Data-Storing Bacteria

A Japanese university announced scientists there have developed a new technology that uses bacteria DNA as a medium for storing data long-term, even for thousands of years.

Keio University Institute for Advanced Biosciences and Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus announced the development of the new technology, which creates an artificial DNA that carries up to more than 100 bits of data within the genome sequence, according to the JCN Newswire.

The universities said they successfully encoded "e= mc2 1905!" -- Einstein's theory of relativity and the year he enunciated it -- on the common soil bacteria, Bacillius subtilis.

While the technology would most likely first be used to track medication, it could also be used to store text and images for many millennia, thwarting the longevity issues associated with today's disk and tape storage systems -- which only store data for up to 100 years in most cases.

The artificial DNA that carries the data to be preserved makes multiple copies of the DNA and inserts the original as well as identical copies into the bacterial genome sequence. The multiple copies work as backup files to counteract natural degradation of the preserved data, according to the newswire.

Bacteria have particularly compact DNA, which is passed down from generation to generation. The information stored in that DNA can also be passed on for long-term preservation of large data files, the scientists said.

Twelve Angry Men

Watched this must-see 1957 Black and White movie recently. The story was superbly built, and it sure is one of my favorites now. Here is one of the funny dialogues.

Juror #10: Bright? He's a common ignorant slob. He don't even speak good English.
Juror #11: Doesn't even speak good English.

దసరా శుభాకాంక్షల&#3137!

Dancing Cockatoo

This one reminds me of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Amazing!

Sick Leave is Sick

One of the things that I am not comfortable with, is calling-in sick. Conventional wisdom says that avoiding negatives is good for the spirit. Even though I am guilty of using negatives (old habit) from time to time, I try to avoid them to the extent I can.

In the West, the majority are careful with the choice of words and expressions. Many avoid negatives, and are pretty creative in coming up with euphemisms. This, I believe is a good thing. Examples I can think of? Red Indians became Indians then American Indians and ultimately Native Americans. Similarly Negros became Black and are African Americans now. I find it amusing that Negro, which means black in Spanish, is considered derogatory, while the English word Black is almost acceptable!

Anyway, talking about using euphemisms, I suggest that we substitute the term Sick Leave with something like Vibrancy Restitution Day (VRD) as it is more positive. In my mind, sickness is any condition that prevents us from working effectively. It could be anything from high fever to euphoria from winning a lottery. In either case, one may not be able to work to the best of his/her abilities.

I think showing up to work when we are sick is no different than picking pockets. I mean, due to ill-health, we work @ say 60% efficiency. However, we take 100% of our salary for that time, just for showing up to work. So, it is like stealing 40%! Some might argue, "hey my company exploits me and this is a way of making it even". I say, an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

So, if I get tempted to go to a museum and see a rare exhibit during work day, I would simply use VRD. This way, I would avoid working with a distracted mind. This creates a win-win situation (good for my spirit and good for the company). I am against the policy that allows Sick Leave only when we are sick in conventional sense.

Mottainai Grandma

One way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is through conservation — living small and smart. Japan has a strong tradition of conservation, but it's also a country that likes the good life. And the good life requires electricity and lots of it.

Although a single hotel room in Japan can have four remote controls, a talking bath and heated toilet seats, a new popular children's book called Mottainai Grandma sends a different message about energy conservation.

Mottainai roughly translates as "Don't waste." In the drawings, Grandma looks a little stern with her hair up in a bun and cane in hand. And there's no avoiding her eyes. Mottainai is an old Buddhist word. Kawanishi says it also ties in with the Shinto idea that objects have souls.

"The whole idea that we are part of the nature, and should be in a very harmonious relationship with nature is very much a deep part of Japanese psychology," Kawanishi says.

In Japan, it's cool to be environmentally friendly. Many streets are lined with trash bins for recycling.

