Ada Lovelace's paralysis, quirks of In Our Time, and the odd beliefs of UK historians

The UK historians often featured on In Our Time are quite entertaining, but they have two common weaknesses.

One is a quite shaky knowledge of science and medicine. I suspect it's the fashion for certain UK academics to know nothing of the past 100 years of science, but it can be a bit annoying.

The other is a fondness for startling off-the-cuff remarks. For example, during a discussion of the peculiar persistence of the Galenic humoral theory [1] one scholar mentioned that medieval scholars couldn't do arithmetic -- so they weren't able to measure the futility of Humoral therapies. The introduction of Indian Maths enabled calculation, and finally ended one set of quackeries. (Though many others thrive today -- despite numeracy!)

I'm doing some expansion here. The original comment was about four words.

This weakness for cryptic but startling statements is somewhat endearing. Yes, the premise may be debatable, but it's interesting.

Today, I swear, I heard a guest proclaim that Ada Lovelace [1] was completely paralyzed for three years due to measles, but then recovered. This turns out be an example of both of the IOT historian weaknesses.

Measles can have some extremely nasty neurologic complications, but I don't recall reversible paralysis being among them (nor do my online references [2]). I also think it unlikely that she could have survived very long in early 19th century with complete paralysis.

The Ada Lovelace paralysis story turns out to be a bit of a mystery to the net. Quick searches found varying mentions of the degree of her paralysis, from legs alone to total paralysis. Wikipedia had the most suggestive explanation ...

Ada Lovelace - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

...In June 1829, she was paralyzed after a bout of the "measles". Lady Byron subjected the girl to continuous bed rest for nearly a year, which may have extended her period of disability. By 1831 she was able to walk with crutches...

So she was sick with something (measles, polio?), but her disability may have been the product of her eccentric/mentally ill mother's induced bed rest.

Now here's the interesting bit. You don't have to be a genius to figure out that the original story doesn't make sense. So how does it manage to survive in the minds of preeminent UK historians? Don't they ever get comments from their physician friends after public lectures?

[1] Link is to archive site. Google sends us to the iPlayer beat site which doesn't keep these episodes.

[2] Years ago MD Consult was a great source of medical references, but publisher fights tore it apart. Progress is not linear.

An end to foolish pleas for more US engineers and scientists?

Ok, this should finally do it.

This should stop the nonsensical blubbering about how more Americans need to go into science, and more women should do computer science.

We already know that more Americans study science and engineering than makes economic sense -- probably because of immigration effects.

Now we learn that Japanese students are abandoning science and engineering. Why? More money for less work in other jobs.

Science and engineering are the comparative advantage of the "up and coming" nations like China, India, Korea, Thailand, Russia, etc. The only reason the US and Canada have maintained a strong presence in the sciences for so long is because our universities used to attract a large number of international students -- but Bush et al have crushed much of that appeal.

If we want even more US scientists and engineers, we're going to have to start taxing CEO salaries and use the money to buy engineering graduates new homes. Alternatively, we could elect Barack Obama and restore the attractiveness of American universities to the best international students.

Best coverage of platypus genome

Pharyngula: The platypus genome is excellent; much better coverage than anywhere else. I stopped reading PZ Myers because I was bored by his atheism wars, but maybe I need to pick him up again.

Mildred Loving and American history

The obituary section is, most of the time, the most thoughtful and best written part of The Economist.

Today, in kind but unsentimental language, we learn of how two almost invisible people became transiently famous, then a part of history, and then vanished away again...

Mildred Loving | Economist.com

... Mrs Loving wanted to return for good. When the Civil Rights Act was being debated in 1963, she wrote to Robert Kennedy, the attorney-general, to ask whether the prospective law would make it easier for her to go home. He told her it wouldn't ...

It's a remarkable story about American history, and how the mechanics of American law create history from the ahistoric.

It would play differently in the age of Oprah.

Evolving Skynet by Gwap (Nick Carr)

Google search is clearly an AI (I presume still non-sentient) in which processing cycles run partly on human wetware.

Insert your favorite Matrix/science fiction reference here.

Nick Carr comments on the next phase in Skynet's evolution ...

