The Mauitian Chronicles

Edge 2009

Thu, 01 Jan 2009 09:26:49 GMT

This year's Edge question essays offer a wonderful collection of predictions for what game changing scientific and technical advances we expect to see in the coming decades. It's great that so many futurist ideas are entering the mainstream. My contribution is below. (Being able to post an essay to Edge isn't something I would have predicted for myself two years ago. My life still feels surreal.) Thanks to friends on the sifter list for last minute edits. And happy new year!

Changes in the Changers

Human beings have an amazingly flexible sense of self. If we don a pair of high resolution goggles showing the point of view from another body, with feedback and control, we perceive ourselves to be that body. As we use rudimentary or complex tools, these quickly become familiar extensions of our bodies and minds. This flexibility, and our indefatigable drive to learn, invent, have fun, and seek new adventure, will lead us down future paths that will dramatically alter human experience and our very nature.

Because we adapt so quickly, the changes will feel gradual. In the next few years solid state memory will replace hard drives, removing the mechanical barrier to miniaturization of our computational gadgetry. Battery size remains as a barrier to progress, but this will improve, along with increased efficiency of our electronics, and we will live with pervasive computational presence. Privacy will vanish. People will record and share their sensorium feeds with the world, and the world will share experiences. Every physical location will be geo-tagged with an overlay of information. Cities will become more pleasant as the internal combustion engine is replaced with silent electric vehicles that don't belch toxic fumes. We'll be drawn in to the ever evolving and persistently available conversations among our social networks. Primitive EEG's will be replaced by magnetoencephalography and functional MRI backed by the computational power to recognize our active thought patterns and translate them to transmittable words, images, and actions. Our friends and family who wish it, and our entire external and internal world, will be reachable with our thoughts. This augmentation will change what it means to be human. Many people will turn away from their meat existence, to virtual worlds, which they will fill with meaning — spending time working on science, virtual constructions, socializing, or just playing games. And we humans will create others like us, but not.

Synthetic intelligence will arrive, but slowly, and it will be different enough that many won't acknowledge it for what it is. People used to think a computer mastering chess, voice recognition, and automated driving would signal the arrival of artificial intelligence. But these milestones have been achieved, and we now consider them the result of brute force computation and clever coding rather than bellwethers of synthetic intelligence. Similarly, computers are just becoming able to play the game of Go at the dan level, and will soon surpass the best human players. They will pass Turing's test. But this synthetic intelligence, however adaptable, is inhuman and foreign, and many people won't accept it as more than number crunching and good programming. A more interesting sign that synthetic intelligence has arrived will be when captchas and reverse Turing tests appear that exclude humans. The computers will have a good laugh about that. If it doesn't happen earlier, this level of AI will arrive once computers achieve the computational power to run real-time simulations of an entire human brain. Shortly after that, we will no longer be the game changers. But by then, humans may have significantly altered themselves through direct biological manipulation.

The change I expect to see that will most affect human existence will come from biohacking: purposefully altering genomes, tissue engineering, and other advances in biology. Humans are haphazardly assembled biological machines. Our DNA was written by monkeys banging away at... not typewriters, but each other, for millions of years. Imagine how quickly life will transform when DNA and biochemistry are altered with thoughtful intent. Nanotechnology already exists as the machinery within our own biological cells; we're just now learning how these machines work, and how to control them. Pharmaceuticals will be customized to match our personal genome. We're going to be designing and growing organisms to suit our purposes. These organisms will sequester carbon, process raw material, and eventually repair and replace our own bodies.

It may not happen within my lifetime, but the biggest game change will be the ultimate synthesis of computation and biology. Biotech will eventually allow our brains to be scanned at a level sufficient to preserve our memories and reproduce our consciousness when uploaded to a more efficient computational substrate. At this point our mind may be copied, and, if desired, embedded and connected to the somatic helms of designed biological forms. We will become branching selves, following many different paths at once for the adventure, the fun, and the love of it. Life in the real world presents extremely rich experiences, and uploaded intelligences in virtual worlds will come outside where they can fly as a falcon, sprint as a cheetah, love, play, or even just breath — with superhuman consciousness, no lag, and infinite bandwidth. People will dance with nature, in all its possible forms. And we'll kitesurf.

Kitesurfing, you see, is a hell of a lot of fun — and kites are the future of sailing. Even though the sport is only a few years old and kite design is not yet mature, kitesurfers have recently broken the world sailing speed record, reaching over 50 knots. Many in the sailing world are resisting the change, and disputing the record, but kites provide efficient power and lift, and the speed gap will only grow as technology improves. Kitesurfing is a challenging dynamic balance of powerful natural forces. It feels wonderful; and it gets even more fun in waves.

