--- Day changed Tue Aug 19 2008
00:11 < nsh> ENOUGH WITH YOUR DAMN PATCHES ALREADY
00:11 < nsh> uh, <small> around that
00:12 < kanzure> oh, you don't like patches?
00:12  * nsh doesn't get this everything-as-patches thing though
00:12 < kanzure> when you mess up in anything that you do, do you start from scratch?
00:12 < kanzure> and redo everything?
00:13 < nsh> why don't you use the term 'edit', or 'revision'
00:13 < nsh> ?
00:13 < kanzure> because revision assumes you're wastefully copying bits that you already know
00:13 < kanzure> when you mke an error in your message, you just fix the bad part
00:13 < kanzure> s/mke/make/
00:13 < kanzure> ;-)
00:14  * nsh smiles
00:14 < nsh> it's semantic then
00:14 < kanzure> the choice of 'patch' over 'revision' ?
00:14 < kanzure> yes.
00:14 < nsh> i just hate thinking of things as code that aren't
00:14 < kanzure> ho ho ho
00:14 < nsh> which is not what you intented
00:14 < nsh> just a by-product of the term used
00:15 < kanzure> but isn't everything, fundamentally, code?
00:16 < nsh> you want more big letters, is that it?
00:16 < nsh> :-)
00:16 < kanzure> haha
00:17 < nsh> no, a calander is not a program
00:17 < kanzure> how so?
00:17 < nsh> meh
00:18 < kanzure> you mean, "you don't necessarily have to follow it" ?
00:18 < kanzure> because cronjob looks like a calendar/scheduler
00:18 < kanzure> hell, the linux kernel scheduler
00:18 < kanzure> the 'calendar' being the output of 'top' (well, there's probably a better program I could mention, I'm just not thinking of it right now)
00:18 < nsh> crontab doesn't get run
00:19 < nsh> a program uses it as data
00:19 < nsh> DON'T YOU SEE?!?
00:19  * nsh too tired and cranky this kinda gonads-chat
00:19 < nsh> +for
00:19  * nsh smiles
00:20 < nsh> if you want to look at everything that causes affects the behavior of some other thing as code
00:20 < nsh> be my guest
00:20 < kanzure> a calendar has a function
00:20 < kanzure> this function is what we program
00:20 < kanzure> programmers write functions
00:21  * nsh gonna dream about carpet-bombing language
00:27 < kanzure> hm?
00:31 < nsh> i'll explain another time
00:31 < nsh> gotta get some kip
02:09 < shobin> do any of you guys know people that have thought about synthetic biology in the context of transhumanism?
02:16 < kanzure> me
02:16 < kanzure> sorry for my lag, I was poking at django
02:16 < kanzure> fenn too
02:16 < kanzure> his writozyme is very easily transhuman
02:17 < kanzure> http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/index.php/In_vitro_DNA_synthesizer except the writozyme is supposedly in vivo
02:18 < kanzure> genetic engineering is a transhuman topic, you see
02:18 < kanzure> http://heybryan.org/transhumanism_def.html
02:21 < kanzure> I'm also working on a project that I haven't been talking about much involving synthetic wombs
02:22 < shobin> is this an official sort of thing or a side-project?
02:23 < kanzure> what makes it official?
02:23 < kanzure> I was discussing the writozyme with a lab, if that's what you're asking
02:23 < shobin> being affiliated and sponsored by UT Austin
02:23 < kanzure> and am in the process of writing a grant with a fellow in Florida
02:23 < kanzure> grant proposal I mean.
02:23 < shobin> to whom?
02:23 < kanzure> hrm, I think it was something from grants.gov
02:24 < kanzure> I can check the logs if necessary
02:24 < shobin> just curious
02:24 < kanzure> it was inconsequential - once you write up the grant once, you can send it to multiple places
02:24 < kanzure> I was thinking DARPA at first :p but that's not the most obvious place to start
02:25 < shobin> how far along are you, in this project?
02:25 < kanzure> I've (mostly) designed the experiments to get the 'retarded polymerase'
02:26 < kanzure> http://heybryan.org/diagrams/retarded_polymerase.png
02:26 < kanzure> and lots and lots of literature aggregation heh'
02:27 < kanzure> this is an in vitro directed evolution scenario to try to get a 'retarded polymerase' that would write only one nucleotide
02:28 < kanzure> the next part is somehow either (1) throwing A-retard, T-retard, G-retard, and C-retard together into one molecule or (2) attaching them to beta clamp maybe?, and then getting them to respond to lasers (lots of good literature on this)
02:28 < shobin> what's the purpose?
02:28 < kanzure> biological DNA synthesizer
02:28 < kanzure> the 'writozyme'
02:29 < kanzure> flash some light, it (slowly) makes DNA
02:29 < shobin> how would you like the lasers to manipulate your 'retarded' nucleotides
02:29 < kanzure> http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/index.php/Retarded_polymerase
02:30 < kanzure> chromophore-assisted activation
02:32 < kanzure> ' and inactivates each protein by approximately 90% in <30 s of widefield illumination.' <-- this is a problem with it though
02:32 < kanzure> since 10% is ok once maybe, but then over 1000 writes that's . bad.
02:32 < kanzure> hey nemos_
02:32 < nemos_> hi kanzure
02:32 < shobin> how fast could this be
02:32 < kanzure> shobin: hahah
02:32 < kanzure> slow as hell methinks
02:32 < kanzure> polymerase works pretty quickly at 1000 bp per second
02:32 < kanzure> but
02:33 < kanzure> look above
02:33 < kanzure> the chromophore method takes 30 seconds of widefield illumination
02:33 < kanzure> so it has to be a slow polymerase that only moves when we tell it to
02:33 < kanzure> unless there''s a faster way to inactivate polymerase via lasers
02:33 < kanzure> Who was nemos_ ?
02:34 < shobin> no idea
02:34 < shobin> I thought you knew him from the greeting
02:34 < shobin> clearly he knows you
02:34 < kanzure> hm
02:34 < kanzure> not sure
02:35 < kanzure> anyway, with biological DNA synthesizers you can do cool things like automated synthetic biology ... the overall project is kinda http://heybryan.org/bioreactors.html 
02:36 < kanzure> oops
02:36 < kanzure> 404
02:36 < kanzure> http://heybryan.org/new_exp.html
02:36 < kanzure> it also mentions a link to http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/index.php/Bioreactors
02:37 < shobin> those would be neat to have
02:37 < kanzure> self-contained self-replicating biology lab. but there's a ridiculously large number of awesome projects.
02:37 < kanzure> *of other, orthogonal awesome projects.
02:39 < shobin> your blurb about aptamers is interesting
02:39 < shobin> I hadn't heard of those before
02:39 < kanzure> :)
02:39 < shobin> seems like they would be difficult to use though
02:39 < shobin> a very ad hoc sort of solution
02:39 < kanzure> hm?
02:39 < kanzure> in which context?
02:40 < shobin> finding the right aptamers to use
02:40 < kanzure> at UT here we have a robot that does aptamer selection experiments
02:40 < kanzure> for the therapeutic application of aptamers, they just make random pools of them and see which ones bind to stuff at adequate numbers
02:40 < kanzure> the hiss in the noise :)
02:40 < shobin> mm
02:40 < shobin> and once you find the right ones you're set
02:41 < shobin> that's cool...
02:41 < shobin> how much are they?
02:41 < kanzure> we make our own
02:41 < kanzure> the lab, I mean
02:41  * kanzure is not officially with the lab
02:41 < kanzure> one of the only labs left with their own DNA synthesizer apparently
02:42 < kanzure> everyone else tends to outsource to companies or on-campus synthesis companies
02:42 < shobin> are you binding to the ecoli or your desired neurotransmitter?
