Scientific literature that draws on official (meaning verified, unlike the heap of steaming #$%! we call wikipedia) databases on the net to produce comprehensive reports on rather meaningless, machine dictated topics.
2)Creator of cheap knockoff novella, the kind of stories people commonly refer to as the dime store novel. Such generic novels for entertainment (paperbashing?) usually follow such vapid structure and vocabulary that I don't see much difficulty in making a program to churn out (albeit rather peculiar) pieces of short writing.
I think I'm going with number two. It is decidedly much easier than the first approach, and I already have a cool database to draw upon. The license-free works of Lovecraft. I just wonder what kind of peculiar roman the computer program will be able to come up with using a database full of antediluvian references. Maybe I can title the resulting piece as a result of gonzo journalism in an Lovecraftian universe written by some haywired android.
On the lighter note, there's a science competition going on over at the spacegeneration aimed at anyone under age of 33. You are supposed to come up with a novel method for stopping possible asteroid strike of the Earth using currently available technology or the kind of technology that can be reasonably developed in the future. Novel meaning ingenious. Not another crappy knock off of 'building a superweapon' or 'nuke it' or 'shoot a linear canon nuke' crap that every other one billion and one people proposed already with detailed drawings and technical requirements. Something really new and scientifically feasible. The contest is obviously aimed at students just starting off their interests in space engineering and astronomical sciences, so they might be willing to overlook some of the more incredible ideas, but they are still looking for something worth presenting at the science congress they are having in Korea later this year.
Maybe I should stop by Korea in autumn, see how the whole event goes. Sounds interesting.
I've been watching some Hunter S. Thompson biography materials on the net for the last few days, including a biography tv show on Hulu. An interesting person who gave birth to the style of writing we now refer to as gonzo... Basically a subjective, free form exercise in journalism unrestrained by traditional format. While some might cringe of subjective journalism but then what journalism is truly objective? When you get right down to it the difference is in the language used, and gonzo style journalism never makes any pretense towards their own objectivity. The technique of allowing the reader to gain a first person account of the experience in question was revolutionary in its time and it permeates throughout all sorts of different medium today, starting from the faux-reporting seen in Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan series, where the whole of the comic was more or less written through the eyes of Spider Jerusalem who was probably modeled after Hunter S. Thompson.
Compared to all the psychos and sickos out there Thompson certainly maintained certain method to his madness until the very end. It would have been really interesting to see what kind of things such character can do given the technological tools of the future/transhumanism. Maybe he might have ended up blowing his head off all the same due to psychological burdens?
I've been having some rekindled interest in Lovecraftian writing recently, mostly due to my little toy project of making a python based program that churns out random, endless stories drawn from expressions in its database. I call it the Monkeyshaker 1000, from an acquaintance's suggestion that 1000 monkeys typing randomly into a typewriter might really end up producing a Shakespear. I've been thinking of all sorts of different things for the program to draw upon and create, and the answer's one of the two.
1)Scientific literature that draws on official (meaning verified, unlike the heap of steaming #$%! we call wikipedia) databases on the net to produce comprehensive reports on rather meaningless, machine dictated topics.
2)Creator of cheap knockoff novella, the kind of stories people commonly refer to as the dime store novel. Such generic novels for entertainment (paperbashing?) usually follow such vapid structure and vocabulary that I don't see much difficulty in making a program to churn out (albeit rather peculiar) pieces of short writing.
I think I'm going with number two. It is decidedly much easier than the first approach, and I already have a cool database to draw upon. The license-free works of Lovecraft. I just wonder what kind of peculiar roman the computer program will be able to come up with using a database full of antediluvian references. Maybe I can title the resulting piece as a result of gonzo journalism in an Lovecraftian universe written by some haywired android.
On the lighter note, there's a science competition going on over at the spacegeneration aimed at anyone under age of 33. You are supposed to come up with a novel method for stopping possible asteroid strike of the Earth using currently available technology or the kind of technology that can be reasonably developed in the future. Novel meaning ingenious. Not another crappy knock off of 'building a superweapon' or 'nuke it' or 'shoot a linear canon nuke' crap that every other one billion and one people proposed already with detailed drawings and technical requirements. Something really new and scientifically feasible. The contest is obviously aimed at students just starting off their interests in space engineering and astronomical sciences, so they might be willing to overlook some of the more incredible ideas, but they are still looking for something worth presenting at the science congress they are having in Korea later this year.
Maybe I should stop by Korea in autumn, see how the whole event goes. Sounds interesting.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Wireless and junk DNAs
It's very weird how putting things of my day to day life together in title makes it sound like some other whacked out story reminiscent of Haruki and his line of chic-absurdist fictions.