All of these predicted changes are extrapolations from the seeds of present science and technology; the biggest surprises will come from what can't be extrapolated. It is uncertain how many of these changes will happen within our lifetimes, because that timescale is a dependent variable, and life is uncertain. It is both incredibly tragic and fantastically inspiring that our generation may be the last to die of old age. If extending our lives eludes us, cryonics exists as a stopgap gamble — Pascal's wager for singularitarians, with an uncertain future preferable to a certain lack of one. And if I'm wrong about these predictions, death will mean I'll never know.

Summer whirlwind tour

Wed, 13 Aug 2008 22:51:57 GMT

There have been so many things going on... I need to take a deep breath, think about where I am and what I'm doing, and, of course, upload it to my journal before it passes through the sieve of my memory into entropy.

After the wedding reception for C's mom, we kicked off our California tour with a casual sifter dinner in San Diego.

Then we drove to LA, where I worked with Troy (well, mostly Troy worked, and I slept) on the Elementary Particle Explorer. I'm very happy with how it's coming along.

A pleasant cruise up the 101 brought us to my friend Jim's new house in Santa Cruz. We surfed Pleasure Point, paddling around some cute Sea Otters. And I snuck into the woods to do some mountain biking.

Saturday was a crazy day. We briefly attended Patri's unemployment party at Tortuga. Then a jaunt up to Ocean Beach to visit with friends from TED -- Kevin and Jean and their dog -- to catch them before they jetted off. Then some delicious crab. And off to Rion's flavor-tripping party in The City, which was very cool.

Next, Crystal and I connected with some very friendly and interesting mathematicians, who hosted us in a house on the future grounds of the American Institute of Mathematics. This institute is an amazing place now, but they've recently broken ground on a... Math Castle.

It will sit in the center of what is currently a private, two-hundred acre golf course. And even if this castle is currently imaginary (as C displays below), this place is going to be huge. I've been calling it "Math-alot," but I don't know if that will stick.

For now, the vacant golf course and strong winds make it a great place for kiteboarding.

This past weekend, after visiting an amazing fellow named Jaron Lanier at his wild house in the Berkeley hills, it was off to Sci Foo Camp.

The weekend at SciFoo made the rest of my summer seem slow! There was way too much happening all at once -- a bit overwhelming. But it was very fun.

Now C and I are bouncing around the Bay Area before heading to Tahoe, where we'll prep for Burning Man. If anyone would like to meet up in Incline Village anytime August 18-22, where I'll be building The Oracle booth for this years burn, help would be much appreciated, and we could house and feed you for a couple days in the first Science Hostel.

Once we're on the playa, we'll be on the Esplanade at 9:30, at a camp with a large white dome. Look for the seven foot diameter E8 root system. :)

Summer begins

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 04:48:19 GMT

So far, this summer is off to a great start, with only one speed bump.

In May, C and I attended BarCamp San Diego,

where I hosted a collaborative brainstorming session (using the ACE editor in real time) on the creation of a Science Hostel. One of the more memorable moments was walking in to the conference, and overhearing the girl walking in next to us: "Ooh, I smell nerds."

Then we flew to Chicago to visit C's brother and play around in the city.

After a few days there, we were off to the Perimeter Institute to socialize and work with a gaggle of physicists.

In the middle of the trip, we spent a weekend in Toronto visiting our new friend, D.A., who was a terrific host.

I also got the chance to go sailing in Lake Ontario with L.S., on his extra Contender. (And I really mean "in" -- I capsized three times.) The lake was amazingly ocean-like, except for the lack of salt.

Back at Perimeter, I walked past this penned peacock every day on the way to the office. Every time, it was doing its best to impress the peahen, who ignored him utterly. Keep trying, dude.

I call this shot "caged heat."

Before we left Perimeter, we made a trip out to the Niagra Escarpment to climb with some of the resident action nerds, including S.B-T, who's become a good friend.

Then back to San Diego, for the wedding of C's mom to M (who's taking the picture).

M pointed out that this sort of made S and I brothers, which is highly amusing. And here we remain, in Clairemont, visiting the newlyweds. There's a nice little south swell coming in, and I paddled out at Cardiff on the spruce fish.

The only hang up has been... on the way to the airport to pick us up, C's mom was in a car accident. She was OK (mostly), but C's car was totaled. So we are in California with no wheels -- a terrible fate. I do have a car to use starting June 29, but until then I'll have to figure out whether to rent, buy, or borrow something to burn this five dollar gas with. Once I do, C and I are looking forward to a lot of fun hopping around California for the next few months, visiting friends, before going to SciFooCamp, Burning Man, and back to Maui. Feel free to drop us a line if you'd like house guests.

Hella-skiing

Mon, 28 Apr 2008 05:17:50 GMT

I spent the last week heli-skiing in the Chugach mountains of Alaska, near Valdez. My friend Mark had called me up a month previously and asked if I wanted to go, offering to pay my way in exchange for talking physics with him. I think I thought it over for about a tenth of a second before saying yes. This was definitely among the more crazy things I've done in my life.

