After I first saw Inception my first reaction was to marvel that anyone could convince anyone else to make this film. While all films are ambitious in their making, Inception is wildly so. The answer: Christopher Nolan wrote, produced, and directed it himself. Therefore, only Nolan knows exactly what he had in mind.
I suspect, however, that Nolan actually had more than one thing in mind.
On its face, the film's conclusion is the culmination of the content of the story. It's a happy ending. Cobb achieves inception, rescues Saito from limbo, and cruises through immigration on his way back to his children. He spins Mal's totem to check whether he's still dreaming, but goes to his children before he sees it topple. In the last moment of the film, it's wobbling slightly but we never see it fall.
There are many clues that suggest that Nolan wants us to question the ending. The film is actively attempting to achieve inception in the minds of its viewers. The viral idea? "See Inception." And that may be all it is.
But I doubt it.
As Nolan was writing this, he took a relatively simple idea- a horror film about dream thieves (see Paprika)- and developed it into an Ocean's 11-type heist film. From there, he spent a whole lot of time developing the story as deep psychodrama- which is what got DiCaprio involved. The two spent months discussing the story before filming began. In order to commit to the dominant explanation, the two had to commit to the face-value interpretation. Along the way, however, I'm sure they were tempted to discuss alternatives.
Let us suppose that, to some incomplete degree, the final scene is definitely meant to be read as being a dream. Two possible scenarios arise. One: this is the only time the "top" level of reality is actually a dream. In other words, Cobb really did fall asleep on a 747, but hasn't actually woken up. His ascent from limbo is an illusion.
Two: everything that transpired in the film was inside a dream. If that were the case, we could then ask several more questions.
1. Whose dream is it? Who is the architect?
2. For what purpose?
3. Who's real and who isn't?
1. It could be that the entire story comes from Cobb's mind and that all characters are projections of his subconscious. If so, there's only one place- within the film's mythology- that it could happen: limbo. Cobb would be the architect, and the objective of the scenario would be to convince himself to finally accept the reality of the dream. In this reading, no one is real. Perhaps not even the original Mal. For all we know, the person of Mal was never in the dream with him.
The overt reading of the film says that she was really with him in the beginning, that the ascended to wakefulness together, and that she then killed herself, leaving Cobb behind.
But what if he descended to limbo alone? According to the mythology of Inception , he wouldn't remember the beginning of the dream. Would he create a projection of Mal to keep him company? Probably.
That's one possibility.
Here's another. And this brings us to the second question.
First, let's suppose that the prima facie reading is correct. Let's say that Mal really was with Cobb down in limbo- where they were the architects- that they grew old together, and that they then escaped. Let's suppose, however, that when they woke up, they ascended to a reality where neither of them were the sole architect and could not, therefore, change the dream to prove its nature without the full consent of the other. Therefore, they could not tell whether or not they were still in the dream. However, let's suppose that the original architect was Mal, and that she had some advantage. Let's say that she knows that the world isn't real... because, long long ago, she made it. So she is able to wake up, but he isn't.
Here's a different scenario to consider. Let's say that Mal never descended to Limbo. They were experimenting, using sedatives, with layered dream states. He went down, she didn't. She was left in possession of the upper dream state- the top level in which the film takes place. But when Cobb went down into timelessness, he brought a projection of Mal with him. He convinced himself that she'd come down to rescue him, and then, to be with him, and then, eventually, that he had to rescue her.
When Cobb descended to limbo, he was lost in infinite space. There was no way to find him. Rescue was impossible. But he did eventually find his way back... only, he had someone, or something, with him when he returned. He had a competing projection of his wife.
Let's keep running with the scenario. Why couldn't Mal, the original architect, change the dream and convince him that he still needed to wake up? Because he couldn't see her, even when she was right in front of him. Her projection superceded her. In fact, even her totem was a projection. It toppled every time because Cobb- in a reprisal of DiCaprio's character from Shutter Island, believed that the dream was real. She couldn't change the dream because anything she did would be over-projected by his powerful, talented, deeply rationalized delusion. He prevents her from doing it. All she can do is move toward convincing him that she could jump. His respect for her individuality- even the individuality of his projection- allows the real Mal to take herself, and the overlaid projection, off the ledge and into wakefulness. Mal doesn't expect to convince him, but that's just the beginning of her plan. When she jumps, Mal wakes up. The dream persists.
In order to rescue her husband, Mal must reenter the dream and work with the conditions that exist therein to achieve inception in Cobb's mind.
In this reading, there are only two layers to the dream. Everything below the first layer- where Cobb is on the 747- exists on a single plane, despite having the appearance of being multiple. This is because the architect of the second-layer is Mal, in disguise as the character Ariadne (Ellen Page), who follows him all the way down, and who is able to mess with not just the spatial physics, but also the temporal physics. While urgency never relents, there is also always enough time. The van takes 3 seconds to fall 60 feet- an abrogation of the laws of gravity. Arthur stacks, packs, and ships the other sleepers- among many other things- in only two minutes (it should only have been one minute according to the conversion rate quoted in the film). Time expands to accommodate what needs to be done. And what Cobb takes to be projections of Fischer's subconscious- the armed security that keep him acting, not thinking- are actually all part of the architecture. Everthing exists to achieve a specific result. And what is that?
Cobb needs to have a reason to return to limbo because only there can he begin his journey back up to reality. Saito's death and descent is probably an allegory to whatever caused Cobb to fall into limbo himself. The entire plot of the film- achieving inception on Fischer- exists only to bring Cobb to his own inception, which is the realization that he arrives at, in force, when he faces old-man Saito, that he is in a dream.
Do I think this is what Nolan had in mind? Not really. I think it probably crossed his mind. I think the film supports it as a possibility. Try watching it with this reading in mind, and see whether any paradigms shift.
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Sunday, September 12, 2010
CISSARE - the terrifying future of holographic weaponry
CISSARE, pronouunced "sizz-ARE"- a play on the word "scissor"- stands for "Constructively Interfering Spherical Section Array Radiation Emitter." What does that mean?
First, we need to remind ourselves about an important property of waves. When two waves intersect so that their peaks coincide, the amplitude of the waves are added together. Observe water waves bouncing off a solid wall at the edge of the water. Sometimes, the reflected wave peak intersects with an incoming wave peak. The result is an extra-tall wave. Sometimes the incoming and outgoing waves intersect peak to trough- making for a momentarily flat place in the water. Read more here.
The same principle applies to electromagnetic radiation. In our initial thought experiment, we'll be discussing microwaves- "light" with peak-to-peak wavelengths of between 1 and 10 cm.
Imagine that you have two directional microwave emitters focused on a single point. If they are either exactly the same distance away from the target, or if their distances vary by some multiple of the wavelength; if they are operating perfectly in synch; and if they are operating on the exact same frequency, they will create a wave point twice the amplitude of the native power of either emitter.
Now, what happens if we add more emitters to the array? In fact, let's skip all the intermediary steps and go straight to the maximum scenario: a spherical array of directional emitters, all pointing inward, all focused on a single point, all in synch to create a point of constructive interference. The total energy at the center point would be derived by adding the energy of each of the emitters.
What we end up with is a point-knife. A device that can vaporize the interior of an object without damaging it's exterior. It could be used for surgery (in fact, in principle, this is how some cancer treatments work already). It could be used as a weapon. Here's how it would work. Imagine that you're CISSARE is set up in another building and you're attempting to destroy a soft object. You set up a sensor in the same room as the object you wish to vaporize. You focus your CISSARE on the surface of the object, so that you can get feedback- a heat reading, for instance- and then- once the point is tuned to maximum energy- you move it into the interior of the object.
You could think of it as a beam weapon without a beam.
Q. Why microwaves? Why not x-rays?
A. Tuning x-rays would require an incredible amount of control and would only be usable over an extremely short distance. Microwaves, which exist as useful energy levels, and to which much of the world is transparent, are much easier to tune.
Q. Why not radio waves?
A. Radio waves would be even easier to tune, but would generate relatively little useful energy.
Q. Why do you call this "holographic" in the title of this blog?
A. Holograms are created by using intersecting beams of light (lasers) which, because of the interference, are able to change the medium. An entire 3D image can be through the intersection of two points-of-view. Instead of creating a three-dimensional visual image, a CISSARE creates a three-dimensional projection of energy.
Q. What you've described allows you to project onto, or even into, an object- to "write." Can a CISSARE be used to "read"?
A. Possibly, in principle. By operating at low enough energy levels to avoid damaging the material, and by recording the energetic feedback signature emanating from the point of intersection, you could probe the interior of an object by scanning, point by point, line by line, plane by plane. The only problem is that you would have to know about the whole object before you'd know how any part of the object would affect the permissivity of the probe beams. A CISSARE could be used progressively- gradually solving for a more and more accurate picture over multiple scans. Or, CISSARE's might be useful as way of testing industrial hardware for variations from the intended design. In either case, enormous amounts of computing power would be required.
Q. Why do you describe a CISSARE as a weapon?
A. Anything that could be used to damage the interior of something without leaving any exterior sign of intrusion has potential as a devastating weapon. It would allow one government to quietly cook some internal organ of a visiting head of state without anyone being the wiser. That head of state might then die, days or weeks later, without anyone being able to prove that it was an assassination. Or, imagine that your CISSARE is on several trucks. You park them around the location of a hostage situation. You then send in a small robot to locate the bad guys. You Once they're all located, you run a quick program that causes a non-fatal burst of heat to appear at the base of each suspect's brain. No worries about collateral damage from stray bullets.
First, we need to remind ourselves about an important property of waves. When two waves intersect so that their peaks coincide, the amplitude of the waves are added together. Observe water waves bouncing off a solid wall at the edge of the water. Sometimes, the reflected wave peak intersects with an incoming wave peak. The result is an extra-tall wave. Sometimes the incoming and outgoing waves intersect peak to trough- making for a momentarily flat place in the water. Read more here.
The same principle applies to electromagnetic radiation. In our initial thought experiment, we'll be discussing microwaves- "light" with peak-to-peak wavelengths of between 1 and 10 cm.
Imagine that you have two directional microwave emitters focused on a single point. If they are either exactly the same distance away from the target, or if their distances vary by some multiple of the wavelength; if they are operating perfectly in synch; and if they are operating on the exact same frequency, they will create a wave point twice the amplitude of the native power of either emitter.
Now, what happens if we add more emitters to the array? In fact, let's skip all the intermediary steps and go straight to the maximum scenario: a spherical array of directional emitters, all pointing inward, all focused on a single point, all in synch to create a point of constructive interference. The total energy at the center point would be derived by adding the energy of each of the emitters.
What we end up with is a point-knife. A device that can vaporize the interior of an object without damaging it's exterior. It could be used for surgery (in fact, in principle, this is how some cancer treatments work already). It could be used as a weapon. Here's how it would work. Imagine that you're CISSARE is set up in another building and you're attempting to destroy a soft object. You set up a sensor in the same room as the object you wish to vaporize. You focus your CISSARE on the surface of the object, so that you can get feedback- a heat reading, for instance- and then- once the point is tuned to maximum energy- you move it into the interior of the object.
You could think of it as a beam weapon without a beam.
Q. Why microwaves? Why not x-rays?
A. Tuning x-rays would require an incredible amount of control and would only be usable over an extremely short distance. Microwaves, which exist as useful energy levels, and to which much of the world is transparent, are much easier to tune.
Q. Why not radio waves?
A. Radio waves would be even easier to tune, but would generate relatively little useful energy.
Q. Why do you call this "holographic" in the title of this blog?
A. Holograms are created by using intersecting beams of light (lasers) which, because of the interference, are able to change the medium. An entire 3D image can be through the intersection of two points-of-view. Instead of creating a three-dimensional visual image, a CISSARE creates a three-dimensional projection of energy.
Q. What you've described allows you to project onto, or even into, an object- to "write." Can a CISSARE be used to "read"?
A. Possibly, in principle. By operating at low enough energy levels to avoid damaging the material, and by recording the energetic feedback signature emanating from the point of intersection, you could probe the interior of an object by scanning, point by point, line by line, plane by plane. The only problem is that you would have to know about the whole object before you'd know how any part of the object would affect the permissivity of the probe beams. A CISSARE could be used progressively- gradually solving for a more and more accurate picture over multiple scans. Or, CISSARE's might be useful as way of testing industrial hardware for variations from the intended design. In either case, enormous amounts of computing power would be required.
Q. Why do you describe a CISSARE as a weapon?
A. Anything that could be used to damage the interior of something without leaving any exterior sign of intrusion has potential as a devastating weapon. It would allow one government to quietly cook some internal organ of a visiting head of state without anyone being the wiser. That head of state might then die, days or weeks later, without anyone being able to prove that it was an assassination. Or, imagine that your CISSARE is on several trucks. You park them around the location of a hostage situation. You then send in a small robot to locate the bad guys. You Once they're all located, you run a quick program that causes a non-fatal burst of heat to appear at the base of each suspect's brain. No worries about collateral damage from stray bullets.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Cut Your Travel Time in Half
There are some aspects of the universe that are exceedingly difficult to imagine properly. For instance, if you were in a spaceship traveling at half the speed of light, and you were to measure the speed of the light you shot out ahead of you, you'd find that it was traveling exactly the speed of light both from your standpoint, and from the standpoint of the stationary observer. This is true for the spacecraft traveling at 99% of the speed of light as well. Special relativity- Einstein's description of the universe in which there are NO special, or privileged reference frames (one's where light doesn't go the speed of light), leaves us with the understanding that in order for this to be the case- in order for light to always travel light speed- other things we consider to be constant get warped and squished and stretched. The rate of the passage of time. The physical dimensions of objects. Mass. Even the very concept of simultaneity.
While it's difficult to imagine, it's not difficult to calculate.
