The iTunes Store fails to impress

My 11 yo son has $30 in birthday credit at the iTunes Store -- and nothing to spend it on.

This ain't a good sign.

In the past we'd buy episodes of TV shows -- mostly for watching on plane trips or other travels. With NBC gone the pickings look slim.

Movies? Nah -- very few options in the family movie department.

We could get a game, but they only play on my aging fifth generation iPod; not my iPhone to come.

We can't get music! DRMd music (AAC is fine, just not FairPlay) won't play on the SONY car stereo -- it's a real pain. We avoid it.

The least bad option, despite the DRM, will probably be an audio book, and maybe a small game on the side. That's tolerable for burning to CD or even re-recording if we need to dump the DRM.

Still, not such a great showing. No wonder Apple's share price is tanking* ...

* I consider this a great thing really. They've loads of cash, and a lower share price will reduce Apple's tendency to delusional arrogance. Please, no more Air Books.

How humane can humans be? Primate lesssons.

Robert Sapolsky has written another essay in the vein of a Foreign Affairs article he published in 2006. The focus, again, is the balance between culture (character) and biology (temperament) in non-human primates.

When I read the essay I think of how much humans have apparently evolved in the past 40,000 years, and a series of studies over the past few years that have stripped us of claims to some unique form of cognition.

Emphases mine.

Greater Good Science Center

Peace Among Primates
by Robert M. Sapolsky

... as field studies of primates expanded, what became most striking was the variation in social practices across species. Yes, some primate species have lives filled with violence, frequent and varied. But life among others is filled with communitarianism, egalitarianism, and cooperative child rearing.

Patterns emerged. In less aggressive species, such as gibbons or marmosets, groups tend to live in lush rain forests where food is plentiful and life is easy. Females and males tend to be the same size, and the males lack secondary sexual markers such as long, sharp canines or garish coloring. Couples mate for life, and males help substantially with child care. In violent species, such as baboons and rhesus monkeys, the opposite conditions prevail.

... although human males might not be inflexibly polygamous or outfitted with bright red butts and six–inch canines designed for tooth–to–tooth combat, it was clear that our species had at least as much in common with the violent primates as with the gentle ones. "In their nature" thus became "in our nature." This was the humans–as–killer–apes theory popularized by the writer Robert Ardrey, according to which humans have as much chance of becoming intrinsically peaceful as they have of growing prehensile tails.

...After decades' more work, the picture has become quite interesting. Some primate species, it turns out, are indeed simply violent or peaceful, with their behavior driven by their social structures and ecological settings. More importantly, however, some primate species can make peace despite violent traits that seem built into their natures. The challenge now is to figure out under what conditions that can happen, and whether humans can manage the trick ourselves.

Two classic studies have shown that primates are somewhat independent from their "natures." In the early 1970s, a highly respected primatologist named Hans Kummer was working in a region of Ethiopia containing two species of baboons with markedly different social systems. Savanna baboons live in large troops, with plenty of adult females and males. Hamadryas baboons, in contrast, have a more complex and quite different multilevel society. When confronted with a threatening male, the females of the two species react differently: A hamadryas baboon placates the male by approaching him, whereas a savanna baboon can only run away if she wants to avoid injury.

Kummer conducted a simple experiment, trapping an adult female savanna baboon and releasing her into a hamadryas troop and trapping an adult female hamadryas and releasing her into a savanna troop. The females who were dropped in among a different species initially carried out their species–typical behavior, a major faux pas in the new neighborhood. But gradually, they absorbed the new rules. How long did this learning take? About an hour. In other words, millennia of genetic differences separating the two species, a lifetime of experience with a crucial social rule for each female—and a miniscule amount of time to reverse course completely...

The essay goes on to describe additional research demonstrating not only that aggressive primates can behave well, but that under some conditions the new behaviors can become established and communicated across generations.

Sapolsky seems to be in part responding to those who think humans are irredeemably prone to aggressive xenophobia. I don't think that belief is very credible, however -- and I'm no fan of humans! To that end then the essay is overkill.

On the other hand, for us to survive the next fifty years we will have to do far more than be civil. We will need "enlightenment 2.0", an unprecedented ability to get outside of our our personal world. Sapolsky is providing support for the desperate belief that humans can rise to the challenge.

The S&P is down 15%, back to Jan 2007

It's so annoying that reporters quote daily point drops in the Dow. What I want to know is how far the S&P is off a recent reasonable peak.

As of this AM the answers (by the Yahoo graph) are:

• down 15% from November 2007
• back roughly to Jan 2007

So it's given up about a year's growth. If it keeps falling I'll probably be obliged to start making regular purchases on the way down.