I'm glad to say that after some hassle I got the wireless at my new apartment working at last. The contract for the rent actually comes with free broadband internet access, which I guess isn't too unusual in this day and age. But the thing is, the cable modem in use by the apartment I'm in is a piece of relic that came from when dial-up was still the king and people flocked to American Online services. The initial attempt at connecting the cable modem with a wireless router ended in the cable modem sending out a corrupted packet so arcane that it instantly screwed up the wireless card on my new-ish thinkpad (the roommate's Macbook and my Linux laptop were fine. Ugh, vista why do you suck so much?) to the point that I had to spend the next week figuring out how to get it to work. In the end I fixed it by deleting the device from the system panel and reinstalling it, which was something of a gamble, since according to the google it only fixed anything half the time with no-one knowing the actual reason behind the malfunction.
After my laptop got back into networking-ready shape I stuck with ethernet cable connection for a while at home since I didn't want to risk frying my wifi card again on the poisonous packets sent out by the antediluvian cable modem. I strongly suspected some sort of Lovecraftian mystery filled with murder and hideous secrets behind the nature of the unassuming block of grey plastic and was content for a while living like someone from mid 90's.
Alas, the life chained down by ethernet cable in my own home grew too vapid for me. For someone who needs good access to computer almost 24/7 to pay the bills couch/bed/front porch computing is of huge importance for me. If I'm going to be stuck in front of the screen at least let me choose the location (as a sidenote I frequently work in the park even when I'm outside, the whole sunlight/fresh air around me when I'm working does wonders for productivity). So I decided to do some real research on how to get the modem to work nicely with my wireless router.
Well, it turns out the problem was the age of the router itself. It's made from so long ago when wireless access to net was a precious opportunity for the rich and the cutting edge, it's not properly shielded from electromagnetic field of other appliances within one to three feet of its location. From there on the solution was simple. Use the ridiculously long ethernet cable I've been using for my laptop and place the modem and the router at opposite ends of the room. Funnily enough it worked and I'm writng this from my couch. I don't know whether to be happy or be infuriated by the hurdle I had to go through to get something as simple as encrypted wireless network running.
On the other note, I've been following the Dresden Codak webcomic since the days of its first inception. Even made an id on the forums, though I've only posted there a few times at best. Here's the newest comic at the site. There's something about the combination of the fantastic and the scientific in those webcomics that I find very charming. Yet unlike some other webcomics dresden codak still retains a sharp outlook on the reality that makes me wonder if the author is really drawing the future.
I really like the main character. There's something about her that's very appealing to me on some basic level I can't quite explain. Maybe it's because she's an eccentric mad scientist. And as I have stated numerous times before, everyone at their hearts secretly long to become a mad scientist. I want to be able to stable some portions of my DNA on the fly as well, provided that I have much better understanding of it mechanism and quirks than is available to the academia at the moment. I also want to ponder the questions of the universe and work at solving it or at least understanding it instead of playing second fiddle to the real researchers on the cutting edge of the humanity's learning (and someday I might be able to achieve that, if I play my cards right).
I'm just trying to join the ranks of the diy-mad scientists with my slow-but-steady research on viability of minimal cell system using cheap affordable tools. I really do think it's possible. The more I learn about it, the better the chances look, provided that I don't do anything too elaborate. I'm a little skeptical about the research tool potentials of the diybio minimal cell but then we'd actually need to have something on hand to decide that kind of thing, won't we?
I'm glad to say that after some hassle I got the wireless at my new apartment working at last. The contract for the rent actually comes with free broadband internet access, which I guess isn't too unusual in this day and age. But the thing is, the cable modem in use by the apartment I'm in is a piece of relic that came from when dial-up was still the king and people flocked to American Online services. The initial attempt at connecting the cable modem with a wireless router ended in the cable modem sending out a corrupted packet so arcane that it instantly screwed up the wireless card on my new-ish thinkpad (the roommate's Macbook and my Linux laptop were fine. Ugh, vista why do you suck so much?) to the point that I had to spend the next week figuring out how to get it to work. In the end I fixed it by deleting the device from the system panel and reinstalling it, which was something of a gamble, since according to the google it only fixed anything half the time with no-one knowing the actual reason behind the malfunction.
After my laptop got back into networking-ready shape I stuck with ethernet cable connection for a while at home since I didn't want to risk frying my wifi card again on the poisonous packets sent out by the antediluvian cable modem. I strongly suspected some sort of Lovecraftian mystery filled with murder and hideous secrets behind the nature of the unassuming block of grey plastic and was content for a while living like someone from mid 90's.
Alas, the life chained down by ethernet cable in my own home grew too vapid for me. For someone who needs good access to computer almost 24/7 to pay the bills couch/bed/front porch computing is of huge importance for me. If I'm going to be stuck in front of the screen at least let me choose the location (as a sidenote I frequently work in the park even when I'm outside, the whole sunlight/fresh air around me when I'm working does wonders for productivity). So I decided to do some real research on how to get the modem to work nicely with my wireless router.