The factor, called gamma, by which we divide the passage of time for the moving reference frame, or multiply for the rest frame, is a simple calculation.
gamma = 1 / ( square root of ( 1 - ( v^2 / c^2 ))
v is velocity expressed as a decimal of the speed of light, c. C, is 1. 1 squared is still 1. So you can disregard that part of the equation. So...
gamma = 1 / square root of (1 - v^2)
And now for some examples:
v/c___________GAMMA__________percent relative to rest frame
0.0___________1________________100%
0.00001_______1.00000000005_____99.99999999995%
0.0001________1.000000005_______99.999999995%
0.001_________1.0000005_________99.9999995%
0.01__________1.00005___________99.99995%
0.1___________1.005_____________99.49874%
0.2___________1.021_____________97.979736%
0.25__________1.033_____________96.82458%
0.3___________1.048_____________95.39392%
0.33333_______1.061_____________94.28090%
0.4___________1.091_____________91.65151%
0.41660_______1.1_______________90.90909%
0.5___________1.155_____________86.60254%
0.55277_______1.2_______________83.33333%
0.6___________1.25______________80%
0.63897_______1.3_______________76.92308%
0.66666_______1.342_____________74.53556%
0.69985_______1.4_______________71.42857%
0.7___________1.40028___________71.41428%
0.74535_______1.5_______________66.66666%
0.75__________1.512_____________66.14378%
0.78062_______1.6_______________62.5%
0.8___________1.666_____________60%
0.80869_______1.7_______________58.82353%
0.83148_______1.8_______________55.55556%
0.85029_______1.9_______________52.63158%
0.8660254038__2________________50%
0.9___________2.294_____________43.58899%
0.91__________2.412_____________41.46082%
0.91652_______2.5_______________40%
0.92__________2.552_____________39.19184%
0.93__________2.721_____________36.75595%
0.94__________2.931_____________34.11744%
0.94281_______3________________33.33333%
0.95__________3.203_____________31.22499%
0.96__________3.571_____________28%
0.96825_______4________________25%
0.97__________4.113_____________24.31049%
0.97980_______5________________20%
0.98__________5.025_____________19.89975%
0.98601_______6________________16.66667%
0.98974_______7________________14.28571%
0.99__________7.089_____________14.10674% (two nines of c)
0.9949874371__10_______________10%
0.999_________22.366____________4.47101% (three nines of c)
0.9999________70.712____________1.41418% (four nines of c)
0.9999499987__100______________1%
0.99999_______223.607___________0.44721% (five nines of c)
0.999999______707.107___________0.14142% (six nines of c)
0.9999994999__1000_____________0.1%
0.9999999_____2236.068__________0.04472% (seven nines of c)
0.99999999____7071.068__________0.01414% (eight nines of c)
0.999999999___22360.680_________0.00447% (nine nines of c)
0.9999999999__70710.678_________0.00141% (ten nines of c)
1.0000000000__(infinite)__________0%
Notice anything interesting happening at high c? Makes it easy to remember, doesn't it?
Let's put gamma to work in some simple operations.
Q. A ship with a 1 gram rest weight is traveling at ten nines of the speed of light. How much does it weigh?
A. 1g x 70710.678 = 70.7kg.
Q. A neutrino with negligible mass is moving exactly the speed of light. How much does it weigh?
A. (almost nothing) x (infinity) = infinite weight. In other words, neutrinos *don't* quite make light speed. Light, which can only travel at light speed, is completely massless.
Q. A one-kilometer long ship is traveling at 0.8c. How long is it when viewed from the rest frame?
A. 1000m x 0.6 = 600m.
Q. A starship is traveling at four nines of the speed of light for ten years according to the rest frame. How many years ass on board the ship?
A. 10 x 0.014142 = 0.14142 years or 51.65 days.
Q. A ship is traveling at 96% of the speed of light for ten years of shipboard time. How many years pass on earth?
A. 1 / 0.28 x 10 = 35.71 years.
Q. At what speed does relativistic time dilation cause shipboard travel time to be exactly half that of the rest frame observer?
A. To find the answer, we set gamma equal to 2 and solve for v.
2 = 1 / square root of ( 1 - v^2)
Divide both sides by (square root of ( 1 - v^2)
Reset.
Divide both sides by two.
Reset. Get 0.5 = square root of ( 1 - v^2)
Square both sides.
Reset. Get 0.25 = 1 - v^2
Subtract 1 from both sides.
Reset. Get -0.75 = -v^2
Take square root of both sides.
Assume the answer we desire is positive.
Get 0.8660254038 c.
v = square root of [ - {(1/gamma)^2 - 1} ]
That's how fast you'd have to travel to cut your travel time in half.
While it's difficult to imagine, it's not difficult to calculate.
The factor, called gamma, by which we divide the passage of time for the moving reference frame, or multiply for the rest frame, is a simple calculation.
gamma = 1 / ( square root of ( 1 - ( v^2 / c^2 ))
v is velocity expressed as a decimal of the speed of light, c. C, is 1. 1 squared is still 1. So you can disregard that part of the equation. So...
gamma = 1 / square root of (1 - v^2)
And now for some examples:
v/c___________GAMMA__________percent relative to rest frame
0.0___________1________________100%
0.00001_______1.00000000005_____99.99999999995%
0.0001________1.000000005_______99.999999995%
0.001_________1.0000005_________99.9999995%
0.01__________1.00005___________99.99995%
0.1___________1.005_____________99.49874%
0.2___________1.021_____________97.979736%
0.25__________1.033_____________96.82458%
0.3___________1.048_____________95.39392%
0.33333_______1.061_____________94.28090%
0.4___________1.091_____________91.65151%
0.41660_______1.1_______________90.90909%
0.5___________1.155_____________86.60254%
0.55277_______1.2_______________83.33333%
0.6___________1.25______________80%
0.63897_______1.3_______________76.92308%
0.66666_______1.342_____________74.53556%
0.69985_______1.4_______________71.42857%
0.7___________1.40028___________71.41428%
0.74535_______1.5_______________66.66666%
0.75__________1.512_____________66.14378%
0.78062_______1.6_______________62.5%
0.8___________1.666_____________60%
0.80869_______1.7_______________58.82353%
0.83148_______1.8_______________55.55556%
0.85029_______1.9_______________52.63158%
0.8660254038__2________________50%
0.9___________2.294_____________43.58899%
0.91__________2.412_____________41.46082%
0.91652_______2.5_______________40%
0.92__________2.552_____________39.19184%
0.93__________2.721_____________36.75595%
0.94__________2.931_____________34.11744%
0.94281_______3________________33.33333%
0.95__________3.203_____________31.22499%
0.96__________3.571_____________28%
0.96825_______4________________25%
0.97__________4.113_____________24.31049%
0.97980_______5________________20%
0.98__________5.025_____________19.89975%
0.98601_______6________________16.66667%
0.98974_______7________________14.28571%
0.99__________7.089_____________14.10674% (two nines of c)
0.9949874371__10_______________10%
0.999_________22.366____________4.47101% (three nines of c)
0.9999________70.712____________1.41418% (four nines of c)
0.9999499987__100______________1%
0.99999_______223.607___________0.44721% (five nines of c)
0.999999______707.107___________0.14142% (six nines of c)
0.9999994999__1000_____________0.1%
0.9999999_____2236.068__________0.04472% (seven nines of c)
0.99999999____7071.068__________0.01414% (eight nines of c)
0.999999999___22360.680_________0.00447% (nine nines of c)
0.9999999999__70710.678_________0.00141% (ten nines of c)
1.0000000000__(infinite)__________0%
Notice anything interesting happening at high c? Makes it easy to remember, doesn't it?
Let's put gamma to work in some simple operations.
Q. A ship with a 1 gram rest weight is traveling at ten nines of the speed of light. How much does it weigh?
A. 1g x 70710.678 = 70.7kg.
Q. A neutrino with negligible mass is moving exactly the speed of light. How much does it weigh?
A. (almost nothing) x (infinity) = infinite weight. In other words, neutrinos *don't* quite make light speed. Light, which can only travel at light speed, is completely massless.
Q. A one-kilometer long ship is traveling at 0.8c. How long is it when viewed from the rest frame?
A. 1000m x 0.6 = 600m.
Q. A starship is traveling at four nines of the speed of light for ten years according to the rest frame. How many years ass on board the ship?
A. 10 x 0.014142 = 0.14142 years or 51.65 days.
Q. A ship is traveling at 96% of the speed of light for ten years of shipboard time. How many years pass on earth?
A. 1 / 0.28 x 10 = 35.71 years.
Q. At what speed does relativistic time dilation cause shipboard travel time to be exactly half that of the rest frame observer?
A. To find the answer, we set gamma equal to 2 and solve for v.
2 = 1 / square root of ( 1 - v^2)
Divide both sides by (square root of ( 1 - v^2)
Reset.
Divide both sides by two.
Reset. Get 0.5 = square root of ( 1 - v^2)
Square both sides.
Reset. Get 0.25 = 1 - v^2
Subtract 1 from both sides.
Reset. Get -0.75 = -v^2
Take square root of both sides.
Assume the answer we desire is positive.
Get 0.8660254038 c.
v = square root of [ - {(1/gamma)^2 - 1} ]
That's how fast you'd have to travel to cut your travel time in half.
Monday, September 6, 2010
All of Us are Drill Sergeants
Let's say that every time you see someone with a LiveStrong bracelet, that you can demand that they do 20 push-ups. Like a drill sergeant. And every time you make this demand, you are required to do the same. How long would it take for people to catch on?
I'm talking about demanding exercise, in public, without fore-warning, from strangers.
Q. Would people cooperate?
A. Not all of them, but those that do would do so because they appreciate the opportunity to break the cultural taboo against exercising in public.
Q. Would it catch on?
A. If everyone that was accosted and commanded to do push-ups had it explained to them, then a number of them would likely take up the practice. It would appeal to a person's competitive nature- an attribute likely present in those that wear LiveStrong bracelets.
Q. Would it be worth it?
A. Even if it only barely caught on in a single small town in the middle of nowhere, those that participated would benefit from the increase in activity. By breaking the taboo against exercising in public, the benefits might be unlimited.
I'm talking about demanding exercise, in public, without fore-warning, from strangers.
Q. Would people cooperate?
A. Not all of them, but those that do would do so because they appreciate the opportunity to break the cultural taboo against exercising in public.
Q. Would it catch on?
A. If everyone that was accosted and commanded to do push-ups had it explained to them, then a number of them would likely take up the practice. It would appeal to a person's competitive nature- an attribute likely present in those that wear LiveStrong bracelets.
Q. Would it be worth it?
A. Even if it only barely caught on in a single small town in the middle of nowhere, those that participated would benefit from the increase in activity. By breaking the taboo against exercising in public, the benefits might be unlimited.
Monday, August 30, 2010
Security Upgrades for Online Email
When I log into my bank, I type in my user ID, my password, and then type in the answer to a question. It's all done on a keyboard. If I were to access my account on a public computer with a keylogger install- and chances are, if it's a public computer, a keylogger *is* installed on it- then I could lose all my money.
Several times this summer, I've received email from people who've had their email or facebook accounts hacked. Usually, it's because of keylogging. Sometimes through malware, sometimes through physical devices.
I propose the following updates.
Have a pair of on screen keyboards- manipulated using the mouse- for entering passwords. Have it work in concert with the physical keyboard. This would allow the user to remove letters from the logging data, making it useless.
Why two onscreen keyboards? To make it more difficult to use mouse logging in concert with screen capture. The keyboards can also alternate between being in qwerty and alphabetical order and move around (between entered letters) to make it impossible to gather usable data. This wouldn't cancel the need for malware blockers.
People need to be educated by their email providers to check the integrity of the keyboard cord whenever they're on a strange computer.
There are always going to be workarounds. So, in addition to the password, I propose an extra layer of security that would be activated whenever someone attempts to access an account from a strange IP address.
When you set up an account, you are shown a series of cartoons with random names assigned. You memorize the names of the cartoon faces, which are provided to you so you can't be socially engineered. You then modify the names in two ways.
For instance, you're shown a goofy cartoon face and told that the this is "Pedronimo." You're quizzed several times to make sure you've memorized this. When you access your account, you're sometimes asked to answer security questions as a refresher. You may also be asked to change the name in some way. Change, but not replace. For instance, you might use "redPonim00." You can now be asked questions based on this information. The questions are presented in mild captcha form.
"What is the original name of this person?"
"What is your version of this person's name?"
"Except for the first two letters, what is the original name of this person?"
"What are the last three letters of your version of this person's name?"
"What does this person do for a job?"
...and so on.
The keylogger may get the raw data, but not know the question- including what the face looks like. And even if the hackers got everything- including the face and the questions- you'd just have more cartoon faces than likely legitimate locations for logging in. No two face/question combinations would appear to consecutive disparate IP addresses. For consecutive visits to the same insecure IP address, you'd ask a different question about the same face.
Every once in a while, you'd learn a new cartoon face while working from a secure location and from within your email account. You enter all the information using mouse data- just in case- so that even if you're being keylogged, no one can see your answers or even infer that this is what you're doing. You have a choice about how many of these faces are used- as few as five and as many as ten or fifteen.
If a person happens to suffer from a bout of extremely poor memory, you'd have a set of backup questions which require sentence-length answers. While the exact spelling and order of words isn't essential, a certain minimum percentage of correct words is required. If you score low on one question- less than 95%, you have to answer another sentence-length question. If you can score above 90% on two, or above 85% on three, you get access to your account.
How do you keep from keylogging these answers? That's a problem. Inference of missing letters would surpassingly easy if you were to do the mixed method mentioned above. Of course the questions would be in captcha form. The only solution I can think of is that every time you successfully answer one of these personal long-form questions, it is never used again. If you get less than 85% matching on a single attempt, the question is red-flagged and no further attempts at accessing the account from non-secure IP addresses will be allowed for 24 hours.
Could someone that knows you really well answer these questions? Possibly. This places a burden on using intensely personal content and idiom. Like the cartoon faces, this is a method that would need to be actively maintained. One could put the answers (without questions) in a secure place. A secure place is one that no one that knows you knows about. If someone that doesn't know you finds the sentence, they won't know what to do with it. They won't even know the question.
A program running on your phone uses a virtual-randomization algorithm. By running a number through a series of mathematical operations (invisible to the user), and then returning a sequence of numbers based on the original. The login page offers a seed number, which you enter into the separate program, and it returns a four-digit number which is the incorporated into your password. For instance.
You're given a seed number of 59393
The virtual randomizer, which is, itself a unique program created by random seeding, returns 8702.
Your part of the password is the word "rutebega." But "rutebega" all by itself doesn't work. You have to add the first digit before the first letter and the last three digits just before the last letter. Your password, in this instance, is "8rutebeg702a" Given a different seed number, it would result in a different password.
If someone gets the letter parts of your password- the "rutebega," they still need the randomizer to get the rest.
If someone gets both your phone, and your root word, they'd be able to get access to your account. Otherwise, using keylogging would do them no good whatsoever.
To authenticate your standalone app, it would generate a long number that represents the identity of the random program that it is using to generate the seeds. Enter this on your email account to match the math. You'd only need to do this once.
And example of a random program.
Seed squared times pi, take thirteenth through eighteenth digits, divide by the current date in six digit format, take cube root of the fourth through eleventh digits, invert the answer, multiply by the square root of 2, and take the third through sixth digits. Rearrange- first digit third, second digit first, third digit fourth, fourth digit second. And that's your seed. The individual steps, constants, use of independent variables, etc. are all subject to one-time randomization.
To prevent the program from being copied, you could have a line item that uses an internal identifier, such as a serial number, as a source of a constant. Furthermore, you could make the device unusable to a stranger using your phone by having a number added to the seed. Your email account would need to know what this number is.