Rough Type: Nicholas Carr's Blog: Von Ahn's Gwap

... As The Register notes, a new site was launched this week, by Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science, that aims to entice humans into playing simple games that will help computers get smarter. The site, called Gwap (an acronym for "games with a purpose"), is the brainchild of computer scientist Luis von Ahn (who also cofathered the Captcha). "We have games that can help improve Internet image and audio searches, enhance artificial intelligence and teach computers to see," he explains. "But that shouldn't matter to the players because it turns out these games are super fun."...

... In other words, we become part of the processor, part of the machine. In Gwap and similar web-based tools, we see, in admittedly rudimentary form, the next stage in cybernetics, in which it becomes ever more difficult to discern who's in charge in complex man-machine systems - who's the controller and who's the controllee.

Dyer: Peak Oil means Peak Sweet Crude only

I'm impressed by Dyer's reasoning.

Peak Oil, he tells us, is only the end of the good stuff. There's lots of CO2 producing bad stuff, even if we bake and tear the planet to get to it.

Dyer, prections ...

... the recession is likely to drive the demand for oil down far enough to bring the price back down to $100 before long, or even to $85-90. Then in 2009-2010, as the "old rich" economies recover, it will go back up, probably to the $130-$150 range....

...the price of oil will probably stay well about $100 for most of the time in 2010-2015. But it won't hit $200, because there will be a steep rise in the supply of non-conventional oil from tar sands, oil shales, and other sources of "heavy oil."...

...In the still longer run -- the 2030s and beyond -- the demand for oil will probably fall even further, and with it the price. How do we know that? Because if it hasn't fallen due to a deliberate switch away from fossil fuels, then global warming will gain such momentum that entire countries are falling into chaos instead. There is more than one way to cut demand...

This would mean that, contrary to my post of May 12, oil and gasoline prices aren't necessarily going to keep rising at 10-15% per year. There's a natural ceiling of $200 out around 2015. Beyond that we probably melt Greenland, and the ensuing global chaos drops the price of oil.

Hmm. I'm glad I'm waiting for August before I make my "official" prediction!

Dyer - new articles (now via Page2RSS)

I've been subscribing to Gwynne Dyer's stubbornly archaic article distribution system via ChangeDetection.com and Page2RSS.

Today both of them notified me of a change -- the incorporation of seven new articles:

• April 23 Americans Helping Israel
• April 28 Oil Prices: Another Prediction
• May 02 Two Takes on Terrorism
• May 04 Why Did the (Z) Chicken Cross the Road?
• May 07 President Obama
• May 09 Why is Burma Like That?
• May 14 Pakistan: Politicians, Judges and a General

The beauty of Page2RSS is I get the notification and a summary of the changes. In this case I received all seven links in the generated RSS post. It was trivial to reformat them as above. If it keeps working I'll turn off ChangeDetection and stick with Page2RSS.

Now to read the articles ...

Update 5/18/2008: A comment suggested Feedity as another RSS source for a static page. They generate a complete feed as per this example for Dyer: http://feedity.com/rss.aspx/gwynnedyer-com/UVBbVFU. So now I'll compare Feedity to Page2RSS.

We've come a long way -- fraud 2008

Today's news makes me nostalgic for the modest worldwide fraud of JK Publications et al ...

IdentityBlog - Digital Identity, Privacy, and the Internet's Missing Identity Layer

Francois Paget ... "Last Friday morning in France, my investigations lead me to visit a site proposing top-quality data for a higher price than usual. But when we look at this data we understand that as everywhere, you have to pay for quality. The first offer concerned bank logons. As you can see in the following screenshot, pricing depends on available balance, bank organization and country. Additional information such as PIN and Transfer Passphrase are also given when necessary..."

Fraud has come a long way since those simple schemes of ten years ago, but VISA and MasterCard security has barely budged. We had to cancel a lost credit card recently; VISA told us they couldn't stop transactions on the old card. We would have to monitor all future transactions for old-card fraudulent transactions. They sent us the replacement card 4-5 days after our call.

As Schneier has reminded us many times, VISA and MasterCard won't clean up their act until the banks are made liable for the full costs of fraud and identity theft - preferably including punitive damages.

On the other hand, American Express, my choice ten years ago, continues to excel. Each person in our family account has their own card number -- so if one card is lost only one number is changed. They can track charges against the closed number. They got us the replacement in about a day.

Obviously we run almost all our expenses through our AMEX BLUE Cash back card. I never use the VISA online -- AMEX only. Fantastic service, excellent security, buyers assurance, etc, etc. What's not to like?

