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Tuesday
3/18/2008 7:50:58 AM
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Michael Wells
I'm having fun watching The 6th Day, an Arnie flick from the early 00's. It's a good fun film. If you remember it, the story is about cloning; where technology has advanced to the point where you can clone someone pretty much perfectly, even a recently deceased person.
The interesting thing is that in an effort to make it believable, they separated the cloning of the body (using DNA from a blood sample) from the cloning of the mind ("syncording," using some sort of retinal scanning device disguised as a vision-test).
For the purposes of the movie, this 2-step approach made the idea of exactly cloning a person (xerox-style, with the same age, and same memories) more believable.
This in turn supported the storyline, which involved lots of xeroxing. The main character is xeroxed. His best friend is xeroxed. Even his dog is xeroxed. All the bad guys keep getting xeroxed after they die, so they can hunt our hero again with renewed vengeance.
I found it very frustrating though that they never used the two-step cloning process as part of the plot. It seems logical that they could have xeroxed the body of one person, but inserted the mind of another -- which has such enormous plot potential.
If I was the bad-guys, the first thing I would have done is cloned Adam's best friend, but given him the mind (syncording) of one of the assassins.
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Thursday
7/26/2007 11:52:28 AM
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Michael Wells
I was on the bus today, and there were two young women sitting across from me. One had a very classic beauty; quite attractive, good physical shape, but her hair was very plain and straight. I actually find black, straight hair to be incredibly attractive on a woman, but in her case, the particular cut, style and manner in which she wore it really didn't suit her well.
Next to her was another young woman, not quite as naturally beautiful. But her overall appearance was more attractive.
The difference? I hadn't really realized this before, but seeing the two women side by side was an interesting comparison.
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Saturday
7/21/2007 2:17:44 PM
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Michael Wells
I love cashews. Always have. Yum. Definately my favorite nut, and I like nuts a lot.
Today we were shopping at our local asian grocer, and one of the kindly store clerks (who love my kids) gave them each a packet of cashews and raisins.
So, my 5 year-old son Nicholas, who I encourage to be very inquisitive, began asking me questions... what kind of plant does the nut grow on, which parts of the world does the plant grow in, and so on. I use these opportunites to familiarize him with our paper encyclopedia set, and also with the Internet, Wikipedia, etc.
Usually, I learn something as well, but I just wasn't prepared for all the things there were to learn about cashews...
The Wikipedia article on Cashews, and another piece by The Nut Factory were particularly interesting.
For example, did you know;
- That the cashew nut grows off of a fruit called the cashew apple?
- That the cashew apple is very popular with locals, but is not commercially viable because it spoils within 24 hours after harvesting? (It is however used in the maufacture of candies, jams, jellies, and liquors, which can be exported.)
- That there is only one cashew nut per apple?
- That the nut is encased in two shells, and that between these shells is the same caustic fluid found in poison ivy? (and, yes, it has the same effect, which means shelling cashews is not fun).
- That cashews originated in Brazil, but that currently Vietnam is the largest explorer in the world (by a huge margin)?
- That there are different kinds of cashews, depending on the origin;
- Brazilian are large, soft, and white
- Indian are smaller and more crisp
- Vietnamese are extremely sweet
Now whenever I eat cashews... I know what the fruit looks like, I know how they're shelled, and why different nuts look and taste dfiferently. Most of all, I know now why they're so expensive... !
A few weeks ago, I discovered (also helping my son research his question) that capers are actually a flower bud. Whoa.
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Monday
8/21/2006 9:42:24 AM
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Michael Wells
Thinking zen'ly thoughts today...
Yin and yang. As organisms, we breathe in, we breathe out. We eat, and expel. On physical functions, we must do both.
Perhaps mental functions work the same way...
- waking (out) and sleeping (in)
- learning (in) and creating-applying-doing (out)
Maybe everything in this universe is meant to work on the basis of cycles.
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Sunday
7/30/2006 3:07:14 PM
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Michael Wells
The idea of synchronicity is difficult to avoid. It wants to be found, and it especially seems to be
Last week, I'm thinking about how much synchronicity I find in the library. Wander down a row, not aimlessly, but sort of feeling your way toward things of interest. Bam, some book jumps out at you and as you're flipping through it, you find tons of amazing content
Or sometimes, it just falls open in your hand to that one amazing passage.
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Monday
6/5/2006 1:43:01 PM
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Michael Wells
Life is about doing, not about being.
