Viruses of the Mind

by Richard Dawkins

1991 - source

The haven all memes depend on reaching is the human mind, but a human mind is itself an artifact created when memes restructure a human brain in order to make it a better habitat for memes. The avenues for entry and departure are modified to suit local conditions, and strengthened by various artificial devices that enhance fidelity and prolixity of replication: native Chinese minds differ dramatically from native French minds, and literate minds differ from illiterate minds. What memes provide in return to the organisms in which they reside is an incalculable store of advantages — with some Trojan horses thrown in for good measure. . .

Daniel Dennett, Consciousness Explained

1 Duplication Fodder

A beautiful child close to me, six and the apple of her father’s eye, believes that Thomas the Tank Engine really exists. She believes in Father Christmas, and when she grows up her ambition is to be a tooth fairy. She and her school-friends believe the solemn word of respected adults that tooth fairies and Father Christmas really exist. This little girl is of an age to believe whatever you tell her. If you tell her about witches changing princes into frogs she will believe you. If you tell her that bad children roast forever in hell she will have nightmares. I have just discovered that without her father’s consent this sweet, trusting, gullible six-year-old is being sent, for weekly instruction, to a Roman Catholic nun. What chance has she?

A human child is shaped by evolution to soak up the culture of her people. Most obviously, she learns the essentials of their language in a matter of months. A large dictionary of words to speak, an encyclopedia of information to speak about, complicated syntactic and semantic rules to order the speaking, are all transferred from older brains into hers well before she reaches half her adult size. When you are pre-programmed to absorb useful information at a high rate, it is hard to shut out pernicious or damaging information at the same time. With so many mindbytes to be downloaded, so many mental codons to be replicated, it is no wonder that child brains are gullible, open to almost any suggestion, vulnerable to subversion, easy prey to Moonies, Scientologists and nuns. Like immune-deficient patients, children are wide open to mental infections that adults might brush off without effort.

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Nihar Patel’s hobby is singing-songwriter apart from job at NPR News. Apparently as homage to the Discovery STS-116 mission he wrote a song. The lyrics and vocals are from Mr. Patel and the music is from The Alan Parsons Project. The title of the song is L’morte du Spacewalker, which means in French The Dead of Spacewalker … um ok.

Source: BoingBoing

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IBM has built a device that will slow the speed of light, thus buffering it on a silicon chip. This is an important step towards using light signals instead of electrical for moving data on computer chips. While there is still a number of things that need to be figured out, this innovation could lead to much faster computers!

Source: DailyTech, IBM

Here are some panoramic images of the Space Shuttle’s Wings and Nose Cone by Avron at nasaspaceflight.com, a publicly available website. They were done by taking screen grabs from NASA TV.

Apparently not according to Damn Interesting. The key to surviving in space for up to two minutes is to exhale before decompression. The next time I am jettisoned I’ll keep this in mind. They photoshoped a great pic of armstrong, so I borrowed it. Hope you don’t mind Alan.

Lost Moon landing tapes discovered | COSMOS magazine

They were nearly thrown out with the rubbish. But a last minute search instead has scientists in Western Australia dusting off several boxes of ‘lost’ NASA tapes which record surface conditions on the Moon just after Neil Armstrong stepped into space history on 21 July 1969.

They have a SSTV player at Goddard that they can use to transfer the video to a more modern format. Here was a flyer that has more information about the tapes. It is good that they found them. They will have to upscale the resolution in order for the video to fit on modern television sets. Also the frame rate is not that of NTSC or HDTV so they will have to repeat frames which will make everything look like it is moving in slow motion, not that will be very noticeable because the astronauts don’t move all that fast when they are suited up. Still it looks like more detail can be brought out of the video now they found the originals.

The Space Elevator Reference: Space Elevator Games Over for this Year

Well the Space Elevator Games are over and there was no winner in either the Climber (Power Beaming) Competition or the Tether Strength Competition. In the Climber competition the University of Saskatchewan team (USST) came the closest to winning as they actually climbed the ribbon in 58 seconds which was under the one minute requirement however they did not meet all of the requirements to win.

This event was apart of the Wirefly X Prize Cup, which included “high-powered sounding rocket launches, the unveiling of the Rocket Racing League’s development X-Racer, multiple static engine test firings live on the field, fly-overs by the T-38 astronaut trainer, and a variety of other rocket surprises”. You can read more about what happened this year over at the Space Elevator Blog

Everyone knows that Global Warming is something to be concerned about. Some of the more informed people who don’t get force fed rhetoric from the oil and gas industry also might understand the effect carbon dioxide has had on the environment.

Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas and also the primary cause of global warming. The levels of carbon dioxide have increased 31% since 1750 based on Antarctic ice core data.

Carbon dioxide is generated when we burn fossil fuels, diving to work every morning. It is also exaled by every living human bieng and all other aerobic organisms. Mosquitos feed off of blood from oxygen breathing, carbon dioxide exhaling, organisms so that they can breed and continue their life cycle. The way mosquitos find their prey is by tracking sources of carbon dioxide.

Since everytime we exhale we become beacons for any nearby mosquitos it is natural for someone to come up with the idea of a mosquito killing device that releases carbon dioxide. What better way to kill mosquitos than to pretend to be a human bieng. In come the Propane Powered Mosquito machines. You might have seen them in Home Depot, Lowes or online. They sell anywhere from $100 -$1000+ depending on the brand and the features.

Here are some examples you can find online

• Coleman Mosquito Deleto
• Mosquito Magnet
• Lentek Propane Mosquito Trap

One thing I am not sure of is the amount of carbon dioxide that is released by varying models. I think they definatly release more CO2 than one human, probably more than 10 humans and some of the industrial models are likely to release more than 100 humans. How else could these machines said to cover over 2 or more acres of land. You can fit alot of humans on 2 acres. I know if I am the only human in 2 acres of land I suddenly am not overcome by hundreds of mosquitos.

What I don’t understand is, how can in the face of certain and drastic climate change due to global warming, why would we buy and use these products that will only worsen our situation here on Earth. It would be one thing if there were less than 6 billion of us and we all used transportation that didn’t emit carbon dioxide. If this were true than these CO2 machines that only made for our comfort might be a more viable solution to our insect problem.

Time to Move the Mississippi, Experts Say - New York Times

“A major diversion in the lower part of the river is something that needs to be done,” said James R. Hanchey, deputy secretary of the Louisiana Department of Natural Resources. He said the state was convening a planning meeting on the idea this fall. The diversion would be well downstream of New Orleans, in the bird-foot delta at the river’s mouth. Even so, there would be tremendous engineering challenges, particularly in finding a new way for freighters to make their way into the Mississippi’s shipping channel, said Mr. Hanchey, who took his job after retiring as director of engineering and technical services for the Mississippi Valley division of the Army Corps of Engineers. But he added, “I think it’s within the realm of possibility.”

No not time to move to Mississippi, but time to move the River. Experts think that this is a good way to rebuild the coast line, but it seems to me to offer New Orleans any additional protection. The river is not much good for the city at this point but divertiing the flow seems like it would further increase the loss of the wetlands that stands between New Orleans and the gulf.

They need to move the city inland 50 miles or raise the entire city by 30 ft. New Orleans as it is now is ripe for another disaster, god forbid. The levies they built now aren’t going to do much good against another catagory 4-5 hurricane.