Mass Media Nonsense – The Uncanny Valley

We all know that everyone gets very creeped-out by robots that look and act human. We know this, despite the fact that 99% of us haven’t ever seen robots that look and act human, because the media tells us it is true. They talk about the concept of the uncanny valley and how it explains this discomfort.

The concept basically runs like this: things that look almost totally humand but aren’t, and things that act almost totally human, but aren’t, are something that’s going to creep us out for reasons we can’t quite explain. This concept was basically just made-up by a Japanese robotics guy named Masahiro Mori.

From what I can tell there’s no real evidence that this is true, but it appears to be accepted without any skepticism from the masses (bearing in mind that these are the same masses who believe in creationism rather than evolution and the lack of understanding perhaps makes sense). Evidence often cited includes poor box office receipts from movies like Beowulf (which I rather liked), The Polar Express, and Final Fantasy – The Spirits Within, (though one of my favorite whipping boys, Final Fantasy: Advent Children, did quite good in sales and is left off the list). What’s not usually mentioned is that these, frankly, weren’t very good movies and that might’ve played a larger role than anything else in their failure.

I think the uncanny valley concept is basically an excuse people like to use for why various products, including those movies, failed. It also doesn’t explain why other products, like Disney’s Hall of Presidents, are a success.

Ultimately this appears to be something that someone made up without any real evidence and that the media now accepts without any question. With the rise of things like Poser porn (you can search for that on your own; I’m not linking to it while at work!), I think this concept is pretty-well debunked.

The Wet Moon

(that’s either the title of a really bad porno or a really good, artsy foreign film)

So NASA has found what they’re describing as “significant” levels of water on the Moon! This is amazing, and a wonderful thing, because it makes and sort of long-term Moon colonization much easier. Water is heavy, and having to lift it from the Earth to the Moon would’ve been hard and expensive. If it’s already there, much easier!

Now let’s get off our asses and get back there!

More Songs with Sagan!

You guys might recall a video I posted up a few weeks back. Well, here’s another! Enjoy!

This… is Kinda Magnificent!

Living in the Future!

Living in Japan must be like living in the future (right, Tokyo5?), and not just because they’re a day ahead of us. No, they also get the coolest, mostest futuriststic tech! Just check out this CNN article about some hospital innovations!

The Ethics of Reviving the Extinct

Yesterday I finished one of my latest homework assignments from Amazon Vine. I read the book 100 Heartbeats, by Jeff Corwin. It’s to an extent a knock-off of Douglas Adams’ far more interesting work, Last Chance to See. It’s about some of the most endangered animals in the world and what’s being done to protect them.

One of the interesting things that Corwin brings up in the book is the idea of using DNA samples to revive extinct species. It’s a fascinating concept that exists only in theory so far. I’ve thought about it, and I am of two minds on the issue.

First, I’d say that any creature that went extinct without the help of humanity should probably just be left extinct. This includes things like dinosaurs, so sorry, folks, but no Jurassic Park. If we were to revive species that went extinct without our help, we should do so in a place where they can be isolated and never, ever released into the environment. The planet has spent hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years learning how to live without these animals and probably should continue to do so.

On the other hand, any creature that we killed off or any creature that’s gone extinct before about 10,000 BC is fair game. The odds of us being able to revive such a creature through cloning are decent, and while the environment has learned to adapt without them, it can readapt to have them without there likely being too much trouble (though I’d still want them raised up in an isolated area and then have their release into the wild closely monitored).

I think it’d be cool to bring back some of these creatures. Imagine herds of mammoths wandering the tundra of Alaska, Canada and Siberia, being hunted by the smilidon and maybe cave bears. Imagine seeing giant sloths, moas, and dodos all doing their thing. Picture huge flocks of passenger pigeons darkening the sky as they fly over plains where the Volkeswaggen-sized glyptodons roam wild.

If your car hit one of these, it's even money which would be damaged more!

We’ve already had some slight progress in reviving long-dead species the old-fashioned way; through breeding back. We’ve managed to get Heck cattle, which are similar to the aurochs. A creature that heavily resembles the quagga has been created through the same technique. It’s slower and less certain than cloning, and you might end up with a creature that only looks like the extinct species, but it’s a start.

Within a decade we’re likely to have the ability to revive some of these extinct species through cloning. I hope we do. I long to some day ride a moa through the wilds of New Zealand, or watch Steller’s sea cows graze. It’s something to look forward to.

The Search for Truth

A decade late, I have finally seen Contact. It was… ok. It wasn’t anything great. The SFX were good and the overall plot was decent, but its runtime could’ve been trimmed by a good half hour and the subplot centering around terrorism should’ve been left out. Doing that would’ve resulted in leaving out what has to be one of the largest plot holes in the history of cinema.

Towards the end of the movie one character, a religious believer, makes the comment that religion and science have the same goal; the search for truth. It’s something people, usually religious ones, say quite often, and I’d like to address that point.

BULLSHIT.

Science is about the search for truth. It’s about taking ideas, examining evidence, formulating theories, and then testing them endlessly until you break them. If you do break those theories, you then come up with a better one and keep testing that one until it breaks.

Religion, on the other hand, is about coming up with an idea, holding onto that idea, ignoring all the evidence and then saying that the testing methology and any evidence that disagrees with your faith are faulty. It is about many things, but definitely not the search for truth. It’s mostly about the search for ways to reinforce what people already think they believe.

Science is about looking for truth. Religion is about looking at science, putting your fingers in your ears and going, “No, no! I can’t hear you! La-la-la-la!”

Thank you.

PS: For the record, were I in the same situation Jody Foster is in at the end of the movie, I would’ve assumed I hallucinated due to smacking my head.

The Greatest Picture in the World!

Moon Madness!

Due to the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, there’s a lot of attention being paid to space. Lots of this focuses on past accomplishments, which are good, and include things like Obama meeting Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins in the White House, but focusing on the past isn’t where our attentions should be. We should be looking at the anniversary as a chance to refocus the space program and get back to the Moon and on to Mars.

There’s some effort that way. First up, Tom Wolfe has an article in the New York Times about the past and future of the space program.

The BBC’s website has a story about Altair, the new lunar landing module being planned for the next lunar missions to ideally take place before 2020.

The BBC also has an article on why we should go back to the Moon.

Neil Armstrong himself, notoriously undesiring of media attention, even came out today to urge a mission to Mars.

Lastly, we have the Mythbusters on CNN talking about Moon-hoax morons.

All of these are worth reading. Ultimately let’s remember that while today is the anniversary of a great and wonderful day in human history, greater things are ahead, if we dare to do what’s required to accomplish them.

Papal Silliness

According to the Pope, bones contained in a tomb that supposedly houses the remains of St Paul are, in fact, his. This is due to a series of tests that, according to CNN, confirmed the bones dated from sometime between 1 and 200 AD.

“This seems to confirm the unanimous and undisputed tradition that these are the mortal remains of the Apostle St. Paul,” Benedict said in Sunday’s announcement.

It confirms no such thing, and shame on him for saying it does. All it confirms is that there are bones in there that are mighty old. It does not say whose bones they are.

Also, you gotta love the Catholics for relying on scientific proof like carbon dating when it suits their purposes.