In other words, part of your password would be entered on a separate device.
I'm not saying that any of these ideas are perfect. All of them share the same issue of being more complicated than simply remembering a password. They wouldn't be used on secure computers, but they could be an option for questionable computers. Some of them might be considered fun. Some might appeal to those made paranoid by past experiences. Methods such as the ones I've mentioned could be provided on an optional basis. This means that hackers would go after the low-hanging fruit instead.
Several times this summer, I've received email from people who've had their email or facebook accounts hacked. Usually, it's because of keylogging. Sometimes through malware, sometimes through physical devices.
I propose the following updates.
Have a pair of on screen keyboards- manipulated using the mouse- for entering passwords. Have it work in concert with the physical keyboard. This would allow the user to remove letters from the logging data, making it useless.
Why two onscreen keyboards? To make it more difficult to use mouse logging in concert with screen capture. The keyboards can also alternate between being in qwerty and alphabetical order and move around (between entered letters) to make it impossible to gather usable data. This wouldn't cancel the need for malware blockers.
People need to be educated by their email providers to check the integrity of the keyboard cord whenever they're on a strange computer.
There are always going to be workarounds. So, in addition to the password, I propose an extra layer of security that would be activated whenever someone attempts to access an account from a strange IP address.
When you set up an account, you are shown a series of cartoons with random names assigned. You memorize the names of the cartoon faces, which are provided to you so you can't be socially engineered. You then modify the names in two ways.
For instance, you're shown a goofy cartoon face and told that the this is "Pedronimo." You're quizzed several times to make sure you've memorized this. When you access your account, you're sometimes asked to answer security questions as a refresher. You may also be asked to change the name in some way. Change, but not replace. For instance, you might use "redPonim00." You can now be asked questions based on this information. The questions are presented in mild captcha form.
"What is the original name of this person?"
"What is your version of this person's name?"
"Except for the first two letters, what is the original name of this person?"
"What are the last three letters of your version of this person's name?"
"What does this person do for a job?"
...and so on.
The keylogger may get the raw data, but not know the question- including what the face looks like. And even if the hackers got everything- including the face and the questions- you'd just have more cartoon faces than likely legitimate locations for logging in. No two face/question combinations would appear to consecutive disparate IP addresses. For consecutive visits to the same insecure IP address, you'd ask a different question about the same face.
Every once in a while, you'd learn a new cartoon face while working from a secure location and from within your email account. You enter all the information using mouse data- just in case- so that even if you're being keylogged, no one can see your answers or even infer that this is what you're doing. You have a choice about how many of these faces are used- as few as five and as many as ten or fifteen.
If a person happens to suffer from a bout of extremely poor memory, you'd have a set of backup questions which require sentence-length answers. While the exact spelling and order of words isn't essential, a certain minimum percentage of correct words is required. If you score low on one question- less than 95%, you have to answer another sentence-length question. If you can score above 90% on two, or above 85% on three, you get access to your account.
How do you keep from keylogging these answers? That's a problem. Inference of missing letters would surpassingly easy if you were to do the mixed method mentioned above. Of course the questions would be in captcha form. The only solution I can think of is that every time you successfully answer one of these personal long-form questions, it is never used again. If you get less than 85% matching on a single attempt, the question is red-flagged and no further attempts at accessing the account from non-secure IP addresses will be allowed for 24 hours.
Could someone that knows you really well answer these questions? Possibly. This places a burden on using intensely personal content and idiom. Like the cartoon faces, this is a method that would need to be actively maintained. One could put the answers (without questions) in a secure place. A secure place is one that no one that knows you knows about. If someone that doesn't know you finds the sentence, they won't know what to do with it. They won't even know the question.
A program running on your phone uses a virtual-randomization algorithm. By running a number through a series of mathematical operations (invisible to the user), and then returning a sequence of numbers based on the original. The login page offers a seed number, which you enter into the separate program, and it returns a four-digit number which is the incorporated into your password. For instance.
You're given a seed number of 59393
The virtual randomizer, which is, itself a unique program created by random seeding, returns 8702.
Your part of the password is the word "rutebega." But "rutebega" all by itself doesn't work. You have to add the first digit before the first letter and the last three digits just before the last letter. Your password, in this instance, is "8rutebeg702a" Given a different seed number, it would result in a different password.
If someone gets the letter parts of your password- the "rutebega," they still need the randomizer to get the rest.
If someone gets both your phone, and your root word, they'd be able to get access to your account. Otherwise, using keylogging would do them no good whatsoever.
To authenticate your standalone app, it would generate a long number that represents the identity of the random program that it is using to generate the seeds. Enter this on your email account to match the math. You'd only need to do this once.
And example of a random program.
Seed squared times pi, take thirteenth through eighteenth digits, divide by the current date in six digit format, take cube root of the fourth through eleventh digits, invert the answer, multiply by the square root of 2, and take the third through sixth digits. Rearrange- first digit third, second digit first, third digit fourth, fourth digit second. And that's your seed. The individual steps, constants, use of independent variables, etc. are all subject to one-time randomization.
To prevent the program from being copied, you could have a line item that uses an internal identifier, such as a serial number, as a source of a constant. Furthermore, you could make the device unusable to a stranger using your phone by having a number added to the seed. Your email account would need to know what this number is.
In other words, part of your password would be entered on a separate device.
I'm not saying that any of these ideas are perfect. All of them share the same issue of being more complicated than simply remembering a password. They wouldn't be used on secure computers, but they could be an option for questionable computers. Some of them might be considered fun. Some might appeal to those made paranoid by past experiences. Methods such as the ones I've mentioned could be provided on an optional basis. This means that hackers would go after the low-hanging fruit instead.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Optimum Language Curriculum for an Unlimited Traveler
What are the most important languages? We'll start with the following assumptions:
1. The language student wishes to have the maximum possible flexibility throughout the world.
2. Basic communication, and not fluency, is the standard of success.
There are lots of ways of calculating this answer. Number of native speakers, number of first and second speakers, number of countries where a language is spoken, relative economic influence of those speakers. I'm going to take this question to another level. We'll be considering the effect of sprachbund ( language family), relative isolation, difficulty of learning, and availability of alternate communication among native speakers. We'll assign positive and negative points for all of these factors. We'll also take into account emergent, as opposed to historical, trends in globalism.
For simplicity sake, we'll be comparing just eleven languages, including English.
These are (alphabetically):
1. Arabic
2. Chinese (Mandarin)
3. English
4. French
5. German
6. Hindi
7. Japanese
8. Korean
9. Portuguese
10. Russian
11. Spanish
Here are the variables:
N. Number of native speakers (as a first language). 4 + 0.1 awarded for every 25 million speakers, rounded to the nearest 25). Note that the relative difference is small except for in the case of Hindi and Chinese. Wikipedia
1. Chinese (Mandarin) (1.1 billion) = 8.4
2. Hindi/Urdu (350 million) = 5.4
3. Spanish (330 million) = 5.3
4. English (300 million) = 5.2
5. Arabic (200 million) = 4.8
6. Portuguese (160 million) = 4.6
7. Russian (160 million) = 4.6
8. Japanese (125 million) = 4.5
9. German (100 million) = 4.4
10. French (75 million) = 4.3
11. Korean (72 million) = 4.3
E. Economic rank. 1 + percentage of world GDP (per language) / 10. unicode.org/notes/tn13/
1. English (28.2%) = 3.8
2. Chinese (22.8%) = 3.3
3. Japanese (5.6%) = 1.6
4. Spanish (5.2%) = 1.5
5. German (4.9%) = 1.5
6. French (4.2%) = 1.4
7. Portuguese (3.4%) = 1.3
8. Russian (2.1%) = 1.2
9. Hindi (2.1%) = 1.2
10. Arabic (2.0%) = 1.2
11. Korean (1.4%) = 1.1
S. Number of speakers as a second language. This is also a measure of the language's versatility, hence it's relatively heavy weight: 2 + 0.1 for every 10 million speakers, rounded to the nearest 10. Wikipedia
1. French (190 million) = 3.9
2. English (150 million) = 3.5
3. Russian (125 million) = 3.3
4. Portuguese (28 million) = 2.3
5. Arabic (21 million) = 2.2
6. Chinese (20 million) = 2.2
7. Spanish (20 million) = 2.2
8. German (9 million) = 2.1
9. Japanese (8 million) = 2.1
10. Hindi (?) = 2
11. Korean (?) = 2
C. Number of countries where spoken. Number of countries / 10 + 0.1 for every 50 million people. You'll notice that English gets a huge - and admittedly unfair - advantage on this one. Many of those 115 countries are small islands in the Caribbean, for instance. Before you accuse me of Anglo-chauvinism, remember that we're starting from the assumption that *you* read and speak English. Therefore, English isn't even included in the question. www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm
1. English (115) = 11.5 + 0.6 = 12.1
2. French (35) = 3.5 + 0.2 = 3.7
3. Arabic (24) = 2.4 + 0.4 = 2.8
4. Spanish (20) = 2.0 + 0.7 = 2.7
5. Russian (16) = 1.6 + 0.3 = 1.9
6. German (9) = 0.9 + 0.2 = 1.1
7. Chinese (Mandarin) (5) = 0.5 + 2.2 = 2.7
8. Portuguese (5) = 0.5 + 0.3 = 0.8
9. Hindi/Urdu (2) = 0.2 + 0.7 = 0.9
10. Korean (2) = 0.2 + 0.1 = 0.3
11. Japanese (1) = 0.1 + 0.3 = 0.4
L. "Learnability" (for an English speaker). Reverse scale from 2 to 0. 2 is highly learnable, 0 is very difficult. Increments of 0.1. (Ref: arbitrary judgement which includes the relative difficulty of learning to read the language).
1. Arabic = 0.3
2. Chinese (Mandarin) = 0.1
3. English = 2.0
4. French = 1.4
5. German = 1.6
6. Hindi = 0.4
7. Japanese = 0.4
8. Korean = 0.5
9. Portuguese = 1.4
10. Russian = 1.0
11. Spanish = 1.6
B. Sprachbund rank - is the language part of a larger family of languages in which more alternatives exist? Among the languages on the list, does it stand alone? Scale between 0 and 1 in increments of 0.1.
1. Arabic = 1.0
2. Chinese (Mandarin) = 1.0
3. English = 0.5
4. French = 0.4
5. German = 0.4
6. Hindi = 1.0
7. Japanese = 0.9
8. Korean = 0.9
9. Portuguese = 0.3
10. Russian = 0.7
11. Spanish = 0.5
R. "Replaceability" - Do other language options exist in significant numbers? For instance, while Morocco is Arabic-speaking, many people speak French. In Morrocco, Arabic is "replaceable" with French. Scale of 0 to 1 in increments of 0.1. Low numbers means that it has a good chance of being replaceable by another language on the list. A low number reflects a high number of multi-linguals among a quorum of the population. In some cases, this tends to offset the advantage of "N" (# of countries spoken-in).
1. Arabic = 0.8
2. Chinese (Mandarin) = 0.7
3. English = 0.9
4. French = 0.2
5. German = 0.1
6. Hindi = 0.5
7. Japanese = 0.8
8. Korean = 0.7
9. Portuguese = 0.5
10. Russian = 0.7
11. Spanish = 0.6
X. Special factors such as emergent economic or diplomatic consideration. Takes into account secondary speakers throughout the world. Scale of 0 to 2 in increments of 0.1.
1. Arabic = 1.4
2. Chinese (Mandarin) = 1.4
3. English = 0.0
4. French = 1.1
5. German = 0.5
6. Hindi = 1.8
7. Japanese = 1.2
8. Korean = 1.6
9. Portuguese = 0.7
10. Russian = 1.5
11. Spanish = 2.0
F. "Friendliness." How likely are you to have a chance to put your skills to use? Scale of 0 to 1 in increments of 0.1. A purely arbitrary judgement based on impressions of receptivity to tourism.
1. Arabic = 0.3
2. Chinese (Mandarin) = 0.6
3. English = 0.9
4. French = 0.5
5. German = 0.6
6. Hindi = 0.6
7. Japanese = 0.4
8. Korean = 0.8
9. Portuguese = 0.4
10. Russian = 0.5
11. Spanish = 0.6
Here are the calculations:
English:
N + E + S + C + L + B + R + X + F =
5.2 3.8 3.5 12.1 2.0 0.5 0.9 0.0 0.9 28.9
Chinese (Mandarin):
N + E + S + C + L + B + R + X + F =
8.4 3.3 2.2 0.5 0.1 1.0 0.7 1.4 0.6 18.2
Spanish:
N + C + S + E + L + B + R + X + F =
5.3 1.5 2.2 2.7 1.6 0.5 0.6 2.0 0.6 17.0
French:
N + E + S + C + L + B + R + X + F =
4.3 1.4 3.9 3.7 1.4 0.4 0.2 1.1 0.5 16.9
Russian:
N + C + S + E + L + B + R + X + F =
4.6 1.2 3.3 1.9 1.0 0.7 0.7 1.5 0.5 15.4
Arabic:
N + E + S + C + L + B + R + X + F =
4.8 1.2 2.2 2.4 0.3 1.0 0.8 1.4 0.3 14.4
Hindi:
N + E + S + C + L + B + R + X + F =
5.4 1.2 2.0 0.9 0.4 1.0 0.5 1.8 0.6 13.8
Japanese:
N + E + S + C + L + B + R + X + F =
4.5 1.6 2.1 0.4 0.5 0.9 0.8 1.2 0.4 12.4
German:
N + E + S + C + L + B + R + X + F =
4.4 1.5 2.1 1.1 1.6 0.4 0.1 0.5 0.6 12.3
Portuguese:
N + E + S + C + L + B + R + X + F =
4.6 1.3 2.3 0.8 1.4 0.3 0.5 0.7 0.4 12.3
Korean:
N + E + S + C + L + B + R + X + F =
4.3 1.1 2.0 0.3 0.5 0.9 0.7 1.6 0.8 12.2
0. English 28.9 (Widespread, ecomomically dominant)
1. Chinese 18.2 (Extremely populous, multi-emergent)
2. Spanish 17.0 (Locally important, widespread)
3. French 16.9 (Essential worldwide as a secondary language)
4. Russian 15.4 (Irreplaceable gateway language, populous / emergent)
5. Arabic 14.4 (Widespread, often irreplaceable. Local dialects dominate)
6. Hindi 13.8 (Highly populous, multi-emergent)
7. Japanese 12.4 (Economically significant, localized)
8. German 12.3 (Highly replaceable)
9. Portuguese 12.3 (Localized)
10. Korean 12.2 (Localized)
Japaneses through Korean represent powerful, albeit localized languages. All three are replaceable to a limited degree- either by English or Spanish (thanks to the versatility of the local population).