I knew I was in over my head on the first flight. We hopped in the helicopter and were quickly looking out at fifty-degree plus faces and couloirs.

I didn't think we were actually going to ride these... but, sure enough, the helicopter half-landed, half-hovered into the ridge top, and we crawled out of the ship onto a patch of snow the size of a queen-sized bed, with sheer drops on both sides. I damn near dropped a brick in my ski pants looking down that first run. But I managed to persuade myself over the edge and down the face, and the snow quality was good. This is me kicking up some slough on that first run, with our very experienced guide looking on unconcerned:

The week pretty much continued like this. Every once in a while we'd be riding the kind of steep faces or chutes, near rocky cliffs, where if you fell at the wrong moment and started sliding... you were going to die. Then it would flatten out a bit, and we'd have big, fun, swoopy turns in corn snow for a few thousand feet. A few minutes after you reach the glacier floor, the helicopter comes and lands near your head, to take you to the next peak.

It was also very, very beautiful. Nothing but mountains for hundreds of miles.

There were a few moments of true fear--the kind I haven't encountered in quite a long time. The first was on that first run. The second was when a less experienced guide put us down on the wrong peak, surrounded by cliffs. We rode a few hundred feet down through some of the best snow of the trip before realizing we were fux0r3d, stuck on a hillside with cornices and rocks on all sides. The guide called in the heli to evacuate us, and we had to build an LZ by digging the snow out from higher up and piling it lower to make a landing pad. When the helicopter nosed in to the mountain next to us, the blades where whizzing by inside the hole we had dug for them, beneath the natural slope of the mountain side. The five of us clambered in, but the ship struggled and couldn't take off. I think it was a combination of the dicy aerodynamics of having that blade basically inside a hole, and having the skids stuck in the piled snow. We emptied out the heli one by one, until it was able to take off with just me in the last passenger seat. Sitting there by myself, with the ship wobbling back and forth, struggling, on the side of a hill, with the blades whizzing by in a blur only inches from the snow... I thought there was a good chance things were about to go very, very badly. But it got up, dropped me off with the gear on the next peak over, and went back to pick up the others. I snapped this photo of the pickup:

On the second day I buried the nose of my old powder board, took a short tumble, and buckled the board in half. The helicopter flew me back to the road, and I spent the rest of the afternoon hitchhiking the sixty miles back to Valdez. Guess nobody wanted to pick up a big, burly looking snowboarder dude... but the scenery was beautiful, and I enjoyed walking for a couple hours before I finally caught a lift. Fortunately, Mark had a spare board I was able to ride the rest of the trip.

Overall, it was a hell of a lot of fun. A lot like a surf trip to a spot with heavier waves than you're used to. I don't know if I'd ever pay my own way, because it's absurdly expensive. But, if someone asked me to go again, I'd have to think about it... for about a tenth of a second.

Easter Bunny Hill

Mon, 24 Mar 2008 03:51:59 GMT

Parlo soltanto un piccolo italiano

Tue, 18 Mar 2008 19:25:55 GMT

Italian is really the most beautiful language. And not just because she's talking about me. Now if only I can figure out what she's saying...

Fri, 07 Mar 2008 00:07:58 GMT

I'm not sure if I'll continue to use it, but I finally got around to trying Twitter. It's an impressively simple yet powerful social connectivity and procrastination tool. Apparently, the next best thing to lunch with friends is tweeting that you're having lunch.

An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 22:47:24 GMT

I'm not sure yet whether all the attention is good, or if all the hype will have a negative impact, but this has certainly been a strange week. The interest in my work among physicists has been building steadily over the past few months. I've been presenting at conferences, getting invited to cool places, and exchanging emails with some of the best people in physics. But things started getting a little out of control last week when I posted my paper to the physics archive:

An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything

Yes, the title is a little much. Technically, a Grand Unified Theory in physics is a theory unifying the electromagnetic, weak, and strong forces as parts of a single Lie group. And if gravity is described in a unified framework like this, it's called a Theory of Everything, because that's all the forces we know of. The paper describes a new theory of how to do this, with all these forces (and all matter) as parts of the largest simple exceptional Lie group, E8 (which is very beautiful). So the title is technically accurate, but I probably should have made it less sensational. Especially since the paper does not include the details of a complete quantum description, which is really necessary for it to qualify as a successful ToE. (I'm counting on combining my work with that of the Loop Quantum Gravity community to build a full quantum E8 theory of everything.)

The physics arxiv has gotten more restrictive on how they accept and classify papers. I originally submitted this article under the general relativity classification, but they immediately moved it to high energy particle theory. Then, a day after it came out, it got unceremoniously booted to the general physics classification -- the cesspool the arxiv uses to collect non-string and/or whacky, overreaching papers. Then, the next day, it got reclassified back to high energy theory! (This never happens, and I was quite amused.)