02:46 < kanzure> hm?
02:46 < kanzure> which project are you talking about now?
02:46 < shobin> even when the aptamers bind successfully - how do you isolate the substance you want
02:46 < shobin> I'm talking about aptamers
02:46 < kanzure> neurotransmitter
02:46 < kanzure> this is all in vitro
02:47 < shobin> were you talking about using them in conjunction with bioreactors?
02:47 < kanzure> aptamers do not work in vivo
02:47 < kanzure> not without siRNA
02:47 < kanzure> yeah, there are a few cases where I've considered aptamers + the bioreactor idea
02:49 < kanzure> somebody in the lab was working on using aptamers to capture tsch or something 
02:49 < kanzure> the hormone used to stop muscle growth in the body
02:49 < kanzure> as you take that up, specifically, muscle mass goes up
02:50 < kanzure> some poor kids out there have low levels of the hormone because of their various mutations
03:18 < shobin> oh yeah, myostatin right?
03:18 < kanzure> yes
03:18 < shobin> there's at least one myostatin drug going through testing now
03:19 < kanzure> hah, that'll take decades
03:19 < shobin> yeah
03:19 < kanzure> better do it yourself.
03:19 < shobin> have you seen the myostatin dog? looks ridiculous
03:19 < kanzure> hm
03:19 < shobin> http://www.technologyreview.com/files/13395/whippet_x220.jpg
03:19 < kanzure> http://www.who-sucks.com/people/monstrous-myostatin-misfortunes-a-collection-of-myostatin-deficiency-pictures
03:20 < shobin> yeah, better site
03:22 < shobin> I'll be watching that little kid as he grows up
03:22 < shobin> too bad he has so many other complications
03:22 < shobin> makes it difficult to draw any conclusions about what kind of effect myostatin blockage has long term
03:23 < kanzure> 'Two days after birth, he was able to fully stand-up and support his own weight.'
03:23 < shobin> yeah, that's just insane
03:23 < shobin> almost superhero-esque
03:25 < kanzure> :)
03:25 < kanzure> tanshuman-esque, you mean
03:25 < shobin> haha
03:58 < kanzure> 'I'm looking for something that can convert wmf to dxf (or gcode). Any ideas?I'm looking for something that can convert wmf to dxf (or gcode). Any ideas?'
07:01 < marainein> hi
07:02 < kanzure> Hey marainein.
07:02 < marainein> hi kanzure :)
07:02 < marainein> i haven't been here in a while
07:02 < marainein> and i wasn't here for long, so you probably don't remember me
07:03 < marainein> did you start the job at the lab yet?
07:03 < kanzure> oh yes
07:04 < kanzure> already finished too
07:04 < kanzure> by 'finished' I mean I stopped going in to the lab
07:04 < marainein> how'd it go? change any of your views on mol bio?
07:05 < kanzure> it went ok, but it turns out that I'm not all that fast with gels
07:06 < kanzure> we were doing some transcriptional switches and in vitro molecular manufacturing of sorts ;-)
07:06 < kanzure> Turing patterns with DNA computers, is one way of summarizing the work
07:06 < marainein> sound impressive
07:06 < kanzure> :)
07:06 < marainein> what sort of stage were they at?
07:07 < kanzure> the gels were smearing for an unknown reason
07:08 < kanzure> trying to get some basic transcriptional switches to work
07:08 < kanzure> but we were planning out some possible setups for emulsions and computing
07:08 < kanzure> I didn't really like that particular path of getting it done, but on the software end people understood to get the Turing pattern simulations up to speed with DNA binding thresholds re: Watson-Crick base pairing 'rules' and so on
07:08 < kanzure> so that the computational aspect could be correctly modeled
07:09 < kanzure> we didn't really even know if the transcriptional switches were doing what they should have been
07:09 < kanzure> since we had no way of really generating the circuits correctly
07:09 < marainein> how does one turn dna into computers?
07:09 < kanzure> http://heybryan.org/winfree.html
07:09 < kanzure> http://dna.caltech.edu/
07:10 < marainein> thanks
07:10 < kanzure> except that you should never expect to see dna as a computer since it's slow
07:10 < kanzure> it's really good at building stuff though ;-)
07:11 < kanzure> so think of it as an intersection between manufacturing and computation
07:12 < marainein> what sort of molecular manufacturing were they hoping to get done? something apart from the usual dna/protein stuff?
07:12 < kanzure> Turing patterns made out of sucrose or some other sugar
07:12 < kanzure> i.e., think of growing a crystal in a vat based off of a pattern
07:13 < marainein> what sort of applications would that have?
07:14 < kanzure> building a tank from a seed
07:14 < kanzure> guess how we got funding.
07:14 < kanzure> heh'
07:14 < marainein> a tank made out of sugars?
07:14 < kanzure> this is a first step :)
07:15 < marainein> well, chiton and celluluose are made out of sugars...
07:16 < kanzure> the first step would be a mass of sugars just appearing in your pcr reactions
07:16 < kanzure> or so I guess.
07:17 < marainein> yeah, i was just wondering what sort of useful things could be made from it...the tank idea sounds silly
07:18 < marainein> "computational work of a chemical reaction network scales polylogarthmically in the total molecular count, suggesting that large scale ensembles of molecules directly preform computations via physical/chemical reactions and are genuinely powerful number-crunchers "
07:18 < bkero> Hahahahaha.  Whooo!  http://www.religion-cults.com/cloning/god.htm
07:19 < marainein> ...but semiconductor based computing is increasing all the time, and expotentially...biomolecule based computing probably wouldn't
07:19 < kanzure> hm?
07:19 < kanzure> bkero: Awesome.
07:19 < bkero> kanzure: I'm thinking about cloning god.
07:20 < bkero> Have we sequenced gods genes yet?
07:20 < marainein> make a pantheon
07:20 < kanzure> bkero: http://web.archive.org/web/20000614170338/http://www.clonejesus.com/
07:20 < bkero> kanzure: No dude, I don't want to clone some faggy hippy.
07:20 < bkero> I want to clone an incorporeal being. :)
07:21 < kanzure> What's the Shroud of Turin?
07:21 < marainein> use somatic gene therapy to insert those genes in yourself
07:21 < marainein> kanzure: i shroud that was supposedly used to wrap the body of jesus
07:22 < marainein> *a
07:22 < kanzure> Hm.
07:22 < bkero> I like this one more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holy_Lance
07:23 < marainein> or the holy grail
07:23 < marainein> i think carbon dating has found it has the wrong date of origin
07:23 < marainein> (the shroud)
07:23 < kanzure> marainein: The tank idea is not so silly. It got the lab funding from the military.
07:24 < bkero> Carbon dating is also used to identify objects that are over 5000 years old, which is impossible since the earth is only 5000 years old.
07:24 < marainein> hi Nofaris
07:24 < Nofaris> Hello
07:25 < marainein> kanzure: a tank made out of biological materials?
07:25 < kanzure> marainein: No, this is molecular manufacturing. It doesn't have to always be biological.
07:25 < kanzure> hey Nofaris
07:25 < Nofaris> Hello
07:26 < Nofaris> How are you doing?
07:26 < kanzure> A newbie?
07:26 < Nofaris> Sure
07:26 < kanzure> I'm doing awesome.
07:26 < bkero> nooblets :)
07:26 < kanzure> bkero: except better than java applets
07:26 < bkero> What?
07:26 < kanzure> *lets usually refers to applets
07:26 < kanzure> sometimes
07:26 < bkero> Oh
07:27 < bkero> I don't even acknowledge java's existence.