The more I learn about the universe, the more compelled I am to try new things. Explore the world. Meet new people, make new friends. Learn entirely different ways of thinking and doing that I never would have thought of myself.
The people I admire most are those that really have a talent for pursuing the very best that life has to offer.
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Sunday
6/4/2006 12:25:54 AM
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Michael Wells
Long ago, I enjoyed Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide series. All four of them. In rapid succession. They were great.
Last week, I discovered Terry Pratchett on the recommendation of a good friend, and I've just finished The Colour of Magic. Hilarious. Incredible. Witty, and packed with thought-provoking asides.
From my perspective, Pratchett is to fantasy what Douglas Adams is to science fiction.
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Friday
6/2/2006 2:32:35 PM
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Michael Wells
Many years ago in high school, I needed a way to quickly file bits of paper information. Homework assignments, term papers, report cards, the decoded genome of everyone on my paper route -- you know, essential stuff.
I don't use it much these days -- far less paper in my office. But my sister found it very useful so I've been meaning to share it here in case others can find it useful too.
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Monday
5/22/2006 5:07:16 PM
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Michael Wells
I'm not sure why I call this the Turkish Couch, maybe I actually saw one of these before. But I think modern American furniture is missing some time-tested designs. We seem to like walls. Lots of them. And so we always have something to put a piece of furniture against. Most western-style couches are designed this way... that is, people sitting on the couch can really only comfortably face in one direction.
Personally, this sucks. I like the idea of couches as a more social thing, and if two people are sitting on a "normal couch", they can't really face each other all that easily.
A second problem is that there is a trend towards "opening up" the American home floorplan. Living rooms are beining connected to dining rooms, and kitchens, with no dividing wall. But the couch can only face in one direction; so you either shove it up against a wall, or you face the fireplace, or you face the open area. You have to make a decision, and you only get one. What's the deal with that?
What if, instead, couches offered a backless design, with very high, slanted arms? Sort of like two easy chairs facing each other, and connected with enough room for two people to comfortably stretch out their legs. Sort of a modern loveseat design, combined with a fainting couch, but at the size of a traditional western-style couch.
You could sit facing the fire, resting against the side, or face each other, back against the side, or face the opposite direction, again with a choice of positions. The point is, it offers a lot more utility than traditional couches, and looks cooler too.
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Friday
5/19/2006 3:19:10 PM
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Michael Wells
Historically, mythology has been an attempt to explain the way things are. Or, more accurately why things are the way they are. Explainations were given for everything from thunderstorms to the mood of the oceans, the skies, and volcanos, to the seasons and fertility.
Myths were also leveraged heavily to explain the way thing were. The creation of the Universe, the origin of Man, what was going on before the creation of the Universe, and so on.
Today I think Myths are still used extensively, but to prepare us for the way things will be. Superheroes are a great example; we see mankind evolving, and science making leaps forward... who's to say that we won't have the ability to breathe underwater in 100 years, or to fly with small portable jetson-style-backpacks? Invisible jets? Bat utility belts? The ability to scale walls? Bulletproof armour?
Then you consider things like X-Men, the Matrix, and going way out, Star Wars, Alien, Star Trek... aren't these myths of a sort? We describe them as science-fiction, but most sci-fi (the good stuff, anyway) is deeply and firmly rooted in sci-fact.
The next time you see a good sci-fi movie, don't write it off as unrealistic fantasy. Maybe it's up to you to take us partway down that path.
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Wednesday
5/10/2006 12:17:50 PM
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Michael Wells
From this CNN article...
Bottlenose dolphins can call each other by name when they whistle, making them the only animals besides humans known to recognize such identity information, scientists reported on Monday.
You know, I got to pet a dolphin once. It was smooth and rubbery, a bit like a soft wet tire. And it said to me (I think I'm pronouncing this correctly) "eeeraH! eeeraH! eeKH! eeKH! urK!" Before it splashed back into the Shedd swimming tank.
Given the incredible information in this new CNN article, I now think it was actually giving me a name. Yes, that's right. Of course, I go by "eeeraH!" for short. In dolphin, I'm pretty sure it means, "the smiling idiot who gives us the free fish".
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Saturday
4/29/2006 8:11:16 AM
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Michael Wells
If you've ever played an MMORPG, you know the term "Adds!". For the unenlightened, it's sort of a battlecry which means that more bad guys are attacking you, and are probably picking on the weaklings at the back of the party.
