River Out Of Eden

River Out of Eden : Darwinian View Of Life

This was my first Dawkins (I discovered this book 8 years ago, read half of it and forgot about it. I dug it up again last week and read it through). What a shame - I have spent all these years in ignorance :(

Very educational, very entertaining and extremely readable.

This is really 5 essays on evolution in the form of a book. To be sure Dawkins builds on the ideas developed in the first chapter in the later ones, but still each can stand on its own.

The first chapter lays down the basics about the nature of DNA and it's propagation (DNA's digital nature, how heredity works, etc.)

The second discusses the "out of Africa" theories of human evolution. The discussion of the Mitochondrial Eve is fabulous.

The third chapter's purpose "is to destroy the argument that complicated contrivances have to be perfect if they are to work at all" - a favorite position of creationists. Brilliantly argued. Case closed!

The fourth chapter is the best: "God's Utility Function" - what's the "designer" of life (on Earth) maximizing? It can't be the "greatest good for the greatest number" - clearly there are lifeforms hurting other lifeforms for the purpose of simply existing. Or is he trying to maximize David Attenborough's TV ratings?! More serious questions like, "it makes no economic sense in many species for the sex ratio to be 50%, when a majority of males simply consume resources and have no role to play in reproduction. why have they not been selected out?" Read the book to get the answers :) It's worth it.

To me, the last chapter is the least best; I admit I rushed through it a bit. Dawkins tries to come up with a generalized receipe for the evolution of intelligent life on any given planet - in terms of the thresholds that need to be crossed to achieve that. It's a little hard to follow. May be I'll re-read it soon.

Faith Starts Where You Stop Thinking?

Yesterday I was stopped in front of Namasthe Plaza (Indian Grocery Store in Sunnyvale) by an ISKON volunteer. She was a dimunitive white lady of 52 (her information). She started off trying to get us to pick up a book on Krishna (and offer a "donation" in return.) Another volunteer saw my pregnant wife and swooped in on her with a couple of Baby Krishna books.

After we had brushed off the initial baits, the little old lady went to the next gear, and produced a thicker, more serious looking book titled Krsna. She declared it was a required book for any one who wants to combat the stresses of materialistic existence and wants to go beyond the cycle of life, and stuff like that.

At that point, I lost a bit of my patience, and started off saying "You should realize that, being from India, we have been exposed to this stuff a lot...." And so started a short debate that quickly accelerated in full fledged battle of beliefs.

At some point she said something like "you are going to be a father, and you would be failing in your duty if you do not equip your child with this knowledge of life and the soul...". I got ticked off and told her I disagreed, and that it's good for someone only if they buy into it. It boils down to "faith", I said. She agreed, but went on to say, thousands are benefitting from the knowledge of Krishna all over the world; this is being taught in leading universities all over the world; people who have a higher taste seek this.

Wow, wait a minute! Higher Taste?

I was tempted to say, people of lower intelligence seek this stuff, but that would have been foolishness.

Anyway, I said, faith is that point where you choose not to think anymore, or you can't think anymore. (Implying, I have some distance to go before I give up thinking and trying to figure 'it' out.) I don't think she understood. But, I think I was on to something there.

Got to think about that one!

when canned/frozen fruit is better than fresh

Dr. Dean Edell: fruit/vegetables harvested to be sold fresh have to be plucked before they reach prime. however, fruits for canning/freezing can get closer to full ripeness before being harvested.

but the diff. are small. instead of nit-picking, just each some fruit - in whatever form!

The confusing world of Digital Video

My first deliberate foray in to the Digital Video jungle happened this weekend, after our Seemandham (Hindu Baby Shower). Thanksfully, I didn't have to go through the agony of having to decide which Camcoder to buy - thanks to my brother's wedding gift 4 years ago, which is surprisingly still not obsolete.

I spent a few hours googling and reading internet forums and tutorials, and learnt a bit. But it is still a very confusing jungle to navigate, especially if your attention span is not good. And since my memory is not very good either, I thought I'll record my new-found knowledge here before it slowly evoporated away.

Some basic facts:

1. all camcoders today are digital - they store the video and audio data in digital format, in a miniDV tape, mini DVD, a hard-disk or a flash memory.

2a. miniDV is a magnetic tape medium, on which data is stored digitally. the data rate is roughly 25 mbps. intra-frame compression is used, but not inter-frame compression (not sure about this)

2b. mini DVD is the same format as a regular DVD, just a smaller size (so less capacity?). the data in a DVD is stored using the MPEG-2 format, with bitrates in the range 5 to 10 mbps. intra and inter-frame compression are used.

3. video transfer from a miniDV camcoder to a PC (over USB or FireWire) is a real-time "capture". so, unless the transfer interface (USB/FireWire) has enough bandwidth and the PC is fast enough, data-loss can occur (mostly in the form of dropped frames). this is not like transferring files from a CD to a hard drive, where slower interface/hardware just results in longer time of transfer. put differently, transferring 60 minutes of video from a miniDV camcoder to a PC takes exactly 60 minutes - no matter how fast or slow the hardware is.