I wish these things would happen before my mutual funds charge me capital gains.

The Atlantic and archives to be ad supported

A remarkable story in several ways.

One, James Fallows, who is a big name in The Atlantic, claims to have learned about the change in NYT. Secondly, the move will include the entire archives - a fabulous addition reminescent of the opening of the vast NYT archives.

High school civics, between Wikipedia and the archives, really should be getting very interesting.

Lastly, there's a lot of material here for students of modern media.

It seems the switch was driven by the circulation of The Atlantic's blogs, the advertising they might attract, and the turmoil at the journal:

NYT: “... The magazine is still in the red, in the $3-to-$5-million range,” he said, but he hopes to be in the black in five years.

The Atlantic seems to have stabilized after a period of turmoil. The previous editor in chief, Michael Kelly, stepped down in 2002, and the owner, David G. Bradley, left the post vacant for more than three years...

While the managing editor, Cullen Murphy, ran the magazine, it won numerous awards for excellence but circulation dropped sharply. In 2005, Mr. Bradley moved The Atlantic from Boston, where it was founded in 1857, to Washington, leading Mr. Murphy and many other staff members to leave.

For a few months, it seemed that no one was in charge, until Mr. Bennet was hired less than two years ago.

When I finally gave up on the doddering Economist about two years ago, I replaced it with Scientific American and The Atlantic. I've generally been very pleased by the magazine, I'm surprised it's losing money but encouraged by the apparent energy and direction.

Gordon's 4 laws of acquisition

Contemplation of Apple's time capsule has reminded me of Gordon's 4 rules of acquisition.

Well, actually, none of them are mine really. I'll just lay claim to this particular arrangement. Credit goes to the forgotten sources that gave us the memes, and life that proved them true.

1. Never acquire anything until you really, really, want it -- three separate times.
2. The real cost is the lifetime cost, from acquisition to disposal. Or, as per a recent NYT post, think subscription -- not ownership. In the modern world we don't own, we subscribe to something that's neither inert nor living. The purchase price is often the least of things.
3. Don't buy on promises or potential. Acquire for real value now. Anything in the future is a plus (or, sometimes, a minus).
4. Don't buy more than you can consume now. We all have fixed resources to acquire and adopt new things; acquisitions that sit on the shelf depreciate very quickly.
   

The rules work for acquiring a scanner or a corporation, though corporations may have more leeway with #3. I suppose, with a minimal tweak or two, they work for marriage too.

Rule #3 didn't used to be true of computers. In the days when our computers were open platforms, we could reasonably expect that the market would meet our needs. That's obviously not true for Apple's increasingly closed products; whether it's an Airport Extreme*, Time Capsule*, an iPod, an Air Book or an iPhone. It's also true for Windows however -- there will never be a real alternative to Microsoft Office on Microsoft's platform.

* Alas, how much better these things would be if Firewire had not been eliminated by the far inferior USB 2.0 interface. Another story though.

PS. Ever notice that no-one does a list of "four" things? Three, yes. Ten, yes. Never four. Until now ...

The puzzle of cetacean brains

When I was a child there was a lot of excitement about dolphin brains and dolphin language. It didn't seem to go anywhere, but the cognitive sciences have been moving onwards.

In an era where almost every aspect of thought that seemed purely human has been found to be commonplace, it's time to reexamine the cetacean brain.

Scientific American features a brief review of the science. In short, there's no obvious neuro-anatomic reason to suppose that cetaceans should be less "clever" than humans. Indeed, sperm whales ought to be prodigies of thought.

So why do they need such massive brains? Those calorie sucking engines require an immense amount of food; sperm whale brains ought to be doing something to justify their costly upkeep.

But what?

Canada wimps out

Sad. I'd expected better of Canada.

BBC NEWS | Americas | Canada FM regrets 'torture list'

...The Canadian foreign minister has apologised for including the US and Israel on a list of states where prisoners are at risk of torture.

Maxime Bernier said the list, which formed part of a manual on torture awareness given to diplomats, 'wrongly includes some of our closest allies'."...

Huckabee's constitutional amendment

I missed this during a few days in Manchester (UK).

Huckabee wants to change the US constitution

...but I believe it’s a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that’s what we need to do — to amend the Constitution so it’s in God’s standards rather than try to change God’s standards so it lines up with some contemporary view....

That makes sense. If one truly believes that one's particular deity desires a particular world order, then there's no choice but to enforce that order.

Jimmy Carter, who was and is deeply religious, believed that his deity didn't want to work that way, so he left the constitution alone.