My recent project management life has been rife with scope creep. And it's the worst kind of scope creep... these are change requests that, by themselves, are just so small and simple to do, that you're just a jerk if you say NO. But then they keep coming and bury you, and by the end of the day, everyone else has gone home and you're burning the midnight oil.
In all, I feel like I'm back in EverQuest... the wizard at the back of the party, nuking the nasties. Adds! Maybe it's time to cast that evac spell, and go on holiday.
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Friday
4/14/2006 3:24:55 PM
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Michael Wells
quite simply, it comes down to this
the question of WHY is far more intriguing than
the question of HOW
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Tuesday
1/3/2006 2:36:02 PM
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Michael Wells
Contrary to popular opinion,
The opposite of Life is not Death.
The opposite of Life is Fear.
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Tuesday
12/27/2005 3:55:06 PM
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Michael Wells
I accidentally stumbled across this interesting post (while looking for something completely different... seems Google is slipping...)
In any case, it posits the following riddle;
Two sons and two fathers went to a pizza restaurant. They ordered three pizzas. When [the pizzas] came, everyone had a whole pizza. How can that be?
Ignoring trick answers like "the sons were siamese twins that shared the same stomach" or something similarly nutty, the intended answer is actually rather obvious -- the group consisted of a family; grandfather, father, and son. Thus, two sons, two fathers. But that's not quite right now is it?
I think a more fun riddle would be phrased;
Two sons and two fathers went to a pizza restaurant. They ordered three pizzas. When [the pizzas] came, everyone had a whole pizza. Give the first name of any of the members of the party.
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Thursday
11/3/2005 10:37:47 PM
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Michael Wells
I'm laying in bed reading last night, and as I begin to doze off I want to turn the light off. But the light switch is waaaay across the room and just too inconvenient. Sure, nothing that a $3.95 clapper couldn't do, or a well-aimed shoe, but I'm a technophile, so I begin working on a solution.
Clearly, this is a job for an automated home solution, perhaps something functional and low-cost, such as X10's product line. But rather than carrying an X10 remote around, I'd rather use something more ubiquitous, more generic... like my cellphone.
My cellphone is the perfect remote control. It has a nifty keypad. It's always charged. It's always nearby. Bonus, the home can communicate back to me through it, either through sounds/voice/rings or through displayed messages. And more advanced applications could involve me using the phone as a microphone to, for example, record an idea... or send an audio email message, or whatnot.
Even better, my phone has bluetooth, which is a device-to-device protocol that works at a 30ft range. Bluetooth hubs are easily available, and reducing steadily in both price and size... and with a decent antenna and power source, the range is easily amped up to 100ft. Nice. But who wants to install a bluetooth hub in every room?
Then it hits me... light fixtures. Light fixtures, especially ceiling light fixtures, are the perfect solution here. They're typically installed in the center of each room, on the ceiling; so we get maximum unobstructed signal. The electrical base of a fixture generally isn't too hard to replace; even entire light fixtures are quite cheap provided you're not going for a fancy motif. Moreover, the wiring for light fixtures generally runs through the attic... and it's therefore quite reasonable to plug your fixtures into your network, hub them together with a small 10 port (depending on the number of fixtures), and connect that straight to your computer network.
Voila; direct phone-to-network communication, everywhere in the house. Add some software and some X10 products and you've got a nifty little remote control solution that can be extended to your heart's content.
The only disadvantage I can think of is that you might have to pair your phone with each fixture independently in order to roam throughout the house. But hey, just a one-time inconvenience, right?
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Tuesday
9/20/2005 12:52:24 PM
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Michael Wells
It takes only one person in a group of one hundred to raise the standard of excellence.
It takes fifty people to lower it.
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Sunday
9/18/2005 5:42:57 PM
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Michael Wells
As an avid movie fan, I rent often. Very often. Like sometimes 3-movies-per-day often. For the first time in many years, I got hit with a late fee today, and the kicker is that it was because the movies fell behind the TV. I don't even remember renting them. And never even got to see them, and paid an extra $9.
Now I should say immediately that the particular video store I frequent is a great store, with great owners who are very lenient. If my calulation is right, the movies were late by 9 days each, so a $9 total fee is just peanuts. However, even with that knowledge and a good relationship with the friendly couple who own the store, it still stings a bit. It's like a little slap to the wrist.
At the same time, I completely understand the problem that the video store faces, and why they're forced to establish these kinds of policies. They can be lenient a day or two (and they have been, in my case, on several occasions) -- but there's a point where the standard policies just have to kick in.
