You can handle four variables at a time

How much can your mind keep track of?

Another limit to human cognition:

Halford et al concluded from these results that people -- academics accustomed to interpreting the type of data used in the experiment problems -- cannot process more than four variables at a time. Recognizing these human limitations can make a difference when designing high-stress work environments--such as air-traffic control centers--where employees must keep in mind several variables all at once.

This seems to be a "hard limit", if true then I'd guess that the cognitive burden grows exponentially with the number of items tracked. In that case five items might be vastly harder to track than four.

It's interesting to think how this might limit our ability to manage certain types of problems.

Your guilt, my guilt

Crooked Timber � � Torture and culpability

Well, maybe if you really, really worked for Kerry then you could let yourself off the hook a bit. If you didn't, however, you're guilty too.

There seems to be some discomfort among a couple of commenters (and perhaps in the blogosphere more generally) with the argument that the US is itself culpable for torture when it hands prisoners over to a regime that the US State Department and the UN describe as a “systematic” torturer. A historic analogy might help clarify matters. On June 21, 1964, three civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were arrested by the police in Nashoba County, Mississippi. They were then released by the police at night, on the side of a rural road, where they were picked up by the Ku Klux Klan and then murdered...

It's a good and obvious analogy. America, we are guilty. And yes, we hard fought Kerry supporters are less guilty than those who voted for George.

Backpack: a web-based PIM and collaboration tool

Boing Boing: Backpack: a web-based personal info manager worth trying

Normally I wouldn't look at these things, but Cory's description is enticing sadly misleading:

Backpack is 37Signals's latest project -- a Web-based personal information manager that makes it easy to create projects, break them down into steps, and then track each step. Because it's Web-based, it's well suited to communicating and collaborating with other people, sharing tasks and status-messages, The whole thing syndicates as XML, streaming updates into your RSS reader or to your phone. It synchs with iCal and thence to your handheld PIM.

The iCal sync is key, since it means one could keep a local copy.d

Update: Uh-oh, Cory was a bit hasty. It does syndicate changes, but it doesn't sync with iCal. It publishes using the iCalendar standard, which is compatible with iCal (Mac) and Netscape Calendar. That's quite a bit different from synchronization.

Quartz Composer: an OS X Tiger surprise

QuartzComps

Tiger comes with more than a few suprises.

QuartzComps.com is a weblog and file archive devoted to the vast possibilities of creating media using Apple’s new Quartz Composer application which shipped as part of the developer tools of Mac OS 10.4 (Tiger). For more information about the application, check out.

Spotlight: life without folders

Apple - Mac OS X - Tips - Spotlight

I eliminated all folders in Outlook when I implemented Lookout. When I go to Tiger I'll be using folders quite differently, probably as a way to conveniently group like items on a loose ad hoc basis and to provide some wrapper metadata for enclosed objects.

It will be good to forget folders.

I vote bogus: Ugly Children May Get Parental Short Shrift

The New York Times > Health > Ugly Children May Get Parental Short Shrift

I vote "bogus" on this one. It would be extremely hard to control for confounders like number of children, wealth (correlates with looks), IQ (somewhat correlates with attractiveness, but not strongly), genetic behavioral disorders including ADHD & autism (associated with dysmorphic features in some cases), etc.

I can imagine bias based on multiple attributes, particularly when children have high survival value for parents and/or family, but this is too crude to be a likely candidate. Variable seatbelt use based on attractiveness? Nahh -- that's a wealth/education confounder at work.

Trashy, but nice flair for the headlines. Got your attention, didn't it?

Apple's Tiger Slays Microsoft's Grazing Longhorn, Leaving Bloody Entrails Strewn All Over OS Marketplace

Extra! Extra! Tiger Headlines Roar! (kottke.org)

I'm just imitating Brad DeLong here, but I think the original deserves the cite.

Surviving an attack to come -- the local nuke

U.S. Called Unprepared For Nuclear Terrorism

I loved the example from the government's site: if a nuclear weapon is detonating a block away, go around the corner. Well, I guess that advice can't hurt; it won't make anyone more dead than they would be if they just stood still and waved. Perhaps it was meant to be advice for a truck bomb surrounded by radioactive material?

The advice on what to when you are (most unfortunately) downwind of a somewhat distant mushroom cloud was more interesting. Determine wind direction and run (carrying the children?) somewhere between perpendicular to the wind and downwind. I suspect the best choice might depend on what direction was easiest to travel in. The presumption is one will be afoot since roads will be blocked by crashed vehicles. A bicycle might help, but it might also expose one to opportunistic assault. Going underground is not considered particularly helpful.

I can see why the Feds prefer not to deal with public education in this domain. To admit such things are thinkable is to open a discussion that the Bush administration prefers to avoid.

iMac G5 update: now this is nice

Apple - iMac G5 - Technical Specifications

Apple recently updated the PowerMacs. It was a dull update. Not so for the update to the G5 iMac. Much better Graphics processing (full Tiger support), bigger drives, Bluetooth standard, GB ethernet, 512MB standard (at last), 802.11G built in and a software bundle that includes Mac Classic:

iLife ’05 (includes iTunes, iPhoto, iMovie HD, iDVD, GarageBand), Mail, Dashboard, Spotlight, iChat, Safari, Sherlock, QuickTime, iSync, iCal, DVD Player, Address Book, AppleWorks, iWork (30-day trial), Classic environment, Quicken 2005 for Macintosh, 2005 World Book Multimedia Reference Suite, Nanosaur 2, Marble Blast Gold, Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac Test Drive, Zinio Reader, XCode Developer Tools and Apple Hardware Test

At list price for the top-line 20" machine with two (paired?) 512MB SIMMS - $1924.00. Not bad at all for all of this.