This is not a "perfect" calculus. It makes many arbitrary assumptions. In the case of the last four languages, the differences are practically insignificant. One could easily argue that the local importance of Spanish greatly outweighs the vast numbers faraway Chinese. However, recall that the original assumption is that the language student is traveling throughout the world and is looking for the greatest amount of versatility with the least number of languages.
1. The language student wishes to have the maximum possible flexibility throughout the world.
2. Basic communication, and not fluency, is the standard of success.
There are lots of ways of calculating this answer. Number of native speakers, number of first and second speakers, number of countries where a language is spoken, relative economic influence of those speakers. I'm going to take this question to another level. We'll be considering the effect of sprachbund ( language family), relative isolation, difficulty of learning, and availability of alternate communication among native speakers. We'll assign positive and negative points for all of these factors. We'll also take into account emergent, as opposed to historical, trends in globalism.
For simplicity sake, we'll be comparing just eleven languages, including English.
These are (alphabetically):
1. Arabic
2. Chinese (Mandarin)
3. English
4. French
5. German
6. Hindi
7. Japanese
8. Korean
9. Portuguese
10. Russian
11. Spanish
Here are the variables:
N. Number of native speakers (as a first language). 4 + 0.1 awarded for every 25 million speakers, rounded to the nearest 25). Note that the relative difference is small except for in the case of Hindi and Chinese. Wikipedia
1. Chinese (Mandarin) (1.1 billion) = 8.4
2. Hindi/Urdu (350 million) = 5.4
3. Spanish (330 million) = 5.3
4. English (300 million) = 5.2
5. Arabic (200 million) = 4.8
6. Portuguese (160 million) = 4.6
7. Russian (160 million) = 4.6
8. Japanese (125 million) = 4.5
9. German (100 million) = 4.4
10. French (75 million) = 4.3
11. Korean (72 million) = 4.3
E. Economic rank. 1 + percentage of world GDP (per language) / 10. unicode.org/notes/tn13/
1. English (28.2%) = 3.8
2. Chinese (22.8%) = 3.3
3. Japanese (5.6%) = 1.6
4. Spanish (5.2%) = 1.5
5. German (4.9%) = 1.5
6. French (4.2%) = 1.4
7. Portuguese (3.4%) = 1.3
8. Russian (2.1%) = 1.2
9. Hindi (2.1%) = 1.2
10. Arabic (2.0%) = 1.2
11. Korean (1.4%) = 1.1
S. Number of speakers as a second language. This is also a measure of the language's versatility, hence it's relatively heavy weight: 2 + 0.1 for every 10 million speakers, rounded to the nearest 10. Wikipedia
1. French (190 million) = 3.9
2. English (150 million) = 3.5
3. Russian (125 million) = 3.3
4. Portuguese (28 million) = 2.3
5. Arabic (21 million) = 2.2
6. Chinese (20 million) = 2.2
7. Spanish (20 million) = 2.2
8. German (9 million) = 2.1
9. Japanese (8 million) = 2.1
10. Hindi (?) = 2
11. Korean (?) = 2
C. Number of countries where spoken. Number of countries / 10 + 0.1 for every 50 million people. You'll notice that English gets a huge - and admittedly unfair - advantage on this one. Many of those 115 countries are small islands in the Caribbean, for instance. Before you accuse me of Anglo-chauvinism, remember that we're starting from the assumption that *you* read and speak English. Therefore, English isn't even included in the question. www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm
1. English (115) = 11.5 + 0.6 = 12.1
2. French (35) = 3.5 + 0.2 = 3.7
3. Arabic (24) = 2.4 + 0.4 = 2.8
4. Spanish (20) = 2.0 + 0.7 = 2.7
5. Russian (16) = 1.6 + 0.3 = 1.9
6. German (9) = 0.9 + 0.2 = 1.1
7. Chinese (Mandarin) (5) = 0.5 + 2.2 = 2.7
8. Portuguese (5) = 0.5 + 0.3 = 0.8
9. Hindi/Urdu (2) = 0.2 + 0.7 = 0.9
10. Korean (2) = 0.2 + 0.1 = 0.3
11. Japanese (1) = 0.1 + 0.3 = 0.4
L. "Learnability" (for an English speaker). Reverse scale from 2 to 0. 2 is highly learnable, 0 is very difficult. Increments of 0.1. (Ref: arbitrary judgement which includes the relative difficulty of learning to read the language).
1. Arabic = 0.3
2. Chinese (Mandarin) = 0.1
3. English = 2.0
4. French = 1.4
5. German = 1.6
6. Hindi = 0.4
7. Japanese = 0.4
8. Korean = 0.5
9. Portuguese = 1.4
10. Russian = 1.0
11. Spanish = 1.6
B. Sprachbund rank - is the language part of a larger family of languages in which more alternatives exist? Among the languages on the list, does it stand alone? Scale between 0 and 1 in increments of 0.1.
1. Arabic = 1.0
2. Chinese (Mandarin) = 1.0
3. English = 0.5
4. French = 0.4
5. German = 0.4
6. Hindi = 1.0
7. Japanese = 0.9
8. Korean = 0.9
9. Portuguese = 0.3
10. Russian = 0.7
11. Spanish = 0.5
R. "Replaceability" - Do other language options exist in significant numbers? For instance, while Morocco is Arabic-speaking, many people speak French. In Morrocco, Arabic is "replaceable" with French. Scale of 0 to 1 in increments of 0.1. Low numbers means that it has a good chance of being replaceable by another language on the list. A low number reflects a high number of multi-linguals among a quorum of the population. In some cases, this tends to offset the advantage of "N" (# of countries spoken-in).
1. Arabic = 0.8
2. Chinese (Mandarin) = 0.7
3. English = 0.9
4. French = 0.2
5. German = 0.1
6. Hindi = 0.5
7. Japanese = 0.8
8. Korean = 0.7
9. Portuguese = 0.5
10. Russian = 0.7
11. Spanish = 0.6
X. Special factors such as emergent economic or diplomatic consideration. Takes into account secondary speakers throughout the world. Scale of 0 to 2 in increments of 0.1.
1. Arabic = 1.4
2. Chinese (Mandarin) = 1.4
3. English = 0.0
4. French = 1.1
5. German = 0.5
6. Hindi = 1.8
7. Japanese = 1.2
8. Korean = 1.6
9. Portuguese = 0.7
10. Russian = 1.5
11. Spanish = 2.0
F. "Friendliness." How likely are you to have a chance to put your skills to use? Scale of 0 to 1 in increments of 0.1. A purely arbitrary judgement based on impressions of receptivity to tourism.
1. Arabic = 0.3
2. Chinese (Mandarin) = 0.6
3. English = 0.9
4. French = 0.5
5. German = 0.6
6. Hindi = 0.6
7. Japanese = 0.4
8. Korean = 0.8
9. Portuguese = 0.4
10. Russian = 0.5
11. Spanish = 0.6
Here are the calculations:
English:
N + E + S + C + L + B + R + X + F =
5.2 3.8 3.5 12.1 2.0 0.5 0.9 0.0 0.9 28.9
Chinese (Mandarin):
N + E + S + C + L + B + R + X + F =
8.4 3.3 2.2 0.5 0.1 1.0 0.7 1.4 0.6 18.2
Spanish:
N + C + S + E + L + B + R + X + F =
5.3 1.5 2.2 2.7 1.6 0.5 0.6 2.0 0.6 17.0
French:
N + E + S + C + L + B + R + X + F =
4.3 1.4 3.9 3.7 1.4 0.4 0.2 1.1 0.5 16.9
Russian:
N + C + S + E + L + B + R + X + F =
4.6 1.2 3.3 1.9 1.0 0.7 0.7 1.5 0.5 15.4
Arabic:
N + E + S + C + L + B + R + X + F =
4.8 1.2 2.2 2.4 0.3 1.0 0.8 1.4 0.3 14.4
Hindi:
N + E + S + C + L + B + R + X + F =
5.4 1.2 2.0 0.9 0.4 1.0 0.5 1.8 0.6 13.8
Japanese:
N + E + S + C + L + B + R + X + F =
4.5 1.6 2.1 0.4 0.5 0.9 0.8 1.2 0.4 12.4
German:
N + E + S + C + L + B + R + X + F =
4.4 1.5 2.1 1.1 1.6 0.4 0.1 0.5 0.6 12.3
Portuguese:
N + E + S + C + L + B + R + X + F =
4.6 1.3 2.3 0.8 1.4 0.3 0.5 0.7 0.4 12.3
Korean:
N + E + S + C + L + B + R + X + F =
4.3 1.1 2.0 0.3 0.5 0.9 0.7 1.6 0.8 12.2
0. English 28.9 (Widespread, ecomomically dominant)
1. Chinese 18.2 (Extremely populous, multi-emergent)
2. Spanish 17.0 (Locally important, widespread)
3. French 16.9 (Essential worldwide as a secondary language)
4. Russian 15.4 (Irreplaceable gateway language, populous / emergent)
5. Arabic 14.4 (Widespread, often irreplaceable. Local dialects dominate)
6. Hindi 13.8 (Highly populous, multi-emergent)
7. Japanese 12.4 (Economically significant, localized)
8. German 12.3 (Highly replaceable)
9. Portuguese 12.3 (Localized)
10. Korean 12.2 (Localized)
Japaneses through Korean represent powerful, albeit localized languages. All three are replaceable to a limited degree- either by English or Spanish (thanks to the versatility of the local population).
This is not a "perfect" calculus. It makes many arbitrary assumptions. In the case of the last four languages, the differences are practically insignificant. One could easily argue that the local importance of Spanish greatly outweighs the vast numbers faraway Chinese. However, recall that the original assumption is that the language student is traveling throughout the world and is looking for the greatest amount of versatility with the least number of languages.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
The Indeterminate Finish Line
All you have to do to get this is to visit these two sites:
A balloon trip to the edge of space:
http://vimeo.com/12488149
The device they used to track down the instrument package:
http://www.findmespot.com/en/index.php?cid=102
So, here's the idea. Turn on the Spot, launch via helium balloon, allow to fly for half an hour, wait fifteen minutes, and then start providing delayed telemetry to each of two or more chase teams. First team to locate it wins. Or, alternately, first team to get it safely back to their base wins. Other teams can re-capture it by successfully mounting an assault using paintball guns (obviously, this assumes wilderness). Likely, it would play out over several days. Perhaps you'd play it using dual sport motorcycles (road-legal dirt bikes).
A high tech steeple chase.
Could call it a "Tracker Race." (Sounds a little like "Track Erase.") Who wants to play?
A balloon trip to the edge of space:
http://vimeo.com/12488149
The device they used to track down the instrument package:
http://www.findmespot.com/en/index.php?cid=102
So, here's the idea. Turn on the Spot, launch via helium balloon, allow to fly for half an hour, wait fifteen minutes, and then start providing delayed telemetry to each of two or more chase teams. First team to locate it wins. Or, alternately, first team to get it safely back to their base wins. Other teams can re-capture it by successfully mounting an assault using paintball guns (obviously, this assumes wilderness). Likely, it would play out over several days. Perhaps you'd play it using dual sport motorcycles (road-legal dirt bikes).
A high tech steeple chase.
Could call it a "Tracker Race." (Sounds a little like "Track Erase.") Who wants to play?
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
The Fast Emotion Memory Hack
This is a very simple, very easy-to-use memory technique. You can learn to do it in one minute.
Having a strong emotional response to a stimulus tends to reinforce your memory of that stimulus. One could even argue (as some psycho-neurologists have), that the emotional response exists in order to make strong stimuli easier to learn from.
So, as a memory exercise, try this:
Whenever you experience a stimuli you wish to remember, immediately *create* an emotional reaction.
Key words:
Immediately - while you're still in the presence of the stimulus. And do it quickly. Attempt to complete this entire exercise in less than a second.
Create- most experiences are close to being emotionally neutral. However, we can expect some small tendency in some direction. Identify the tendency and then amplify it by saying to yourself, "that makes me feel X." If you can't identify a natural tendency, choose an emotional reaction. I suggest choosing positive reactions the majority of the time. When you choose a reaction, consciously amplify it by constructing a particular reason for feeling that way.
When you wish to remember a particular moment that you've coded with "fast emotion," you have multiple options for entry.
1. Recall the tangible, real-world context and work inward.
2. Recall the constructed reason for feeling the way you felt and work sideways.
3. Replay the emotion itself and work backward.
The nature of this technique lends itself most readily to concise, discrete events. You can use these events, however, to reconstruct a much larger context. By sprinkling moments of fast emotion through an experience, you can make the whole thing more memorable.
A bit of advice: Don't try to be consistent- matching the same emotion to the same stimulus each time it reoccurs. Rather, use the conflict between, for instance, positive and negative reactions to make both stimuli more memorable.
This technique can be used to see your surroundings- especially your personal artifacts- as mnemonic anchors. When you look at something you haven't already coded with fast emotion, the most prominent emotional content of your history with that item should tend to pop to the foreground. Firm anchors can be re-used numerous times.
Having a strong emotional response to a stimulus tends to reinforce your memory of that stimulus. One could even argue (as some psycho-neurologists have), that the emotional response exists in order to make strong stimuli easier to learn from.
So, as a memory exercise, try this:
Whenever you experience a stimuli you wish to remember, immediately *create* an emotional reaction.
Key words:
Immediately - while you're still in the presence of the stimulus. And do it quickly. Attempt to complete this entire exercise in less than a second.
Create- most experiences are close to being emotionally neutral. However, we can expect some small tendency in some direction. Identify the tendency and then amplify it by saying to yourself, "that makes me feel X." If you can't identify a natural tendency, choose an emotional reaction. I suggest choosing positive reactions the majority of the time. When you choose a reaction, consciously amplify it by constructing a particular reason for feeling that way.
When you wish to remember a particular moment that you've coded with "fast emotion," you have multiple options for entry.
1. Recall the tangible, real-world context and work inward.
2. Recall the constructed reason for feeling the way you felt and work sideways.
3. Replay the emotion itself and work backward.
The nature of this technique lends itself most readily to concise, discrete events. You can use these events, however, to reconstruct a much larger context. By sprinkling moments of fast emotion through an experience, you can make the whole thing more memorable.
A bit of advice: Don't try to be consistent- matching the same emotion to the same stimulus each time it reoccurs. Rather, use the conflict between, for instance, positive and negative reactions to make both stimuli more memorable.
This technique can be used to see your surroundings- especially your personal artifacts- as mnemonic anchors. When you look at something you haven't already coded with fast emotion, the most prominent emotional content of your history with that item should tend to pop to the foreground. Firm anchors can be re-used numerous times.
Monday, July 12, 2010
You Are Your Gym
First, some a disclaimer:
If you want to look like a body builder, go to the gym. Almost every day. For three years. That's the only way. If you want to be healthier, lose weight, and have more energy, then let's be realistic.