Well, it turns out the problem was the age of the router itself. It's made from so long ago when wireless access to net was a precious opportunity for the rich and the cutting edge, it's not properly shielded from electromagnetic field of other appliances within one to three feet of its location. From there on the solution was simple. Use the ridiculously long ethernet cable I've been using for my laptop and place the modem and the router at opposite ends of the room. Funnily enough it worked and I'm writng this from my couch. I don't know whether to be happy or be infuriated by the hurdle I had to go through to get something as simple as encrypted wireless network running.
On the other note, I've been following the Dresden Codak webcomic since the days of its first inception. Even made an id on the forums, though I've only posted there a few times at best. Here's the newest comic at the site. There's something about the combination of the fantastic and the scientific in those webcomics that I find very charming. Yet unlike some other webcomics dresden codak still retains a sharp outlook on the reality that makes me wonder if the author is really drawing the future.
I really like the main character. There's something about her that's very appealing to me on some basic level I can't quite explain. Maybe it's because she's an eccentric mad scientist. And as I have stated numerous times before, everyone at their hearts secretly long to become a mad scientist. I want to be able to stable some portions of my DNA on the fly as well, provided that I have much better understanding of it mechanism and quirks than is available to the academia at the moment. I also want to ponder the questions of the universe and work at solving it or at least understanding it instead of playing second fiddle to the real researchers on the cutting edge of the humanity's learning (and someday I might be able to achieve that, if I play my cards right).
I'm just trying to join the ranks of the diy-mad scientists with my slow-but-steady research on viability of minimal cell system using cheap affordable tools. I really do think it's possible. The more I learn about it, the better the chances look, provided that I don't do anything too elaborate. I'm a little skeptical about the research tool potentials of the diybio minimal cell but then we'd actually need to have something on hand to decide that kind of thing, won't we?
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Crunchbang linux and Giant robots
I'm always on the search for the ideal operating system that would make my life much easier and actually get more work done instead of wasting my time. I guess this is my way of looking for the shiny new thing, just like how some people shop around for accessories and clothes, except that in my case it's all a bit more practical since I get to work in most of the oses out there (but then those people wear clothes to their work too...).
The world's operating system is roughly divided into two at the moment. Linux/UNIX derivatives and Microsoft Windows. In terms of general engineering and architecture MS Windows isn't really top of the line. I'd say Windows as a whole is more like an inexpensive housing and UNIX derivatives Gothic cathedrals (it's actually quite an accurate description of the codebase of both operating systems), except that the housing project costs and arm and a leg and the cathedrals are more or less given away for free, provided that you have the technical proficiency to configure and maintain the juggernaut. Of course, the analogy is a little off in modern days. MS really made strides on their operating system (partly because everyone loves to hate MS) and current vista/win 7 lineup is leagues better than what xp and 98 was, at least in terms of general architecture of the os. And some of the linux/UNIX based oses are really cleaning up their acts and becoming impressively user-friendly, though there are still aberrations like some of the more hardcore BSD oses that seem to view usability=os hazard... Am I alone in thinking that kind of behavior is reminiscent of the old-old times when they complained about schools because having too many people learn will devalue education? (Yep, they really said that.)
Well, of the oses out there Ubuntu distribution more or less tops the chart in terms of user friendliness, along with OS X, which is really just a shiny shell on top of a BSD. Ubuntu is in turn based on Debian which isn't as user friendly but has remarkable stability and wonderful application depository meaning that whatever your needs are you'll probably be able to find and download it for free using synaptic or apt-get. The wonderful thing about such system is that you don't have to google for applications you need. You can just use synaptic and search-download on the spot, with the application being integrated cleanly into the os with rare need for post-installation configuration.
The problem with Ubuntu however, is their opensource-spirit inspired stance against anything proprietary, which is a big thing in this day and age. Take flash for example. It's everywhere and there are nebulous uses for it, ranging from online lectures to lab reports (ah the sad life of a sci student, first things to come to mind when thinking of flash isn't movies or youtube). On conventional Ubuntu distribution anything proprietary usually needs an extra step or two from the user to install them, unlike most modern oses of commercial flavor that tend to come with such necessities. Might not sound like a big deal but this is a deal breaker for a lot of non-hacker pc users out there. I mean, if you're going to advocate opensource to people at least provide them with a decent alternative. Don't just expect people not to use something just to safeguard some philosophical ideology. I'm sympathetic with opensource but some of the approaches being taken by its hardline proponents has a taste of cloistered conceit in them, which I think will hurt the movement in long run. There is a second problem in that Ubuntu is big. Of course, Ubuntu is probably one fifth the size of Vista even at its biggest, but when compared to other linux/UNIX distributions out there they just feel a little sluggish for some reason.