We keep the VISA for small transactions with businesses that can't do AMEX. I should probably get VISA to substantially decrease our credit limit...

Peak Oil now? Does Krugman really think so?

In March of this year I wondered if the rise in oil prices were rational speculation or speculative bubble. I decided that six months would be reasonable time to watch for bubble signs ...

Gordon's Notes: Oil price speculation: is it rational investment or a bubble?

... here's my proposal for deciding if Peak Oil is on the way.

If the price of oil craters ($65) in the next 6 months then we're living in an energy bubble today and Peak Oil is more than 10-15 years away.

If the price of oil is above $105 a barrel in August of 2008 then Peak Oil is on the sooner rather than later, and the world I grew up in is shuffling away -- sooner than I'd expected....

I've been thinking that the first onset of true "peak oil" would be due around 2013 to 2018. Since markets think about 5-10 years ahead, peak oil before 2018 would lead to rational speculation. On the other hand, irrational speculation can happen at any time.

What do I mean by rational speculation? I mean not investing in refining capability, since demand constraints might limit return on investment. I mean leaving oil in the ground, since its value will appreciate faster than other forms of investment. I mean looking for new oil, but not drilling new wells. Why drill now, when oil may appreciate in value by 10-14% a year? Oil in the ground, by this reasoning, is worth far more than money in the bank.

Heck, anyone with oil in the ground can just take out low interest loans against the oil, and make money on leveraged investing. No need to drill the messy stuff.

So I figured if Peak Oil is really 5-10 years away we'd see price signals now -- due to rational speculation. If prices stayed up from March to August 2008, that would be a sign that we were seeing rational speculation, thus $300/gallon oil would be on the 5-10 year horizon, and I should make sure my next car gets 50 miles to the gallon.

Incidentally, I assume this is obvious, but I'll mention it anyway. If Peak Oil is really 5-10 years away, then rational speculation and today's price rises are extremely positive developments. We will be far better off with a gradual and prolonged rise, accompanied by relatively gradual behavioral and lifestyle changes, than with a sudden crash.

Rational speculation is the IQ of the market place. Now if rational speculation would only price the externalities of coal appropriately ...

So that's where I stood in March of 2008. I didn't speculate that we might be already seeing a true demand/supply constraint -- the first Peak of the Peak Oil Range.

Paul Krugman, however, seems to be saying exactly that today:

The Oil Nonbubble - Paul Krugman - New York Times

...all through the period of the alleged bubble, inventories have remained at more or less normal levels. This tells us that the rise in oil prices isn’t the result of runaway speculation; it’s the result of fundamental factors, mainly the growing difficulty of finding oil and the rapid growth of emerging economies like China. The rise in oil prices these past few years had to happen to keep demand growth from exceeding supply growth....

...I wouldn’t be shocked if oil prices dip in the near future — although I also take seriously Goldman’s recent warning that the price could go to $200. But let’s drop all the talk about an oil bubble...

I think Krugman has gone too far -- he seems not to consider the possibility that holders of oil and refining capacity might be rationally constraining supply in appropriate anticipation of prolonged 10-20% annual returns on oil reserves.

Even so, it's unsettling to consider that we might be already seeing true demand/supply peaks -- even if they are likely to be wax and wane as we head for Oil-Everest.

I'll stick with my original plan for now. I'll make my own Peak Oil call in August. I will, however, add a third possibility to my original two - rational speculation, speculative bubble, and Peak Oil Now.

Update 5/13/2008: Paul K features a Sydney Herald graphic suggesting other adaptations to consider. I recall hearing (NPR) of one real estate speculator who felt the final straw in his collapse came from rising gas prices reducing interest in a his distant suburban development. Seven years ago I thought terrorism would drive home owners to the suburbs, but that hasn't happened (yet). I guess there's hope for the (now depressed) value of our ideally located St Paul home.

Fake Steve Jobs: Why Dell will not bounce back

FSJ has some of the best IT industry commentary around -- hidden within the amusing facade of a caricature of Apple's Steve Jobs.

Today he's written an unusually detailed analysis of why Dell is not going to recover. He was pretty close to my opinion of Dell's misfortune, but I thought he missed a few nuances. Here's a revised version of the comment I wrote:

The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: Why Dell will not bounce back

Very well done -- especially since you have to stay in character!

Dell was a parasite on IBM and Compaq's technical innovation. They focused on process innovation.