Second, some assertions:
1. Everyone should get more exercise. Half an hour a day, at least. If you are sedentary, you need more because just sitting there is bad for your health (even if you exercise the rest of the time).
2. Many people intend to do more exercise, so they sign up for gym memberships. That usually doesn't work. Having a special place to work out means that working out becomes special. You only do it when you're in that special place. The gym becomes an excuse not to exercise.
3. Having a gym membership actually means you're less likely to exercise because, even when you mean to do it, you might not have time. Going to the gym- just dressing, packing, driving, checking in, going to the locker room, and then going to the work-out area, are steps that, taken together, can double the length of a workout (easily to over an hour)- especially when you take into account that you have to reverse all those steps. Most of those things are not exercise.
4. Let's define a "short" workout as anything less than twenty minutes. A long workout is at least twice that long. Because of their length, a long workouts must be carefully timed so that you're not interfering with the rest of your day. Going to the gym and doing a short workout is a waste of all the effort mentioned in item 3. Long workouts, which are worth the effort, are even more challenging. Therefore, gyms are only efficient as deterrents.
5. Long workouts make you really sweaty. You need a shower afterwards. A shower takes about seven to fifteen minutes. Why am I mentioning this separately? Didn't I already say that?
Why? Because a very short workout doesn't have a chance to make you significantly sweaty. What is a very short workout? One to five minutes.
6. Many people try to do everything in the course of a workout- work every muscle group. Many mix cardio with strength training in a single long visit. This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the cross training effect. The cross training effect means that you don't have to use every muscle group in every workout to get a "full body workout." You only have to exercise some of the larger ones on a day-to-day basis, and less prominent ones on a week-to-week basis.
7. Many of us don't need the heavy weights and complex machines to exert ourselves enough to get a good work out. Most of us have enough weight in our own bodies to get good exercise by just moving in certain ways.
Conclusions:
A. Be realistic. Don't expect the money you spend on your membership to motivate you to visit the gym.
B. Don't define a workout in such a way as to make a very short workout not count. If you can achieve failure in a single muscle group, even if you're not doing multiple sets, that's better than doing nothing at all.
C. Because of the danger of the habitual sedentary lifestyles- even among those that exercise- breaking up unavoidable periods of sitting with micro workouts is better than going for hours, days, even weeks between actual workouts.
D. Instead of (maybe) doing a single short workout every other day, do five mini-workouts over the course of every day. They can be spread out over the whole day- two in the morning, two in the afternoon, one in the evening- or they can be close together- all five within a couple of hours. Together, they amount to a single short workout. You body gets the health benefit of remaining more active, on average, and- therefore- will maintain a higher level of metabolism overall. What you'll lose is the cumulative intensity of consecutive sets. Therefore, it is important that individual sets reach their highest level of intensity.
Each five-minute workout should involve less than a minute of rest. The objective should be to reach a state of temporary exhaustion by the end- something that can be easily recovered from without disrupting the course of your day.
Attempt to do five exercises focusing on the following five areas:
Arms (Push-ups from a wide stance, pulsing to generate extra force moments; chin-ups, one-arm pushups- or one arm assisted).
Core (flutter kicks, sit-ups, leg lifts, crunches).
Legs (one-legged swats, burpees, sprints)
These are exercises that don't require equipment.
What if you don't have even five minutes to privately exercise? Well, that's a problem.
It's a purely cultural problem. We respect exercise, but we don't allow it to invade our normal lives. We simply do not exercise in public- in the same way that we do not wear bikinis anywhere but the pool and beach. We are as ashamed of working out as we are of being naked. So, we don't do it in front of others.
So let's imagine a cultural shift.
(See my most recent blog entry)
If you want to look like a body builder, go to the gym. Almost every day. For three years. That's the only way. If you want to be healthier, lose weight, and have more energy, then let's be realistic.
Second, some assertions:
1. Everyone should get more exercise. Half an hour a day, at least. If you are sedentary, you need more because just sitting there is bad for your health (even if you exercise the rest of the time).
2. Many people intend to do more exercise, so they sign up for gym memberships. That usually doesn't work. Having a special place to work out means that working out becomes special. You only do it when you're in that special place. The gym becomes an excuse not to exercise.
3. Having a gym membership actually means you're less likely to exercise because, even when you mean to do it, you might not have time. Going to the gym- just dressing, packing, driving, checking in, going to the locker room, and then going to the work-out area, are steps that, taken together, can double the length of a workout (easily to over an hour)- especially when you take into account that you have to reverse all those steps. Most of those things are not exercise.
4. Let's define a "short" workout as anything less than twenty minutes. A long workout is at least twice that long. Because of their length, a long workouts must be carefully timed so that you're not interfering with the rest of your day. Going to the gym and doing a short workout is a waste of all the effort mentioned in item 3. Long workouts, which are worth the effort, are even more challenging. Therefore, gyms are only efficient as deterrents.
5. Long workouts make you really sweaty. You need a shower afterwards. A shower takes about seven to fifteen minutes. Why am I mentioning this separately? Didn't I already say that?
Why? Because a very short workout doesn't have a chance to make you significantly sweaty. What is a very short workout? One to five minutes.
6. Many people try to do everything in the course of a workout- work every muscle group. Many mix cardio with strength training in a single long visit. This represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the cross training effect. The cross training effect means that you don't have to use every muscle group in every workout to get a "full body workout." You only have to exercise some of the larger ones on a day-to-day basis, and less prominent ones on a week-to-week basis.
7. Many of us don't need the heavy weights and complex machines to exert ourselves enough to get a good work out. Most of us have enough weight in our own bodies to get good exercise by just moving in certain ways.
Conclusions:
A. Be realistic. Don't expect the money you spend on your membership to motivate you to visit the gym.
B. Don't define a workout in such a way as to make a very short workout not count. If you can achieve failure in a single muscle group, even if you're not doing multiple sets, that's better than doing nothing at all.
C. Because of the danger of the habitual sedentary lifestyles- even among those that exercise- breaking up unavoidable periods of sitting with micro workouts is better than going for hours, days, even weeks between actual workouts.
D. Instead of (maybe) doing a single short workout every other day, do five mini-workouts over the course of every day. They can be spread out over the whole day- two in the morning, two in the afternoon, one in the evening- or they can be close together- all five within a couple of hours. Together, they amount to a single short workout. You body gets the health benefit of remaining more active, on average, and- therefore- will maintain a higher level of metabolism overall. What you'll lose is the cumulative intensity of consecutive sets. Therefore, it is important that individual sets reach their highest level of intensity.
Each five-minute workout should involve less than a minute of rest. The objective should be to reach a state of temporary exhaustion by the end- something that can be easily recovered from without disrupting the course of your day.
Attempt to do five exercises focusing on the following five areas:
Arms (Push-ups from a wide stance, pulsing to generate extra force moments; chin-ups, one-arm pushups- or one arm assisted).
Core (flutter kicks, sit-ups, leg lifts, crunches).
Legs (one-legged swats, burpees, sprints)
These are exercises that don't require equipment.
What if you don't have even five minutes to privately exercise? Well, that's a problem.
It's a purely cultural problem. We respect exercise, but we don't allow it to invade our normal lives. We simply do not exercise in public- in the same way that we do not wear bikinis anywhere but the pool and beach. We are as ashamed of working out as we are of being naked. So, we don't do it in front of others.
So let's imagine a cultural shift.
(See my most recent blog entry)
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
From Balloon to Orbit
Imagine with me a solution for getting a large payload into orbit.
Traditionally, we use multi-stage rockets that carry all their fuel from sea level to orbit and beyond. For going from ground to orbit, at least 90% of the weight of the rocket must be fuel. The remaining 10% can be structure. A smaller percentage of this can be payload. In the case of the Apollo missions, "payload" can be considered the weight of the astronauts, camera film, and a bag of moon rocks. Everything else- including the reentry vehicle, was technically disposable. To double the final payload would likely require doubling the initial size of the rocket.
A technically more elegant solution is to use a multi-stage, reusable system. The space shuttle, which only visits low earth orbit, has a much higher payload percentage.
SpaceShipOne, built by Burt Rutan to visit the lowest definition of "space" (about 60 miles) uses a combination of air-breathing jet engines and rockets. Different parts of the system land separately.
So, for the fun of it, I'm thinking about another way to do something similar. Only, in this case, we're going higher than the 53k feet that an air-breathing engine can handle.
Let's say that we need to get 250 miles high to achieve a reasonable, stable orbit. Let's say that we'll be getting there via rocket. Let's be generous and say that the mothership model (ie, WhiteKnight) gets you 10 miles high. That's 4% of the total distance. Aside from the advantage of not having to drill through the dense lower atmosphere while simultaneously gaining the necessary momentum to continue onward to escape velocity, this translates to only a marginal total advantage. The higher your target orbit, the less your advantage.
So, I propose that we get even higher. StratoLab V, a high altitude testbed from the early 1960s, still holds the world record for highest manned balloon ascent. Over 113k feet. Unmanned balloons have reached as high as 173,900 feet- more than half-way to the hard edge of space.
Imagine building a balloon that can lift a two-stage rocket powered shuttle glider as payload to about 80k feet. The shuttle would sit in a cradle, dangling beneath the balloon, and take off at an angle away from the balloon straight overhead. The balloon would achieve non-trivial speed using high altitude winds which would be added to the rocket's total lateral velocity. The balloon, which would likely be manned, would then be piloted to the ground by releasing billions of cubic feet of hydrogen.
In the event of an emergency, balloon crew would parachute to safety wearing pressurized suits. The shuttle would glide to safety. Crew would come down separately on parachutes and the shuttle would be flown remotely. If necessary, it would jettison its fuel and make a water landing. Otherwise, it would operate as designed, making a dead-stick landing at an airstrip. Its payload would be recovered and reused.
Alternately, instead of a shuttle, a two-stage, bare bones rocket would be used. Because of the high altitude, it would not even need to be particularly aerodynamic. The payload could be partially or even completely exposed to the open air.
After landing, the balloon would be deflated, disassembled, placed on trucks, and returned to base for refurbishment and reuse. Helium might be used as a buffer gas- for instance, providing a thin layer- held in place by ultra-thin polyethelene- to diminish the exposure of hydrogen to static charges on the balloon's surface. Because the helium would represent a small amount of the total gas volume, but would be enough to keep the gas envelope up (rather than raking against the ground during landing), this helium could be carried all the way back to earth and then be recovered, purified, and reused.
How big would this balloon be?
Let's imagine that we want to achieve 50k lbs of delivery to low earth orbit- similar to the Space Shuttle.
Let's estimate that the total advantage, over the traditional space shuttle, is about 40%. two-thirds of the advantage comes from being able to bypass the lower atmosphere's drag. The remaining one-third comes from a combination reduced distance, and the cumulative consequence of carrying additional fuel over said distance. A further 10% advantage comes from the reduction in total complexity and, therefore, weight due to being able to bypass the stresses of the lower atmosphere, as well as the 40% drop in total weight and the attendant complexity. Another 5% comes from improvements in rocket technology. That still leaves us with about 1,900,000 lbs (of which less than 3% is payload).
What kind of balloon can carry nearly two million pounds of payload? There's only one I know of.
Traditionally, we use multi-stage rockets that carry all their fuel from sea level to orbit and beyond. For going from ground to orbit, at least 90% of the weight of the rocket must be fuel. The remaining 10% can be structure. A smaller percentage of this can be payload. In the case of the Apollo missions, "payload" can be considered the weight of the astronauts, camera film, and a bag of moon rocks. Everything else- including the reentry vehicle, was technically disposable. To double the final payload would likely require doubling the initial size of the rocket.
A technically more elegant solution is to use a multi-stage, reusable system. The space shuttle, which only visits low earth orbit, has a much higher payload percentage.
SpaceShipOne, built by Burt Rutan to visit the lowest definition of "space" (about 60 miles) uses a combination of air-breathing jet engines and rockets. Different parts of the system land separately.
So, for the fun of it, I'm thinking about another way to do something similar. Only, in this case, we're going higher than the 53k feet that an air-breathing engine can handle.
Let's say that we need to get 250 miles high to achieve a reasonable, stable orbit. Let's say that we'll be getting there via rocket. Let's be generous and say that the mothership model (ie, WhiteKnight) gets you 10 miles high. That's 4% of the total distance. Aside from the advantage of not having to drill through the dense lower atmosphere while simultaneously gaining the necessary momentum to continue onward to escape velocity, this translates to only a marginal total advantage. The higher your target orbit, the less your advantage.
So, I propose that we get even higher. StratoLab V, a high altitude testbed from the early 1960s, still holds the world record for highest manned balloon ascent. Over 113k feet. Unmanned balloons have reached as high as 173,900 feet- more than half-way to the hard edge of space.
Imagine building a balloon that can lift a two-stage rocket powered shuttle glider as payload to about 80k feet. The shuttle would sit in a cradle, dangling beneath the balloon, and take off at an angle away from the balloon straight overhead. The balloon would achieve non-trivial speed using high altitude winds which would be added to the rocket's total lateral velocity. The balloon, which would likely be manned, would then be piloted to the ground by releasing billions of cubic feet of hydrogen.
In the event of an emergency, balloon crew would parachute to safety wearing pressurized suits. The shuttle would glide to safety. Crew would come down separately on parachutes and the shuttle would be flown remotely. If necessary, it would jettison its fuel and make a water landing. Otherwise, it would operate as designed, making a dead-stick landing at an airstrip. Its payload would be recovered and reused.
Alternately, instead of a shuttle, a two-stage, bare bones rocket would be used. Because of the high altitude, it would not even need to be particularly aerodynamic. The payload could be partially or even completely exposed to the open air.
After landing, the balloon would be deflated, disassembled, placed on trucks, and returned to base for refurbishment and reuse. Helium might be used as a buffer gas- for instance, providing a thin layer- held in place by ultra-thin polyethelene- to diminish the exposure of hydrogen to static charges on the balloon's surface. Because the helium would represent a small amount of the total gas volume, but would be enough to keep the gas envelope up (rather than raking against the ground during landing), this helium could be carried all the way back to earth and then be recovered, purified, and reused.
How big would this balloon be?
Let's imagine that we want to achieve 50k lbs of delivery to low earth orbit- similar to the Space Shuttle.
Let's estimate that the total advantage, over the traditional space shuttle, is about 40%. two-thirds of the advantage comes from being able to bypass the lower atmosphere's drag. The remaining one-third comes from a combination reduced distance, and the cumulative consequence of carrying additional fuel over said distance. A further 10% advantage comes from the reduction in total complexity and, therefore, weight due to being able to bypass the stresses of the lower atmosphere, as well as the 40% drop in total weight and the attendant complexity. Another 5% comes from improvements in rocket technology. That still leaves us with about 1,900,000 lbs (of which less than 3% is payload).