07:28 < kanzure> hurray
07:28 < bkero> kanzure: What do you think about inducing parthenogenesis for cloning?
07:28 < kanzure> Wha?
07:28 < kanzure> I haven't heard of this method.
07:28 < kanzure> oh, wait
07:28 < kanzure> I think I have.
07:29 < kanzure> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parthenogenesis
07:29 < bkero> Yes
07:29 < bkero> It's asexual reproduction
07:29  * kanzure is scheming up a way to convert men into asexual machines
07:29 < kanzure> artificial wombs and the like
07:29 < kanzure> http://www.nrlc.org/Killing_Embryos/ArtificialWombs.html
07:29 < kanzure> http://www.fictionwise.com/ebooks/eBook1011.htm
07:29 < kanzure> http://www.amazon.com/Ectogenesis-Artificial-Technology-Reproduction-Inquiry/dp/9042020814
07:29 < kanzure> http://www.geocities.com/placenta_rb/Biblio.html
07:29 < kanzure> http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/22/neggs122.xml
07:29 < kanzure> http://www.aec.at/festival2000/texte/nobuya_unno_e.htm
07:29 < kanzure> http://www.mindfully.org/Technology/2005/Faking-Babies-Reproduction19may05.htm
07:29 < kanzure> http://www.eshre.com/CM.NET.WebUI/CM.NET.webUI.SCPR/SCPRfunctiondetail.aspx?confID=05000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000029&sesID=05000000-0000-0000-0000-000000002074&absID=07000000-0000-0000-0000-000000014605
07:29 < kanzure> http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg13418180.400-japanese-pioneers-raise-kid-in-rubber-womb-.html
07:29 < kanzure> http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19526146.200&feedId=online-news_rss20
07:30 < kanzure> ok, would also work for women :)
07:30 < kanzure> but women already have a damn womb
07:30 < kanzure> cheaters.
07:30 < Nofaris> lmao
07:30 < marainein> but they might have reasons not to use it
07:30 < marainein> like age
07:30 < marainein> or health concerns
07:30 < kanzure> or pain
07:30 < kanzure> :)
07:31 < bkero> Or menopause
07:31 < kanzure> oh, and death
07:31 < kanzure> let's not forget that
07:31 < kanzure> how can that womb replicate itself when it's dead?
07:31 < marainein> they could freeze eggs when they're young, and have them fertilized in a test tube whenever they're ready to have children, and have the child grown in an artificial womb
07:31 < marainein> yes
07:31 < bkero> Isn't that what's done today?
07:32 < marainein> but the most expensive part of children isn't the gestation part, it's the raising part
07:32 < marainein> bkero: yes, but they have to use their own womb
07:32 < bkero> marainein: Or someone elses?
07:33 < marainein> also you don't have to worry about environmental toxins disrupting development
07:33 < bkero> 07:32 < Oublei> bkero: tell them that you have a friend who is looking to drop her's for 10% below current black market value if they are  interested.
07:33 < marainein> or drinking
07:33 < bkero> You guys interested in one lot of womens plumbin's?
07:33 < kanzure> bkero: Except they don't have the awombs.
07:34 < kanzure> I knew a girl in high school who was going to be paid $130k to womb a child
07:34 < kanzure> lot? Are you a butcher?
07:34 < bkero> Surrogate with artificial insemination?
07:34 < kanzure> mm
07:35 < bkero> kanzure: But if we used parthenogenesis, it doesn't matter that we'd only produce females, because they could simply reproduce by themselves.
07:35 < bkero> You're just cranky because you can't do it on your own. :P
07:36 < kanzure> yes
07:37 < bkero> kanzure: Have you successfully made an artificial womb yet?  If not, why?
07:38 < kanzure> lazy
07:38 < marainein> bkero: your self-reproducing females would be clones of their mothers, and wouldn't get the benefits of recombination
07:38 < bkero> Unless we modified the egg invitro
07:38 < kanzure> marainein: That doesn't matter.
07:39 < kanzure> yah
07:39 < kanzure> yeah
07:39 < kanzure> really, that's not going to be an issue
07:39 < kanzure> just apt-get install new gens
07:39 < kanzure> *genes
07:41 < bkero> So it looks like some work is being done using parthenogenesis to harvest stem cells, but not so much for the full gestation of children.
07:41 < bkero> Simply because we don't have the gene therapy to correct it
07:41 < kanzure> Hm?
07:41 < kanzure> correct what ?
07:41 < bkero> *correct developmental abnormalities
07:41 < kanzure> ah
07:42 < kanzure> In the case of Kuwabara's rubber wombs, the developmental abnormalities, I suspect, were because of a lack of knowledge of what biochemistry of the womb to emulate.
07:43 < bkero> kanzure: Have you tried your hand at artificial wombs yet?
07:44 < bkero> and what's the link on your wiki for biological computation? (the boolean logic gates)
07:44 < fenn> http://fennetic.net/pub/irc/Pamela Sargent - Cloned Lives.pdf
07:44 < fenn> if you want to read more than chapter 1
07:45 < kanzure> bkero: http://heybryan.org/winfree.html http://heybryan.org/mediawiki/index.php/Wittig_cohort etc.
07:45 < bkero> <3
07:45 < kanzure> bkero: No, I haven't. Again, I told you - "laziness". The real reason is because I haven't really gone through the bioreactor design requirements for emulating the biochemistries of various wombs.
07:46  * kanzure wonders about turning humans into oviparitious creatures.
07:47 < marainein> er, can you explain what that is?
07:47  * fenn mumbles something about wasps and caterpillars
07:47 < fenn> oviparous = egg-laying
07:48 < marainein> which in a sense we'd be, if we started using artificial wombs
07:48 < kanzure> wasp hives are interesting
07:48 < kanzure> (when they aren't annoying)
07:49 < bkero> Why?  Social dynamics?
07:50 < kanzure> architecture of the hive and the seemingly random locations in which they turn up
07:50 < fenn> not random
07:50 < kanzure> they've been making mud huts ever since we didn't know how and were living in trees
07:50 < kanzure> seemingly random :)
07:50 < fenn> well, anything is non-obvious if you're stupid :)
07:52 < kanzure> why do they all agree to make it five centimeters to the right of such-and-such location?
07:53 < marainein> do they all have to agree?
07:53 < fenn> apparently wasps from one nest can abandon their own for a better one, they just join the new team
07:55 < marainein> adoption? in the animal kingdom?
07:55 < fenn> was this url already posted in here? wtf http://betsydevine.com/blog/2008/05/13/a-pound-of-sugar-and-a-pint-of-beer/
07:56 < kanzure> me likes
07:58 < marainein> where'd they get their protein from?
07:58 < fenn> bugs
07:59 < fenn> hmm
07:59 < marainein> kanzure: you still interested in aubrey de grey's work?
08:00  * fenn grumbles about conflicting information
08:01 < kanzure> marainein: yes
08:01 < kanzure> marainein: I was about to send him my resume
08:01 < kanzure> he emailed me saying to send it over to John Schloendorn actually
08:01 < marainein> awesome
08:02 < kanzure> they are in need of some more lab guys
08:02 < marainein> who's john schloendorn?
08:02 < marainein> what's this for?
08:02 < kanzure> the guy who tries to make Aubrey's ideas work
08:02 < marainein> any particular idea?
08:02 < kanzure> http://www.methuselahfoundation.org/index.php?pagename=lysosens
08:02 < marainein> lysosens?
08:02 < kanzure> lysosens
08:02 < marainein> ah
08:02 < marainein> i heard they had some progress with that, but i haven't seen the publication
08:03 < marainein> do you know anything more about it than what's on the website?