Nothing wrong with that! It's an excellent strategy -- as long as you understand what you're doing. They didn't. The Dell parasite killed its hosts.

It's bad form for a parasite to kill its hosts. Most biological parasites are much "smarter" than that.

Dell would parasitize Apple if it could, but Apple's hardware value is very closely tied to Apple's OS. Apple does software/hardware unification, and they ain't sharing the hardware. (Apple, incidentally, parasitizes hardware innovation funded by Microsoft's XP/Vista platform. That's what the Intel transition was all about. Happily, Apple knows how to be a responsible parasite. They won't kill the host.)

Dell's other mistake, in addition to failing to understand the duties of a good parasite, was that they flushed their innovators. They ought to have come up with a way to keep fifty or so very smart people happy tinkering in labs, so that when they needed to transition to invention and design innovation they had a core group of loyal innovators to build on.

Instead Dell adopted an aggressive downsizing strategy that maximized returns to process managers, and ignored innovators. Good in the short term, but risky. They could have afforded an insurance policy.

Two big mistakes. I'm not so convinced they can't recover, but it is an uphill battle now.

Microsoft's Guardian Angel

Microsoft's Guardian Angel is yet more proof that our patent laws are completely and utterly insane. As if we needed more proof.

On the other hand, for all of us who have cognitive disabilities now, and the much, much larger numbers who will have them in thirty years, GA is a promising sign - Be the Best You can Be: Microsoft's Guardian Angel patent - a sign of next generation support.

Of course like all technologies it has obvious malign uses as well. That's not a new problem.

What if we could see the diversity of minds?

Humans, to the eye, are not so diverse.

The vast majority have, or once had, four limbs, two eyes, one head. Most rely heavily on vision. Some are faster, some slimmer, some taller -- but not so much. They all have similar genetic aging rates, from old at 50 to old at 80.

But what if you could see minds instead of forms?

Would the average street look something like this?

(MIT geo-biology, burgess shale)

Ok, so pre-Cambrian diversity was pretty extreme. But human brains are actively evolving now. To quote Hawks (via Marginal Revolution):

We are more different genetically from people living 5,000 years ago than they were different from Neanderthals...

Active brain evolution means lots of variation. Most of the variations are mostly marginally harmful, some quite disabling, some both advantageous and problematic. They all mean that brains are less alike than the bodies we see.

The variation doesn't end there. Brains, among other things, run minds. Minds, among other things, run memes.

Brain, mind and meme give three platforms for variation and selection to play on. It's a recipe for combinatorial variation.

So it's plausible, that if we were able to see minds the way we see bodies, we'd find a very entertaining sidewalk. Some pedestrians would be twenty feet all and thin as posts, others ten feet wide with an extra limb and a tail. Some covered in fur, others green and yellow with antennae.

Perhaps, as some of my favorite writers have speculated, one day we'll remake our bodies to fit our minds, and the streets will make today's San Francisco seem quietly uniform.

That's a long way away, and perhaps unlikely. In the meantime, however, we can start imaging minds instead of seeing bodies. With a dash of enlightenment 2.0, we may see the aliens among us, and sense a deeper truth beneath what vision alone can show.

See also: neurodiversity 2004.

Krugman jumps the shark for Hillary?

Paul Krugman has been campaigning for Hillary Clinton. That's ok, there are far worse candidates for the presidency -- McCain for example.

So, I had no problem with his grumpy advice to a seemingly victorious Obama ... until I came to the shark jumping paragraph:

Thinking About November - New York Times:

... One thing the Democrats definitely need to do is give delegates from Florida and Michigan — representatives of citizens who voted in good faith, and whose support the party may well need this November — seats at the convention....

Krugman is the only Democrat I read who advocates the Florida and Michigan delegates be seated. Today's NTY lead editorial put a full seating off-limits, and the Times endorsed Clinton (though they're clearly reconsidering).

Krugman has drunk the Kool-Aid, jumped the shark, and sold his credibility for a pittance. We need an urgent emergency intervention. DeLong must fly east immediately.

Morford on wealth and income - the $2 billion dollar home

Morford of the Chronicle, a master of colorful rhetoric, swings at a very fat pitch ...

You and your puny salary / You think a $100K salary is a lot? $500K? Please. The truly wealthy scoff at your paltry breadcrumbs

... the new home being built in Mumbai right now for Mukesh Ambani, the fifth wealthiest man in the world....

