baz.com - Brett Thomas' Blog

Awesome!

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 14:19:01 -0800

I find it hard to imagine something more awesome than firing mortars on The Moon. Which the astronauts of Apollo 16 did!

Am I Missing Something?

Thu, 03 Jun 2010 04:48:10 -0800

I've read a lot of libertarian commentary (e.g., Agoraphilia) complaining that the recent Supreme Court decision in Berghuis, Warden v. Thompkins guts the Miranda warning. "[S]ilence will not suffice", that source notes. I've read many others who harp on this point - you now have to say you're remaining silent, which isn't...actually remaining silent.

But, if you read the facts in this case, the police asked the defendant questions, which he did not answer. He literally remained silent. They did this for three hours, and, at some point, he did answer one question. He failed to remain silent. Seems to me that, yeah, his testimony should be allowed. The alternative would be a rule that says "if you are simply silent for three (five? nine?) questions, the police have to stop asking questions."

I think we require our citizens to know way too much about procedures, and what's allowed (c.f., current Fourth Amendment "reasonable person" standards around seizure). But, it doesn't seem ridiculous to me that, if the police say "you have a right to remain silent" - and then you answer their questions, anyway - it's implicit that you're waiving your right. What am I missing, here?

The NRA

Wed, 12 May 2010 17:29:29 -0800

Jim Lindgren - who was instrumental in unmasking Dr. Michael Bellesiles' academic fraud in Arming America - is now outraged that Dr. Bellesiles' new publisher is giving credit for his work to the National Rifle Association:

The idea that the NRA had anything substantial to do with the Bellesiles case is utter nonsense.

This is a common complaint by those in the gun rights community that don't work for the NRA: Whenever we succeed at something, our anti-gun opponents credit the NRA! Alan Gura is detested by antigunners as an NRA shill even as he is being actively obstructed by the same.

This is caused by two basic problems. The first is that the NRA is generally quite happy to take credit (after the fact) for work others have done. I was at the annual convention in Phoenix in 2009, and I believe they actively encouraged their members to believe that they had something to do with Heller v. District of Columbia - something more positive than oppose it at every turn before filing a last minute amicus brief.

The second is, in fact, that when people who aren't pro-2nd-amendment say "the NRA" what they mean is "organized groups in favor of the right to own and bear arms." They mean the mirror image of what gun-rights folks do when they talk about "antigunners" or even "The Brady Campaign" - the organized opposition. I don't believe this is actually conscious demonization on their part - we're just a jumble of organized groups "on the other side". The Second Amendment Foundation, The CalGuns Foundation, The Cato Institute, even the CRPA (I'm running for the board, by the by) - our internal factions don't matter to those who don't know. In their minds, we're all "the NRA".

It's tempting to be annoyed by this - but, at the end of the day, I'd rather have civil rights than credit, myself.

The New York Times Review of On The Origin of Species from 1860

Tue, 11 May 2010 18:11:27 -0800

The author admits being impressed by Darwin's ideas. However, he "frankly declare[s], that, after the most deliberate consideration...we remain unconvinced." He concludes:

In that future, to which [Darwin] looks forward, he will not, we apprehend, be regarded as having drawn the cosmic circle of life...

History is written by the winners, after all.

Now, In The Second Ring: Neandertals!

Sun, 09 May 2010 18:12:25 -0800

I've just completed The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution by Richard Dawkins. To a hardcore Darwinist (such as your humble author), there isn't much new in this book. Indeed, especially to one who's spent time debating Creationists, this is largely a retelling of the same old responses that have been made to the same old arguments.

In the end, of course, that's the flaw with a book of this sort - the Creationists won't read it, and if they do, they won't be convinced by it. In my experience, most active Creationists come from a position of gnosis - direct knowledge of the divine. When you know God did it, the evidence to the contrary is largely irrelevant, which is why the arguments on talk.orgins are almost word-for-word the same as they were a decade ago.

The strongest parts of the book are where Dawkins (often "euphorically", as he says himself) describes some of the specific research being done that continues to validate evolution by natural selection as the primary architect of the design of life on this planet. He unfortunately continues his trend of making up new names for things ("theorum" to refer to a proven hypothesis). Perhaps I should be more tolerant, given that "meme" was a useful contribution to the...er...memetic environment.

