One of the most interesting set of essays I’ve read recently has been a series by Eliezer Yudkowsky at Overcoming Bias. He writes on evolution as a process involving non-zero statistical correlation between the gene and how often the organism reproduces, rather than a magic purposefullness fairy. And in a very useful way, he clarifies how individual organisms (in particular, conscious ones), fit into the picture (or don’t). Plus, there’s a Cthulhu mythos reference for good measure! How could I not like?

Read and enjoy.

• An Alien God
• Adaptation-Executers not Fitness-Maximizers
• Evolutionary Psychology
• Thou Art Godshatter

Yes! It’s for real! I got an email from Chris Dodd’s campaign, but I was holding my breath for external confirmation (I’m kinda a pessimist when it comes to these things): In Twist, Senate Judiciary Spying Bill Lacks Immunity for Telecoms. Still reading for gotchas, and this fight surely isn’t over…but it appears to be an awesome win (for now).

Wow…this is a really cool post on Jamais Cascio’s blog about a project funded by the World Bank, using data from the National Geophysicial Data Center to measure natural gas flaring — the release and burning of natural gas released during oil drilling. The project hopes to identify prominent flaring sites (as a precursor to working toward a reduction in flaring) by analyzing nightime satellite imagery! It’s possible to tease the data out of imagery using knowledge of the phenomenon and data crunching techniques. Fascinating.

Jamais links to a longer post by Ethan Zuckerman, which describes the project in more detail. Both pages also have gorgeous data maps of the results. I love this stuff, both because of the beauty of the maps (I LOVE maps), and the powerful visualization.

Thanks for the link, Jamais!

Steve Borsch has a great post up on the wiretapping issue, and a link to an advocacy site that I wasn’t aware of: StopTheSpying. Check it out, and make some calls! Thanks for the link, Steve/

Posting this made me realize that I haven’t done all that much long-form political posting recently; I’ve thrown up some links, but with relatively little commentary. Don’t know why, really…there’s plenty of it in my head. I’m notoriously bad at multitasking, and I have been trying to spread myself a little thin recently…exocortex, machine rebuild (which includes dev env rebuild), couple new personal projects, etc. But this is another important issue…even beyond the Iraq War, I see the wiretapping situation and the Guantanamo detainments as probably the two clearest indicators to me of whether or not I can vote for someone. (Iraq gets messy because of the whole we’re there, we can’t pull out now excuse. Actually, we can…but I’ll certainly agree that it’s messy. Now. Now that WE CREATED THE MESS. *sigh*…)

Guantanamo and the wiretapping problem are pretty straightforward IMO, however. Torture…is wrong. Period. Stripping people of habeas corpus is…wrong. Period. And asking for retroactive immunity…is pretty much ADMITTING that what you did was wrong, isn’t it? This isn’t complicated. If they broke the law, it’s because they thought they could get away with it…same as every other criminal out there. If they don’t, they get punished…you don’t retroactively just change the rules. For them. Retroactive immunity, habeas corpus abolishment, secret warrants, gag rules, torture….these are not the actions of a government based on the rule of law. I’ll always oppose those who condone this behavior; I’ve opposed this from the day after 9/11, and I will tomorrow, next year, and as long as I’m around.

If you want to help, join the EFF, and/or the ACLU, both of which I’m proud to be a member of. And don’t hesitate to speak out…and please, don’t forget to vote!

This cuts way too close for comfort…LOL: xkcd #337.

I don’t mind when people aren’t perfect; I don’t expect them to be. In fact, I LIKE people who are wrong sometimes (and will admit it)…it indicates a modicum of reflection, self-awareness, and willingness to consider new things. And when you frequently stand out on a limb and make bold assertions; well, you sometimes make mistakes. But it’s even more heartening to see those type of folks stand up and admit it. So congrats to FactCheck.org!

A recent FactCheck.org post on the Oct. 30th Democratic presidential debate included analysis of Hillary Clinton’s statements about the National Archives and her husband’s request about some of his papers. Analysis, it turns out, that was wrong…based on erroneous data. And FactCheck fixed it, right on the same page as the original report, which means people can TELL they were wrong. Sonofagun! Again, congrats, FactCheck!

Say Hello to the Newest Member of the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy — Both funny and insightful.

FINALLY! Since the first time I read Charle Stross‘s Accelerando, I’ve been fascinated by the concept of the exocortex: an external information processing system that augments the brain’s biological high-level cognitive processes. It’s something that can be identified in it’s infancy today by tools like PDAs, smartphones, and now even the cloud datastores like del.icio.us, 30boxes, and GoogleReader. But this is just the merest beginning; the ideas in books like Accelerando literally boggle the mind.

My first online pass at an exocortex (I’ve got other, handheld devices in the mix as well). It’s…ok, it’s a wiki. *grin* Big deal, right? Well, I hope that over time, I can use this site to really bootstrap some true external processing and information management; there are actually pretty robust and widespread tools that can munge wiki data. Wikis do have an advantage; for all their adhocness, the way that they are written to is very standard, and their markup language is well known and supported by toolkits. I think a wiki is actually a pretty good basis for an exocortex-like datastore. Let’s see how it goes!

Note: Almost 100% of my exocortex is world-readable, and I’ll probably set up some sort of comment facility. Worst case, just leave a comment here…feel free to chat with me about the concept or the data.

Wow…I’ve gotten a little wonky this week (my wife is out of town…I often descend to deep coding, policy analysis, or Team Fortress. LOL), and I’m finding all this great stuff! First I downloaded Miro, and I’m doing some political study, prepping for the primaries. Found several good feeds to peruse. At one point, I had some economics questions (I’m an semi-educated layman at best on the topic), and went link-spelunking. After a bit, I remembered a reference Jon Udell had made to one of the online resources for podcasts of college classes. Maybe I could listen to a course? That might help. I was thinking he had been talking about Harvard for some reason, but I tracked down a posting, and realized it was UC Berkeley.

Holy smokes, what a motherload!! I don’t even know where to start. I think I’m going to grab the podcast IAS 180 Issues in Foreign Policy after 911 for starters, but I’m sure that will be nowhere near the last one. Awesome!

Thanks to Jon for pointing me in the right direction, UC Berkeley for such a generous resource, and Miro for a great app!

I LOVE this post: Wired editor bans PR flacks. I love everything…the action (banning dorks that spam him with PR crap), the transparency (the fact that he’s publishing the list), and the consequences (you can’t get off the list. Use a new address if necessary). All around awesome. Go, Chris!