If this machine passes its initial 1 month teething period it will replace our old Win2K box, leaving me with the one XP machine every home office (sadly) needs.

DeLay: the story of a good person corrupted?

Salon.com | Tainted conservative

... Over the course of DeLay's political career, he and his wife, Christine, have adopted three foster children, raised millions of dollars for child-related charities, and spoken out in Washington on behalf of abused kids. The couple has won awards from various organizations and praise from such unlikely allies as Hillary Clinton and Eleanor Holmes Norton, all while improving the Hammer's otherwise dismally uncharitable image.

For the past 17 years the DeLays have also operated their own charitable outfit, the DeLay Foundation for Kids, which aims to raise $10 million to build the Oaks at River Bend, a special faith-based housing subdivision for a small number of foster families on 50 acres near Richmond, Va. (Interestingly, the homes are to be constructed by Perry Homes, the company whose enormously wealthy founder, Bob Perry Jr., was the largest donor to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.) Evidently this activity allows DeLay to cut food stamps, children's health insurance, federal housing and tax credits for the poor while remaining certain that he is a compassionate conservative, doing God's work. According to DeLay, the intention of his charity's "biblical" project is "to show that you don't need a government program to take care of kids."

What you need instead is a powerful politician with enough influence over government to shake down big donors.

Of all the profound and petty offenses charged against DeLay, his use of a children's charity to aggrandize himself and raise money from lobbyists and corporations may be the most distasteful...

I'm a card carrying Kerry supporter, and a secular humanist besides. So I'm not likely to be sympathetic to Tom DeLay. He's earned his many investigations.

And yet ...

Three foster children adopted. That doesn't make one a saint, but it doesn't exactly fit DeLay's later image. I wonder if his is the story of a flawed man with good aspects later gone bad ... I would like to learn more about that man's life.

GMSV has a blog

Columnists : Good Morning Silicon Valley -- SiliconValley.com

GMSV is the gossip column of Silicon Vallley geeks -- who's merging with who, who's on the outs, and what's Steve doing today. Quite good. They've added a new blog. I believe I'm the first bloglines user to subscribe.

Things scientists would teach others about science

spiked-science | survey | E=mc2 centenary survey | E=mc2 survey - AtoB

I liked the comments I read from this selection. Popper, Natural Selection, Mind as matter, etc. A good set - especially in these post-rational days.

Uzbekistan is where Bush sold his soul

INTEL DUMP - When interests trump ideals II

It's becoming apparent that our outsourced torture vendor of choice is Uzbekistan. Apparently they're quite good at torture.

Sheep/human hybrids

Scientists create animals that are part-human - Stem Cell Research - MSNBC.com

Meechai Viravaidyah (I've mangled the name) marketed condoms to Thailand. He made them socially acceptable through humor and desensitization. He was a master of balloon tricks.

It worked very well. People can get used to most things if they move a little bit at a time. It's kind of like boiling frogs (ok, so maybe that's an urban myth ...).

Now we have the examples of gene-engineered mice and sheep who's brains have human-like neurons. It didn't take us all that long to more or less ignore this kind of thing, did it?

The next step will be even easier ....

BTW, despite my impeccable secular-humanist credentials, the 3-4 readers of this blog may have noticed I've never mocked the strong anti-stem cell passions of the religious right. Basically, I don't trust humans all that much ...

How is George Bush like Steve Jobs?

CNN.com - Any Kerry supporters on the line? - Apr 25, 2005

Jobs demands silence and loyalty. He bans a publisher from Apple stores because he dislikes on of their books. Bush demands silence and loyalty. He bans all who supported his crushed enemy:

The Inter-American Telecommunication Commission meets three times a year in various cities across the Americas to discuss such dry but important issues as telecommunications standards and spectrum regulations.

But for this week's meeting in Guatemala City, politics has barged onto the agenda.

At least four of the two dozen or so U.S. delegates selected for the meeting, sources tell TIME, have been bumped by the White House because they supported John Kerry's 2004 campaign.

The State Department has traditionally put together a list of industry representatives for these meetings, and anyone in the U.S. telecom industry who had the requisite expertise and wanted to go was generally given a slot, say past participants.

Only after the start of Bush's second term did a political litmus test emerge, industry sources say.

The White House admits as much: "We wanted people who would represent the Administration positively, and--call us nutty--it seemed like those who wanted to kick this Administration out of town last November would have some difficulty doing that," says White House spokesman Trent Duffy.

Those barred from the trip include employees of Qualcomm and Nokia, two of the largest telecom firms operating in the U.S., as well as Ibiquity, a digital-radio-technology company in Columbia, Md.

One nixed participant, who has been to many of these telecom meetings and who wants to remain anonymous, gave just $250 to the Democratic Part.

Hmm. Darth Bush?