Anti-fragility

Evolution, capitalism and science are anti-fragile. Nassim Taleb introduced the idea to my consciousness.

Top-down optimized systems are always fragile. These three phenomena are not fragile. In fact, they gain from being shocked.

Evolution, capitalism and science also share this common algorithm: systematic, brutally honest trials of proposed solutions, followed by ruthless rejection of failures and amplification of successes. The human psyche may not be well-adapted to appreciate such systems. We seldom like honesty or rejection.

Patagonian tree fungus is the secret ingredient in beer

The new issue of PNAS shows some evidence for the origins of my other favorite beverage. “The draft genome sequence of S. eubayanus [Patagonian tree fungus] revealed that this long-sought partner of ale-yeast gave rise to a domesticated, hybrid species used to brew lager beer.”

It’s worth a quick look at the picture on the cover. Who would guess something so ugly could yield such a tasty product. Beer is, in the apocryphal words of Ben Franklin, “proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.”

Bachelor Chow, revisited

Bachelor Chow:
1 bowl of Frosted Mini Wheats
6oz light yogurt
$1.22 per meal

Breakdown:
Miniwheats: $27 for 4x18oz (0.37 /oz), 1 Serving = 24 biscuits = 2 ounces or $0.74, 200 calories; Yogurt: $2.88 6x6oz (0.08 /oz), 1 Serving = 1 container = 6 ounces or $0.48, 90 calories. Sub total: 1 serving, 290 calories, $1.22 per serving
Daily total: 7 servings, 2030 calories, $8.54

Ultra-Cheap Bachelor Chow:
1 cup rehydrated dry milk
1.4 ounces multigrain hot cereal
$0.52 per meal

Breakdown: 1 cup rehydrated dry milk has 80 calories, requires no refrigeration, and costs $0.29/cup. Multigrain hot cereal costs 2.92/lb or 0.23 per 1.4 oz serving with 133 calories. So total 213 calories per serving and $0.52 per meal for a final cost of about $5 per day. You just need hot water.

Fukushima Daiichi reactors faults

Donate to the Red Cross

Let’s assume that the Fukushima Daiichi reactors collectively manage a plume the size of a square kilometer with radiation levels of 400 mSv/hour. Now, to get comparable numbers we need to get the dose per year:

400 x 24 x 365 = 3.5 million mSv/year.

Now let’s take that as a uniform distribution over 1 km square and spread it out over the whole earth. Divide by 500 million square km (global distribution).

3.5 million ÷500 million = .007 milliseiverts / year

One Japanese reactor site is not going to sustain that level of emission for a week, much less for a year. Also, 400 mSv/hour is probably a peak value not average value. The real numbers are much, much less. So,the absolute crazy-absurd worst case scenario is less than .007 mSv / year globally.

Typical, natural background radiation levels are about 2.4 millisievert (mSv) per year. You are already being irradiated at this moment with 342 times the absolute worst case dose from that reactor. So crunch your iodine tablets if it makes you happy, but people in Japan are suffering from the quake and tsunami damage, not radiation. How about we spend our iodine budget on helping out the Red Cross?

Adapted from Pournelle http://www.jerrypournelle.com/

Robotics is better for America than football

According to this story which was covered by reddit not too long ago:

Current members of the first Portland area high school robotics club — chartered as “Team 1432” by FIRST Robotics Competition (FRC) — ponder the club’s future as they sit with their only asset — last year’s robot — in the dank basement of an aging fraternal organization’s clubhouse

There is a high school in Oregon that is disbanding its robotics team on a technicality and pocketing the money that the team raised for its competition. I have nothing against football, but it strikes me as unfair that this would never happen to a football team.

This got me thinking that Football,a s an industry, is probably smaller than Robotics. And, indeed, I was pretty close. Both American Football and Robotics are about $6 billion businesses annually. In the next few years, toys and domestic service robots like the Roomba will likely reach about $6 billion., according to The Robot Report.

There is no reason to think that a person has a better chance of getting a job in football than in robotics. Now, to some people, football is entertaining. But shouldn’t school be a place where students are encouraged to do more than entertain themselves?

-Peter