Coincidentally, on the same day, I found Professor John Hawks' thoughts on the fact that most of us are at least a little bit Neandertal. He begins by noting, "I, for one, welcome my Neandertal ancestry." For anyone not aware, recent sequencing of the Neandertal genome has allowed direct comparison with the modern human genome, allowing us to see for the first time, definitively, if there are genes we share with Neandertals that we didn't both inherit from a previous common ancestor. The result is that modern humans not from Africa received between 1% and %5 of their genes from Neandertal ancestors. It's impossible not to note that the racists of a century ago surely considered the "subhumans" in Africa to be closely related to the "unevolved", brutish Neanderthals; the reality is that they're the least related of all of us!

The journey the Neandertals have made in scientific thinking is an amazing one, and this is the final step in their rightful ascension to the full respect given to a human ancestor. Early in paleoanthropology, it was assumed they were the shorter, stronger, stupider, more brutish cousins we'd rightly displaced as the "acme of evolution". As evidence mounted of their tool use, and more recently of their pigment use, within the academy (if not popular culture), they began the long road to rehabilitation. Finally, now, they are no longer the brutish fools outcompeted by their intelligent, beautiful rivals (us): They are us.

The scientific symmetry here is amazing, as well - it's been known for some years that about 5% of the DNA of modern humans not from Africa are not found amongst African humans - and - is older than modern humans as a species. In other words, Europeans have gene sequences that are both older than their parent Africans, and yet aren't shared by them! Previously the best explanation was that, for some reason, these genes had gone extinct in Africa, but survived in Europe. Now, the obvious logical conclusion is that these genes came from Neandertals - who left Africa several hundred thousand years before modern humans appeared. The numbers even line up nicely!

Imagine being a paleoanthropologist, discovering Neandertal bones, and fires, and tools, say a hundred years ago, or even fifty. You have a clearly separate group of people - the skulls are a little different, and the toolkit is clearly different, and the culture is clearly different - that are in Europe, alone. Then, between 30,000 and 25,000 years ago - the culture, and the unique skulls - just vanish, supplanted by modern humans. It doesn't seem an unreasonable conclusion that all these people died. The story we've all heard is one of shrinking Neandertal populations, outcompeted by their smarter, better-tool-using cousins. The pitiful vision of the Neandertal village, slowly starving to death as smooth, hairless modern humans moved in and started capturing all the food sources.

This now suggests a different reality - a smaller Neandertal population taken over and absorbed into a more modern human culture. Sure, "cultural genocide" by modern standards, but a lot more like what happened to the Native Americans (hopefully even without the massive disease deaths) than what happened to the Dodo.

For many years there has been some question of how to classify Neandertals as a species. Are they Homo neanderthalensis, as first described? Or are we and they a subspecies - Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, respectively? This would seem to end that debate. It may open a new one, though - if we're 5% Neandertal, aren't all of us, modern man, Neandertals, everyone, just one big happy family of Homo sapiens?

California Responds to Our Lawsuit

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:26:50 -0800

As expected, California responded to our lawsuit, Peña v. Cid (in which I am a plaintiff) with a motion for dismissal.

Amusingly, in their response, they make a point of summarizing the arguments for each of my three co-plaintiffs. For example:

...Vargas wants to buy a "Glock 21 SF with an ambidextrous magazine release" from a willing seller, but that he cannot because the handgun is not on the roster. (Am. Compl. ¶ 39.) It alleges that the "Glock 21 SF-STD is listed on the California Handgun Roster," but that the Glock 21-SF with an ambidextrous magazine release "is better suitable" for left-handed shooters like Mr. Vargas, who "was born without an arm below the right elbow."

In each case for the other plaintiffs, at least a paragraph is given, explaining what handguns they wish to purchase, and why those handguns' unavailability is unreasonable.

Me? I get one sentence: "Finally, Thomas wishes to purchase a 'High Standard Buntline style revolver' but cannot because it is not on the roster."

Of course, the handgun I wish to purchase is precisely the one the Supreme Court said Dick Heller had a right to purchase in Heller v. DC. Surely, their omission of this explanation for why I should be allowed to purchase it was merely an oversight.

Mango Avocado Salsa

Sun, 10 May 2009 17:00:56 -0800

Made it up myself, mostly, though it was inspired by a dish from Mistral.

2 Ripe Mangoes (or papayas)
2 Ripe Avocados
2 Ripe Tomatoes
2 Limes
7 Cloves of Garlic
1 Tsp of salt
2 Tbsp of Olive Oil

Mince (or press the garlic). Juice the limes. Dice everything else. Toss it all together. The lime juice will keep the avocado from turning brown if you cover it, so you can store it covered in the fridge at least a day. Maybe more; it's never lasted long enough for me to find out.