Well, I think I just found the ideal free operating system that has no qualms about providing its users with first rate experience regardless of whether the services are opensource or not. It provides basically all the essentials I can think of in an os, both proprietary and opensource, and it's much lighter compared to similar Ubuntu install. In fact, my fully tricked out installation of that os only clocks in at 1.2 GB of hard drive space (that's os+all the third party apps I installed off the net&depository) with 200MB of RAM usage when browsing with firefox at 5+ tabs open. The installation was a snap too. It recognized all my hardware including the wifi and SD-card reader, and all the laptop-system built in shortcut keys are working out of the box.
They call this the #! linux, which is read as crunchbang linux. It's a modified version of the Ubuntu os I mentioned earlier., except much lighter and more responsive. Unlike most other lightweight distros out there #! has really great hardware support and even better application compatibility. With #! you have the whole of Ubuntu depository on your finger tips, it would practically be impossible not to be able to find an application you need.
If I ever go all out with linux on my primary machine, I think I'll choose #! without a moment's hesitation.
Oh by the way, in case you haven't been keeping up with the news, Japan's Tokyo built a full scale replica of the original Gundam in the Odaiba area.
It's full scale, meaning it's ridiculously huge. For some reason the original UC gundams are rather big with following series progressively introducing smaller, sleeker models.
The amount of detail on this replica is amazing. They actually worked out all the decals and directions for the fictional Earth Federation engineers for repairs/upgrades/tuneups etc. It's obvious they put in a lot of thought into the whole thing. They should really, I think this is for the 30th year celebration of the birth of Gundam.
Again, amazing detail. And the building in the background somehow fits in well with the mecha.
Here's a picture of it at twilight. Just too cool for words. As a side note the apartments in the background aren't really that expensive. In many cases such apartment towns are for middle class housing and common sight in many parts of North East Asia. Some of the newer apartment towns have little streams and parks between the buildings. It's surprising how some people consider the dilapidated and overpriced housing condition in and around NYC is the same in other parts of the world.
And Gundam at night, with the eyes lit up. From what I hear it doesn't move, but the very fact that they were able to build something like that in a major city itself is a big news. Why won't NYC do something fun like that once in a while?
By the way, all the picture are from the Flickr and the wonderful people who decided to upload their pictures.
The world's operating system is roughly divided into two at the moment. Linux/UNIX derivatives and Microsoft Windows. In terms of general engineering and architecture MS Windows isn't really top of the line. I'd say Windows as a whole is more like an inexpensive housing and UNIX derivatives Gothic cathedrals (it's actually quite an accurate description of the codebase of both operating systems), except that the housing project costs and arm and a leg and the cathedrals are more or less given away for free, provided that you have the technical proficiency to configure and maintain the juggernaut. Of course, the analogy is a little off in modern days. MS really made strides on their operating system (partly because everyone loves to hate MS) and current vista/win 7 lineup is leagues better than what xp and 98 was, at least in terms of general architecture of the os. And some of the linux/UNIX based oses are really cleaning up their acts and becoming impressively user-friendly, though there are still aberrations like some of the more hardcore BSD oses that seem to view usability=os hazard... Am I alone in thinking that kind of behavior is reminiscent of the old-old times when they complained about schools because having too many people learn will devalue education? (Yep, they really said that.)
Well, of the oses out there Ubuntu distribution more or less tops the chart in terms of user friendliness, along with OS X, which is really just a shiny shell on top of a BSD. Ubuntu is in turn based on Debian which isn't as user friendly but has remarkable stability and wonderful application depository meaning that whatever your needs are you'll probably be able to find and download it for free using synaptic or apt-get. The wonderful thing about such system is that you don't have to google for applications you need. You can just use synaptic and search-download on the spot, with the application being integrated cleanly into the os with rare need for post-installation configuration.
The problem with Ubuntu however, is their opensource-spirit inspired stance against anything proprietary, which is a big thing in this day and age. Take flash for example. It's everywhere and there are nebulous uses for it, ranging from online lectures to lab reports (ah the sad life of a sci student, first things to come to mind when thinking of flash isn't movies or youtube). On conventional Ubuntu distribution anything proprietary usually needs an extra step or two from the user to install them, unlike most modern oses of commercial flavor that tend to come with such necessities. Might not sound like a big deal but this is a deal breaker for a lot of non-hacker pc users out there. I mean, if you're going to advocate opensource to people at least provide them with a decent alternative. Don't just expect people not to use something just to safeguard some philosophical ideology. I'm sympathetic with opensource but some of the approaches being taken by its hardline proponents has a taste of cloistered conceit in them, which I think will hurt the movement in long run. There is a second problem in that Ubuntu is big. Of course, Ubuntu is probably one fifth the size of Vista even at its biggest, but when compared to other linux/UNIX distributions out there they just feel a little sluggish for some reason.