The paper immediately precipitated a physics blogalanche:
Backreaction This was the first, and probably the best summary of the paper.
Physics Forums
The Reference Frame Can you tell he's a string theorist? I love this guy, almost everything he says is dead wrong, and he just makes me look better.
Hidden Variables
Not Even Wrong
Arcadian Functor
Freedom of Science This one cracks me up. Apparently I'm a media whore, and only doing physics for the money; but at least I'm in good company.
Theoreman Egregium
Science Forums
And at this point I've stopped being able to keep track, which I suppose means this is my fifteen minutes of fame.

Yesterday morning, I presented a talk to the
International Loop Quantum Gravity Seminar
which is a teleconferece among physicists at a consortium of fourteen universities around the world. That went very well. Some of the key players agree that this theory and LQG make a good match. (The (very technical) talk and slides are available from that page, but the first two minutes are cut off.)

Then, a few hours ago, the story hit the popular press:
The Telegraph (Apparently, I'm to be immortalized for the words "Holy crap!")
New Scientist Top story. I haven't been able to read this article yet, because I don't have a subscription.

All the attention has been fun, but a bit overwhelming, and I think I just want to go back to playing with equations for a few months. I hope people can keep in mind that this is just a theory, it has no experimental support, and it might be wrong. I think it's got a shot, which is why I work on it, but it's still just a developing theory. So don't go crazy, people; but yes, it is pretty damn cool.

Puff piece

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 19:07:41 GMT

Must... control... ego.

Relay Peak

Thu, 25 Oct 2007 01:59:12 GMT

I went for a bike ride in the backyard today.
Here's a quicktime VR: Relay Peak.

2 PI R

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 17:17:45 GMT

I just spent a fantastic two weeks at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics. I've put a photo album of the trip up here:

http://sifter.org/~aglisi/albums/Perimeter07/

It was a great experience. I delivered an hour long talk, "An exceptionally simple theory of everything," to a packed seminar room. It went VERY well. The highlight was a tour of the assignment of every elementary particle field of the standard model and gravity to the E8 root system:

Afterwards, L.S. said "It's the most compelling unification model I've ever seen."

So, umm, it's safe to say things are going well. =8-)

The Perimeter Institute is... a serious nerd paradise. There are chalkboards everywhere, with ten physics conversations going on at once throughout the building at any given time. And the food at the Black Hole Bistro was pretty damn good. They also had a foosball table, pool table, and a nice weight room with dust on the machines. Heh. Overall just a great place, full of geeks hard at work. I only wish the building was mobile, so it could hop around the world to Maui or the Rockies for a month here and there, instead of being stuck in the central Canadian winter. Ah well, it's wonderful that a place like this exists at all, wherever it is. I was sad to leave, but happy to head back to Tahoe and C.

For the next few weeks I'll be furiously working on getting a paper out on this new physics, before I have to think about the next talk for the international loop quantum gravity seminar.

Wandering physicist

Tue, 14 Aug 2007 20:10:28 GMT

Life has been moving kind of fast lately, so I haven't been able to keep up my rapid posting pace. But since my usual table at the Claremont public library is currently occupied by a baby alligator and a kinkajou, I thought I'd write about what I've been up to.

I got all my physics ducks in a row and took them down to Morelia, Mexico for the Loops '07 conference in quantum gravity. For the first twelve hours I attended talks and drifted in and out of various physics conversations. This was enjoyable, and it was good to be able to associate humans with the names I had read at the top of papers, but nobody knew who the heck I was and I definitely felt like an outsider. Then I gave my twenty minute talk, and everything changed. Many people came down to the stage afterwards to talk with me, and this unusual level of attention continued through the week. The quantum gravity community is really great -- what a wonderful group of people! Since there is no known true quantum gravity theory, researchers have split into many different branches of the search tree. The overall atmosphere is very convivial, with positive interchange even between researchers with conflicting theories. Since what I'm trying to do is bring in the missing piece that connects gravity with all other matter in a unified theory, many people recognized my work as very interesting and useful -- as I had hoped. The best surprise was how much fun I had hanging out with the grad students and postdocs from the Perimeter Institute. They're a very dynamic and amusing bunch of geeks, and I'm looking forward to seeing them again when I fly out there (near Toronto) in October.

For the two weeks before the next conference, C and I stayed with my grandfather in Newport Beach. I can't say enough how wonderful C was during these weeks, as she did all the shopping and cooking while I played furiously with equations. Then I flew to Iceland.