The Urge To Be Teacher

I assume it's fairly common among men (perhaps among women too) at some point in their lives to want to be a teacher. It's an urge to help the younger generation, to show them the way, to give back to the society, etc.

But I wonder if it's really a manifestation of another common wish - to go back in time and meet one's younger self, and give some real good advice! Something to ponder...

Rammed Earth Building (like the Great Wall)

Rammed Earth or Stabilized Earth building technique is basically building solid earth walls by compressing/compacting a mixture of earth, sand and may be some cement in place, using "forming" devices like a wooden shell. Once the earth is dry, the forming device is removed, and the next section of the wall is rammed in.

Benefits:

Thermal Flywheel Effect - the earth stores heat during the day and releases it at night
Indoor air quality
Longevity, durability, low-maintenance
Fire and Insect resistance
Environmentally Friendly
Intangibles - great feeling, quietness of solid earth walls...

Recently, MIT researchers experimented with a building technique used more than 2000 years ago in the Great Wall of China. They used local Boston blue clay, mixed it with two parts sand and gravel, packed the mixture by hand and a pneumatic compactor into a wooden shell that was removed once each section was complete and dry. The wall which was started in September 2005 is apparently doing just fine 2 months later.

This technique will not be suitable for applications where strength is important. However, a neat application, for example, would be for building the acoustic proofing walls by the side of highways. Apart from looking more aesthetic, thanks to the wall essentially being made of the same material as the surrounding land, it'd be environmentally friendly too, as much of the material used uses little processing.

eh, well, freakonomics :(

Don't get me wrong: I love this freakonomics thing. I just finished the book (in audio form), and have thoroughly enjoyed it. But what bothers me is that it's become so "hip". Somehow all this hype lessens the legitimacy of the thing. Nevertheless, the basic philosophy of the book is well in line with the way I think, and that's great. If anything, this book is going to make me even more skeptical of conventional wisdom.

Also, the book is a mild wakeup call for me during a time I have been growing more and more gullible to the "experts". And it's a breath of fresh air to see how economics is much more than mere numbers - it's music to the ears of someone who's been professing a fascination for economics oflate, but has always been wary of the mathematics involved!

Clair Patterson: The Man Who Found Out Earth's Age

Clair Patterson invented a method of isolating/estimating minute quantities of lead isotopes present in rocks, and this led him to determine the age of the earth (something like 4.6 billion years) for the first time in human history.

He later went on to show that human industrial activity was causing the lead levels in the atmosphere (and so in the rocks and antarctic ice) to increase to dangerous levels. He fought a lone battle against the Ethyl corporation, the manufacturers of tetra-ethyl lead, the anti-knock additive in gasoline. It was largely becasue of his effects that the "Clean Air" bill was passed and TEL was banned in the United States.

(First learnt from Bill Bryson's "A Short History of Nearly Everything")

Central America Deforestation

In 1986 Tom Sever, NASA's only archaeologist, acquired a satellite image of northern Guatemala to examine it for archaeological sites. As soon as he glanced at the image, Sever "was stunned that he could see the political border between Guatemala and Mexico, because of the deforestation in Mexico,".



Above: The razor-sharp border between Mexico and Guatemala, as seen in this 1988 Landsat image, shows the impact of rural settlements on the rainforest.


The image was so powerful, it was published in National Geographic magazine, and became a catalyst for the president and congress of Guatemala to set up what they call the Mayan Biosphere Reserve—Guatemala's largest protected area.

Bigger picture:


Credit: Science@NASA

Douglas Adams' Babel Fish

Adams at his best!

"The Babel fish, is small, yellow, and leechlike, and probably the oddest thing in the universe. It feeds on brainwave energy received not from its own carrier but from those around it.It absorbs all unconscious mental frequencies from this brainwave energy to nourish itself with. It then excretes into the mind of its carrier a telepathic matrix formed by combining the conscious thought frequencies with nerve signals picked up from the speech centers of the brain which has supplied them. The practical upshot of all this is that if you stick a Babel fish in your ear you can instantly understand anything said to you in any form of language. The speech patterns you actually hear decode the brainwave matrix which has been fed into your mind by your Babel fish. Now it is such a bizarrely improbable coincidence that anything that mindbogglingly useful could have evolved purely by chance that some thinkers have chosen to see it as a final and clinching proof of the nonexistence of God. The argument goes something like this: "I refuse to prove that I exist," says God, "for proof denies faith, and without faith I am nothing." "But," says man, "the Babel fish is a dead giveaway, isn´t it? It could not have evolved by chance. It proves you exist, and so therefore, by your own arguments, you don´t. QED." "Oh dear," says God, "I hadn´t thought of that," and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic. "Oh, that was easy," says man, and for an encore goes on to prove that black is white and gets himself killed on the next zebra crossing. Most leading theologians claim that this argument is a load of dingo´s kidneys, but that didn´t stop Oolon Colluphid making a small fortune when he used it as the central theme of his best-selling book, Well That about Wraps It Up for God. Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."