Well, I think I just found the ideal free operating system that has no qualms about providing its users with first rate experience regardless of whether the services are opensource or not. It provides basically all the essentials I can think of in an os, both proprietary and opensource, and it's much lighter compared to similar Ubuntu install. In fact, my fully tricked out installation of that os only clocks in at 1.2 GB of hard drive space (that's os+all the third party apps I installed off the net&depository) with 200MB of RAM usage when browsing with firefox at 5+ tabs open. The installation was a snap too. It recognized all my hardware including the wifi and SD-card reader, and all the laptop-system built in shortcut keys are working out of the box.
They call this the #! linux, which is read as crunchbang linux. It's a modified version of the Ubuntu os I mentioned earlier., except much lighter and more responsive. Unlike most other lightweight distros out there #! has really great hardware support and even better application compatibility. With #! you have the whole of Ubuntu depository on your finger tips, it would practically be impossible not to be able to find an application you need.
If I ever go all out with linux on my primary machine, I think I'll choose #! without a moment's hesitation.
Oh by the way, in case you haven't been keeping up with the news, Japan's Tokyo built a full scale replica of the original Gundam in the Odaiba area.
It's full scale, meaning it's ridiculously huge. For some reason the original UC gundams are rather big with following series progressively introducing smaller, sleeker models.
The amount of detail on this replica is amazing. They actually worked out all the decals and directions for the fictional Earth Federation engineers for repairs/upgrades/tuneups etc. It's obvious they put in a lot of thought into the whole thing. They should really, I think this is for the 30th year celebration of the birth of Gundam.
Again, amazing detail. And the building in the background somehow fits in well with the mecha.
Here's a picture of it at twilight. Just too cool for words. As a side note the apartments in the background aren't really that expensive. In many cases such apartment towns are for middle class housing and common sight in many parts of North East Asia. Some of the newer apartment towns have little streams and parks between the buildings. It's surprising how some people consider the dilapidated and overpriced housing condition in and around NYC is the same in other parts of the world.
And Gundam at night, with the eyes lit up. From what I hear it doesn't move, but the very fact that they were able to build something like that in a major city itself is a big news. Why won't NYC do something fun like that once in a while?
By the way, all the picture are from the Flickr and the wonderful people who decided to upload their pictures.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Life extension
There are a lot of life extension enthusiasts out there these days. It's been progressively getting more and more media attention with advances in biotechnology and pharmacological sciences... The relatively recent mainstreaming of transhumanism really helped too. It's gotten to the point that there are full scale research institutions out there supported by prestigious universities and grants devoted to the research of the solution to the intriguing problem of death. Maybe it's driven by the life-like system's innate desire to live on. Maybe it's just a show of curiosity, an emotion that had never been too rational to begin with.
Regardless of the validity of the concept of transhumanism in modern world, process of possibly halting senescence is an attractive prospect for the many. Only thing certain in life is death and people are looking toward scieces to possibly ward off that certainly, maybe forever. And there had been a lot of interesting developments in the area as well. Most of the research is being driven by new technologies of gene and protein discovery/extraction, and the latest discovery that came from a fungus of the Easter Islands might serve to demonstrate how some of the most intriguing researches in biological sciences might be made by simply studying the mechanisms inherent in one of the many variants of the living systems already on this planet as a product of years of evolution.
The linked article is more about the effect of the chemical compound rapamycin on older mammals and its rather intriguing effect of prolonging lifespan of mammals from 9~13% even when administered late in life... I am not entirely too sure of the mechanism that allows the mammals to prolong their lifespan through injection/intake of the compound, since aging and effects of aging tend to be results of different innate and outer factors surrounding the organism. If it is possible to use a chemical compound to somewhat prolong natural lifespan of an animal even late in its life would it be possible that there is a definite central mechanism that runs the process of whole-body aging behind the show? Would it mean that it would be possible to prolong lifespans using such artificial compound therapy to prolong lifespan of human beings without resorting to a life time of controlled diet and full scale genetic modification?
Rapamycin is apparently a compound that is already approved by the FDC and in use by the medical community for purposes of immunosuppressant therapy. Would that imply that the aging system built into mammals are somehow linked with the basic immune systems as well? Intake of rapamycin would lower the immune response of the subject, so there definitely is a chance that the subject will in fact die from infections despite increased base lifespan. It's something of a catch 22, and an interesting reminder of the folly of common conception in treating senescence as some kind of flaw or even a disease. If anyone is serious about artificially halting the processes of senescence we must consider the possibility that death might be a natural result of the kind of physical system we have for our body, just as our body requires us to eat and drink in order to sustain it for any significant lengths of time.
Regardless of the validity of the concept of transhumanism in modern world, process of possibly halting senescence is an attractive prospect for the many. Only thing certain in life is death and people are looking toward scieces to possibly ward off that certainly, maybe forever. And there had been a lot of interesting developments in the area as well. Most of the research is being driven by new technologies of gene and protein discovery/extraction, and the latest discovery that came from a fungus of the Easter Islands might serve to demonstrate how some of the most intriguing researches in biological sciences might be made by simply studying the mechanisms inherent in one of the many variants of the living systems already on this planet as a product of years of evolution.