I didn't fly direct from San Diego, but stopped over in Minneapolis. I didn't want to miss a chance to have lunch at the Mall of America -- it truly is the mother of all things mall. (And it was cheaper to hop a quick train there than to eat lunch in the airport.) After that, it was off to Reykjavik. The inaugural FQXi conference was a hell of a lot of fun. There was a great mix of big names and up-and-comers, all interested in foundational physics. And we didn't just sit in conference rooms all day. They took us out to some huge thermal pools, and we spent a whole day touring geysers, waterfalls, and even went for a snowmobile trip on a glacier. (I've put some pictures up here) It was wildly extravagant. And the fish... holy crap was the salmon good -- I had it for breakfast and lunch every day. And I was very happy not to be paying for it. At one point I ordered ice cream for dessert at a non-fancy restaurant -- with the exchange rate, it was US$18. (The purchase was necessary in order to exactly match my meal allowance.) I had so many interesting conversations during this conference that my head is still swimming with them.

Now that I've been back for a couple weeks, I've settled into an accelerated pace of working on physics. After these conferences, I'm not such an unknown. It feels slightly different now to have social pressure on me to work -- and I'm going to have to make an effort to spend quality time with C, and my surfboard. My inbox also looks different. I got an email from a grad student asking if he might be able to work with me. "Uh, dude, I'm currently staying with my parents..." I was featured on a popular physics blog, and this week I'm being interviewed for an article by Nude Scientist. Hmm, or maybe I have that wrong and I should wear clothes.

Anyway, life is good. And busy. But I don't think it has gone to my head too much. C and I are still traveling around, staying with friends and family. And I'm still writing while sitting on the floor, having been displaced by a small nocturnal mammal. I don't blame the library though -- kinkajous are really cute.

Don't stare at the physicist, dear

Sat, 23 Jun 2007 23:40:10 GMT

Yesterday I walked up and down the boardwalk in Santa Monica, talking to myself loudly. I fit right in. People didn't give me a second look. Tomorrow I'll fly down to Mexico and deliver the same talk to what I hope will be a more appreciative audience. A week of hanging out with other physicists. Should be fun -- it's been a while.

The horror

Mon, 28 May 2007 22:04:51 GMT

C and I are hanging out in LA for a few weeks, near the beach in Santa Monica. On our walk today, we saw the most terrible combination of two things imaginable:

A christian mime troupe.

I hurried C away as soon as my brain processed the horror of what I was looking at -- "No dear, don't look, it will scar you."

Anyway, if any of you LA peeps have ideas for fun things to do and see while we're here, we're all ears. It can only get better.

Germanglish

Fri, 18 May 2007 06:08:56 GMT

If German physicist ever asks of you on proofread and correct her thirty-five page grant proposal, on your own sanity please saying no.

New science blog

Tue, 08 May 2007 02:44:41 GMT

I'm going to be moving some of my huge volume of journal posts over to the new FQXi physics blog:

FQXi blogs

I've got two posts there so far. Sadly, there's no math typesetting yet, so I can't throw down many equations to torture people. One of the FQXi founders humorously (I hope) commented that I was supposed to be on a beach in Maui, not hanging out in Lake Tahoe. So I posted surfing and snowboarding pics to show how hard I work. Heh. Hope having fun doesn't get me in trouble.

So, yes, my web presence is fracturing even more. The really technical stuff will go to Deferential Geometry, most of the physics thoughts will go to the FQXi blog, and the personal stuff will go here.

Hmm, personal stuff... C and I may be in LA for most of June. Then I'm heading to the LOOPS '07 quantum gravity conference in Morelia, Mexico, then another conference in Iceland in July. Yip! My talk is coming together nicely -- it's been a while.

Also, I've encountered a tiny speed bump (err, speed nevis?) in my ridiculously lucky life. C has been bugging me forever to see a dermatologist, not for anything in particular, but just because I'm a white boy who spends too much time in the sun. So I went in to see "The Mole Woman," as C's family refers to her. There was a colorful moment, after she asked me to flip my naked body over to check out my backside, when she mumbled "very nice" -- I almost told her "thanks, I do work out a bit." She decided to take a souvenir, and a few days ago she called to tell me the pathology report came back positive for a very minor melanoma. No big deal, really, I just have to go back in to contribute more flesh, and be more careful. And put up with even more pestering from C. ;)

I suppose it's going to make a better story if I discover some really cool new physics. The headline "Cancer survivor makes physics breakthrough!" sounds much more impressive than "Spoiled prep school brat continues to play with equations." But, really, I shouldn't demean the struggles of people who suffer and die, or persevere, by including myself in the same class -- since, really, this is the wimpiest cancer ever, a tiny spot on part of my back covered by fur anyway. Still, kind of sobering.

Anyway, back to work.

Holy pow!

Tue, 27 Feb 2007 23:58:56 GMT

The snow up here in Tahoe has been a little sparse, until this week. C and I got up bright and early and shoveled, and shoveled, and shoveled some more until there was enough space to scoot our little yellow non-snowmobile out onto the highway. We made it up to Mt. Rose and got on the lift when it opened. Nothing but virgin powder as far as the eye could see... for about ten minutes anyway. The first run was... well, it was good. It did get tracked up pretty quick. But there were patches of untouched deep powder all day. This is a photo from this morning:

It could be of me -- who can tell?