08:05 < kanzure> no :(
08:05 < kanzure> well
08:05 < kanzure> yes
08:05 < kanzure> http://heybryan.org/transhuman/
08:05 < kanzure> Aubrey.zip has all of Aubrey's papers that I know of
08:05 < kanzure> I read through all of them in a night a while back
08:06 < kanzure> just before I was to talk with him in #immortal on irc.lucifer.com
08:06 < kanzure> so I do know what he's on about
08:06 < marainein> yeah, i've read most his stuff...i was wondering about anything recent
08:06 < kanzure> but I have some other ideas that he doesn't exactly promote
08:06 < kanzure> nope
08:06 < marainein> there was a conference a month ago
08:06 < kanzure> he gave a talk up in California, but it was just an ego trip "why everyone hates me"
08:06 < kanzure> ah, well, this was after that conference
08:06 < marainein> but they haven't release much information
08:07 < kanzure> Aubrey needs to get with the program:
08:07 < marainein> you were there?
08:07 < kanzure> BioBarCamp
08:07 < kanzure> aug 6 and 7
08:07 < kanzure> (1) Need to get kits for home users to search for the Holy Grail on their own.
08:07 < marainein> ah, ok...were there any videos from it?
08:07 < kanzure> (2) the body sucks; just focus specifically on antiaging in the brain. Anything else can become a prosthetic.
08:07 < kanzure> no :(
08:08 < kanzure> wait
08:08 < kanzure> heh, I stole one from somebody
08:08 < kanzure> you really want it?
08:08 < marainein> sure
08:08 < marainein> what's it about?
08:08 < kanzure> why everybody hates him
08:09 < marainein> ok...i'll watch
08:09 < kanzure> let me upload
08:09 < kanzure> woah
08:09 < kanzure> 10 MB/sec
08:09 < kanzure> I love this dorm
08:09 < kanzure> http://heybryan.org/~bbishop/docs/biobarcamp/
08:10 < marainein> thanks....for making me jealous :P
08:10 < kanzure> the first one might be it
08:10 < kanzure> not the third
08:10 < kanzure> not the second
08:11 < kanzure> okay :) process of elimination
08:11 < marainein> ok...thanks :)
08:11 < marainein> what did he have to say?
08:11 < kanzure> uhm, not much
08:11  * marainein downloads....slooooooooooooly
08:12 < Nofaris> 10MB/s must be so godly
08:12 < kanzure> "how to be a successful heretic"
08:12 < bkero> god damn 18k/s
08:12 < kanzure> Nofaris: I downloaded Nature in a day.
08:12 < kanzure> And then god said, wget -m.
08:13 < kanzure> (actually, I didn't use wget -m, but anyway ..)
08:13 < marainein> I was wondering why more people weren't interested in this lysosens thing
08:13 < kanzure> hm?
08:13 < marainein> lipofuscin has got to be the single biggest killer in the world
08:14 < marainein> any idea to deal with it, even if it's a long shot, ought to get people excited
08:17 < bkero> marainein: Don't intake any calories, that gets rid of them.
08:18 < fenn> jumping in a vat of fuming sulfuric acid also gets rid of them..
08:18 < kanzure> 'A failed attempt made towards solving the problem is not a milestone
08:18 < kanzure> on the path towards solving the problem, unless you point to a
08:18 < kanzure> specific successful lesson drawn from such an attempt. You can't just
08:18 < kanzure> perform rituals of failure faster and faster and expect them to
08:18 < kanzure> converge on success. Neither can you make shows for the public and
08:18 < kanzure> expect the depicted events magically come true.'
08:18 < kanzure> hurray
08:19 < fenn> who said that?
08:21 < kanzure> somebody on the singularity mailing list
08:21 < kanzure> Vladimir Nesov
08:22 < kanzure> http://anybots.com/ - 'Blackwell sees a future in which a low-paid worker from India might remotely control a robot in your kitchen, taking on tasks that today might be assigned to a servant. Blackwell believes that this is the Next Big Thing, and that thousands of homes will be using his robots to clean, cook, and serve meals. This scheme would effectively allow rich countries to import labor -- without the laborer.'
08:22 < kanzure> http://blogs.spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/2007/08/07/labor_without_the_laborer.html
08:23 < fenn> john mccarthy has been talking about that for years
08:24 < kanzure> I'm sure
08:24 < kanzure> it's obviously cheating
08:25 < kanzure> and it's also obvious in the first place ... just outsourcing to india
08:25 < fenn> it's also ten years too late
08:25 < marainein> the price of labor tends to rise, while the price of computing power tends to fall
08:25 < marainein> yeah, it's not a good long term idea, i think
08:26 < kanzure> economics don't matter
08:26 < kanzure> there was a dream posted on the internet once,
08:26 < kanzure> a story by a friend of a game developer,
08:27 < kanzure> wherein the protagonist finds himself talking with an internet goddess
08:27 < kanzure> so that he might reverse engineer her and write her superior
08:27 < kanzure> it turns out that the best way to do this was to outsource to everybody else 
08:27 < kanzure> just like the (actual) Internet Oracle
08:28 < marainein> nobody's got any ideas for why lysosens is being so unjustly neglected by the scientific community?
08:28 < fenn> because goals like immortality are 'fringe'
08:29 < marainein> is curing heart disease 'fringe'?
08:29 < fenn> humans tend to ignore heavy baseline deaths in favor of spectacular exciting ones
08:30 < marainein> there's plenty of money being invested in statins and cholestrol controlling drugs
08:30 < marainein> fenn: i know...it bothers me so much
08:31 < marainein> 'One of the things I routinely tell people is that if it's in the news, don't worry about it. By definition, "news" means that it hardly ever happens. If a risk is in the news, then it's probably not worth worrying about. When something is no longer reported -- automobile deaths, domestic violence -- when it's so common that it's not news, then you should start worrying.'
08:34 < fenn> unless they're bombing your city
08:35 < marainein> true
08:35 < kanzure> funerals
08:36 < kanzure> while I have never been to a funeral, sitting around and moping about the death of a family member has always .. made me uneasy
08:36 < kanzure> because I immediately think
08:36 < kanzure> "I should be reading papers."
08:36 < kanzure> and "I can solve this stupid problem."
08:36 < kanzure> how much do these people really care ?
08:36  * marainein nods
08:36 < kanzure> meh
08:36  * marainein is phobic of death
08:38 < bkero> kanzure: I will give you all the money in my bank account if you can make me not die.
08:39 < kanzure> "me" ?
08:39 < bkero> Me personally :P
08:39 < kanzure> comment still stands
08:40 < bkero> :P I'd like to keep my conciousness, everything else is ambiguous.
08:40 < kanzure> even twins are different
08:40 < kanzure> what the fuck is consciousness
08:41 < bkero> I'd like to be self-aware and sentient.
08:42 < bkero> IE not just keep the e. coli in my guts alive. :P
08:43 < kanzure> comment still applies ..
08:45 < bkero> Do you want some existential answer about what defines "me"?
08:48 < kanzure> There is no "me". I mean, there's me, yes, but there's nome. 
08:48 < kanzure> gee, how do I put this
08:48 < kanzure> ge-no-me
08:48 < kanzure> it's kind of like a genome
08:48 < kanzure> a blueprint
08:48 < kanzure> okay, corny :)
08:49 < bkero> You're talking the distinction between cognition and meat?
08:49 < marainein> spinning out on the hard problem of consciousness?
08:49 < kanzure> No.
08:49 < kanzure> It's not a hard problem because the problem is nonexistant...