Goes great with grilled light-fleshed fish (we're particularly fond of Ono grilled over mesquite with this). Or probably great with anything else, and I know I started out making half this much, but whatever's left over I think gets eaten with a spoon.

If you're partial to cilantro, onions or jalepeños, any (or all) of these would be great in it. Every so often, someone opines there's a little too much garlic, but I ignore that advice under my general policy that there's "no such thing as too much garlic."

UPDATE: I tried to make this and noticed I'd forgotten the olive oil from the recipe, which is important. Fixed!

Kidly Conversations

Sat, 18 Apr 2009 21:33:45 -0800

Derek, examining the cookbook 365 One-Dish Meals: "But, some years have 366 days. Then you have to order pizza."

Our dinner conversations often track across history, or science, or engineering, or all kinds of other interesting topics. I'd been telling the kids about Liberty Ships, and giving a description of the engine room I'd received from a friend who is very much into naval history.

Dad: "They had this massive one-cylinder engine for the whole ship."

This is not actually correct - it was me misremembering my friend talking about how big just one of the pistons was. The engine was also steam-powered, thus rendering a lot of the following conversation irrelevant as to Liberty Ships.

Blake, 9: "Was it two-stroke?" Dad: "Could've been four-stroke."
Blake: "Maybe it had a flywheel."

I tried again to explain to him that they had been designed to be very simple, and that they probably wouldn't have built an engine that required a flywheel. His return implied that it must have, then, been two-stroke, and after switching from thinking about Liberty Ships to thinking about engines, I got his point.

Dad: "Oh! You're saying it couldn't be a four-stroke engine, since you'd need a second cylinder to run the non-firing part of the cycle."
Blake, patiently: "...Or, a second-cylinder analogue. Like a flywheel."

This, it turns out, is not strictly true - the Wright Brothers' first airplane had a four-stroke, one-cylinder engine (in fact, a lightweight, powerful engine was one of their key developments). I was so pleased with the phrase "a second-cylinder analogue" being casually tossed about, though, I had to write about it. In some sense, the engine itself could be considered a "flywheel analogue" in that design, in that it stores the momentum from the firing cycle and uses it to push the piston through the other three cycles.

The Mighty Huntress

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 22:13:32 -0800

Betsy sometimes says that, of all the animals she's brought into our lives, the one I've bonded with most is a fish. Buttercup is an electric yellow cichlid. While this isn't a picture of her, it looks an awful lot like her:

While aimlessly pointing an infrared heat sensor gun (with helpful laser sight!) around a few months ago, I discovered that Buttercup will, just like a cat, chase a laser pointer. This cemented our relationship - I'll often sit in the kitchen, working on my laptop, and she's just behind me. I figured out about eighteen months ago that she could see me, and was aware of me. If I touched her tank, she'd initially retreat, then come investigate my finger. I've wondered if she were hunting the laser dot, or chasing it - cichilds are very territorial, which is why Betsy gave her a tank to herself.

I did a little touch-up exterior painting, today. Part of that included painting the part of the back door frame I'd replaced years ago and never gotten around to coloring. Deciding that the door sticking closed would be bad, I wedged it in a half-open position for most of the afternoon. In that interim, a very large housefly got in.

This evening, after everyone else had gone to bed, the fly was buzzing up along the kitchen ceiling, noticeably loud and annoying. About fifteen minutes later, I heard odd noises coming from Buttercup's tank. I looked over to see her lunging at bubbles on the surface. "Poor fish!" I thought. "She's so bored she's pretending there's food floating on the water!"

Almost as soon as I started paying attention, she swam back down, with a fly in her mouth practically as big as she was! Seems likely she's hunting the laser dot...

RSS Paragraph Breaks

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 02:52:09 -0800

Being not generally narcissistic enough to subscribe to my own newsfeed, I was unaware until I tried to connect my RSS feed to my Facebook account - because I am narcissistic enough to want all my friends to read my writings - that paragraph breaks weren't coming through in RSS.

I believe I have fixed that, now, and this post is intended as proof of that.

Still Human

Sun, 15 Mar 2009 01:49:12 -0800

Documntarian Rob Spence wants a camera where his mother put an eye. Aimee Mullins' parents weren't able to provide her legs - or, in any event, not all of them - and, as a result, she has more square inches of leg than just about anyone else. Alex Tabarrok - who, as far as I know, still has both the eyes and legs he came with - thinks that Aimee's talk at TED is "notable in so clearly marking the point at which post-humanity has begun".