So I thought about it a bit on the trek home and decided there were two things that bother me about traditional late fee policies.
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Monday
7/4/2005 5:11:44 PM
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Michael Wells
2005 marks the year that a computer can consistently beat GrandMasters in chess, with the recent Hydra match versus Michael Adams (UK's top player, 7th ranked worldwide). The game won 7 of the 8 matches, with a draw called on game 2 after 5 hours of play.
Hydra is an array of 64 PC's, and the match site lists some interesting statistics...
- 1 second to analyse 200 million chess moves and chose the best one. This includes projecting the game 18-4 move head (6 more than Deep Blue)
- 1 millisecond to calculate all possible angles and determine whether Luis Garcia's shot was a goal in the Champions League semi-final
- 1 second to match a finger print to any person within the UK
- Less than 1.5 minutes seconds to match a finger print to any person in the world
- Approximately five minutes to calculate every prime number between 1 and 1x1051 (a sexdicillion)
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Wednesday
6/29/2005 11:02:55 PM
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Michael Wells
Life is best appreciated at the tip of a sword.
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Tuesday
6/28/2005 11:23:02 AM
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Michael Wells
"Just type in your search term (for instance, ipod or Napa Valley) or do a more advanced search (for instance, title:nightline) and Google Video will search the closed captioning and text descriptions of all the videos in our archive for relevant results. Click on a video title on your results page and you can view still images from the video and, where a transcript is available, short snippets of transcript text."
See, now, that's smart...
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Monday
6/27/2005 10:20:23 AM
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Michael Wells
Some thoughts in wake of the recent news wave regarding new fotomat digital printing policies...
Like digital movies and digital music, digital photos are a particularly difficult medium to protect. The problem is simply this--having digital photo 'X' in hand, how can I determine whether it is copyrighted?
Many approaches have been considered; digital watermarking, central databases with a hashed lookup, and so on. But all of these have limitations.
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Saturday
6/11/2005 11:11:13 AM
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Michael Wells
An interesting experience; every once in awhile in the life of a programmer (or any innovator for that matter), you create something that takes an important role in your daily activities.
My most recent experience in this was to make my browser bookmarks list web-accessible, so that I can access it from anywhere in the world. This turned out to be surprisingly useful.
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Wednesday
6/8/2005 11:10:47 PM
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Michael Wells
Chris Sells raises a good question on his blog; "What is the career path for a developer?" I've had some interesting discussions about this and my own mental model includes these options;
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Tuesday
6/7/2005 9:10:43 AM
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Michael Wells
I remember in grade-school biology (during the 1980's, for me) studying the basic relationship types between organisms, such as parasitic relationships, symbiotic relationships, and so on.
What I don't remember is a much discussion about the role humans can play in these relationships with other members of the animal kingdom. Humans were always dealt with separately, as a non-animal, completely and in most every way distinct from dolphins and bears and other critters.
It was generally suggested (thought I can't remember a specific lesson to this effect) that humans can have no relationship with animals other then as Lord of the animals. i.e. we can own animals for food or amusement but the benefit is really one-way and highly conscious.
Dogs and cats are perhaps of a different class. Dogs can be used for hunting and protection, while cats are useful for handling that mouse problem out in the barn. Both are protected and fed by us, so clearly there is at least a loose symbiotic relationship there.
But another particular example caught my eye recently. In Singapore, geckos often live in dwellings with people. The people provide a warm, protective shelter for the geckos, and the geckos eat most of the insects that are attracted indoors by the electric lights. Apparently, both are quite content with the relationship, and the critters are actually referred to as "house geckos".
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Monday
6/6/2005 12:53:18 PM
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Michael Wells
Some recent discussion on the space elevator; and in separate news this news of a high-speed, high-torque electric car motor from a Welsh company. Could make an exciting pairing...
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Saturday
6/4/2005 8:40:10 AM
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Michael Wells
Well, sheesh, this new stroller is not nearly as hi-tech as I would have hoped. I was all excited, thinking that someone had finally built a hovercraft stroller. Imagine... snow and grass would be a breeze. Curbs? No problem. No more bumpy sidewalks waking the baby. The technology is all there and quite usable, and could probably be implemented with a single el-cheapo vacuum-cleaner motor. Of course, noise could be an issue, but then vacuums have gotten so much quieter these past few years.
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Monday
2/21/2005 7:15:13 AM
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Michael Wells
I've always liked Bartlett's, though I until now I never really considered why. I love ideas, and in many ways, a quotation is an idea, twice-baked and served on a silver platter. It's easily digested, quickly absorbed, and often very tasty.