08:49 < kanzure> *nonexistent
08:50 < kanzure> bkero is the last person who would opt to disagree with me on this ;-)
08:51 < bkero> Heh
08:51 < kanzure> the hard part is telling people that their brain is real
08:52 < kanzure> and then even harder is moving on once they refuse to believe that their experiences that they become/have/whatever are indeed real as well
08:52 < bkero> They have a physical manifestation
08:52 < kanzure> bah, impossible! how could this be biophysics?
08:52 < kanzure> http://heybryan.org/intense_world_syndrome.html
08:54 < marainein> so
08:54 < marainein> do you have some code that can demonstrate/simulate self-awareness?
08:55 < kanzure> bkero: How would you even propose to make the "me-system" check if me is one me or the other? You can hardly do that with a controlled experiment on the "me" that proposes that in the first place. ;-)
08:55 < kanzure> you don't get it ... 
08:55 < kanzure> self-awareness is more or less meaningless in this context as far as I can tell
08:56 < bkero> You're saying it's impossible to discern one me from another.
08:56 < marainein> in what context? information processing?
08:57 < kanzure> the context of ungrounded knowledge and functionality ... ;-)
08:58 < kanzure> bkero: You could probably come up with some 'limits' that you would think are representative of 'youness' or whatever aspect you want to call that. But it's hard to do this when you don't even know the mediums and channels will be of expression. For instance, how would you look in ms paint, versus look in the text in this channel? And so on.
08:58 < kanzure> limits/parameterspace thingy I guess 
08:59  * kanzure has actually been trying to figure out how to not have to import 'identity' assumptions into philosophical frameworks. Sleep walking might be it, not sure.
09:00 < fenn> all your cells are belong to gaia
09:00 < kanzure> 'And so Man dropped his seed into the Test Tube, and from the artificial wombs came many races of men, and races that were men no longer: the Elidi grew wings and the Agathanians carked their bodies into the shape of seals and dove beneath the waters of their planet; the Hoshi learned the difficult art of breathing methane while the Alaloi rediscovered arts ancient and ageless.
09:00 < kanzure> On the Civilized Worlds there were many who sought to improve their racial inheritance in some small way. The exemplars of Bodhi Luz, for example, desired children of greater stature and so, inch by inch, generation by generation, they bred human beings ten feet tall. Chaos reined as human beings from different planets found that they were unable to mate and bear children in the natural manner.
09:00 < kanzure> Thus Man formulated the third and greatest of his laws, which came to be called the Law of the Civilized Worlds: A man may do with his flesh as he pleases but his DNA belongs to his species.'
09:00 < kanzure> - from A Requiem for Homo Sapiens, by Horthy Hosthoh
09:02 < fenn> oo ten feet tall
09:02 < kanzure> of all things to do :)
09:02 < fenn> the mind boggles
09:02 < kanzure> "his essence belongs to his species" is another interpretation. I'm not saying DNA is essence, but I am saying that 'human' is a way of life with various perceptions and carked niches. 'Not dying' is generally considered somewhat trans/post-humanous. The "me" thing ...
09:02 < fenn> kanzure: reminds me of heinlein
09:02 < kanzure> it's Zindell.
09:03 < kanzure> http://heybryan.org/quotes.html
09:03 < fenn> um, the law idea, not the epic prose
09:03 < kanzure> ah
09:03 < kanzure> I think Zindell is coming from a somewhat jewish background .. the idea of a tight society that knows its own laws and rules for somewhat good reasons and the like. Not bad, as long as you allow some of us to escape.
09:04 < fenn> in 'number of the beast' ishtar the geneticist is explaining why lazarus and his mother should have a child, and how she would do it anyway behind their backs if they refused because their genes don't belong to them
09:07 < fenn> kanzure did you ever read 'the sword and the helix'?
09:07 < fenn> oops, 'the helix and the sword'
09:08 < kanzure> http://heybryan.org/quotes.html#Posthuman <-- New quotes
09:08 < kanzure> Wilson?
09:08 < kanzure> not yet
09:08 < fenn> by john mcloughlin
09:09 < marainein> what's it about?
09:09  * marainein thinks most of heinlein's later works sucked badly
09:09 < fenn> after earth blows up, the only thing left of humanity is some tissue culture experiments in orbit, which grow and turn into a civilization spanning the asteroid belt
09:10 < fenn> they have a caste of genetic engineers that make living space habitats
09:11 < marainein> out of seeds?
09:11 < fenn> erm, yeah i guess
09:11 < marainein> :P
09:11 < kanzure> neat
09:11 < fenn> most of the habitats were very old so they didnt really explain how they started out
09:12 < fenn> anyway, i hope it's as good as i remember it from sixth grade
09:12 < kanzure> you have a copy?
09:12 < kanzure> heh
09:12 < fenn> no, i should get one and scan it
09:12  * bkero sleeps
09:13  * marainein holds a competition for the best sci fi novel you've ever read
09:13 < kanzure> Neverness.
09:14 < kanzure> http://heybryan.org/quotes.html#Posthuman <-- quotes from Neverness
09:14 < marainein> i don't think i've even heard of it
09:14 < kanzure> http://heybryan.org/docs/Zindell,%20David%20-%20Neverness%20(v1.0).txt
09:14 < marainein> can you tell me a little about it?
09:16 < kanzure> Mallory Ringess, novitiate of the Order of the Mystical Mathematicians and Other Seekers of the Ineffable Flame, journies to save the galaxy from the Vild, an exponentially increasing region of the galaxy where stars continue to die.
09:16 < kanzure> *Mystic
09:17 < marainein> this sounds serious
09:17 < kanzure> It is.
09:18 < marainein> what do you like about it so much?
09:20 < kanzure> not sure if it's any one thing in particular
09:20 < kanzure> ' - But how is it possible? How could it be possible that everything is really all right?
09:20 < kanzure> - How could it not be possible?'
09:22 < marainein> hi Rabbit
09:22 < kanzure> Rabbit?
09:22 < kanzure> who are these newbies?
09:22 < Rabbit> Hello
09:22 < marainein> it's kind of quiet in here now
09:23 < kanzure> where are they coming from?
09:23 < marainein> kanzure: sorry, it's my fault
09:23 < kanzure> oh?
09:23 < kanzure> hm
09:23 < kanzure> netspace?
09:23 < kanzure> that's where Greg Egan is hosted
09:23 < marainein> they won't cause trouble, i promise
09:23 < kanzure> yes, but who are they? 
09:23 < fenn> Rabbit: have you ever killed a man?
09:24 < marainein> nofaris and rabbit are friends of mine...i was talking to them about you and this place, and they asked to join
09:24 < kanzure> okay
09:24 < kanzure> just wondering
09:26  * kanzure pokes at the newbie
09:26 < marainein> she has connection problems sometimes
09:27  * marainein examines rabbit 's pulse
09:27 < marainein> oh, while i remember, i wanted to talk to someone about moore's law
09:27 < Rabbit> Don't worry about me. I'm just sitting in. Won't cause any trouble.
09:27 < Rabbit> Marainein is a friend of mine. He suggested that there was an interesting conversation going on here.
09:28 < kanzure> Was he kind enough to give you a log?
09:28  * fenn wonders what the interesting conversation was
09:28 < marainein> just the consciousness stuff
09:29 < marainein> rabbit's a philosopher
09:29 < Rabbit> Yeah, tonight isn't so good. My internet's very slow. 
09:29 < Rabbit> Fenn: No, I've never killed a man. 
09:29 < kanzure> http://heybryan.org/chats/2008-08-19-%23hplusroadmap.html
09:30 < kanzure> Does the philosopher know of epistemology, systematics, systemantics, ontologies, groundtruthing ?
09:30 < kanzure> just wondering what sort of philosophy we're talking about here.