It was a very good day. I saw a helicopter fly in at one point -- figured that couldn't be good. Turns out a guy in the lift line had a massive heart attack. C was right behind him. Apparently skiers were annoyed they had to maneuver around him to get on the lift as he was dying. You know, it was a powder day. Oh, and the stock market crashed.

Open for the season

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 05:47:00 GMT

This new year finds C and I happily cocooned at Lake Tahoe for the winter. The snow is a little thin for this time of year, but we've been out riding a couple days a week at Mt. Rose, having a good time -- and there are storms on the way. Our friend Rich has kindly lent us his house -- tucked away in the trees of Incline Village, overlooking the lake -- and it's proving to be a wonderful place to get work done, as well as being fifteen minutes from the lift. Anyone want to come play in the snow? I'd thought of having a big get-together up here like I did in Colorado, but although there's lots of space, the plumbing can't handle a crowd of more than about five -- so this is an open invitation for smaller numbers of friends (or larger numbers of smaller friends) to come visit when they like, between now and the end of April. It's pretty quiet up here -- so you can expect it to be a decent place to work as well as play, complete with wireless, ambient music, board games, hot chocolate on tap, full kitchen, convenient groceries, snow hiking trails, and a diligently working (and playing) physicist and artist to set the pace. So... drop me an email or something and come on up.

So long...

Wed, 13 Dec 2006 23:53:39 GMT

A sad day in our history:
Yangtze River Dolphin declared functionally extinct.

Boo boo

Sun, 22 Oct 2006 20:41:43 GMT

C and I are having fun cruising around Maui for a month -- camping in the van -- before we go to Lake Tahoe for the rest of the winter. My pattern until recently has been to surf in the morning, work on physics in a coffee shop or at the library in the afternoon, have dinner, and find a place to park and sleep for the night. Repeat. I thought C would be bored to tears, but she really loves Maui and has been happy to cruise around and spend most of her time obsessively knitting. (She's picked it up impressively fast, and is characteristically, umm, fully immersed in it.) Anyway, I say "until recently" because I had an unfortunate tangle with my board at Ho'okipa the other day. I got conked on the head during a wipeout, and came back up with an impressive stream of blood pouring down my face. There was no way in from where I was, so I had to paddle back out in order to catch a wave to the beach. Got some funny looks from other surfers. ;) Turns out the gash on my head was only two centimeters or so -- head wounds always bleed profusely. I got a few stitches and probably won't even have much of a scar, as long as I stay out of the water for awhile. But how can I stay out of the water? I think maybe I can do it for a week. Maybe. C and I are hanging out way up on the volcano, away from the water. But, even so, I can look down now and see that beautiful ocean beckoning softly to me... "come, get infected, it will be worth it..." We're going to have to hike the crater or something. If you see a nice scar above my right eye next time you see me, you'll know I couldn't resist.

Summer pastiche

Sat, 16 Sep 2006 08:20:36 GMT

Biking down the Newport Beach boardwalk to bodysurf The Wedge several times a week. On a rusty beach cruiser older than I am.

Seeing a bunch of fresh flowers float by on the waves. Thinking a minute and realizing someone had probably just tossed their loved one off the Newport jetty. Mmm, dead person -- you're soaking in it.

20th reunion. "Oh, you're chief resident now? Me? I've been living in a van in Maui..." Cate school is as beautiful as ever. And my classmates are largely the same.

C going to the reunion dance wearing the school tie. ++Hotness!

Placing second at frisbee golf to my old friend, Ted. Because my high school was about frisbee.

Landlord: "I don't have a record of getting a security deposit from you." Me: "No? Well, here's an image of the cleared check. Note the memo line where it says 'for security deposit.'" God how I love being this anal sometimes.

Driving a car smaller than the van's gas tank. It's so quick! But, err, not so quick that I managed not to run into another car.

"This is Newport Beach, you can't turn left here."

Being the only one in my sister's wedding party not to lower their head in prayer as led by the dorky minister. I'm probably going to catch hell for this when the pictures come out. Heh.

"That's when I knew that here was a guy with enough patience and self-control to be with my sister."

My mom rocking out on the dance floor. I wasn't sure whether to be impressed or scarred.

Discovered that the highly effective diet pill my father was taking was actually a new variety of speed. Explained a lot of odd behavior. Well, explained magnification of normal odd behavior.

Felt the first viscerally negative impact of being bald: while MIG welding, a spark popped up and landed on my naked head above the protective mask. Holy shit that hurt! 5000 degrees may not seem that hot, but let me assure you, it is. Note to self: head protection. Fortunately, the sparks similarly headed for my arms and torso were deflected by fur. Yeah for fur.