The linked article is more about the effect of the chemical compound rapamycin on older mammals and its rather intriguing effect of prolonging lifespan of mammals from 9~13% even when administered late in life... I am not entirely too sure of the mechanism that allows the mammals to prolong their lifespan through injection/intake of the compound, since aging and effects of aging tend to be results of different innate and outer factors surrounding the organism. If it is possible to use a chemical compound to somewhat prolong natural lifespan of an animal even late in its life would it be possible that there is a definite central mechanism that runs the process of whole-body aging behind the show? Would it mean that it would be possible to prolong lifespans using such artificial compound therapy to prolong lifespan of human beings without resorting to a life time of controlled diet and full scale genetic modification?
Rapamycin is apparently a compound that is already approved by the FDC and in use by the medical community for purposes of immunosuppressant therapy. Would that imply that the aging system built into mammals are somehow linked with the basic immune systems as well? Intake of rapamycin would lower the immune response of the subject, so there definitely is a chance that the subject will in fact die from infections despite increased base lifespan. It's something of a catch 22, and an interesting reminder of the folly of common conception in treating senescence as some kind of flaw or even a disease. If anyone is serious about artificially halting the processes of senescence we must consider the possibility that death might be a natural result of the kind of physical system we have for our body, just as our body requires us to eat and drink in order to sustain it for any significant lengths of time.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
google chrome os update
The Google Chrome OS update
(here's another article with simple overview of what the Google Chrome OS will be about, so far. http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/kit-eaton/technomix/google-drops-bomb-its-own-operating-system)
There's no real new news on the state of the Google Chrome os (from here on referred to as the chrome os). But glossing over the last night's post on the chrome os told me that I didn't really write anything that contains useful information as well, so here's an update (don't blame me, I really needed to go to sleep).
The chrome os will apparently be running on top of (albeit heavily modified) linux kernel. I can only begin to envy the guys who are working on this stuff as part of their paying job... For now from whatever the scant information I can gather on the architecture of the future os points to the Chrome browser acting as a sort of front-end for the minimalistic operating system, though Google's description of that arrangement was more like running an operating system inside a browser, not the other way around.
We should do well to remember that the Chrome browser is a different beast from most other browsers on the market out there with such elaborate processes like... Well, process separation for all the individual tabs within a session, with very likely support for multi-core processor rendering in the near future (an interesting tidbit: apparently someone in FireFox community suggested building separate processes mechanism into the FF browser way before the Chrome ever came out. He/she was more or less ignored of course. And as they say, the rest is history). I guess they are thinking of making every event within the os happen within the browser with each tab of the browser working as separate applications within the os? I can certainly visualize the idea in my head, but I don't know how to make it run well in practice... But then I'm not an operating systems engineer at Google.
The emphasis of the chrome os will be on four things. Simplicity, agility, security, and cloud. The first three seem to be the golden standard for operating systems these days. And they should be. People had been domesticated for overly large clunky operating systems that gets two times slower every year for a while now. And it's not even because of new functions. It's because of the legacy codes. The official Google blog post on the chrome os puts it best as 'not wanting to wait for the operating system to come up so they can use the browser.' Well in my case it's not just the browser, but I certainly sympathize. I have work to do, things to read and write. And I need to sit in front of my computer staring at a logon-splash-loading screen cycle every single day, and then wait for the operating system to calm itself down after the os finishes loading. After all that ritual is over I can finally begin to get some work done, though sometimes I need to wait for the antivirus/firewall program to stop acting up as well if I want a quiet, stutter free computing experience. Sure, the whole thing I just described takes about half to a full minute, and then another minute for operating system stabilization on most modern laptops. At most it takes about two minutes on a bad day, and less than a minute on a good day. Yet, most people don't have 'modern laptops.' Any operating system that performs 'ok' on moder hardware will probably slow any older hardware to a crawl. Since most people these days use their computer at least once every day they get used to such slowdown to the point that they don't even notice something's wrong with it. Only after running into a newer hardware or a different version of operating system do they realize how painfully slow their own systems are (which might have been one of the many factors that contributed to Apple's rise to stardom in the os arena).
Google is stating that they will get rid of the useless middleman, or at least squash him into size of an invisible midget, with the new chrome os. They are promising instant-on functionality with smaller memory footprint and processor usage. They are promising a fully pledged operating system fit for a netbook. Granted, there are a lot of smaller linux flavors out there that measures in the megabytes with full GUI and applications suite, but Google is also promising the Google level of engineering, architectural innovation, and technical support. From what I read, they are shooting for an os that takes 'only a few seconds' from booting to getting work done, which would be unprecedented even among smaller linux distributions out there. The whole of the operating system will run in web browser with no need for things like desktops and docks. All the applications for the os will run within the browser windows (with, as stated before, each of the browser window being separate sessions) and those applications can range from wordprocessor, movie player, and mmorpgs, to a whole sale emulation of another operating system running off the cloud without requiring too much processing power from the client side computer. For someone who lives with the net all day such an os is a dream come true, especially when one of the primary ethos of the os is being secure and lightweight.
