Hedy Lamarr and her exciting career

Today we celebrate the Ada Lovelace Day. Lovelace, Mother of Programming, she was an English aristocrat who wrote instructions for Charles Babbage's Analytical machine. Today we celebrate the women in science. so I will blog about the most recent and surprising case I came across: Hedy Lamarr.

Born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler, in Vienna, besides being a movie star, she had a very interesting life, she created the "Frequency Hoping" method to direct missiles during World War II, but it wasn't until much later that her concept was employed. Her adventures during the pre war time, running away from his husband, an arms dealer that worked with Hitler and Mussolini despite being half Jewish would not be out of place in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon neither. But it's sad that this part of her life is not generally acknowledged, she is more remembered by her movies and beauty.

I came across her intellectual feat reading Greg Egan's Dark Integers, where he mentions a communication technique called Hedy Lamarr. It tickled my curiosity and thanks to the advantages of this hyperlinked world of today, I grasped a bit of Lamarr's life that might not be as glamorous as the rest, but that to me is more exciting.

Even if Lamarr was an icon of classical femininity (after all, it was she who wrote: "Any girl can be glamorous, all she has to do is stand still and look stupid."), which is not the only possible choice of style and behaviour for a woman, she proves that no matter how stereotypically frivolous a person might look, what matter is what goes inside her or his head, not the silly projections we make. Fortunately, we live in times where women have increasingly the same opportunities than men, where social pressures are less overwhelming and where the expectations for women are changing, at least in some countries.

I hope that one day my sisters in Muslim countries will be able to say the same, to emulate Hedy Lamarr, in her artistic and technical achievements if they wish so.

Being a criminal, Aussie Style

The Australian Government seems to have a list of websites that will be banned as they depict child pornography, however, it seems that many of these websites are not related in any way to it:

...about half of the sites on the list are not related to child porn and include a slew of online poker sites, YouTube links, regular gay and straight porn sites, Wikipedia entries, euthanasia sites, websites of fringe religions such as satanic sites, fetish sites, Christian sites, the website of a tour operator and even a Queensland dentist.

And, as the list is secret, there are not established mechanisms to fight the decision of being included or even to know if one's website is there.

If linking to this list makes me a criminal in Australia, so be it. But I am not staying silent while the basic right of Freedom Speech is torn to pieces by obsessive governments. Child pornography is a very serious issue and should be fought, but this kind of crap does not help.

Instead of fighting us and upsetting us, why does not the Australian Govt. works with us?
I bet that a list of confirmed hosts of kiddie porn (not of dentists, Satan worshipers, masochists and travel agents) would attract the attention of lots of people (Including 4Chan) that would love to stop the bastards who abuse kids. Hell, I would learn myself how to contribute to a DDoS attack to stop such a thing. Despicable scum has been stopped before, and the DoS attack to Scientology was a thing to remember. It can be done, it will be done. Most of us here in this new territory are not evil people, perverted sadists who abuse children. Most of us are as disgusted and outraged as Australian politicians and we want to end the suffering. But censoring in an opaque way does not help.

It is time for governments to wake up and smell the coffee. You cannot stop us and you will fail if you try. You cannot control the Internet anymore, we are too many and our collective intelligence surpasses all your resources. If you want to stop this problem, many of us will be happy to help, use the power of crowds wisely.

Hat tip to BoingBoing.

On taxes and growth

Tired of hearing the mantra about how good are tax cuts for the economy and people, I decided to try to find for myself with the available data if this was true or not. So, I decided to create a Gapminder graph to check possible correlations between Growth, Unemployment and the top marginal tax rate.

I cannot find definite trends, but it seems pretty obvious that high taxes do not kill the economy, neither tax cuts prevent unemployment.

Feasible nightmares

A friend sent me an ominous message, a link to a blog claiming that two of the biggest seed providers for amateur gardeners and farmers were going to be bought by Monsanto, the bête noire of the Organic movement, producer of most of the GM crops cultivated around the world.

