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Why are evolutionary biologists bringing back extinct deadly viruses

I just finished reading the wonderful New Yorker article Darwin’s Surprise by Michael Specter. This is some of the most interesting reading around (at least in my opinion).

I should have been a biologist.

Nothing provides more convincing evidence for the “theory” of evolution than the viruses contained within our DNA. Until recently, the earliest available information about the history and the course of human diseases, like smallpox and typhus, came from mummies no more than four thousand years old. Evolution cannot be measured in a time span that short. Endogenous retroviruses provide a trail of molecular bread crumbs leading millions of years into the past.

And that trail appears to lead to the very roots of human existence and possibly to a cure for HIV/AIDS.

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I Am America (And So Can You!) Satanic Message

It took me a few days to get around to reversing the backwards message embedded in the I Am America (And So Can You) audiobook, but now that I have, let me just say, Stephen Colbert doesn’t disappoint.

While complaining that seniors are from the library card generation, Stephen complains that “They don’t believe in buying multiple collector copies no matter what kind of rare, bizarre, or coded message appears in the first edition” at which point (about 1:18 of track 3) the following audio is heard:

Update: Flash is dead and so is this clip. I’ll put this on my todo list to get it back up and running in HTML 5.

So there you go, proof positive that Stephen Colbert is a liberal and hates America.

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Derek Powazek on Sharing Stories Via the Net

My very good friend, Louise, wrote Derek Powazek (founder of JPG Mag, husband to Heather Champ of Flickr fame and Leta’s Internet Godfather) to ask him if he’s ever regretted his transparency on the web.

Derek’s response: Never tell a story like it’s not about you. In answering her question, he reminds us why it is we keep sites like this. It gives me encouragement to write more about myself, rather than just link-posting which is what I’ve found myself doing a lot lately.

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My Site on Fox 8 News

About a year ago a producer from Fox 8 News emailed me and asked if I would be in Los Angeles anytime in the near future or if I knew of any backmasking experts that could help them do a report. I never heard back from them, and no, I never made the trip, but it looks like they found someone because here is their segment on backmasking.

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Larry Lessig on TED

This summer, while working at a camera/photography store in Lethbridge, one of the jobs I did was Photoshop work and printing photos.

One day a middle-aged woman came into the store carrying an old photo of her deceased parents. She explained that the photo had been damaged when it fell off the wall and the glass protecting it, broke and cut into the image. She asked if we would be able to photoshop the damage out and make a new copy.

Before I could speak, the manager of the store pulled the image from my hand and inspected the photograph.

“Who took the photo?”

There was no stamp on the back and she didn’t know. She explained, “It was taken about 30 years ago by a photographer that their pastor hired to take family photos at their church”.

He told her due to copyright laws, he would not print her a new image. (Nevermind the illegally copied Photoshop program he was using to charge $45/hour to make others copies).

Should it be illegal to recover the woman’s photo? Common sense revolts at the idea.

But she never did get it fixed.

Update: I’ve since learned the manager has been “let go”.

See this great TED talk by Larry Lessig speaking about the shortcomings of our dusty, pre-digital intellectual property laws.

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Verizon Wireless Misquotes Rate 93% of the Time

Remember how 0.02 dollars does not equal 0.02 cents? “Eyeless Writer” has done some follow-up research:

I did some research in early 2007 for an article that I ultimately never got around to publishing. It was a follow-up article to the story told by VerizonMath.com, where a customer recorded 6 different Verizon managers quoting a rate 100 times less than they actually charged, and then not being able to see the mistake when it was pointed out to them. The results of that research—an informal survey in which I called Verizon’s sales line 56 times—are as relevant now as ever. With the recent battles between Google and Verizon Wireless over so-called, “open networks”, now seems like an excellent time to wonder exactly how bad a phone company can get if they’re allowed to trap their customers. This article seems like pretty good evidence that Verizon Wireless should not be the entity deciding future wireless laws.

Here is a video made by “Eyeless Writer” that compiles those 56 calls to Verizon Wireless and asks them to answer two questions about their rates. The operators misquote Verizon’s rate 93% of the time.


[How Bad Can a Cell Phone Company Get? – YouTube]
(via)

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Myth of the Mousetrap

Myth of the Mousetrap bookA couple of days ago I got a nice email from an author in the UK by the name of Anne Miller.

She wrote to let me know she had mentioned my website in her new book and to tell me a little something about it.

It sounds interesting, and I’m flattered to have been included.

Here’s what she wrote:

I’m referencing your backmasking site in my book The Myth of the Mousetrap: how to get your ideas adopted (and change the world), as a excellent example of the way that we force fit things to fit with what we expect. This is one of the reasons why, when you tell people your brilliant idea, they ignore it, saying things like “we tried that years ago and it didn’t work” or “thats just like my idea”.

See: www.themythofthemousetrap.org for more info.

The book was published a couple of weeks ago by Cyan/Marshall Cavendish and is available in UK, N America and Australasia.

Thanks Anne!

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The Large Hadron Collider

The latest iteration of the world’s biggest physics experiment, the Large Hadron Collider, will be switched on in May 2008 (though the BBC documentary below says November, the time line has been updated).

It’s big, REALLY big, and expensive—costing over 6 billion dollars and crossing between the borders of France and Switzerland at four points. The LHC is being funded and built in collaboration with over two thousand physicists from thirty-four countries, universities and laboratories.

As a side note, CERN has had some impressive byproducts, including the web itself.

The BBC created a great documentary about it called The Six Billion Dollar Experiment, the full running time is 49 minutes, but you can enjoy the BBC’s preview:


[The Six Billion Dollar Experiment – YouTube]

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Man & Beast

Man & BeastThere is a new play opening at the U of L on Thursday. It’s a bit out there for my usual theatrical consumption, however, I think sometimes it’s good to challenge yourself and can you really go wrong with a play about sex?

Director Ben Hart gave me a ticket to see this show, so I guess I’ll find out on Thursday.


Continue reading “Man & Beast”