Yet the cloud technology (writing about it makes me feel like I'm talking about the luminous ether) which is being considered as the enabler of the philosophy behind the google os might prove to be one of its biggest weaknesses... Or rather, I'm fine with it being a weakness of the os, but there are some people out there who fear that the cloud computing would actually do harm to the computing culture in general. Like Richard Stallman, and Cory Doctorow (to certain extent), both huge proponents of the liberal software movement most people refer to as opensource. I do think they hace a point there. Exclusively cloud based computing culture is not longer a technological movement, it's a consumer movement. As computer technology becomes more and more pervasive in human society (think MIT's oxygen project) they can't help but to become consumer oriented, ruled by the laws of economy rather than creativity... Unlike some other radical proponents of the freemarket (who views the principles as some sort of universal panacea) I view the possibility of consumer oriented computing culture as something with significant potential for harm, especially when it gives the tools for separating the consumers from their own machines to larger scale corporations capable of building and maintaining large scale server complexes required to support cloud computing on any significant level. Of course, the cloud computing scenario isn't all doom and gloom and portents of doom. It's fully possible that the server technology of the post cloud future would advance to such a point that any interested individual can run a 'cloud computing service' out of his or her garage, a private property where he can dictate his own terms.
One thing chrome os can do to, or rather, must do to remedy such possible weakness of cloud based operating system would be including a development/scripting environment with the os. Since the chrome os is based in large part on the chrome web browser I'm guessing the browser+address bar interface can provide some type of shell access to the user. The command line-shell application can run in the browser windows itself when called through the address bar. I don't know about compiled languages but it should be relatively simple for the os to provide a scripting language support like python/ruby and lua... Android OS's recent inclusion of scripting environment that supports lua and python certainly is a good sign of things to come, even though both operating systems are said to be different from each other... The important thing for the chrome os would be to have great support and tools for letting users develop their own applications within the chrome os, instead of making them rely on other systems/pay-to-purchase tools/high end hardware dedicated to software development.
The chrome os isn't set for release until the second half of 2010 on netbook platforms, although the official platformless release will come much before that. I'm guessing it's a move to optimize the os before it gets released to the wider audience. Surely we'll get to catch more glimpses of the os in development or perhaps in action soon.
I'm sick and tired of oses that fail me all the time. I just can't wait for the chrome os to be released and bring something unique to the dull and constricted os marketplace.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Google Chrome OS
It's almost two in the morning now in the city. I was just about to wrap up my writing session with Mathematica/LaTeX when strange news of a new operating system came flooding in through the internet. The RSS reader registered a mention of Google Chrome OS from ArsTechnica while I received links to an article on NYTimes on the possibility of Google OS, and then the flood gates opened on friendfeed and twitter. Apparently the Google OS is something people had been secretly fantasizing about all these years, since it's currently trending at the top of twitter trend list recently occupied by MJ's death. Yes, MJ fans. A news of a computer operating system that's not set to be released for another whole year just beat out MJ's death news on twitter. Read it and weep (no disrespect to MJ, but it's about time though).
There aren't any detailed news coming out of the Google regarding the OS at the moment. I'm risking disturbing my sleeping routine on a workday (yet again) to find more news about it, being an OS junkie I am (not good with computers, I just like Operating Systems for some odd reason). Yet no new news beyond the single blog post on the official Google blog and some smatterings of articles on the web, most of which point back to the official Google blog post.
I don't know what to say. I'm probably one of the few zillion people who've been waiting for Google to get to work on some kind of major operating system for a while now. I'm something of a hobbyist of the Android platform already, and my primary web browser was set to Google Chrome right until Firefox released 3.5 and one of my favorite otaku web celebrity went some lengths to support it. I'm seriously considering switching back to Chrome now, since all my bookmarks are on delicious now I don't have to worry about switching browsers anymore. It's all available from the web through the horrible alchemy of cloud computing.
I am somewhat skeptical on the whole Google OS issue though. While I love the idea, and I certainly will install it on a new pc (will need to hunt down some old boxes I don't use anymore... Sadly I can't really experiment on my work laptop), pushing out a whole new operating system is kind of a big deal. And this OS is supposed to be based on Chrome, the web browser. Last OS to attempt something with such bravado was Windows OS (the whole of the operating system runs on i.explorer shell) and they really got burned for it. Although I must say it would have turned out a bit differently if the web browser Microsoft used as their operating system shell wasn't such a clunky mess... So would it mean that Google Chrome OS would stand a chance of becoming a classic operating system like the hollowed OS X and WinXP (I know, I know, but lasting for a decade as the defacto operating system of choice for the world needs something more than marketing savvy)? The Chrome web browser is certainly leagues better than what Internet Explorer was/is afterall.