Unless we place the "post-human" point so that its mile-marker is already distant in our rear view, it is one we have not yet passed. Many of the legs Aimee proudly displays (such as the beautiful hand-carved ash set) would certainly have been possible in an earlier time. Perhaps the society that would allow her to display them is a bit newer. The true "post-human" age, however, will not arise until people begin maiming themselves on purpose to have faster legs, or cameras in their eyes - and until such actions are seen as normal.

Mr. Spence's eye will have to not just record his vision, but send it to his brain, and more, before many will choose to replace their peepers. It seems likely, that some - filmmakers, like he, perhaps - will desire this sort of change before the rest of us. Even before the technology improves, that much. Speculation on this topic hit the mainstream when Oscar Pistorius was allowed to tryout for the Olympics in 2008. Should prosthetic-legged sprinters be allowed to compete with naturally-shanked ones, the former will begin to win, and a non-zero number of the victory-at-any-cost latter will become interested in trading up.

Medical ethics - still saddled with "First, do no harm" - is unlikely to adapt to these desires, quickly. The first brave pioneers of these technologies may actually have to injure themselves in order to get surgeons to repair (and improve) them. Putting one's eye out is an unpleasant business, though possible enough to do "accidentally" - and without further accident. Self-double amputation will be more ill-starred.

These ethical concerns will obviously not stop the truly motivated (or insane) from improving their bodies, as technology eventually begins to beat evolution in feature-set. Some people already feel that truly nothing would be better than the limbs they have, now. Applying Moore's Law to the human body (and mind) will be a long-term good. The ethical tangle between here and there will be nearly as impressive as the technology we'll create. More impressive still is how quickly we'll be caught in it.

Pizzablogging

Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:53:05 -0800

When we went up to Bear Valley a few weeks ago, I decided to do some cooking other than what I usually do. Most of my cooking is limited to stir frying (though I like to think I have a fair range on that) and grilling. I dabble in things like Mac & Cheese - once a year at Christmas - and spaghetti sauce, but mostly if I cook it, it's in the wok or on the grill. I took one cookbook - The New Best Recipe, which Betsy refers to - not without justification - as The New Most Complicated Recipe. One of the things I was interested in trying was making my own pizza, dough and sauce included. I was a little worried by my lack of a pizza stone (a heavy, generally ceramic "stone" used to hold heat and cook a pizza, quickly), and the fact that pizza dough is a yeast-risen recipe, and I was making it at 7,000 feet for the first time. Making the dough - the first time I've ever made any yeast-leavened dough - was very simple. The recipe provided didn't have any sugar, just flour, yeast, salt, water and olive oil. Completely winging it, I took a pizza pan and decided to pre-bake the crust a bit before I put the toppings on it, so the oven heat would have time to cook the crust first. I then pulled out the crust after six minutes (the cookbook recommended 6-12 to cook the whole pizza with a stone), topped it, and put it back in the oven. I was a bit nervous when the cheese melted and started to bubble, but the crust was still flour-white after six minutes. However, finally, after another six or so, for a total cooking time of about 18 minutes, the crust browned a little, and I pulled it out. The result was crispy and chewy, and very popular. When we got back, I started researching how the whole "pizza stone" thing worked. You need a stone (obviously), and a pizza peel. The stones are generally available for tens of dollars at cooking supply stores, and the pizza peels have similar prices. My first thought was that the peel was simply wood - and I had a shop full of that, so I resolved to make my own. I then further read that it is possible to purchase an unglazed paving stone at Home Depot for $.99 (I found one for $.97, on sale). Saturday, I cleaned out the shop and made the pizza peel. I made it with the last birch scraps from Blake's table - my first woodworking project. As soon as I cut into it, the smell of the sawdust really took me back. I also used as a template for the curve on the leading edge the template I used for Derek's bed. The peel itself was pretty straightforward to make, and I chose a handle length I liked (longish) to make getting it out of the oven easier. Sunday was pizza night, and all the work finally came to fruition. I heated the stone (getting to 550 took a little more than an hour) and stretched out the dough. Cornmeal scattered on the pizza peel, I topped it with sauce, cheese, and pepperoni: ...and, onto the stone it went: I was astonished at how quickly it cooked compared to my experience in Bear Valley. Six minutes later, the crust was brown and the toppings done: Using the pizza peel to take the pizza off the stone took a little learning - you need to get the peel about half under the pizza, pick it up, bring it out, and slide the pizza onto the peel. I was very happy with the result. If you're not making your own peel every time, the dough and sauce are easy to make. Pizza is a mature technology - I'm sure any recipe you find for sauce and dough are a reasonable jumping-off point.