"Maybe we should move that workout bench out of the way for you?" "No, just leave it." Bang. "Hey, I think you hit something there -- workout bench maybe?" Bang. "Doh!" Bang. "Oops, looks like you hit something again." Then the paternal lecture came... laughing so hard on the inside that I thought I was going to curl over.

There are geckos on my head.

Betting a pair of string theorists that superparticles won't be found at the LHC. Mmm, two margaritas, blended, with salt please.

"There is a dust storm of biblical proportions coming our way right now. We have about three minutes before it hits." The forty foot square, ten foot tall shade structure held up admirably. Popped all the eyelets on the main tarp, but it was held down by the sprawled out body of the large Prussian designer of said shade structure. Great to see the man overcome his acrophobia when his baby was in danger.

Manmade fire tornado.

Enjoying an excellent vodka and cranberry juice concoction at a moving bar, while pulling and steering two bicycles alongside with my hands and feet. No easy task.

Elvis suit.

"FWOOOSH!!!" The sound of two hundred gallons of fuel exploding into an instant churning inferno.

"It's much easier to ski behind bikes than art cars. When you lay out a turn behind an art car and go a little too far, it doesn't give." -- Simon Funk (you can break the neck, but not the spirit)

Feeling very happy to be sleeping on a bed in the back of a large vehicle again for a week. Keeps the dust out nicely.

Kiteboarding at Burning Man. Opting to wear the kaftan instead of the gold dress, which I thought might get snagged on a wheel at 30MPH and get ugly.

Lie derivatives are more important than I thought. Thanks Michael.

My grandfather's wit -- including a wicked disdain for all things Christian. Many quotes forced into my memory through repetition. Did I mention the repetition? Gin is apparently distilled senility.

Consuming more filet mignon than I will every likely see again in my life, because it's the only beef my grandfather doesn't consider "too tough." So much good food! C is getting so spoiled.

Strip Chess. Is there anything sexier than playing strip chess in bed with a beautiful girl you love? I think not. I'm also really glad I'm kinda good at chess.

Hot tub. Whoo ha!

Thinking about physics a lot.

Getting pitched at The Wedge and smacked so hard on the sandbar that I got a mild concussion. I'm still feeling a little dizzy. And mortal.

I don't have many enemies. This summer I got one: Bob. Tan fellow, loosely employed, golfer, womanizer, likes rubbing elbows with the rich and enjoying the finer things in life, and not working for them. All around worthless human being. Bob, you see, tried to talk my grandfather into giving him a two million dollar rental property -- pretty much my grandfather's only income source. He would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for us meddling kids. It kept us up at night, worrying. We explained to grandfather that Bob was taking him for a ride. As it is, Bob got so frustrated and mad that he didn't pay even his reduced rent this month. This has caused my grandfather to finally concede to letting my father administer his trust. Which means no money lost to the government or to con men like Bob. I'm glad my enemy is stupid.

Purchased two season ski passes for Mt. Rose, near Lake Tahoe. We'll be staying in Rich's extra house for the winter. Come visit, it's nice!

About to buy round trip tickets to Maui for October. Back to the van for a month.

FQXi

Tue, 01 Aug 2006 00:52:19 GMT

I got it.

:)

Now I need to find a nice quiet cabin in the trees where I can go and think this winter -- preferably next to a ski lift.

One egg, one basket

Sat, 17 Jun 2006 03:28:18 GMT

I've been working on physics on my own for almost a decade now. Mostly I just scribble away in my notepad, chasing one idea after another. In one sense, it's the most quixotic quest on the planet -- to figure out the geometric structure of the universe mathematically -- but it's the most worthwhile use of my time and brain I could think of. Ten years ago, as a graduate student, I saw the whole theoretical research community heading off to study string theory. Learning a bit about it, I thought strings to be kind of far-fetched. The theory is mathematically pretty and consistent, but it doesn't seem to naturally match up with the universe we inhabit. Mine is the minority view. String theory has become the dominant paradigm in high energy physics -- with almost all government funding and academic posts in fundamental physics going to string theorists. I left to work on my own physics, while the world went string crazy. But, over the last year, string critics have been gaining strength -- pointing out string theory's lack of predictions, lack of accountability, and the detachment and even disdain for anything as mundane as our standard model of particles.

This backlash against strings has recently led to an interesting development. A private foundation has been created to support and fund foundational physics research in areas other than string theory:

fqxi.org

They gathered a few million dollars in seed funding, and they put out a request for proposals from researchers around the world. I couldn't ask for a better opportunity than this. Along with 172 other applicants, I gathered up my best work and submitted an initial proposal. Happily, this was accepted and I, along with 50 others, was invited to submit a full proposal. I did the best job I could of describing my work -- essentially, a geometric alternative to string theory that unifies gravity and the standard model of particle physics -- and submitted it as a sixteen page proposal. In one month, I find out if my work gets selected and I get a modest research grant. Based on the money they have available, I estimate they'll fund 15 people. It's a bit intimidating -- I'm just one guy, working in isolation on his own stuff, funding my work by taking odd jobs here and there, and I'm going up against the 50 best physicists in the world. As a model for reality, my stuff is ultimately pitted against string theory, a mathematical construction supported by the work of thousands of theorists, many much smarter than me.