What kind of balloon can carry nearly two million pounds of payload? There's only one I know of.
Friday, June 18, 2010
The 100-Mile Diameter Telescope
A telescope's effectiveness arises from two factors. 1. It's ability to collect light (a function of the objective size of the light-gathering lens or reflector). 2. It's ability to focus in on far away detail (the telescope's "power").
If your objective lens is proportionately too small for your telescope's power, you get a dim, noisy image. If the light-gathering capacity exceeds the telescope's power, then you're wasting available information.
The best possible telescope of arbitrary size would be one that gathers all the available light coming from a faraway object and resolves it into an image that is as accurately detailed as that quantity of light allows.
This means that a telescope's power, or "zoom" is always a function of its ability to gather light. Bigger lens = better zoom.
Let's compare two telescopes, the Hubble Space Telescope and the proposed James Webb Space Telescope. The Hubble has a light-collecting area of 4.5m^2 (imagine a square about 7 ft on a side). Webb "will" be 25m^2, (imagine a square about 16.5 ft on a side). That means that the Webb would have about 5.5 times more "zoom" than the Hubble. However, because Webb embodies many technological improvements, it's total performance boost is somewhere between 100x and 400x (in the IR range) of that of Hubble.
I want you to imagine what would happen if we took this to an extreme.
Let's imagine the space telescope that might be built fifty years from now using micro-scale assembly of nano-engineered metamaterials, built in the weightlessness of space, far from the Sun.
Some factors to consider when we calculate the factor of improvement.
First of all, metamaterials may enable us to create telescopes that don't require the light to be reflected to a single small collector (think camera or eyepiece). Instead, we may be able to multiply optical efficiency by several factors by foregoing the inherent lossiness of reflection. Layers of specifically-tuned metamaterials may allow us to detect the direction from which a photon is arriving, filtering or disallowing photons from undesired directions. Essentially, the light-gathering surfaces of the future could be thought of as trillions of nano-scale refractor telescopes that use quantum effects and electric fields in place of physical lenses. Essentially, we're talking about an advanced form of the compound eye.
Instead of interacting with the light twice- once upon reflection, once upon detection- we may be able to interact with it just once, upping efficiency in the process.
Instead of curving the entire surface of the collector, small sections of it could be aimed independently. This would allow us to use a flat, essentially two dimensional support structure instead of a far-more-complex 3D structure. Remember, we're building in space- not just because there's no atmosphere to gobble precious photons, but also because zero gravity means you can build big without the object crushing itself. If we build in a remote enough place- more on that later- the object's own mass, and the self-gravity generated thereby, is of more significance than outside forces. Building in a plane confines those forces to the same plane.
Imagine a great flat sheet of high-strength composite honeycomb. The structure might be built in space by robot "bees" that employ some of the same tricks real bees use to build nearly-perfect hexagonal cells. In each of the cells is a gimbaled ring and, inside the ring, a small flat panel of optically-sensitive metamaterial. We'll call these panel sections "scales." Each scale can be aimed separately.
This gives us several advantages which fall under three categories.
1. Perfect focus. Using image feedback from, for instance, known imagery (pointing the telescope at earth for instance), we can adjust individual scales to create the equivalent of a mathematically perfect surface. Only problem is that light traveling to the edges of the gathering plane travels slightly farther, relative to a hypothetical spherical section, than light hitting the center. This means that frequency-scale science would require large amounts of computing power to simulate coherent data. One might expect computing power to be very cheap in the year 2060, but it's good to remember that we're talking about single "images" equivalent to billions of megapixels. Best approach may be to build a computer into each scale and do all the heavy math locally.
2. Selectable focal distance. Our telescope would have one setting for focusing to its maximum detail level at infinity, where the stars and galaxies are, but it could also focus directly on objects within the solar system, or be reconfigured as either an over- or under-powered telescope.
3. Multiple focus. Different areas of the telescope could focus on different objects within the telescope's optimal field of view. In other words, our telescope could be repurposed, in a matter of seconds, from the role of one extremely-large telescope into thousands of merely-large telescopes. This would allow the telescope to be shared in by a large numbers of scientists studying a large number of different objects. Let's say that some interesting signals are coming from a distant star. According to some futuristic mathematical analysis, a supernova is suspected to take place within the next several years. So, part of the telescope is focused on that particular place at all times. One day, things start to evolve. Within three seconds, 95% of the telescope is focused on the supernova. The remaining 5% continues observations that cannot be cut-off without causing intolerable loss of data.
And now for the math you've all been waiting for. How much more powerful than Hubble would our 100-mile diameter telescope be?
First, let's base our calculations on a average optical efficiency of about 50 times that of Hubble. This is based on the suggestion that Webb is about 15 - 70 times more sensitive than Hubble (particularly in the IR range, where dim / small stars are much more visible). It's possible that the numbers may be significantly higher- well over 100x Hubble may be possible. However, metamaterials are almost entirely theoretical at this point in history, so let's not get carried away.
A 100-mile circular diameter comes to about 406,834,381 m^2 of light collecting area. Divide that by 4.5 m^2 and you get a factor of 90,000,000. Multiply that by 50, and you get 4.5 billion.
What could you do with a telescope 4.5 billion times more powerful than Hubble? Crazy things. There are currently 461 known extrasolar planets. With a 100-mile telescope, you could eventually multiply that to over ten billion, some of which might be very interesting. Of known, nearby extrasolars (less than 50 light years) you could map their continents and count their moons. You could measure the gases in their atmospheres to within 1 part in a million. You could study the Oort Cloud in precise detail. You could even study the Oort Clouds of nearby stars. You could study other galaxies with the same level of detail we currently study the Milky Way. Deep field galaxies- the most distant galaxies we've ever seen- could be studied at the same level we currently study nearby galaxies. You'd study quasars- objects the size of solar systems- from across the universe. You could take a picture of Voyager as it leaves the solar system.
For objects within our solar system, it would be like having a microscope. We could study cloud formation on Neptune. We could track microfissures on Europa from billions of miles away. You could map every asteroid with 1:1 detail without sending a single probe.
And you would discover things that no one could possibly predict. For fans of SETI, this could be your key to find the missing aliens, or prove conclusively that they're really missing. Instead of confining your search for lower order life to our own solar system, you could expand your search for life-specific atmospheric oxygen to thousands of planets. And you could search for the apparently non-existent rock-rock-gas-gas-ice-ice solar systems (like ours) with Goldilocks planets (not too hot, not too cold, just right).
And that brings us to the next big question.
Q. Why 100 miles?
A. Because that's the title of this blog entry.
Q. Is there any reason we couldn't use the same modular construction technique to build a 1000-mile telescope?
A. No.
In fact, as you build a 100-mile telescope with individually-aimable scales, you'd start with a 0.01 mile telescope and then build outward. After a while, you'd have a 1-mile telescope, and then a 10-mile telescope. There's no reason you couldn't use these as you continue construction. And there's no reason you couldn't continue construction beyond 100 miles.
At some point, you will reach the physical limits of your construction technique. At that point, you'll have to stop building.
Using the kinds of macroscale construction regimes I discussed in a previous post, Replacement Earths for $1, there's no reason you couldn't continue construction all the way up to the physical limit. So, let's go ahead and do so.
However, there is a way to go beyond the physical limit- a way that solves another problem at the same time.
Here's the problem: the bigger you build, the less feasible it is to change your optimum viewing angle- to aim the whole telescope in a new direction.
Instead of explaining the solution, I'm going to leave this up to the reader to figure out.
Q. How do you build an extremely large (hundreds or even thousands of miles in diameter), single-surface telescope that never needs to be aimed as a whole?
A. See comments below.
If your objective lens is proportionately too small for your telescope's power, you get a dim, noisy image. If the light-gathering capacity exceeds the telescope's power, then you're wasting available information.
The best possible telescope of arbitrary size would be one that gathers all the available light coming from a faraway object and resolves it into an image that is as accurately detailed as that quantity of light allows.
This means that a telescope's power, or "zoom" is always a function of its ability to gather light. Bigger lens = better zoom.
Let's compare two telescopes, the Hubble Space Telescope and the proposed James Webb Space Telescope. The Hubble has a light-collecting area of 4.5m^2 (imagine a square about 7 ft on a side). Webb "will" be 25m^2, (imagine a square about 16.5 ft on a side). That means that the Webb would have about 5.5 times more "zoom" than the Hubble. However, because Webb embodies many technological improvements, it's total performance boost is somewhere between 100x and 400x (in the IR range) of that of Hubble.
I want you to imagine what would happen if we took this to an extreme.
Let's imagine the space telescope that might be built fifty years from now using micro-scale assembly of nano-engineered metamaterials, built in the weightlessness of space, far from the Sun.
Some factors to consider when we calculate the factor of improvement.
First of all, metamaterials may enable us to create telescopes that don't require the light to be reflected to a single small collector (think camera or eyepiece). Instead, we may be able to multiply optical efficiency by several factors by foregoing the inherent lossiness of reflection. Layers of specifically-tuned metamaterials may allow us to detect the direction from which a photon is arriving, filtering or disallowing photons from undesired directions. Essentially, the light-gathering surfaces of the future could be thought of as trillions of nano-scale refractor telescopes that use quantum effects and electric fields in place of physical lenses. Essentially, we're talking about an advanced form of the compound eye.
Instead of interacting with the light twice- once upon reflection, once upon detection- we may be able to interact with it just once, upping efficiency in the process.
Instead of curving the entire surface of the collector, small sections of it could be aimed independently. This would allow us to use a flat, essentially two dimensional support structure instead of a far-more-complex 3D structure. Remember, we're building in space- not just because there's no atmosphere to gobble precious photons, but also because zero gravity means you can build big without the object crushing itself. If we build in a remote enough place- more on that later- the object's own mass, and the self-gravity generated thereby, is of more significance than outside forces. Building in a plane confines those forces to the same plane.
Imagine a great flat sheet of high-strength composite honeycomb. The structure might be built in space by robot "bees" that employ some of the same tricks real bees use to build nearly-perfect hexagonal cells. In each of the cells is a gimbaled ring and, inside the ring, a small flat panel of optically-sensitive metamaterial. We'll call these panel sections "scales." Each scale can be aimed separately.
This gives us several advantages which fall under three categories.
1. Perfect focus. Using image feedback from, for instance, known imagery (pointing the telescope at earth for instance), we can adjust individual scales to create the equivalent of a mathematically perfect surface. Only problem is that light traveling to the edges of the gathering plane travels slightly farther, relative to a hypothetical spherical section, than light hitting the center. This means that frequency-scale science would require large amounts of computing power to simulate coherent data. One might expect computing power to be very cheap in the year 2060, but it's good to remember that we're talking about single "images" equivalent to billions of megapixels. Best approach may be to build a computer into each scale and do all the heavy math locally.
2. Selectable focal distance. Our telescope would have one setting for focusing to its maximum detail level at infinity, where the stars and galaxies are, but it could also focus directly on objects within the solar system, or be reconfigured as either an over- or under-powered telescope.
3. Multiple focus. Different areas of the telescope could focus on different objects within the telescope's optimal field of view. In other words, our telescope could be repurposed, in a matter of seconds, from the role of one extremely-large telescope into thousands of merely-large telescopes. This would allow the telescope to be shared in by a large numbers of scientists studying a large number of different objects. Let's say that some interesting signals are coming from a distant star. According to some futuristic mathematical analysis, a supernova is suspected to take place within the next several years. So, part of the telescope is focused on that particular place at all times. One day, things start to evolve. Within three seconds, 95% of the telescope is focused on the supernova. The remaining 5% continues observations that cannot be cut-off without causing intolerable loss of data.
And now for the math you've all been waiting for. How much more powerful than Hubble would our 100-mile diameter telescope be?
First, let's base our calculations on a average optical efficiency of about 50 times that of Hubble. This is based on the suggestion that Webb is about 15 - 70 times more sensitive than Hubble (particularly in the IR range, where dim / small stars are much more visible). It's possible that the numbers may be significantly higher- well over 100x Hubble may be possible. However, metamaterials are almost entirely theoretical at this point in history, so let's not get carried away.
A 100-mile circular diameter comes to about 406,834,381 m^2 of light collecting area. Divide that by 4.5 m^2 and you get a factor of 90,000,000. Multiply that by 50, and you get 4.5 billion.
What could you do with a telescope 4.5 billion times more powerful than Hubble? Crazy things. There are currently 461 known extrasolar planets. With a 100-mile telescope, you could eventually multiply that to over ten billion, some of which might be very interesting. Of known, nearby extrasolars (less than 50 light years) you could map their continents and count their moons. You could measure the gases in their atmospheres to within 1 part in a million. You could study the Oort Cloud in precise detail. You could even study the Oort Clouds of nearby stars. You could study other galaxies with the same level of detail we currently study the Milky Way. Deep field galaxies- the most distant galaxies we've ever seen- could be studied at the same level we currently study nearby galaxies. You'd study quasars- objects the size of solar systems- from across the universe. You could take a picture of Voyager as it leaves the solar system.
For objects within our solar system, it would be like having a microscope. We could study cloud formation on Neptune. We could track microfissures on Europa from billions of miles away. You could map every asteroid with 1:1 detail without sending a single probe.
And you would discover things that no one could possibly predict. For fans of SETI, this could be your key to find the missing aliens, or prove conclusively that they're really missing. Instead of confining your search for lower order life to our own solar system, you could expand your search for life-specific atmospheric oxygen to thousands of planets. And you could search for the apparently non-existent rock-rock-gas-gas-ice-ice solar systems (like ours) with Goldilocks planets (not too hot, not too cold, just right).
And that brings us to the next big question.
Q. Why 100 miles?
A. Because that's the title of this blog entry.
Q. Is there any reason we couldn't use the same modular construction technique to build a 1000-mile telescope?
A. No.
In fact, as you build a 100-mile telescope with individually-aimable scales, you'd start with a 0.01 mile telescope and then build outward. After a while, you'd have a 1-mile telescope, and then a 10-mile telescope. There's no reason you couldn't use these as you continue construction. And there's no reason you couldn't continue construction beyond 100 miles.
At some point, you will reach the physical limits of your construction technique. At that point, you'll have to stop building.
Using the kinds of macroscale construction regimes I discussed in a previous post, Replacement Earths for $1, there's no reason you couldn't continue construction all the way up to the physical limit. So, let's go ahead and do so.
However, there is a way to go beyond the physical limit- a way that solves another problem at the same time.
Here's the problem: the bigger you build, the less feasible it is to change your optimum viewing angle- to aim the whole telescope in a new direction.
Instead of explaining the solution, I'm going to leave this up to the reader to figure out.
Q. How do you build an extremely large (hundreds or even thousands of miles in diameter), single-surface telescope that never needs to be aimed as a whole?
