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I might not be the only person who has noticed this but I think CNN has been lacking credibility lately. This might be because CNN actually went downhill or because I got older and wiser. Either way CNN is barely news today. My number one issue with CNN is Nancy Grace. If you have ever seen her show, you know it’s a joke. Its more like a combination of The View and an E! network special than a serious news show. Another way CNN has slipped is with Showbiz tonight. CNN is supposed to be a news network not a celebrity gossip channel. I pity those serious news casters on CNN that have to live with the fact that their network hosts all that. Hopefully over time viewers will demand more quality news and CNN will become a better network.
Robots are great tools for exploring space because a malfunction in space would cost you a lot of money as opposed to people. Although human exploration is necessary robots are best suited for endeavours in the relatively extreme environments of our solar system. There have been a number of these missions that I found interest in from the past few years including the Mars rovers and Cassini/ Huygens. I would like to see more of these missions. The mission I would be most excited about is a lander for Jupiter’s moon Europa that would melt through the ice and explore its oceans. There is a good possibility for life there since the moon has internal heat from Jupiter’s tidal forces. I would also like to see further exploration of Saturn’s moon Titan. This moon has a lot of interesting chemistry taking place and it would be nice to see high quality images and maybe even video from its surface. Finally I would like to see a Mars rover with the objective of looking for fossils from many years ago. It would be great to find fossilized bacteria which seems possible with the recent discovery that Mars was once covered in liquid water.
Right now we are reaching a point where oil is getting harder and harder to retrieve. For years our society has been a machine powered by oil. Now we realize that oil is a convenience that won’t last forever. In the last year its become a bit more serious. We saw in the summer of 2008 how easily gas prices can sky rocket and now we see numerous commercials competing for what will be the worlds energy future. Ideas like clean coal, natural gas, and solar/wind energy compete for air time. I think the best of all these technologies is solar. There are many reasons why it can be a great source of renewable energy but the technology still needs to improve. The biggest problem with solar right now is that its expensive and inefficient. You would have to live for a 100 years to make a personal solar power plant pay for itself. Current photovoltaic technology only converts blue light into electricity so that spectrum must be expanded. I think these are achievable goals and I hope some day every new house being constructed will have solar panels installed on the roof which would be as routine as installing the heating system. Cars could be charged at home and at numerous charging stations which would be a lot easier to develop than a hydrogen or natural gas infrastructure.
Today computer simulations can do a lot of cool things. They can calculate complex weather patterns, air flow through a jet engine, and protein folding just to name a few. The abilities of computers to produce these simulations have increased exponentially over time. So what will we be able to do with computer simulations in the future? Obviously many interesting and very useful things. At some point in the near future they will be able to process global weather patterns weeks in advance. Molecular simulation will be able to reproduce biological chemistry that might be able to save many lives. One type of technology on the horizon will provide a great leap in simulation. This technology is quantum computing. Currently we know of quantum algorithms that can decrypt thousands of times faster than a conventional computer. In theory they should be able to process more information than would seem possible in this universe alone. If that’s the case then we might be able to simulate entire universes in the laboratory. This would be revolutionary. If we simulated a universe with similar conditions to ours we could speed up the time and see how life would have formed with earth like conditions. We could also get an idea of how common life is in the universe. It would also be possible to simulate a human inside of a computer. It would be an interesting conversation to say the least. Would deleting that program be considered murder? These ideas are highly speculative and I doubt we will be seeing universe simulations anytime soon but it’s an interesting thing to think about.
Every time I’m watching msnbc or reading an article about the distribution of wealth in the world I realize something. There is a lot of rich people out there. There are literally millions of high net worth individuals out there with over a million dollars in the bank or in assets. This makes me think if it would be so difficult for me to join that group of people. It seems the only difference between normal people and wealthy individuals is that the latter actually tried to become rich. Sure some people had a tough road to get there and some people got lucky. However, a lot of rich people seem in many respects just like your average Joe. The difference is that they had the guts to go after that highly ambitious dream. I am by nature a scientist. Over the next 20 years I will use my logic and analytical skills to fulfill the goal of becoming rich. Now you might be laughing at this but that’s OK because I am too. At least it’s worth a try. I begun heading toward this goal by minoring in entrepreneurship to get at least get a basic idea of what I should be doing. With determination and maybe some luck I might be able to become part of those statistics I’ve been reading about.