09:30  * fenn giggles every time he reads 'system antics'
09:30 < kanzure> I thought that was the point
09:31 < fenn> why is that a prerequesite anyway? half of his 'truths' are wrong anyway
09:31 < fenn> ANYWAY!
09:31 < kanzure> prereq? hardly a prereq
09:31 < kanzure> but clearly systems do have antics and 'take on a life of their own' in some sense
09:32 < kanzure> suppose I should rephrase it as 'complexity science' and philosophy of systems or something
09:32 < fenn> standard engineering practice
09:33 < Rabbit> I'm presently tutoring a first year epistemology paper, but epistemology isn't my speciality. 
09:33 < Rabbit> I'm also unfamiliar with systematics, systemantics and groundtruthing. I'm familiar with some ontological problems. It sounds as though our interests don't overlap much. Sorry to disappoint. 
09:35 < kanzure> just what was on the top of my head tonight
09:35 < kanzure> rather conclusive
09:35 < kanzure> ..
09:36 < marainein> Rabbit: i found a debate on the web you might be interested in
09:37 < Rabbit> What's the debate?
09:38 < fenn> "Distinguishing knowing that from knowing how" reminds me of declarative vs procedural memory
09:38 < marainein> http://www.cato-unbound.org/wp-print.php?page_id=659
09:38 < Rabbit> Fenn: That sounds on the money to me.
09:38 < fenn> but that's not a philosophical thing at all, it's neuroscience
09:38 < kanzure> :)
09:39 < Rabbit> Philosophy had that distinction well before neuroscience got off the ground.
09:40 < Rabbit> Not that philosophy has a monopoly on it... the two fields are probably just pointing at the same distinction in different ways/for different reasons.
09:40 < fenn> doesn't it make you wonder what other philosophical conundrums are simple facts of anatomy?
09:42 < Rabbit> Philosophy doesn't work in a vacuum. If anatomy provides an answer to a philosophical conundrum, then that's great. 
09:44 < Rabbit> Also, I don't think that the knowledge-that/knowledge-how distinction is a philosophical conundrum. It's just useful terminology to clarify what one's talking about.
09:45 < kanzure> k
09:46  * fenn is bumbling through the wikipedia entry for epistemology
09:49 < fenn> i dont really see how people can take these seriously: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criteria_of_truth
09:49 < kanzure> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_epistemology
09:49 < marainein> epistemology is not universal? what's the difference between eastern and non-eastern?
09:50 < kanzure> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-epistemology#The_Scope_of_Meta-Epistemology.2C_including_a_Paradox paradox of self-study hehe
09:50 < kanzure> marainein: historical developments
09:50 < Rabbit> The introduction alone on that criteria of truth page makes me want to curl up into a ball and die. 
09:51 < marainein> what's wrong with it, briefly?
09:53 < Rabbit> It's poorly written and it abuses basic technical terminology. Only arguments (or inferences) are valid or invalid (not criteria).
09:55 < Rabbit> "The rules of logic have no ability to distinguish truth on their own." This is misleading. You can derive at least some of mathematics from minimal logical principles. Also, there're multiple kinds of logic, so the claim's too vague. 
09:56 < kanzure> where's nsh when you need him?
09:56  * Rabbit doesn't feel like reading any more poorly written philosophy than she has to.
09:56 < marainein> :)
09:56 < marainein> kanzure: who's nsh?
09:56 < kanzure> markov bot
09:59 < nsh> such a folksy and charming way no-one cares. you can't tell than to say that socrates posed the question 
10:03 < kanzure> hurray, the bot is awake :)
10:03  * kanzure needs to sleep, actually
10:04 < marainein> goodnight
10:04 < kanzure> hm, how'd it get so late?
10:04 < Rabbit> I have to go too. Time to get back to work. 
10:05 < Rabbit> Thanks for letting me sit in.
10:05 < marainein> is that a metaphysical question?
10:05 < marainein> ok
10:05 < marainein> later rabbit, sorry we couldn't entertain you more
10:05 < marainein> maybe you'll come back and discuss the ethics of life extension?
10:06 < fenn> arent the ethics of life extension equal and opposite to the ethics of life reduction?
10:06 < marainein> fenn: strangely, not everyone sees it that way
10:06 < Nofaris> Why is that?
10:07 < fenn> are you sure? perhaps they are advocates of life reduction and simply forgot to mention
10:07 < marainein> for instance, some of the people in that link i posted
10:08 < marainein> Nofaris: discovering why that is is one of my major motivations in talking to this stuff with rabbit, and anyone else i can find who opposes it
10:08 < Nofaris> Rabbit stood on such shaky ground last time she opposed it
10:10 < fenn> arguing ethics is generally difficult because nobody's right
10:10 < marainein> yeah, and she has some unusual beliefs...we need other people to debate this with
10:10 < Nofaris> I don't see the point of debating it, since opposing it boils down to supporting life reduction
10:10 < marainein> fenn: sometimes people have positions based on misunderstanding
10:10 < Nofaris> and that position really isn't that defendable
10:11 < marainein> or on no good reason
10:11 < fenn> Nofaris: tell that to VHEMT
10:11  * marainein nods
10:11 < Nofaris> Who is VHEMT?
10:11 < Nofaris> Sounds like a scary acronym
10:11 < fenn> yes that's on purpose
10:11 < Nofaris> fenn: tell me a little about yourself
10:11 < Nofaris> age/what you do
10:12 < fenn> 26 hermit
10:13 < Nofaris> What makes you a hermit?
10:13 < marainein> did you inherit the profession from your parents?
10:14 < fenn> too smart for my own good, and i have this weird sleep disorder that precludes normal employment or social life
10:14 < Nofaris> What does your sleep disorder do to you?
10:14 < fenn> i stay up an hour later every day
10:14 < Nofaris> :O
10:14 < Nofaris> I do the same
10:15 < fenn> huzzah!
10:15 < Nofaris> I sometimes with the day was an hour longer
10:15 < fenn> there's some notes on supermemo.com about it
10:15 < Nofaris> Oh really
10:15 < Nofaris> Where?
10:16 < fenn> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-24-hour_sleep-wake_syndrome  http://www.supermemo.com/articles/sleep.htm  http://www.supermemo.com/articles/sleepchart.htm
10:17 < Nofaris> Thank you
10:17 < fenn> also you might be interested in http://www.dbeat.com/28/
10:18 < Nofaris> Reminds me of last summer
10:18 < Nofaris> when I would sleep whenever I wanted to
10:18 < Nofaris> and ended up waking up within every hour of the day
10:18 < Nofaris> good times
10:19 < marainein> Nofaris and fenn: have you always had this problem?
10:19 < Nofaris> Not sure
10:19 < Nofaris> I've always had trouble falling asleep though
10:19 < Nofaris> when on a schedule
10:20 < Nofaris> And even when I'm not, it is sometimes hard
10:20 < fenn> i think it may have started around puberty
10:20 < Nofaris> I don't recall it
10:21 < Nofaris> before puberty
10:21 < Nofaris> hm
10:21  * marainein yawns
10:21 < Nofaris> My mother has been waking me up at the same time every day, it is kind of annoying
10:22 < marainein> does she understand your problems?
10:23 < Nofaris> Not sure
10:23 < Nofaris> I know she has seen the symptoms of it lol
10:24 < Nofaris> She has an eye for detail, but doesn't really think about those details
10:24 < Nofaris> kind of annoying
10:24 < fenn> so, i was thinking we could just build a new world that has a day cycle of 25 hours or so
10:25 < marainein> go and live underground
10:25 < marainein> or in alaska
10:25 < fenn> but then 25 seemed sorta arbitrary so i got stuck on this idea of the 'metric day' or 100 kiloseconds
10:25 < Nofaris> Alaska lol
10:25 < fenn> which is 27.777 hours
10:26 < Nofaris> That is pretty close to living underground I must say
10:26 < Nofaris> Really?