A. See comments below.
Friday, June 11, 2010
The Multi-Engine Electric Hang Glider
Hang gliders only ascend when the surrounding air is ascending. Wind deflected by hills. Pockets of warm air rising. Hang gliders go up for the same reason kites fly. And kites don't need complex airfoils. They're just sails.
Powered aircraft ascend by using their engines to move fast enough to provide their wings with wind. Wind flowing over wings produces lift.
So why do gliders have airfoils- wings with top surfaces longer than than their bottom surfaces- if they're not what makes them rise? Because gliders need to be able to remain in the air as long as possible. To loiter and maneuver to locate the rising air. Just as powered aircraft use airfoils to convert forward motion into altitude, gliders use theirs to convert altitude into forward motion.
What if you put an engine on a hang glider? It's been done. Many ultralights use hang glider wings. Such aircraft land on wheels. Some people employ a simpler approach, attaching a small 15hp engine directly to their flying harness. These are launched and landed on foot.
Powered hang glider require special skill on take-off and landing. And they're not as appropriate for mountain launches. When flying under full power, the pilot is pushed forward through the control bar. This results in a control attitude that is equivalent to a power dive. It's not a very strong position to be in. The pilot is also managing an extra source of aerodynamic directional control because she is directly attached to the source of thrust. This added dimension of control partially obscures the "natural" control motions normally required to fly a hang glider. Also, the propeller provides a substantial amount of drag when the engine is off. Usually this is addressed by building in features that allow the prop to feather or fold back.
Powered hang gliders are chimeras. They are neither gliders nor aircraft, but represent a compromise between two incompatible ideals. On one hand is pure soaring flight to which the added noise, cost, weight, and drag of engines is anathema. Hang gliders are designed to be gliders. They're designed to be controlled via weight shift.
On the other hand is powered, three-dimensional, acrobatic flight. Or, if you prefer: high-speed / long-distance passenger service. Aircraft design varies accordingly. Powered aircraft rarely look anything like hang gliders.
If you're a pilot that's interested in soaring, organic control, and the elegance of physically carrying your wing until it carries you, then you're attracted to hang gliding. Otherwise, you'll probably head elsewhere.
However, I'm thinking that there probably isn't a HG pilot that wouldn't appreciate an engine occasionally. Sometimes you want to take off from flat ground and fly flatland thermal- without going to the multiplied trouble of being towed by another aircraft. Sometimes you'd want to boost yourself back into ridge lift instead of drifting down to a faraway valley at the loss of hours of flying. And then there are times when circumstances have left you no option but to crashland in unsuitable terrain- forests, rocks, cacti. In addition to an emergency chute, a bit of thrust would make for an excellent safety feature.
But if you look at the options already available, having an engine for these special occasions means managing a significant amount of awkwardness and drag on a constant basis. So,
What I'm proposing is that the hang glider be equipped with an odd number of small electric ducted fans attached directly to the glider's wing- not to the harness. The fans already exist. They're made for radio controlled scaled-down jet aircraft. And batteries have never been more advanced.
Ducted fans are an efficient way to produce low-speed thrust- in the regime of 0-100mph. Ducts drastically reduce blade tip losses- vortexes of turbulence that don't contribute to thrust. Ducts add complexity and weight, however, which may outweigh the efficiency gains at higher speeds. Also, high speeds entail greater amounts of induced drag caused by the ducts themselves. But DFs, with their shorter diameters, can also operate at higher RPMs than similarly powered open props. Electric motors are a perfect choice for taking advantage of this.
When not under power, the drag a propeller's generates is proportional to the area of the circle of the propeller's sweep. That doesn't mean that the induced drag is exactly equivalent to what would be caused by a flat solid disk of the same diameter. It's significantly less than that. It only means that the wider the propeller, the more drag it creates when not under power. A helicopter, for instance, with its massive prop-diameter, produces enough drag to actually land safely even if the engine quits (see autorotation). Propeller = parachute.
Ducted fans allow for comparatively tiny cross sections.
By using several of them, let's say five, you take advantage of a miniature expression of the multi-engine advantage. Why do large aircraft- WWII bombers, for instance- employ multiple engines? It's not because a single engines couldn't be built that could provide enough power. Bigger engines almost always provides a better power-to-weight ratio (this doesn't apply as much to electric motors). Instead, it's because propellers would have to get very large and be driven very fast- and the blade tips would be exceeding the speed of sound which would generate all kinds of horrible turbulence. Multiple engines allows for smaller prop diameters to generate the same amount of thrust.
That's one side of the argument in favor of multiple engines. The other side is that smaller prop diameters entail far less drag. Assuming you have efficient small engines, and assuming those engines aren't always running, multiple small engines entail far less drag.
Let's do some math, using two small DFs as examples.
First, tuck this away: a Mosquito powered hang glider uses a prop with a 1.35m diameter. That translates to a prop-circle area of 1.42 m^2. The engine / prop combination the Mosquito uses produces about 130 lbs of thrust. That's about 96 lbs / m^2. Sorry about the mixed units. I'm an American.
Let's take a look at some electric DFs: this produces 18+ lbs of thrust with a 120mm diameter or 0.0113m^2. That's about 1592lbs / m^2.
Meanwhile, this one produces 28+ lbs of thrust with a 156mm diameter (0.0191m^2). That equals 1464 lbs / m^2.
The drag induced by a 30% greater diameter cancels out the proportional advantage of 55% greater thrust. Let me put it this way.
The least common multiple of 18 and 28 is 252.
14 x 18 = 252 lbs
9 x 28 = 252 lbs
To get 252 lbs of thrust, you could use 14 of the 18lb ducted fans or
9 of the 28lb ducted fans.
14 x 0.0113m^2 = 0.1582m^2
9 x 0.0191m^2 = 0.1719m^2
If you needed to produce 252lbs of thrust, and if all you cared about was the amount of drag the ducted fan would produce when not in use, 14 slightly smaller DF's' would entail around 8% less drag than 9 of the larger, more powerful ones.
That's how ducted fans roll. They make smaller diameters more stream-lined for similar amounts of power.
Let's assume that each DF is designed to produce some amount of static thrust at some particular operating speed. Either slower or faster is less efficient. Let's call this peak efficiency, or PE.
Let's also assume that each DF can produce significantly more power- albeit at a lower efficiency / longevity. Let's call this peak power, or PP.
Let's also assume that you can also operate your DFs to produce just enough thrust to overcome the drag they produce just sitting there. We'll call this peak longevity (I'd say "endurance," but I already used the letter "E"), or PL.
Why use an odd number of DFs?
If you had five DFs in a row (and I'm not saying it would have to be five. Likely you'd end up wanting between 7 and 11)- two on each wing and one in the center- you could turn them off in the follow progression:
5- all on
4- all but the center one on
3- one on each wing plus the center
2- one on each wing
1- just the center
Let's run some scenarios.
A. Let's say you find yourself in a momentary emergency situation. You need to produce maximum lift in the least amount of time to avoid hitting an imminent obstacle. You turn all five DFs to PP and switch to PE as soon as you're out of the woods.
B. You've dipped into a mountain valley and need to fight your way back into the ridge lift. You don't dare fly too close to the sheer mountain walls, where turbulence is unpredictable. You have open airspace to operate in, and- if necessary- an emergency place to land down at the valley floor. So you switch all five fans to PE and work your way back up until you've above the ridgeline again.
C. You're flying cross country and you haven't even needed your DFs at all. Your batteries are full. So you operate all five fans at PL to give yourself the best possible flight characteristics.
D. You're at 8000ft AGL, flying cross country, and a wide long lake is in your path. You believe that you have enough altitude to glide across with up-to a mile of glide to spare. However, you'd be at such a low altitude on the other side that you'd have precious little chance to find another thermal and make your way back up to cloudbase. Your flight would probably be over for the day. You ask yourself: am I a soaring purist, or am I a pilot? You decide you'd rather fly that break a record, so you set two of the five fans to operate at PE, providing yourself just enough thrust to maintain your present altitude. Halfway across the lake, you encounter sinking air. Instead of wasting time maneuvering in an attempt to find more favorable air you turn on another fan- also operating at PE. After five minutes, you cut to two. Once your shadow hits the shoreline you turn all but one of them off. You're still at 6500 ft when you encounter your first hint of a thermal. Ten minutes later and your high-altitude swim is all but forgotten.
E. You've been flying cross country for several hours and you could really use a break. It's the middle of the day. You spy a truckstop with huge, mostly vacant parking lots so you meander down, flaring out in the grass at the edge of the lot. You tie your glider down, jog to the bathroom, catch some lunch, and then, with crowd of bemused onlookers wondering what you have in mind, you strap back into your harness, face into the wind, run, turn on all five DFs at PP, lift off, and make a lazy wide circle over the hot parking lot. After you've gained fifty feet of altitude, you switch to PE. Another fifty, and you're getting some positive help from the inevitable black-top thermal. You're back at altitude and on your way.
D. You're contemplating a mountain launch, but the ideal launch direction the site provides is facing 45 degrees away from the direction of wind. What's worse, the wind is averaging 5 mph less than what'd you'd like. So you angle yourself straight into the wind. Two volunteers hold your wings as you ready yourself. You turn on all five fans at PE and start your run. Your HG tugs against your ground handlers. You shout, "clear," and instead of five steps, you're off in three. Instead of dipping down fifty feet before leveling off, you lose nothing. You're alerady climbing. Thirty seconds later, you cut out all five DFs and emerge into a high pocket of ridge lift. For the rest of your flight, your DFs are running at PL.
E. You've just driven 10 hours to fly at a particular mountain in the foothills of Idaho. It's early afternoon and when you arrive, the windsocks are laying limp. You wait an hour, and other than an occasional 8mph gust, it's a still day. You're not looking for an epic journey, you just want to get off the ground. So you power up, setting all five DFs at PE, and up you go. You let all five DFs run at PE until the battery is about dead, stealing altitude from an uncooperative sky. Then you switch to PL and you quietly glide back to earth. What would have been a five minute flight has been stretched into almost an hour.
F. The unimaginable has transpired. One of your under wing guy lines has broken its shackle in a violent bout of vertical turbulence and now your wing is slightly skewed and threatening to deteriorate further. You were flying over steep, tree-covered terrain when it happened. A quarter mile away is an inviting mountain meadow. You have a choice- throw your parachute immediately and land in the trees- or gently nudge your wounded wing into more inviting terrain before hitting the silk. Only problem is, the winds just aren't cooperating with your plans. So your first reflex is to give yourself some emergency power. You point your nose to safe terrain. Simultaneously, one hand has gone to your chute, pulling it from its pocket on your chest. You mentally rehearse your throw, ready to move the moment things get any worse. A subjective hour later, you're over the meadow. You have a few hundred more feet of altitude than you would have had you not used the DFs. Parachute in hand, you take a few extra moments to survey the terrain. Time slows. Satisfied, you make your throw. Your forward progress is abruptly halted and you begin to descend at an angle, turning slowly as you go. You see that you're headed for one of the few small pines that occupy the otherwise open meadow so you goose the throttle on your DFs, producing moments of PP whenever you're facing away from the tree. You radio back that you're okay, fold up, and hike out. You realize that if you'd deployed your chute immediately, you very well might have spent the remainder of the day, scratched and bleeding, a hundred feet up in a tree.
G. You've decided to fly across the United States. You're going from west to east, following the prevailing winds. You keep within sight of roads and highways as you go. Each day, you fly as far as the weather and wind will permit, using your DFs to boost your altitude whenever expedience requires. On cooperative days, the sky gives up hundreds hundreds of miles. Some days you fly from morning to afternoon. Others, you stop several times at towns, or rural gas stations, and beg electricity in exchange for telling your story. You're often invited to supper. Most of the time, people offer you a place to sleep. After you cross the Mississippi, you encounter a patch of rainy weather that lasts for most of a week. You fold up and take advantage of a friendly stranger's offer to store your glider in his garage. When the weather clears, you head east again. After two months, you swing out over the Atlantic and then come to rest on a beach in North Carolina. You're greeted by a crowd of well-wishers who've been following your progress online.
I could write more about the technical details. The types of batteries you'd use (at least 40lbs of compact rechargeable lithium ion batteries designed for small electric cars). I could talk about how, with five DFs, you'd have two on each wing and one on the centerline and that by varying the thrust bilaterally, one could steer the wing. I could talk about how you could use either a system of switches to turn DFs on and off and a single throttle, similar to a motorcycle's throttle control, that varys the power of everything that's turned on. The pilot could have a second throttle-like control, or lateral sliding control, that moves power from side to side to assist in steering. Finally, the pilot could have presets that would keep the DFs running at PP, PE, or PL in whatever configuration she desires.
The DFs could be mounted in a number of different ways. I expect the most practical arrangement would be to mount them to the crossbar under the wing. The center DF could be mounted to the keel. It's important that the DFs be mounted in a way that doesn't cause them to crushed or filled with grass during a noseplant.
I used an example above with 252 lbs of thrust. That's well more than necessary. Somewhere around 170lbs of PP thrust should be sufficient. More than that, and the pilot would be tempted to stray into acrobatic flight.
Total 5 x PE flight time might be around 30 minutes. Dividing the number of DFs multiplies the endurance.
In summary, what makes this idea potentially superior to powered hang gliders that already exist is that it hews closer to the ideal of pure soaring flight. It allows the hang glider to handle like a hang glider again. Instead of turning a hang glider into a small ultralight, it provides occasional assistance, extra flexibility, and emergency power. It allows for take-off from flat ground /and/ hill launches without reconfiguration. It enhances cross-country endurance by providing a bridge between hotspots.
And, if you were to install lightweight photovoltaic cells- like the thin copper indium gallium diselenide films promised by Nanosolar, you might have yourself a solar soarer capable of indefinitely extending its daytime endurance or, in a pinch, of getting off the ground again after a wilderness landing.
Q. Isn't having a powered option kinda like cheating?
A. Yes... but, you should ask yourself whether the added versatility, longevity, would make you a better pilot, or worse. If the answer is "worse," then this concept isn't for you. On the other hand, if you think of this as a safety device, then no, it isn't cheating.
Q. How much will they cost?
A. About $12k fully assembled and tested.
Q. What if I'm building one myself?
A. Between $7k and $10k.
Q. What would you need to make this happen?
A. An investor- initial prototyping should be achievable for less than $50k / 6 mos. A hang glider engineer- someone with a lot of experience repairing, rebuilding, and modifying hang gliders. An "RC Engineer"- someone with experience working with the propulsion equipment. And a test pilot- an advanced hang glider pilot with powered experience. A spokesman (probably one of the aforementioned persons)- someone that can navigate the news media to generate free advertising.