This has been an interesting topic to follow. Obama has been a reluctant supporter of NASA from the beginning of his political career. Before the presidential race even begun, he was claiming to be in support of budget cuts from NASA. As time progressed he started showing that he was still sympathetic to NASA but skeptical of where the program was headed. He argued that children today aren’t as inspired by space exploration as they were 20 years ago. In the months preceding election day it seemed he began to jump on board with NASA. He said he would support an additional $2 billion in annual funding. Some people speculated that it was an election gimmick to get voters in Florida. Whether that’s true or not it seems once again there is issues between NASA and Obama. In a recent meeting between Obama’s transition team and NASA there was a dispute over the constellation project. Obama was considering dropping the Ares rocket research. I tend to partially agree with Obama here. If you read my space elevator entry you know I am against the constellation project but I don’t think cutting funding is the answer. Shifting funding to conceptually revolutionary projects would spark interest in America’s youth again and that is exactly what Obama wanted in the first place.
Modern Africa is a mess. It is the most under developed continent on Earth and has played host to two major genocides in the last 20 years. The region is plagued by disease, violence and corruption. Looking at a map of Africa you see what are the officially recognized nations. In reality some of those countries have multiple people with claims to power and the border lines are sometimes meaningless. There are a few diamonds in the rough. Africa has some modern cities in Morocco, South Africa, Egypt, and Nigeria. Much of the continent is poor however. So what does Africa’s future hold? In my opinion great promise. Africa has a lot of the most valuable resource on the planet, people. The first implication of a rapidly increasing population is that they are difficult to sustain. As we have already seen in China and India, population in time will translate into prosperity. If humanity decides to build the space elevator discussed in my previous entry then Africa will hold a strategic location for it with its arid climate and area at the equator. Africa could play a vital role in a new revolution of society. There is a lot of work on the way and it should be interesting to see this continent develop.
This is a topic I have a lot of interest in. I play a lot of video games and computer simulation plays a vital role in many sciences including physics. Computer graphics have come a long way from the likes of pong and the old Magnovox graphic simulation. Today’s most graphically advanced video games are Crysis and Farcry 2 where the 3d vistas are nearly realistic and vast distances are rendered in real time. Advanced rendering techniques like motion blur, real world physics, and parallax textures are used. This would have been inconceivable just 30 years ago. Movie rendering looks even more realistic because the images don’t have to be processed in real time. Better yet still image renders using unbiased rendering techniques are usually indistinguishablefrom reality. CG is one of the most rapidly evolving technologies in the world. Someone reading this article in the future will probably laugh at the innovations I mentioned. So what will computer graphics look like in 20 years? In my opinion you will see advancements on many fronts. One of these fronts will be lighting. I think that within this period of time real time simulations will be able to use unbiased rendering to make the 3d realm look absolutely real. Other advancements will be in particle simulations. Water, smoke, and fire will be simulated in real time. Solid objects will also be made up of simulated particles so that when they are interacted with they break and fracture as in real life. Imagine the difference in graphics from Super Mario Brothers to Crysis. Now imagine what the difference will be between Crysis and a video game 20 years from now. Here are some links to the examples I mentioned in this entry:
Crysis:
http://maxygames.no.sapo.pt/Crysis.jpg
Farcry 2:
http://ps3.kombo.com/images/media/601/farcry2_050608_7546.jpg
Particle simulation, this video is really cool:
http://www.flowlines.info/rndreel01.html
Some unbiased render images:
http://www.shawnlipowski.com/images/icons/ajax_glass_01.jpg
http://www.blender3darchitect.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/livingroom_blender_indigo.jpg
http://www.paremion.nl/images/paremion_nl/thimp/1/r_tm_Escher02.png
Throughout history man has searched for a way to remain youthful indefinitely or at least for a great while longer than normally possible. Today we can see that this might be possible in the not so distant future. This time it will involve technology rather than mythology. I am not talking about simple techniques like caloric restriction or drinking more red wine. Those practices add little if any time onto your life. I have done some basic research into what scientists are doing to realistically increase lifespan. There is a lot of funding out there for this research so there are many projects. There are two in particular that interest me. The first is genetic research being done on nematodes. These projects are pretty straight forward and have made good progress in extending lifespan. The second project is what really interests me. It’s called SENS. It claims that we will be able to extend life by thousands of years. That is a hefty assertion to make so I expect some good evidence in the coming years. From my basic understanding of biology this project might have some validity to it. I think serious extension of life should be a top priority of our society and our government should be investing billions into the most realistic of these projects. There is a great video explaining this project. A bit more technical explanation is on the SENS main site. If you have any problem with this research this video will silence your objection:
http://community.city.ac.uk/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?&pid=579&srcid=183