George Bush is probably confused, some days thinking one way of his deity, and other days thinking another way. Introspection is not his strength.

Huckabee is not confused, he's a warm and fuzzy hard core fundamentalist theocrat.

Getting comfortable with harvesting your clone

Many science fiction stories and movies have featured clones created as backup organ donors.

Just saying (emphases mine) ...

Mature Human Embryos Created From Adult Skin Cells - washingtonpost.com

Scientists at a California company reported yesterday that they had created the first mature cloned human embryos from single skin cells taken from adults, a significant advance toward the goal of growing personalized stem cells for patients suffering from various diseases.

Creation of the embryos -- grown from cells taken from the company's chief executive and one of its investors -- also offered sobering evidence that few, if any, technical barriers may remain to the creation of cloned babies...

...Five of the new embryos grew in laboratory dishes to the stage that fertility doctors consider ready for transfer to a woman's womb: a degree of development that clones of adult humans have never achieved before.

No one knows whether those embryos were healthy enough to grow into babies. But the study leader, who is also the medical director of a fertility clinic, said they looked robust, even as he emphasized that he has no interest in cloning people.

"It's unethical and it's illegal, and we hope no one else does it either," said Samuel H. Wood, chief executive of Stemagen in La Jolla, whose skin cells were cloned and who led the study with Andrew J. French, the firm's chief scientific officer.

The closely held company hopes to make embryos that are clones, or genetic twins, of patients, then harvest stem cells from those embryos and grow them into replacement tissues. When transplanted into patients, the tissues would not be rejected because the immune system would see them as "self."...

...Asked what it was like to look at embryos that were replicas of himself, Wood said: "I have to admit, it's a very strange feeling. It is very difficult to look at an embryo and realize it is what you were a few decades ago. It is you, in a way.

We knew this was coming a few months ago.

Just tissues of course. We'd never let the clone develop any further -- say to a more advanced stage of tissue differentiation. That would be unethical ...

In a related article (no link, sorry) I read that a similar experiment went forward because a survey of the public showed they were quite comfortable with the protocol.

So where's the religious right when you want them? Well, I fear they were brought down by the appeal of modern eugenics. The elimination of Downs syndrome requires abortion -- and that was too great a temptation to be resisted. I think they've slunk away.

How do I know this will go all the way?

Well, if my 6 yo needed a heart tissue patch, I'm not all sure I wouldn't authorize a differentiated clone ...

The DNA content of locker room key pins

I wondered about this many years ago, but we didn't have blogs then.

We don't reuse needles in health care. When someone is accidentally stuck by a used needle, it's a big deal ...

Medical Staff Update - Chief of Staff

...When a needle stick occurs, the health-care worker should go to Employee Health if that office is open (usually between 7 a.m. and 4 p.m.); otherwise, exposed staff members should report to the Emergency Department. The Emergency Department or Employee Health nurse will start the process of getting blood drawn from the source patient during the initial risk assessment. This will include completion of an employee-accident injury form.

Exposed staff members will be screened for HIV antibody, HBsAb, HCV antibody and HCV PCR qualitative...

Of course not all sticks are equal. A superficial scrape is not the same as a jab deep into muscle.

Which brings me to those pins that hang from swimming pool locker room keys. I just used one of those today, and, as has happened many times before, I managed to poke myself. I didn't draw blood, but I noticed.

Those pins have probably been around for over 10 years, each pin has probably stuck over a hundred people. I wonder what the DNA on the pins looks like. Wouldn't it be interesting to know what the Hepatitis C viral titer is?

How the music industry can regain control

If I were the music industry, this is how I'd regain control ...

Gordon's Tech: DRM, the new iPods and the unanticipated:

.... I'd be buying up used CDs and destroying them, while distributing new music by wire -- with full DRM support. Is anyone visiting used CD store looking for suspicious batch buyers?

What about the strategy of selling non-DRMd music on Amazon? Sure, it's good for beating up Apple, but I think it's really about destroying the CD. Buy up used CDs and destroy them, migrate consumers off CDs and onto the wire, then introduce robust watermarked identifiers so music can always be traced to the purchaser.

Not a bad strategy really, but it's sure to have unanticipated consequences. What will it mean when all thinks identify us? What will happen to the use and value of these identifiers? Will kidnappers force people to turn over their music collection? Will owners be able to 'repudiate' their data, so it becomes unplayable? How will all this data be mined?

I think it might work. (Originally on my tech blog, but in a post on the DRM technology of the newer iPods I slid over into opinion.)

What is the IQ of the American commentariat?

I'd guess about 105.