10:26 < Nofaris> Wow
10:26 < Nofaris> that is pretty good
10:26 < fenn> and then you can just use SI prefixes for various chunks of time, instead of this crazy 60 minutes to the hour stuff
10:27 < Nofaris> Yeah
10:27 < Nofaris> I want to see a society that uses that
10:27 < fenn> i'm too lazy though, i havent tried it out yet
10:27 < Nofaris> in the future
10:27 < fenn> it would be very useful though because i could predict when i'll be awake in the future
10:28 < fenn> (assuming my sleep cycles synchronize with when i'm awake and not some distant astronomical object)
14:40 < kanzure> woohoo 
14:40 < kanzure> cafeteria randomly shuts down for two weeks
14:40 < kanzure> this is /awesome/
14:40  * kanzure nibbles on a pretzel
15:19 < kanzure> 'Automatic identification of informative sections of web pages.pdf'
18:20 < fenn> i'd like to take a moment to transfect any willing propagators with what's been festering in my head all week: http://fennetic.net/pub/irc/Andrew_Bird_-_The_Trees_Were_Mistaken.mp3
18:30 < kanzure> http://www.scientificblogging.com/adaptive_complexity/evolution_as_the_recycler_of_the_cells_tools
19:18 < elias`> I wonder if it'd be worth it to set up a proxy to process all data from https connections such that it either establishes a new encrypted connection to the client or returns the results in plaintext.
19:19 < elias`> s/plaintext/unencrypted/ since it could be arbitrary content actually.
19:36 < nsh> argh
19:37 < nsh> kanzure, that article says "part 2 on <...>", and i can't find the link to part 1
19:37  * nsh hates reading things out of order
19:37 < nsh> ok, found it
19:39 < kanzure> :)
19:39 < kanzure> elias`: what?
19:40  * nsh seconds that what
19:40 < elias`> being able to read the data in https connections might be useful
19:40 < nsh> you mean a man-in-the-middle https proxy?
19:41 < elias`> yes
19:41 < nsh> ah, ok
19:44 < nsh> author is an idiot
19:45  * nsh wonders what he can do to be able to read things again without thinking the author is an idiot so often
19:45 < nsh> except regress about four years
19:46 < nsh> i love that people can get excited about finding a positive feedback loop and call this a great step forward in genetic biology
19:47 < nsh> systems theory is almost 100 years old in biology
19:47 < kanzure> yep
19:47 < nsh> its essential concepts 200+ years old
19:47 < nsh> the first steam engine 
19:49 < nsh> "The use of the centrifugal governor by James Watt in 1788 to regulate the speed of his steam engine was one factor leading to the Industrial Revolution. Steam engines also use float valves and pressure release valves as mechanical regulation devices. A mathematical analysis of Watt's governor was done by James Clerk Maxwell in 1868."
19:49 < nsh> --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feedback
19:52 < nsh> "What if evolutionary biologists were wrong to think of phenotypic variation as random and unconstrained? How much would it matter if we really understood how genetic variation leads to phenotypic variation, and in particular, how facile or difficult is it to achieve a specific phenotype?"
19:52 < nsh> quote from the book in question
19:52 < nsh> this is why i think scientists who use the word random should be shot on sight
19:53 < kanzure> *yes*
19:53 < nsh> unless you are statistician, talking about some branch of statistics, you're abusing the term; and even then, i'm suspicious
19:53 < kanzure> 'random' means you'll get a cow, not a value within 1 to 100
19:53  * nsh smiles
19:54 < nsh> [[[
19:54 < nsh> These questions get to the heart of the evolution of complexity. For example, is the mollusc lineage infinitely malleable? If webbed feet were to provide molluscs with an adaptive advantage, would natural selection be able to, after many generations, produce them? (Keep in mind that when talking about natural selection, the semantics get tricky - I don't mean to imply that natural selection works towards a focused goal like w
19:54 < nsh> ]]] --These questions get to the heart of the evolution of complexity. For example, is the mollusc lineage infinitely malleable? If webbed feet were to provide molluscs with an adaptive advantage, would natural selection be able to, after many generations, produce them? (Keep in mind that when talking about natural selection, the semantics get tricky - I don't mean to imply that natural selection works towards a focused goal 
19:54 < nsh> bah
19:54 < nsh> --http://www.scientificblogging.com/adaptive_complexity/evolution_as_the_recycler_of_the_cells_tools
19:54 < nsh> thought experiment: UR DOIN IT WRONG
19:55 < nsh> wtf
19:55 < nsh> this guy is a postdoc
19:55  * nsh hates people
19:56 < nsh> i wonder how cryotechnics is getting along
19:56 < nsh> this is clearly not the century for me
19:58 < kanzure> well, we can freeze cat brains
19:58 < kanzure> and get electrical activity seven years later
19:58 < kanzure> but that's about it :)
19:58 < kanzure> http://alcor.com/
19:58 < nsh> cat-like electrical activity?
19:59 < kanzure> heh
19:59 < kanzure> not sure
19:59 < shobin> we're not good enough at vitrification yet
19:59 < nsh> if you have to say "this probably sounds obvious" at the start of two paragraphs in a row. perhaps you need to write less obviously
19:59 < nsh> s/./,
20:00 < kanzure> shobin: correct
20:01 < nsh> Ersty Mayr was clearly an idiot too
20:01 < nsh> 1963 and he was believing in independent evolutionary lineages? pft
20:03  * nsh decides he would have learnt more from this weird anime (Paranoia agent) than reading those two columns
20:03 < kanzure> link to torrent?
20:04 < kanzure> maybe it's on crunchyroll
20:05 < shobin> did you guys see the discussion between Richard Dawkins and Craig Venter where Craig questions the validity of evolutionary taxonomy?
20:05  * nsh got from tpb
20:05 < nsh> i haven't, shobin; sounds interesting though. do you have a link?
20:07 < shobin> http://de.sevenload.com/videos/tpFRSrY-DLD08-Day-2-Life-a-gene-centric-view
20:07 < nsh> thanks
20:07 < shobin> the discussion on that topic is a bit into the video, like 60-75% through
20:08 < nsh> cool
20:08  * nsh suspects he'll watch it all
20:08 < nsh> that is, once he has opera restarted
20:09 < nsh> it's decided it
20:09 < nsh> 's only playing the first 2s of flash videos
20:09 < nsh> for some inexplicable reason
20:09 < nsh> wait, 4s of this one
20:09 < nsh> (annoying flash adverts still work though)
20:10 < shobin> I get that too
20:10 < shobin> plays a few soundless seconds
20:10  * nsh wonders if anyone has written cogently on "ad blindness"
20:10 < nsh> i reckon i have it stronger than most, though pretty much all heavy internet uses must have it to a pretty great degree
20:10  * kanzure has ad blindness :)
20:10 < kanzure> yep
20:10 < shobin> haven't seen ads in a while, I use adblock plus for firefox
20:10 < kanzure> it's really impressive
20:10 < kanzure> shobin: no, we mean naturally
20:11 < nsh> i just wonder if one day i'll miss something 
20:11 < kanzure> right
20:11 < nsh> but i buy so few things i doubt it
20:11 < kanzure> I can go through about 100 results on Google in only a few minutes with very quick glances at page layout
20:11 < kanzure> really helps with bullshit filtering
20:11 < nsh> yeah
20:11 < nsh> i wonder if you could program that knowledge into a baysian filter
20:12 < shobin> ads never affected me before, it's nice not having to load them any more though
20:12 < nsh> have something that records how clickly you click through a tab or page
20:12 < shobin> I rarely get that flash video issue now
20:12 < nsh> shobin, yeah, saves the net some bandwidth too
20:14 < nsh> i think once haptic interfaces become commonplace...