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Monday
1/24/2005 9:14:34 AM
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Michael Wells
Hmph. Who woulda thought? A friend asked recently whether Shanghai was the largest city in the world, and I honestly didn't know so I did some poking around. You may be surprised as well...
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Saturday
3/20/2004 10:38:16 PM
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Michael Wells
As I grow wiser, it becomes clearer to me that there is no real relationship between cost and value. The Value of something is relative to a buyer, and so is the Cost, so the decision of whether something is Worthwhile (the Value exceeds the Cost, or Value / Cost > 1) is highly subjective.
It's also apparent that certain people are far more easily able to accept this, and to adapt their thinking to benefit from it. For example, I might look at some work, calculate the effort involved, and come up with an appropriate Cost. That cost might be very accurate, but the Price I charge shoudn't necessarily be based on the Cost in any way. The Price needs to be greather than the Cost, and less than the Value... but (if I desire to be wealthy) as close to the Value as possible.
Good realtors are an example of this. I might think that to sell my house quickly, I should lower the price - but a good realtor knows the market, knows the Value, and will often times be able to correct your thinking.
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Wednesday
3/17/2004 5:01:07 PM
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Michael Wells
In any system, find the wierdest thing, explain it, and you'll be a lot closer to understanding the whole system.
For example, when studying subatomic matter, entanglement seems to be the oddest thing we've encountered. Explaining it requires some fundamental re-evaluation of our perspective on matter and the universe. Let's have some fun...
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Sunday
8/31/2003 6:15:15 PM
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Michael Wells
Mental models serve to more simply describe a complex system, for the purpose of better understanding and communicating the most relevent aspects of the system.
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Tuesday
8/26/2003 8:15:23 PM
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Michael Wells
We've all heard of disruptive technology. Is it possible to come up with a technology that fundamentally uproots society itself?
For example, something that completely changes the way couples meet and select mates. Or a fundamentally different approach to elections. Perhaps a switch in the monetary system?
Is the Internet itself disrupting society already? Recent reports are that college kids spend an unprecedented amount of time online... so much so that their very social framework is evolving differently from all previous generations.
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Saturday
8/16/2003 8:48:48 AM
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Michael Wells
Dress codes have gotten wierd again. Each morning on my way for coffee, I get a unique ground-level view of the business elite's best-and-worst-dressed as the hoards migrate eastward from Union Station.
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Friday
8/15/2003 9:40:00 AM
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Michael Wells
Mid-to-late-20's... who had never heard of wireless Internet access. Wow. Her confused expression as I tried to explain that you can use the Internet without plugging into anything--was really quite memorable. I'm still not sure she understood.
But even funnier was her reaction to seeing my Tablet PC... her exact words were, "WHAT IS THAT?"
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Friday
8/15/2003 9:20:28 AM
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Michael Wells
Lots of interesting news; must be a full moon out...
Microsoft has discounted its Thai version of Windows and Office to about $36 US, in order to participate in a government-sponsored PC program, which is offering Linux-based PC's for $260.
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Wednesday
8/13/2003 9:50:39 AM
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Michael Wells
I noticed today that when you change the printer selection in Word 2003, the entire document reformats. Even when I change between my printer and Adobe Acrobat.
Has it always done that? I've certainly observed this in other professional publishing applications, such as PageMaker, where the output device plays a significant factor in layout... but Word had always handled this well until now. Have others experienced this?
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Saturday
8/2/2003 9:58:23 AM
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Michael Wells
Watching my son grow through his first year of life has been a truly amazing experience. I've learned more about myself and humankind in general than I ever recall hearing of in school.
Recently, my wife and I noticed that his feet had become much more ticklish--coincidentally around the same time he began walking. Our theory is that ticklish feet encourage arching, and based on other observations, people who don't have ticklish feet tend towards flat-footedness.
Any comments from the non-ticklish folks out there?
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Tuesday
12/31/2002 9:29:05 PM
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Michael Wells
Have you ever noticed that people walk like they drive? In most countries, people are most comfortable walking on the same side of the sidewalk that they drive on the road. But more than that... they seem to behave the same way. Lane switching, speed, turning, everything, even how they cautious or thoughtful or concentrated they are... all of these attributes seem to carry across.
It's fun to watch people on a rush-hour sidewalk when you think consider this.
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Copyright © 2003-2013, Michael Wells. All Rights Reserved.
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