There's one more thing I'm worried about in particular though. The Chrome web browser is something of a resource hog, though not nearly in same level as I.E. Chrome, perhaps due to some of its advanced features, can't run on older operating systems wherein modern Opera browser for example have no problem running on Win98. Also I do remember some people complaining about the responsiveness of the browser under anemic/archaic hardware settings. I still remember the day I found out that 5-tab strong Chrome session will slow my then-3 months old Thinkpad if I left it open and running overnight due to some issue in memory/processor management. The most recent update to the Chrome fixed most if not all of such conspicuous issues but I still have my doubts. This is especially alarming since the first iterations of the Google Chrome OS will be coming out for netbooks, which tend to have even weaker hardware than laptops, which falls behind desktops.
There's also the danger of how viable future market for netbooks might turn out to be. It's always possible that people decide they want cheap larger laptops afterall (which is probably the reason why some of the bigger companies still don't have a decent netbook line-up of their own. I'm looking at you, Sony. The jokes you put out on the marketplace shouldn't even be considered netbooks, though you do make some good laptops).
And of course, as with the Google Chrome/Chromium web browsers the whole operating system will be open source, I'm guessing in similar style as linux or BSDs. Which in itself should be enough to make people drool over themselves... Now that I think about it, my current netbook Asus 701 4G (the first commercial netbook that ever came out in the U.S.!) is about due for an upgrade. Maybe I should hold out for an year and get my hands on the first production units of the Google Chrome OS netbooks!
I eagerly await for our future Google overlords.
There aren't any detailed news coming out of the Google regarding the OS at the moment. I'm risking disturbing my sleeping routine on a workday (yet again) to find more news about it, being an OS junkie I am (not good with computers, I just like Operating Systems for some odd reason). Yet no new news beyond the single blog post on the official Google blog and some smatterings of articles on the web, most of which point back to the official Google blog post.
I don't know what to say. I'm probably one of the few zillion people who've been waiting for Google to get to work on some kind of major operating system for a while now. I'm something of a hobbyist of the Android platform already, and my primary web browser was set to Google Chrome right until Firefox released 3.5 and one of my favorite otaku web celebrity went some lengths to support it. I'm seriously considering switching back to Chrome now, since all my bookmarks are on delicious now I don't have to worry about switching browsers anymore. It's all available from the web through the horrible alchemy of cloud computing.
I am somewhat skeptical on the whole Google OS issue though. While I love the idea, and I certainly will install it on a new pc (will need to hunt down some old boxes I don't use anymore... Sadly I can't really experiment on my work laptop), pushing out a whole new operating system is kind of a big deal. And this OS is supposed to be based on Chrome, the web browser. Last OS to attempt something with such bravado was Windows OS (the whole of the operating system runs on i.explorer shell) and they really got burned for it. Although I must say it would have turned out a bit differently if the web browser Microsoft used as their operating system shell wasn't such a clunky mess... So would it mean that Google Chrome OS would stand a chance of becoming a classic operating system like the hollowed OS X and WinXP (I know, I know, but lasting for a decade as the defacto operating system of choice for the world needs something more than marketing savvy)? The Chrome web browser is certainly leagues better than what Internet Explorer was/is afterall.
There's one more thing I'm worried about in particular though. The Chrome web browser is something of a resource hog, though not nearly in same level as I.E. Chrome, perhaps due to some of its advanced features, can't run on older operating systems wherein modern Opera browser for example have no problem running on Win98. Also I do remember some people complaining about the responsiveness of the browser under anemic/archaic hardware settings. I still remember the day I found out that 5-tab strong Chrome session will slow my then-3 months old Thinkpad if I left it open and running overnight due to some issue in memory/processor management. The most recent update to the Chrome fixed most if not all of such conspicuous issues but I still have my doubts. This is especially alarming since the first iterations of the Google Chrome OS will be coming out for netbooks, which tend to have even weaker hardware than laptops, which falls behind desktops.
There's also the danger of how viable future market for netbooks might turn out to be. It's always possible that people decide they want cheap larger laptops afterall (which is probably the reason why some of the bigger companies still don't have a decent netbook line-up of their own. I'm looking at you, Sony. The jokes you put out on the marketplace shouldn't even be considered netbooks, though you do make some good laptops).
And of course, as with the Google Chrome/Chromium web browsers the whole operating system will be open source, I'm guessing in similar style as linux or BSDs. Which in itself should be enough to make people drool over themselves... Now that I think about it, my current netbook Asus 701 4G (the first commercial netbook that ever came out in the U.S.!) is about due for an upgrade. Maybe I should hold out for an year and get my hands on the first production units of the Google Chrome OS netbooks!
I eagerly await for our future Google overlords.
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