There's also Wangari Maathai, winner of the Nobel Peace Prize. She's not Japanese, but rather, from Kenya, Africa. But she has become a kind of a celebrity in Japan, teaching the Japanese about their own word.

Dedication

Juggling for Beatles

This guy sure can walk and chew gum at the same time! Amazing mind-body coordination.

Life Takes Visa

It is hard to escape from watching Life Takes Visa ad (see below) on TV these days. It basically encourages people to spend more money faster - like Americans need this lesson! Also, it looks down on people who save up and pay cash. With over $ 9 trillion national debt and ~$8,000/household personal debt, the US sure can live without ads like this one.

Shania Twain has wonderfully brought this sad state to our attention in the song Ka Ching. These days, this song applies to Indians too.

Pint-Sized Pollock?

Marla Olmstead made her first abstract painting while still in diapers, crouching on her parents' dining-room table. She was not yet 2. Her big break came when she was 3, and a family friend hung her paintings in a coffee shop in her hometown of Binghamton, N.Y. By the time she was 4, she was scarfing down cookies at the packed opening of her first solo gallery show. A local reporter covered the story, and the New York Times picked it up. Soon, news crews from all over were rushing to report on the adorable blond moppet and her colorful canvases, calling her a "budding Picasso," a "pint-sized Pollock." Within a few months, she sold more than $300,000 worth of paintings.

I don't think that I will ever understand the art world. Just before Marla's 5th birthday, CBS reported that her dad probably was helping out on her paintings. That's it! Her paintings suddenly became pretty much worthless. So, the value of the art was in the associated story (like in Whistler's Mother?!) rather than in the beauty (which I fail to see, to begin with) of creation.

Colossal Cribs

The enormity of the house Arnold Chase is building on Avon Mountain isn't fully apparent from the outside, where only 17,000 square feet of it lies in plain view.

It's the two-level, 33,500-square-foot basement complex, complete with a 103-seat movie theater, ticket booth, concession stand, game room and music annex, that will make it New England's largest occupied single-family home.

At nearly 50,900 square feet, the Chase home will be slightly larger than billionaire Bill Gates' home in Washington, about 4,000 square feet smaller than the White House and 20 times larger than the average-size home in America.

The largest private home ever built in the United States (above) is the Biltmore House in Asheville, N.C., comprising more than 174,000 square feet.

While we were searching for a home recently, I found that one of the most expensive homes on market in Austin right now (photo above) is at 12021 Selma Hughes Park Road. The asking price is $13.5 million for this 9 bed room, 10.5 bath, 15,859 square feet single family home. Not a bad deal. A house of this size (if available) in any major metropolitan city in India would cost a lot more, I think. But then, Austin is a small city.

We decided to buy a slightly smaller home instead :-)

Columbus Day

Today is Columbus Day, a Federal Government Holiday in the United States. Columbus' discovery of the United States (albeit by accident) in 1492 is a brilliant achievement. However, as I believe and many of my colleagues agree, his character doesn't deserve any envy.

After five centuries, Columbus remains a mysterious and controversial figure who has been variously described as one of the greatest mariners in history, a visionary genius, a mystic, a national hero, a failed administrator, a naive entrepreneur, and a ruthless and greedy imperialist.

In 1493 Columbus returned with an invasion force of seventeen ships, appointed at his own request by the Spanish Crown to install himself as "viceroy and governor of [the Caribbean islands]and the mainland" of America, a position he held until 1500. Setting up shop on the large island he called Espa–ola (today Haiti and the Dominican Republic), he promptly instituted policies of slavery (encomiendo) and systematic extermination against the native Taino population. Columbus's programs reduced Taino numbers from as many as eight million at the outset of his regime to about three million in 1496. Perhaps 100,000 were left by the time of the governor's departure.

His policies, however, remained, with the result that by 1514 the Spanish census of the island showed barely 22,000 Indians remaining alive. In 1542, only two hundred were recorded. Thereafter, they were considered extinct, as were Indians throughout the Caribbean Basin, an aggregate population which totaled more than fifteen million at the point of first contact with the Admiral of the Ocean Sea, as Columbus was known.