Exhibit A:

Reagan and revenue - Paul Krugman - Op-Ed Columnist - New York Times Blog:

... Is it really possible that all the triumphant declarations that the Reagan tax cuts led to a revenue boom — declarations that you see in highly respectable places — are based on nothing but a failure to make the most elementary corrections for inflation and population growth? Yes, it is. I know we’re supposed to pretend that we’re having a serious discussion in this country; but the truth is that we aren’t....

The Algebraist and the religion of the eternal simulation

Update 6/8/13: I've finished rereading this book. Enough time had passed that, given my memory, it was somewhat new again. Perhaps I remembered enough to make the twists easier to follow. I know I read it more slowly and carefully.

I liked this book when I first read it, but I didn't like it enough. This is a brilliant book -- it just needs to be read slowly. Probably more than once. Iain M Banks is well represented in my mind-expanding books collection. So I expected there would be more to The Algebraist than meets the eye.

And so there is.

Yes, it's not the equal of Feersum Endjinn. Yes, it can be read as a well done variant of the standard space opera; even the the little twist in the epilogue won't surprise Banks fans. And yes, I must admit, the plot doesn't hold together as well as it might (see update) ...

Only Banks, however, would embed an extended, serious and satirical, reply to Bostrum's simulation thesis in the midst of a space opera (see also a NYT article from last summer). [1]

First, a bit of background. Briefly, Bostrum uses routine statistical reasoning to assert that it is overwhelmingly likely that "we" (meaning at least you and I) exist in a form of computer simulation. David Brin has argued that the improbable success of George Bush suggests he's the alpha and omega of the simulation, but this theory is not universally accepted.

It's fun stuff. Variants of this thesis have been well explored by several authors in the mind-expanding books collection, but Banks has the most explicitly philosophical exposition.

Banks imagines that "the Simulation" thesis has become the basis for a pan-Galactic "faith", called The Truth. It's a relition with some resemblance to various millenialist cults and low brow Buddhist sects seeking salvation by chanting the name of the Buddah... (Emphases mine, the text below may not be completely accurate [2])

The Algebraist [1]

...The Truth was the presumptuous name of the religion, the faith that lay behind reality. It arose from the belief that what appeared to be real life must in fact - according to some piously invoked statistical certitudes - be a simulation being run within some prodigious computational substrate in a greater and more encompassing reality beyond. This was a thought that had, in some form, crossed the minds of most people and all civilizations. However, everybody quickly or eventually came round to the idea that a difference that made no difference wasn't a difference to be much bothered about, and one might as well get on with (what appeared to be) life. 

The Truth went a stage further, holding that this was difference that could be made to make a difference. What was necessary was for people truly to believe in their hearts, in their souls, in their minds, that they really were in a vast simulation. They had to reflect upon this, to keep it at the forefront of their thoughts at all times and they had to gather together on occasion, with all due ceremony and solemnity, to express this belief. And they must evangelise, they must convert everybody they possibly could to this view, because - and this was the whole point - once a sufficient proportion of people within the simulation came to acknowledge that it was a simulation, the value of the simulation to those who had set it up would disappear and the whole thing would collapse. 

If they were all part of some vast experiment, then the fact that those on whom the experiment was being conducted had guessed the truth would mean that its value would be lost. If they were some plaything, then again, that they had guessed this meant they ought to be acknowledged, even - perhaps - rewarded. If they were being tested in some way, then this was the test being passed, this was a positive result, again possibly deserving a reward. If they had been undergoing punishment for some transgression in the greater world, then this ought to constitute cause for rehabilitation. 

It was not possible to know what proportion of the simulated population would be required to bring things to a halt (it might be fifty percent, it might be rather smaller or greater), but as long as the numbers of the enlightened kept increasing, the universe would be constantly coming closer to the epiphany, and the revelation could come at any point. 

The Truth claimed with some degree of justification to be the ultimate religion, the final faith, the last of all churches... 

...It could also claim a degree of universality that the others could not. All other major religions were either specific to their originating species, could be traced back to a single species - often a single subset of that species - or were consciously developed amalgams, syntheses, of a group of sufficiently similar religions of disparate origin... 

... The Truth could even claim to be not a religion at all, where such a claim might endear it to those not naturally religious by nature. It could be seen more as a philosophy, even as a scientific postulate backed by unshakeably firm statistical likelihood. 

There were some potentially unfortunate consequences implicit in a profound belief in the Truth. One was that there was a possibility that when the simulation ended, all the people being simulated would cease to exist entirely. The sim might be turned off and everybody within the substrate running it would die. There might be no promotion, no release, no return to a bigger and better and finer outside: there might just be the ultimate mass extinction...