20:14 < nsh> the ability for people to give rapid infraconscious feedback to the internet will drastically improve
20:15 < nsh> surfing, subconsciously shufflingly the various documents about, tweaking designs as you read
20:15 < nsh> all fed back into the system
20:15 < nsh> raise one page slightly above another because it was more pertinant to your search query
20:15 < nsh> etc.
20:15 < kanzure> nsh: just saw a paper on probablistic filtering of web pages for "juicy tidbits"
20:16 < kanzure> or more particularly the informative parts
20:16 < kanzure> combine this with some of the focused web crawling .. ;-)
20:16  * nsh saw the pdf link
20:16 < kanzure> http://heybryan.org/~bbishop/docs/2008-07-31/
20:16 < nsh> (i assumed it would be reasonably fail)
20:17 < nsh> 'Automatic identification of informative sections of web pages.pdf'
20:17 < nsh> not in that dir
20:17  * nsh found
20:18 < nsh> another thing i've been thinking on lately
20:18 < nsh> is overloading existing autonomic perceptive algorithms
20:18 < nsh> like eye saccades
20:18 < nsh> where the focal point momentarily rests and how it dances about the scene
20:19 < kanzure> yeah?
20:19 < nsh> have that overloaded as input to some computer algorithm for rating and judging some content
20:19 < nsh> such that either the eye learns to scan a little differently to achieve the task
20:19 < nsh> or the interpreting of the movements learns to get the right answer from the eye's movements
20:20 < nsh> (probably some degree of both)
20:20 < nsh> if you can analyse the underlying mathematics required for the eye to performs its natural tasks
20:20 < nsh> you can then employ it as a computer by casting a problem into that mathematics
20:21 < nsh> turn a football game into a protein-folding simulation
20:21 < kanzure> eh, I see what you're saying..
20:21 < kanzure> eye movement has much to do with attention
20:21 < nsh> right
20:21 < nsh> oh, found an interesting article yesterday about measuring 'covert visual attention'
20:21 < nsh> using EMG's in neck muscles
20:22 < nsh> (covert attention is where you focus your 'internal' attention without moving the eyes)
20:22 < nsh> so if i think about the packet of chocolate bars to the right of my screen, but still stare at the word "screen", it registers as a slight action potential in my head-turning muscles
20:22 < kanzure> wtf, link?
20:22 < nsh> (apparantly)
20:22 < nsh> one sec
20:23 < nsh> http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071202155257.htm
20:23 < nsh> referencing http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v11/n1/full/nn2023.html
20:24 < nsh> (btw, have you noticed that google gives author, year, and citation information for normal search results now..)
20:25 < nsh> differences in covert orienting patterns have also been correlated to schizophrenia and adhd
20:25 < kanzure> yes, I have noticed
20:26 < nsh> one wonders if various visualisation techniques employed by meditative traditions such as tibetan and zen buddhism might be related
20:26 < nsh> to 'hacking' the attention faculties via the means of internal covert visual attention
20:27 < kanzure> there's a reason why autists avoid looking at faces
20:27 < nsh> to deautomatise latent inhibition of internal neuronal information
20:27 < nsh> mmm
20:27 < kanzure> (either it scares them or distracts them, I can't figure out which)
20:27 < kanzure> but I don't know the internalized equivalent
20:27 < nsh> some of both
20:27  * nsh doesn't look at faces much, but suspects it's mostly an aquired habit
20:27 < nsh> for people with whom i do, i have no particular problem 
20:28 < nsh> so it's probably an anxiety phenomenon
20:29 < kanzure> right
20:30 < kanzure> I do have a bit of a face problem actually, in the form of "oh crap give me a few seconds to remember who you are" :) so hallway encounters go poorly
20:30  * nsh smiles
20:30 < kanzure> "Hey, Bryan!"
20:30 < kanzure> "Hey ... you!"
20:30 < kanzure> "yeah, so what's up?"
20:30 < kanzure> "Stuff."
20:30 < kanzure> "Ok. Cool. See you at lunch." 
20:30 < nsh> possibly mild prosopagnosia?
20:30 < nsh> or just memory
20:30  * nsh doesn't recall faces too well
20:31 < nsh> but if i meet someone new, i can generally recall (approximately) verbatim the first 10 or so conversations
20:31 < nsh> especially if i find the person interesting
20:31 < kanzure> sure
20:31 < kanzure> for instance, I ran into a Michael the other day the con
20:31 < kanzure> and I wouldn't have recongized him
20:31 < kanzure> and of course I remember every conversation I've ever had with him, but still
20:31 < kanzure> *recognized
20:32  * kanzure just got a phone call ... am getting wisdom teeth surgically removed on Friday.
20:32 < kanzure> Thursday night is quick dinner with a singularitarian-Austinite fellow, then with the IEEE guy, then off to the robotics meetup
20:32  * nsh smiles
20:32 < kanzure> http://austinbrains.org/
20:33  * kanzure is still working on the file format / 'event tracker' idea
20:34 < nsh> hmm
20:34  * nsh watches end of anime episode
21:08 < kanzure> http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~dgerman/2008midwestNKSconference/
21:50 < nsh> new kind of science?
21:50 < nsh> you know
21:51 < nsh> i sometimes think they'll actually achieve some important things
21:51 < nsh> and it'll all be because wolfram over-hyped the hell out of his discoveries
21:51 < fenn> that sounds like the sort of conference my mom would like
21:51 < nsh> that's one pretty-looking place though
21:51 < fenn> yep
21:56 < nsh> how did i guess chaitin would talk about uncomputable real numbers and how they don't exist
21:57 < nsh> that guy pissed me off sometimes
21:57  * kanzure knows of chaitin
21:57 < kanzure> he has a leibniz addiction
21:57 < kanzure> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leibniz
21:58 < nsh> pity he isn't more like leibniz
21:59 < kanzure> :)
21:59 < nsh> i love how wikipedia has leibniz' signature
22:03 < fenn> "How real are the real numbers?" is not the actual talk he'll be giving, its just a sort of 'example' i guess
22:05 < nsh> it's the confirmed 'title'
22:05 < nsh> maybe he'll just talk about his basic algorithmic information theory results
22:05 < kanzure> he likes doing that
22:05 < nsh> and try to fit them into wolfram's paradigm somehow
22:05 < nsh> well, it's his 15 minutes
22:06 < nsh> most people try and make theirs last as long as possible
22:06 < nsh> :-)
22:06 < nsh> but last talk i saw chatin give
22:06 < nsh> he veered into real numbers at the end
22:07 < nsh> expressing doubts about their reality
22:07 < nsh> then sounded like a bit of an idiot trying to talk his way around a few questions
22:07  * nsh wasn't overwhelmed
22:46 < shobin> did you guys get a chance to see that Craig Venter evolutionary taxonomy video yet?
22:46 < kanzure> no?
22:47 < shobin>  http://de.sevenload.com/videos/tpFRSrY-DLD08-Day-2-Life-a-gene-centric-view
23:04 < biopunk> I actually saw that one a while ago
23:04 < shobin> what do you think of it?
23:04 < shobin> I was surprised like Dawkins
23:20 < biopunk> mmm.. actually I don't remember what the topics were, I rember he and dawkins got into some discussion.. but Ican't remember about what.. I remember reading that Venter does about 200 talks a year now... a lot of them are casted.