Even if these rumors turned to be false, the acquisition of companies like this by the likes of Monsanto is not a far-fetched possibility considered only by people wearing tinfoil hats. One of our main problems is the uniformity of crops around the world. Monoculture has homogenized varieties in almost every field in the world, despite the fact that conditions are not the same. Homogeneity makes plants vulnerable to blights in many different places, and as the same variety is sold almost everywhere, it causes less than optimal yields, as the plants are not selected for the specific weather and soil where it is being cultured, rather than to the environment where the variety was developed. A merging or acquisition of a big independent seed company by Monsanto or another humongous corporation would make our current situation even more fragile, as we would be left depending of very few big providers who could fail to deliver, as opposed to depend on networks of seed developers and farmers, a resilient network that can work if some hubs fail, as opposed to monopolistic approaches. If this happens, by the time Antitrust laws can be enforced, it might already be too late.

But reality seems to be stranger and scarier than fiction. We do not need Monsanto buying any company to lose our diversity and independence concerning seeds. A new law proposed by American congresswoman Rosa DeLauro would penalize heavily all those people who sow and harvest their own food with the excuse of “food safety”. As usual, in the name of an unattainable absolute security our liberties are eroded. I say “ours” even if I am not American because the American market is the main income source for many of these companies, so whatever happens there will affect us all.

The Dream of the Kibbutz

A short piece on the achievements of the kibbutzim, the Israeli social community that proves that Socialism can really do well, thrive and create wealth. Kibbutzim are integral part of Israel and the key for a lot of it success. Sadly, many of the so called Progressive and leftists blindly criticize Israel, without looking this real victory of communitarism, self organizing and cooperation. Israel is not perfect and should not be given a free pass just because of the kibbutzim, but criticism should be more rational that "those damn evil Zionists beating poor Arabs", which is the most usual verssion.

Islam in Science Fiction

My good friend Muhammad Ahmad, from Pakistan, living in Minneapolis now, created a very interesting website about Islam and Science Fiction, where he reviews several Science Fiction books and stories that deal one way or another with Muslims and Islam.

Muhammad is one of the smartest people I have ever met and even if our encounter was brief, it was really enlightening, one that taught me a lot about Islam, Muslims and the relationship between them and emerging technologies.

Now Muhammad has edited A Mosque Among the Stars, an anthology about Islam and Science Fiction, which is available here. I haven't had the pleasure to read it yet, but this a project that I am deeply interested in. After all, in this era, we are globally connected and the future is our collective creation, progressive Muslims like Muhammad show us a very different aspect from Islam that we are used to, from the old stereotypes.

Our Muslim brothers and sisters are all around the world and I am happy that Muhammad and the ones like him are building all sort of weird and beautiful bridges for the dialog.

One (more) reason to hate Condoleezza Rice

If you see the picture and you have no clue, this Wikipedia entry should do:

In 2008 American journalist Peter Maass called Obiang Africa's worst dictator, worse than Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

All but one member of the 100-seat national parliament belong to the PDGE or are aligned with it. The opposition is severely hampered by the lack of a free press as a vehicle for their views. Around 90% of all opposition politicians live in exile, 550 anti-Obiang activists have been jailed unfairly, and several killed since 1979.

In July 2003, state-operated radio declared Obiang to be a god who is "in permanent contact with the Almighty" and "can decide to kill without anyone calling him to account and without going to hell." He personally made similar comments in 1993. Despite these comments, he still states that he is a devout Catholic and was invited to the Vatican by John Paul II and again by Benedict XVI. Macías had also proclaimed himself a god.^[2]

Ms. Rice said that Obiang was "a good friend". I can believe that, after she belongs to a regime of tortures, law breakers, fear mongers, bible thumpers and enemies of freedom.

A Prosthetic Dialog

Usually, I avoid discussing Venezuelan politics in this blog, not only because it is not related to the subject of this blog, but also because some of the things that happen here are hard to believe and the sources in English about it are scarce.

Most of the best resources to understand the Venezuelan situation are created and kept by grassroots activists, as opposed to media machines and think tanks that either support the government (and are sponsored by it many times) or are blatantly supportive of some of the worst elements of the Venezuelan opposition. So, many of the best points of view, against this government, but also against an unfair and corrupt system that existed before it (and that somewhat, keeps existing), are lost to the eyes of the foreign observer.