Personally my experience with, and indirect knowledge of, mortal life makes the "punishment" thesis particularly plausible. On the other hand maybe we're just contaminants in the culture dish, or a forgotten version 0.7a of the simulation that's been left to to run on some obsolete hardware.

It's good fun to imagine variations of the theme of "what's the simulation being run for", though by now I think the topic has been pretty well explored. [3]

Oh, I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention that the simulation theory is one answer to the Fermi Paradox (see also); we are alone because the "purpose" of the simulation requires it. Not coincidentally Deism has the same answer to the Fermi Pardox (God only wanted us); an inexplicable omnipotent deity or an alien uber-geek are but two sides of the same coin. Indeed, one might even speculate that the Fermi Paradox is a bit of circumstantial evidence for the aforementioned coin.

Thanks Iain, please do keep up the good work.

- fn -

[1] The ninth page of "Four: Events during Wartime" in my paperback edition.
[2] Perhaps you imagine I typed in that long excerpt. Of course not. I Googled on some key words and found it had been typed for me. Hmm. Seems a bit too easy. What other clues could be on that site .... (cue music).
[3] One of my favorite variations came in a book from, I think, Greg Egan (also on the list). In that book Egan pummeled the meme from several directions. In one exercise a simulation is created with an intentional inconsistency; the laws of physics of the simulation are so absurd that it is truly impossible to create a self-consistent "theory of everything". The inhabitants will be crushed by absurdity, and perhaps forced to recognize their universe cannot be "real". Alas, the simulants are smarter than expected, and through staggering brilliance they resolve the paradox. Their breakthrough makes their simulation self-consistent, severs the newly independent universe from the (recursive) simulation that it was hosted within, and condemns some of their uber-geek deities to eternal damnation. [Update 6/16/09: The book is Greg Egan's Permutation City.]

PS. The Amazon reviews say this book is outside of Banks "Culture" universe, but it could be read as the pre-history of something that might become a kin to "the Culture".

Update 1/18/07: On first posting I wrote that the plot didn't seem to hold together all that well. I was particularly thinking of certain aspects of the ending. On reflection, I think that's still true of the resolution of one subplot. On the main plot, however, I now think I'd underestimated Mr. Banks. I should have remembered from his prior work that there's always a hidden agenda to be uncovered. The peculiar course of Fassin Taak's condition does make sense in the context of the schemes that operate between the pages.

Use the name your enemies would give one of their causes

I liked Krugman's aside in a post written on a different topic:

Bush tax cut mythology - Paul Krugman - Op-Ed Columnist - New York Times Blog

...If we ever have legislation decreeing death of the first-born, it will be named MPAPRA, the Motherhood Patriotism and Apple Pie Reconcilation Act, or something like that...

I posted previously about the brilliant name given the organization that has quietly transformed the medical knowledge industry. The lesson is clear: when you want something to be accepted in the face of a powerful opposition, use the name that your opposition would choose for some cause they like (which need not be in any way related to your own cause).

Republicans pioneered this technique, but, at long last, naive Dems have at last caught on. Now the titles of most legislation are largely unrelated to the content, but they sound vaguely uplifting to all.

Want to build bicycle paths? Call your organization the Coalition for Automative Rights (CAR). Can't fail.

I don't think Orwell anticipated this. It's really post-Orwellian.

MacFlop

My MacWorld predictions were far more interesting than what Apple produced.

Dull.

Blech.

Update 1/17: One of my favorite Mac sites, Daring Fireball, captures the mood of the OS X geekbase (slightly censored):

Daring Fireball: Keynote Roundup

...But so now Time Capsule is here, and there’s no word from Apple about backing up to hard drives attached to base stations. Which in turn is leading to the suspicion that perhaps the reason hard drive/base station Time Machine backups were pulled from Leopard was to make the feature exclusive to Apple’s own Time Capsule hardware. Check the comment thread on this article at Macworld to see some angry customers — people who bought hard drives and base stations in advance of Leopard specifically in anticipation of this feature.

Again, I think Time Capsule is a great idea and a great product. But if Apple has pulled support for hard drive/base station backups to eliminate Time Capsule competition, that’s ******, pure and simple. To be clear, though, it’s still an “if” at this point...

Personally I'd like to see Apple's share price fall about 20%. Very few companies can resist the intoxicating power of a constantly rising share price, just as few people can resist the effect of uninterrupted success. Arrogance is inevitable. It's a sign of Apple's new reputation that even supportive geeks like DF are ready to suspect the worst.

If we can amplify the "boring MacWorld" meme enough to drop the share price, we might end up with a chastened Apple. It's a much better company when it's been (temporarily) humbled ...