De gustibus non est disputandum

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:29:33 -0800

In an otherwise unremarkable review of three mysteries, Ron Rosenbaum notes that, while he loved David Foster Wallace's "cruise ship tour de force," [sic, I note, self-righteously] he was "infinitely" dissappointed in Infinite Jest. We share in common a great love of Wallace's nonfiction. Everything and More was an excellent book, marrying great literature, math, and history into a unique work. I read it on a foggy weekend-away vacation while the inlaws watched the kids and my wife and I hung out in a hotel in Half Moon Bay, and I remember both the vacation and book as being extremely pleasant. Infinite Jest was the first item of his I read, and it was a great joy to me to go back and read his nonfiction, after, and see him develop his voice. Perhaps, also, I have a personal connection with the novel - my late step brother was a near-tennis pro who got so involved in drugs and alcohol that they ended his life. It was hard not to see family and friends (and myself) in many of the characters, and the unfolding of the story was masterful. Wallace had as throw-away side plots devices that most authors would base a whole novel on, and Infinite Jest has to rank for me as one of the most satisfying, frustrating, funniest and unpredictable books I've ever read. His essays, in general, I found to be slightly less than his final (I presume) novel. While they were enjoyable, I think they had a certain easy elitism to them. "Ticket to the Fair," in which he attends the Illinois State Fair, is funny, but has many cheap laughs at the expense of uncultured flyover-state denizens. Far and away the worst example of these, though, is "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again," the aforementioned tour de force about taking a cruise. In this, a boorish Wallace takes a cruise on the Zenith. He decides beforehand to take no companions, eschews shore leave, and packs a tuxedo t-shirt for formal night. Surprisingly, he finds cruises to boring. I am of course, obligated to note that I'm not much for cruises themselves, either. My wife and I took one to Alaska some years ago, and we had a lot of fun - but mostly by avoiding the cruise ship itself as much as possible, and spending the time we were aboard reading and watching Alaskan scenery pass by our cabin's balcony. Making fun of cruise ships as being uncultured is like...well, making fun of state fairs. Anyone can do it. I suppose I can understand complaining that Infinite Jest is full of "derivative, post-Pynchon, oh-so-tiring tricks." I just can't understand the same pen celebrating an essay that rechristens the Zenith the sophomorically obvious Nadir.

Comet Lulin

Fri, 27 Feb 2009 22:23:08 -0800

As I was getting ready for bed, tonight, I thought to stick my head outside and see if it was clear. To my surprise, it was! I knew Comet Lulin (C/2007 N3) was naked-eye visible, if you lived in a dark place, and near Saturn, so easy to find. I looked up its location, and discovered it was practically in conjunction with Regulus, the brightest star in Leo, the lion. Combined with the close proximity to Saturn, it was very easy to find the place to look, so I grabbed my binoculars. Even in my light-polluted skies, it was easy to see the smudge. I then decided to break out the 100 mm refracting telescope, which, between various minor physical ailments and the cloudy Bay Area winter skies, I hadn't done in a long time. I decided at first to simply run it manually, but it was very difficult to get a good fix on it - the way the 'scope wanted to point, it was hard to lock it and look at the target at the same time. I broke down and pulled out the battery for the telescope, got it roughly polar-aligned, and skewed it over to the location. Finally! I was able to get a very good view of the coma through a 12.5 mm eyepiece. I now understand very clearly why Messier felt compelled to make his list of "comet-like" objects so he'd not keep mistaking them for what he was hunting. I was just vacillating between trying to take some pictures of it, and getting Derek out of bed. I know he's always wanted to see a comet. But, the perfectly clear skies suddenly filled with clouds from the west - in five minutes, it went from clear to unviewable. Hopefully, we'll have some clear skies tomorrow, early, before too far after Derek's bedtime. It's a tough balance - every night, the comet rises in the sky, but gets further from the sun (and becomes dimmer).

"It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts."

Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:57:11 -0800

I (rather randomly) began rereading The Complete Sherlock Holmes for the first time since I was about 14. I'd say the thing that surprises me most is that someone who was so elegantly able to describe the scientific method was such a nitwit when it came to actual science. Obviously, I'd known the latter, but I'd forgotten the former.