As I decided to stay here in Venezuela instead of going abroad, it is necessary for my sanity to try to ignore the political hullabaloo and focus in my work and life, try to be not too grumpy. But the current environment of arbitrariness, xenophobia and fascist violence is too much to endure while being silent. So, when Chavez decided to shut stores and schools to celebrate the anniversary of his ascent to presidency, at first I felt broken, devastated for such abuse of power, for realizing how much power a damn politician has, no questions asked by his servants, and horrified for seeing how much more he intends to take. Then I decided that to get the opposition appalled and depressed, feeling powerless is exactly the aim of such displays of power.

I wrote a brief summary of the situation and sent it to BoingBoing, if I cannot do anything about this, at least I can try to be listened to. As much of the crowd that hangs there are progressive and left wingers, I tried to explain my feelings and give hard data about the situation, to wash a bit the somehow understandable affair of so many progressive people with this tyrant that is the Venezuelan president.

This time, unlike in previous years, I had a new, wonderful tool: Automated translations that do not suck that much! These translations are not perfect yet, but they are good enough for rough communication. When confronted with an apparent absence of sources, I decided to quote not only statistics that defy the official version, but also analysis from the Anarchist publication "El Libertario" and several other blogs and newspapers that not only describe what this land has become, but also reflect on the harm that Chavez does to true progressives, as right wingers in the future will use him as bogeyman to prevent any change. I could give a broader view thanks to these viewpoints, different from the aseptic news and propaganda from both sides, which are the texts that usually get translated. This grassroots efforts often lacks funds for translations, but with Google and its translations, I could overcome this, use an artificial translation to get my message across, use a neural prosthesis that lies outside my skull to deliver information to support the arguments that come from inside it.

This is another sign of this age where the ones that were oppressed now can talk. Having an Internet connection is not enough to send your message, if you do not speak the right language; A lot of people will ignore you and your voice will be silenced by the much more powerful voices of the ones with enough money to set up pretty websites and translated propaganda. But now, thanks to these rough translations, at least a bit of it can be understood and make others wonder if everything that the Big Brother says is true. Thanks to these new prostheses of the mind, a rudimentary dialog can be established and sometimes, as in my case, arguments can be enhanced and supported with local sources.

I am happy that technology keeps enabling people to be heard, sometimes in unexpected ways. The dispossessed might not remain silent for much longer, as computers drop their prices and automatic translation improves. But, will the world react to these distorted voices in pain?

RepRap replicates itself

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/06/080605211522.htm

RepRap, the prototype for a autoreplicating (but not self assembling) machine finally is able to build all of its parts.

This is thrilling and possibly a milestone in a future Agalmics history. It is quite reassuring to see these bottom-up efforts to bloom and spread, to be the heralds of a better, decentralized tomorrow, where, as the RepRap motto says, there will be "wealth without money".

Hopefully some day with future versions RepRap or something similar, and with distributed biotech and Open Source protocols for culturing meat and other protein sources, we will be freer from the tyranny of having to sell ourselves in order to survive.

In need of a new Green Revolution

http://news. yahoo.com/ s/livescience/ radicalscienceai mstosolvefoodcri sis

Some of us have been asking for public policies for supporting Biotech and educating the people better about the promises and risks of Genetically Modified Organism (GM) crops.

Maybe this crisis will prove to be the factor that triggers better acceptance of GM food. Hopefully this support will promote the growth of GM projects from small teams, with a set of OS tools, with non-profit purposes instead of the current system, where only the big players can afford to create new crops tailored to their commercial interest, as they are the only ones who can afford the expensive trials and the huge lobbying needed to get these crops approved.

Paradoxically, by insisting on moratoriums and strict bans, consumer activists and ecologists reduce the possible GM diversity and concentrate the power of determining the course of research in agriculture in a few corporate hands. Their actions lead to a future that many of us deem as undesirable. We cannot let those few companies determine the fate of the new crops according to commercial interests, we must fight for more diversity in the food chain and tailor crops to local growing needs.