Balance of Brains

I recently watched an interview with Karl Iagnemma on PBS and he is amazing!

The 30-year-old Cambridge resident leads the kind of split-personality life that’s sure to make him a media darling: Iagnemma inhabits a divided world in which he spends his days working as a researcher in the mechanical-engineering department at MIT, then goes home to write award-winning fiction. In fact, Iagnemma’s short stories have garnered the Paris Review Discovery Prize and first place in the Playboy fiction contest, along with inclusion in the Best American Short Stories and Pushcart Prize collections. In his first collection of fiction, On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction (Dial Press), published last month, Iagnemma explores the intersection of science and emotion, research and relationships.

Which is Worse?

Not believing in holocaust, or ...


...Causing one?

Ahmadinejad by no means is a saint. The leader of the free world isn't one either.

Damned Lies and Statistics

A recent John Kelso's article (an excerpt below) on Panhandlers reminded me of the one I see occasionally near Fiesta (under I-35 Upper deck). He is always happy with a big smile, says "God Bless you" as cars pass by him (I read his lips), and holds a sign that says "Why lie? need a buck for beer. God Bless you!"

In case you haven't been following along at City Hall, some City Council members want to make it illegal for panhandlers to do their thing on roads and sidewalks, and within 1,000 feet of schools.

When you stop and think about it, aren't toll roads a high-tech form of panhandling?

Besides, panhandlers working near schools is a better educational tool than Career Day. Just having the panhandlers out there looking ugly says, "This could happen to you if you don't finish your algebra homework."

Anyway, Council Members Brewster McCracken and Jennifer Kim point to statistics that show there are lots of traffic accidents at intersections where panhandlers commonly hang out.

Of course there are lots of accidents at intersections where panhandlers hang out. This is because they are busy intersections, which is why panhandlers pick them. Where there are cars, there is more loose change. This is why you rarely see panhandlers in the Sam Houston National Forest.

I think John Kelso made a good point about unintentional biases we sometimes induce while interpreting statistical data. It reminded me of Andrew lang's funny quote:

An unsophisticated forecaster uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts - for support rather than for illumination.

Indian Sports

The Tyranny of Expectation prompted me to check into the remuneration received by famous Indian (non-cricket) Sportsmen.

For his magnificent feat of earning the World Chess Championship, Anand received a meagre $390,000 prize money. With an earning of $7,550 per minute in 2005, Kobe Bryant earned this much in about 52 minutes!

On an average, India spent about $35,000 per athlete who represented the country in Athens Olympics. This pales when compared to $210,000 spent on each UT student athlete on University team, per year!

UT Football Players Locker Room!

In 2007 UT Athletics Department is projected to spend $107 million. At Rs. 39.675 per USD, it amounts to about INR 425 Crores! And UT Football Coach Mack Brown earns $2.5 million per year!

Cubism

Cubism is one of the arts forms that I have been trying to develop an appreciation for, with no much luck so far.

Cubism (a name suggested by Henri Matisse in 1909) is a non-objective approach to painting developed originally in France by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque around 1906.

Between 1909 and 1911, the analysis of human forms and still lifes (hence the name -Analytical Cubism) led to the creation of a new stylistic system which allowed the artists to transpose the three-dimensional subjects into the flat images on the surface of the canvas. An object, seen from various points of view, could be reconstructed using particular separate "views" which overlapped and intersected. The result of such a reconstruction was a summation of separate temporal moments on the canvas. Picasso called this reorganized form the "sum of destructions," that is, the sum of the fragmentations. Since color supposedly interfered in purely intellectual perception of the form, the Cubist palette was restricted to a narrow, almost monochromatic scale, dominated by grays and browns.

Here is the cubism that I am familiar with [fortunately, never had to experience it first hand (knock on wood!)]