My poor ego doesn't know what to think. On the one hand, I've always thought my own stuff was better than anyone else's -- that's why I work on it. But I never thought I'd have to prove it! Realistically, can I really have hatched one of the 15 best new ideas in foundational physics on the planet? It seems so unlikely, even if I do match the profile of eccentric scientist working in isolation from a volcano in the middle of the Pacific. What's even worse, I can't easily dismiss the judgment of the grant review committee if I don't get the grant -- the foundation board consists of solid guys, and I think the review panel will be going over my stuff in detail. The foundation's goals and mine are philosophically aligned, so failure will probably really mean my work just isn't that good. If I don't make the final cut, if my stuff isn't considered sufficiently promising, I'll have to seriously reconsider spending all my time on it. I wish there was a middle possibility, where maybe they could say my stuff was pretty good and worth at least something -- but it's all or nothing! Now I just have to wait and see what happens in a month.

Even if I don't get the grant, I'll probably keep working on physics -- just with less enthusiasm. Or I might work on other projects a bit more, like prepping for this year's Burning Man. Even if the physics work comes to naught, my life isn't so bad. Heck, just before C and I left Maui two weeks ago, R's friend Mike took the three of us out on the Baywatch Hawaii cigarette boat, which he'd just purchased:

Maui boat

We cruised around the upper west side bays and beaches, spent the night on a sub tender with a shark cage on the stern, and in the morning drove the cigarette boat to Lanai in twenty minutes, for lunch. In the immortal words of Ferris Bueller: "I love driving it. It is so choice. If you have the means I highly recommend picking one up." C was beautiful as ever, and it was great of R to bring us along. I owe him a lot -- he's putting me up at The Ranch in California right now, and has been a good friend ( if a bit of a task master ;). C and I are going to be hopping around the state for the summer, seeing people we've missed by being on Maui for two years. If I get the grant, I'll travel around and talk with other physicists. If I don't... well, I'll be bummed, but I'll be OK, and my ego will be less insufferable.

Good morning

Sun, 16 Apr 2006 17:38:39 GMT

"I hope the estrogen bunny hid those eggs well."

V for Vendetta

Sun, 09 Apr 2006 22:43:01 GMT

I don't usually comment on movies... because most don't inspire thought. But I just saw "V for Vendetta," which brought up something that nagged at me until I figured it out. The hero of the movie is a terrorist. And much of the story revolves around making you sympathize with him, as he goes about blowing up buildings, and plotting to overthrow a fascist government. There are clear parallels drawn to current developments here in the US, including a reference to the Koran. Through these references you are lead to the emotionally uncomfortable position ( I imagine for others as well as myself ) of sympathizing with all terrorists. And there is the problem -- this movie has lumped all terrorists in the same category.

As a libertarian, it will come as no surprise that I consider most aspects of governmental control and function to be villainous. And it's not hard, as those functions amplify and create extreme circumstances, to root for the guy who wants to tear it down. But I think that kind of terrorism, motivated by a hatred of an evil government, is very different than terrorism motivated by the hatred of a whole culture or people, such as the terrorism of 9/11. One kind of terrorism wants to make the country better by freeing it from an oppressive government, while the other seeks to destroy a country and its culture.

The strongest thread in the movie, I thought, was the degree to which a distinction can be made between a government and its people. It is in the government's interest (specifically, in the interests of people in government) to cloud this distinction. A government wants its people to think that when it is threatened or harmed, it is the citizens who are threatened or harmed. In that way, it can manipulate its citizenry, draw taxes, enlist soldiers, enforce laws, wage wars, etc. -- all for the "common good" of the people; when, in fact, these interests can be very different.

It is therefore in a government's interest to categorize the two types of terrorism as one and the same -- to consider any attack, physical or even intellectual, on government as equivalent to an attack on the people. This is the lever of fear with which the current US administration is prying this country from constitutionally mandated liberty towards fascism and dictatorship. ( I can only hope there will be a public backlash against this -- otherwise things will get very bad in this country. )

I feel the statement of the movie would have been much better had they been clearer on this distinction between the two types of terrorism. The movie made the mistake of lumping all terrorists in the same category. It is possible the mixture was intentional, in order to stir this emotional conflict in the audience. But it makes the movie weaker as social criticism, ultimately empowering leverage against its case by sympathizing with the kind of terrorists who would destroy the country, rather than save it.

Note: Yep, just talked with my Fox News addicted father: "Ugg, you watched that? It's sympathizing with terrorists, how could you watch that?"