... is the world's first billion-dollar personal residence. Actually, $2 billion. Imagine the fanciest, most ridiculously overpampered, seriously egomaniacal hotel you can possibly think of, and dip it in solid gold. Then sprinkle it with diamonds and Bugatti Veyrons and the fine, tender pelts of a million baby seals. That's the parking garage...

...It all makes delightful contrast to the recent, awkwardly titillating article in this very newspaper that revealed the annual salaries of various Bay Area workers, from the head of the University of California school system ($591K) to the San Francisco police chief ($250K) to all those surprisingly well-paid firefighters (well over $200K), on down to the guy who runs the city's pothole-filling crew (over $100K and absolutely worth every penny because oh my God, potholes), and on back up to one of the pitchers for the Giants, Barry Zito, who rakes in a cool $14 million per season because, well, he's a pro athlete. They're supposed to be caricatures of real humans...

It's a wonderful read, but there's more than entertainment, awe and envy here. We're at a curious point in the history of wealth -- even an infinite amount of money does not buy an enormously better life than an upper-middle class American has.

Power, yeah, sure, money buys power. I'd like some of that power, which I would of course use only for Good.

Other than power though ...

I don't want a yacht. I don't want a plane. I would like to drop twenty years, but money can't buy that. Yet.

Interesting times.

BBC's In Our Time - still available - for now!

[See a significant update below my post. The shows are still available, for now, on the primary IOT site.]

Increasingly, episodes of the BBC's wonderful series, In Our Time, are unavailable after the initial broadcast. Another candle against the Dark has popped off.

Instead of a (sigh) Real Audio link to the episode, the archives show:

BBC - BBC Radio 4 Programmes - In Our Time, The Dissolution of the Monasteries

Sorry, this episode is not available online.

One episode was recently unavailable by podcast as well, due to "copyright reasons". Otherwise the podcast distribution is continuing.

There's been no mention of this policy change in Melvyn Bragg's newsletters, and I can't find any discussion on the BBC website. A Guardian article from last December on the "iPlayer" implementation is the only clue I found to these changes. It may be that the BBC is allowing streaming distribution for UK net traffic, and disallowing it outside the UK. The Guardian article implies that streaming, like podcast distribution, may now be limited to 1 week after initial broadcast.

It seems that what the BBC giveth, the BBC taketh. I think they're making the same sad mistake as the American Academy of Family Practice. The meager revenues they may gain are vastly outweighed by the loss of goodwill, karma, and progress to a better world.

I hope the BBC changes course, at the very least they really ought to have given us more of an explanation. Perhaps they'll start offering episodes through iTunes and like for $1 a pop, DRMd of course. Alas, more likely they'll show up for Microsoft's Zune's alone. Either way, I won't be able to play them back from my car stereo's thumb drive.

I've never had much interest in P2P file sharing, but the pull of the Dark Side grows ever stronger. Damn you, DRM.

Update 4/9/08

Leigh Aspin, the Radio 4 website editor, kindly left a comment ...

I’m the editor of the Radio 4 website and I’m pleased to say that there has been no change of policy – we continue to archive every episode of In Our Time on the Radio 4 website.

The page you’re linking to is on the BBC Programmes BETA site, which doesn’t yet carry programmes beyond 7 days after transmission. In the meantime, please access past In Our Time programmes from http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/inourtime/inourtime_current.shtml

A rights issue meant that we couldn’t offer one episode via the podcast feed, as you point out. But we don’t envisage this being a regular occurrence.

Regards, Leigh

I am very happy to hear this news. I am a dedicated IOT fan of course, so the missing shows in the context of the BBC's iPlayer strategy had put me in a bleak mood. I'm particularly pleased to hear that the restricted podcast even is unlikely to be repeated.

Leigh doesn't actually tell us that this 7 day policy will go away once the beta site is live. For now the shows are streaming from the original site, but my recollection is there's much debate within the BBC about monetizing their intellectual property -- especially when it's distributed outside of the UK. The discussion is focusing on video properties, but it's easy for audio works to be caught up in the fight.

From a business perspective it seems perfectly reasonable for non-taxpayers to have limited access to BBC work. Reliable bandwidth and servers are not cheap, and IOT may have more foreign than UK listeners now. From a foreign policy perspective, of course, it would be a rotten move.

I'm hoping that lovers of civilization and Britain's foreign ministry will conspire to keep IOT available to a world audience indefinitely.