Q. What will this do to the sport of hang gliding?
A. This has the potential for attracting new interest to the sport of hang gliding, as well as reviving the interest of some percentage of existing pilots. People who live in flat areas, or are repelled by their impression of the inherent risk and uncertainty of unpowered flight, may use see this as an excuse for giving the sport a second chance. DFs will also add to the cool-tech factor, expanding the potential customer base accordingly.
Powered aircraft ascend by using their engines to move fast enough to provide their wings with wind. Wind flowing over wings produces lift.
So why do gliders have airfoils- wings with top surfaces longer than than their bottom surfaces- if they're not what makes them rise? Because gliders need to be able to remain in the air as long as possible. To loiter and maneuver to locate the rising air. Just as powered aircraft use airfoils to convert forward motion into altitude, gliders use theirs to convert altitude into forward motion.
What if you put an engine on a hang glider? It's been done. Many ultralights use hang glider wings. Such aircraft land on wheels. Some people employ a simpler approach, attaching a small 15hp engine directly to their flying harness. These are launched and landed on foot.
Powered hang glider require special skill on take-off and landing. And they're not as appropriate for mountain launches. When flying under full power, the pilot is pushed forward through the control bar. This results in a control attitude that is equivalent to a power dive. It's not a very strong position to be in. The pilot is also managing an extra source of aerodynamic directional control because she is directly attached to the source of thrust. This added dimension of control partially obscures the "natural" control motions normally required to fly a hang glider. Also, the propeller provides a substantial amount of drag when the engine is off. Usually this is addressed by building in features that allow the prop to feather or fold back.
Powered hang gliders are chimeras. They are neither gliders nor aircraft, but represent a compromise between two incompatible ideals. On one hand is pure soaring flight to which the added noise, cost, weight, and drag of engines is anathema. Hang gliders are designed to be gliders. They're designed to be controlled via weight shift.
On the other hand is powered, three-dimensional, acrobatic flight. Or, if you prefer: high-speed / long-distance passenger service. Aircraft design varies accordingly. Powered aircraft rarely look anything like hang gliders.
If you're a pilot that's interested in soaring, organic control, and the elegance of physically carrying your wing until it carries you, then you're attracted to hang gliding. Otherwise, you'll probably head elsewhere.
However, I'm thinking that there probably isn't a HG pilot that wouldn't appreciate an engine occasionally. Sometimes you want to take off from flat ground and fly flatland thermal- without going to the multiplied trouble of being towed by another aircraft. Sometimes you'd want to boost yourself back into ridge lift instead of drifting down to a faraway valley at the loss of hours of flying. And then there are times when circumstances have left you no option but to crashland in unsuitable terrain- forests, rocks, cacti. In addition to an emergency chute, a bit of thrust would make for an excellent safety feature.
But if you look at the options already available, having an engine for these special occasions means managing a significant amount of awkwardness and drag on a constant basis. So,
What I'm proposing is that the hang glider be equipped with an odd number of small electric ducted fans attached directly to the glider's wing- not to the harness. The fans already exist. They're made for radio controlled scaled-down jet aircraft. And batteries have never been more advanced.
Ducted fans are an efficient way to produce low-speed thrust- in the regime of 0-100mph. Ducts drastically reduce blade tip losses- vortexes of turbulence that don't contribute to thrust. Ducts add complexity and weight, however, which may outweigh the efficiency gains at higher speeds. Also, high speeds entail greater amounts of induced drag caused by the ducts themselves. But DFs, with their shorter diameters, can also operate at higher RPMs than similarly powered open props. Electric motors are a perfect choice for taking advantage of this.
When not under power, the drag a propeller's generates is proportional to the area of the circle of the propeller's sweep. That doesn't mean that the induced drag is exactly equivalent to what would be caused by a flat solid disk of the same diameter. It's significantly less than that. It only means that the wider the propeller, the more drag it creates when not under power. A helicopter, for instance, with its massive prop-diameter, produces enough drag to actually land safely even if the engine quits (see autorotation). Propeller = parachute.
Ducted fans allow for comparatively tiny cross sections.
By using several of them, let's say five, you take advantage of a miniature expression of the multi-engine advantage. Why do large aircraft- WWII bombers, for instance- employ multiple engines? It's not because a single engines couldn't be built that could provide enough power. Bigger engines almost always provides a better power-to-weight ratio (this doesn't apply as much to electric motors). Instead, it's because propellers would have to get very large and be driven very fast- and the blade tips would be exceeding the speed of sound which would generate all kinds of horrible turbulence. Multiple engines allows for smaller prop diameters to generate the same amount of thrust.
That's one side of the argument in favor of multiple engines. The other side is that smaller prop diameters entail far less drag. Assuming you have efficient small engines, and assuming those engines aren't always running, multiple small engines entail far less drag.
Let's do some math, using two small DFs as examples.
First, tuck this away: a Mosquito powered hang glider uses a prop with a 1.35m diameter. That translates to a prop-circle area of 1.42 m^2. The engine / prop combination the Mosquito uses produces about 130 lbs of thrust. That's about 96 lbs / m^2. Sorry about the mixed units. I'm an American.
Let's take a look at some electric DFs: this produces 18+ lbs of thrust with a 120mm diameter or 0.0113m^2. That's about 1592lbs / m^2.
Meanwhile, this one produces 28+ lbs of thrust with a 156mm diameter (0.0191m^2). That equals 1464 lbs / m^2.
The drag induced by a 30% greater diameter cancels out the proportional advantage of 55% greater thrust. Let me put it this way.
The least common multiple of 18 and 28 is 252.
14 x 18 = 252 lbs
9 x 28 = 252 lbs
To get 252 lbs of thrust, you could use 14 of the 18lb ducted fans or
9 of the 28lb ducted fans.
14 x 0.0113m^2 = 0.1582m^2
9 x 0.0191m^2 = 0.1719m^2
If you needed to produce 252lbs of thrust, and if all you cared about was the amount of drag the ducted fan would produce when not in use, 14 slightly smaller DF's' would entail around 8% less drag than 9 of the larger, more powerful ones.
That's how ducted fans roll. They make smaller diameters more stream-lined for similar amounts of power.
Let's assume that each DF is designed to produce some amount of static thrust at some particular operating speed. Either slower or faster is less efficient. Let's call this peak efficiency, or PE.
Let's also assume that each DF can produce significantly more power- albeit at a lower efficiency / longevity. Let's call this peak power, or PP.
Let's also assume that you can also operate your DFs to produce just enough thrust to overcome the drag they produce just sitting there. We'll call this peak longevity (I'd say "endurance," but I already used the letter "E"), or PL.
Why use an odd number of DFs?
If you had five DFs in a row (and I'm not saying it would have to be five. Likely you'd end up wanting between 7 and 11)- two on each wing and one in the center- you could turn them off in the follow progression:
5- all on
4- all but the center one on
3- one on each wing plus the center
2- one on each wing
1- just the center
Let's run some scenarios.
A. Let's say you find yourself in a momentary emergency situation. You need to produce maximum lift in the least amount of time to avoid hitting an imminent obstacle. You turn all five DFs to PP and switch to PE as soon as you're out of the woods.
B. You've dipped into a mountain valley and need to fight your way back into the ridge lift. You don't dare fly too close to the sheer mountain walls, where turbulence is unpredictable. You have open airspace to operate in, and- if necessary- an emergency place to land down at the valley floor. So you switch all five fans to PE and work your way back up until you've above the ridgeline again.
C. You're flying cross country and you haven't even needed your DFs at all. Your batteries are full. So you operate all five fans at PL to give yourself the best possible flight characteristics.
D. You're at 8000ft AGL, flying cross country, and a wide long lake is in your path. You believe that you have enough altitude to glide across with up-to a mile of glide to spare. However, you'd be at such a low altitude on the other side that you'd have precious little chance to find another thermal and make your way back up to cloudbase. Your flight would probably be over for the day. You ask yourself: am I a soaring purist, or am I a pilot? You decide you'd rather fly that break a record, so you set two of the five fans to operate at PE, providing yourself just enough thrust to maintain your present altitude. Halfway across the lake, you encounter sinking air. Instead of wasting time maneuvering in an attempt to find more favorable air you turn on another fan- also operating at PE. After five minutes, you cut to two. Once your shadow hits the shoreline you turn all but one of them off. You're still at 6500 ft when you encounter your first hint of a thermal. Ten minutes later and your high-altitude swim is all but forgotten.
E. You've been flying cross country for several hours and you could really use a break. It's the middle of the day. You spy a truckstop with huge, mostly vacant parking lots so you meander down, flaring out in the grass at the edge of the lot. You tie your glider down, jog to the bathroom, catch some lunch, and then, with crowd of bemused onlookers wondering what you have in mind, you strap back into your harness, face into the wind, run, turn on all five DFs at PP, lift off, and make a lazy wide circle over the hot parking lot. After you've gained fifty feet of altitude, you switch to PE. Another fifty, and you're getting some positive help from the inevitable black-top thermal. You're back at altitude and on your way.
D. You're contemplating a mountain launch, but the ideal launch direction the site provides is facing 45 degrees away from the direction of wind. What's worse, the wind is averaging 5 mph less than what'd you'd like. So you angle yourself straight into the wind. Two volunteers hold your wings as you ready yourself. You turn on all five fans at PE and start your run. Your HG tugs against your ground handlers. You shout, "clear," and instead of five steps, you're off in three. Instead of dipping down fifty feet before leveling off, you lose nothing. You're alerady climbing. Thirty seconds later, you cut out all five DFs and emerge into a high pocket of ridge lift. For the rest of your flight, your DFs are running at PL.
E. You've just driven 10 hours to fly at a particular mountain in the foothills of Idaho. It's early afternoon and when you arrive, the windsocks are laying limp. You wait an hour, and other than an occasional 8mph gust, it's a still day. You're not looking for an epic journey, you just want to get off the ground. So you power up, setting all five DFs at PE, and up you go. You let all five DFs run at PE until the battery is about dead, stealing altitude from an uncooperative sky. Then you switch to PL and you quietly glide back to earth. What would have been a five minute flight has been stretched into almost an hour.
F. The unimaginable has transpired. One of your under wing guy lines has broken its shackle in a violent bout of vertical turbulence and now your wing is slightly skewed and threatening to deteriorate further. You were flying over steep, tree-covered terrain when it happened. A quarter mile away is an inviting mountain meadow. You have a choice- throw your parachute immediately and land in the trees- or gently nudge your wounded wing into more inviting terrain before hitting the silk. Only problem is, the winds just aren't cooperating with your plans. So your first reflex is to give yourself some emergency power. You point your nose to safe terrain. Simultaneously, one hand has gone to your chute, pulling it from its pocket on your chest. You mentally rehearse your throw, ready to move the moment things get any worse. A subjective hour later, you're over the meadow. You have a few hundred more feet of altitude than you would have had you not used the DFs. Parachute in hand, you take a few extra moments to survey the terrain. Time slows. Satisfied, you make your throw. Your forward progress is abruptly halted and you begin to descend at an angle, turning slowly as you go. You see that you're headed for one of the few small pines that occupy the otherwise open meadow so you goose the throttle on your DFs, producing moments of PP whenever you're facing away from the tree. You radio back that you're okay, fold up, and hike out. You realize that if you'd deployed your chute immediately, you very well might have spent the remainder of the day, scratched and bleeding, a hundred feet up in a tree.
G. You've decided to fly across the United States. You're going from west to east, following the prevailing winds. You keep within sight of roads and highways as you go. Each day, you fly as far as the weather and wind will permit, using your DFs to boost your altitude whenever expedience requires. On cooperative days, the sky gives up hundreds hundreds of miles. Some days you fly from morning to afternoon. Others, you stop several times at towns, or rural gas stations, and beg electricity in exchange for telling your story. You're often invited to supper. Most of the time, people offer you a place to sleep. After you cross the Mississippi, you encounter a patch of rainy weather that lasts for most of a week. You fold up and take advantage of a friendly stranger's offer to store your glider in his garage. When the weather clears, you head east again. After two months, you swing out over the Atlantic and then come to rest on a beach in North Carolina. You're greeted by a crowd of well-wishers who've been following your progress online.
I could write more about the technical details. The types of batteries you'd use (at least 40lbs of compact rechargeable lithium ion batteries designed for small electric cars). I could talk about how, with five DFs, you'd have two on each wing and one on the centerline and that by varying the thrust bilaterally, one could steer the wing. I could talk about how you could use either a system of switches to turn DFs on and off and a single throttle, similar to a motorcycle's throttle control, that varys the power of everything that's turned on. The pilot could have a second throttle-like control, or lateral sliding control, that moves power from side to side to assist in steering. Finally, the pilot could have presets that would keep the DFs running at PP, PE, or PL in whatever configuration she desires.
The DFs could be mounted in a number of different ways. I expect the most practical arrangement would be to mount them to the crossbar under the wing. The center DF could be mounted to the keel. It's important that the DFs be mounted in a way that doesn't cause them to crushed or filled with grass during a noseplant.
I used an example above with 252 lbs of thrust. That's well more than necessary. Somewhere around 170lbs of PP thrust should be sufficient. More than that, and the pilot would be tempted to stray into acrobatic flight.
Total 5 x PE flight time might be around 30 minutes. Dividing the number of DFs multiplies the endurance.
In summary, what makes this idea potentially superior to powered hang gliders that already exist is that it hews closer to the ideal of pure soaring flight. It allows the hang glider to handle like a hang glider again. Instead of turning a hang glider into a small ultralight, it provides occasional assistance, extra flexibility, and emergency power. It allows for take-off from flat ground /and/ hill launches without reconfiguration. It enhances cross-country endurance by providing a bridge between hotspots.
And, if you were to install lightweight photovoltaic cells- like the thin copper indium gallium diselenide films promised by Nanosolar, you might have yourself a solar soarer capable of indefinitely extending its daytime endurance or, in a pinch, of getting off the ground again after a wilderness landing.
Q. Isn't having a powered option kinda like cheating?
A. Yes... but, you should ask yourself whether the added versatility, longevity, would make you a better pilot, or worse. If the answer is "worse," then this concept isn't for you. On the other hand, if you think of this as a safety device, then no, it isn't cheating.
Q. How much will they cost?
A. About $12k fully assembled and tested.
Q. What if I'm building one myself?
A. Between $7k and $10k.
Q. What would you need to make this happen?
A. An investor- initial prototyping should be achievable for less than $50k / 6 mos. A hang glider engineer- someone with a lot of experience repairing, rebuilding, and modifying hang gliders. An "RC Engineer"- someone with experience working with the propulsion equipment. And a test pilot- an advanced hang glider pilot with powered experience. A spokesman (probably one of the aforementioned persons)- someone that can navigate the news media to generate free advertising.
Q. What will this do to the sport of hang gliding?
A. This has the potential for attracting new interest to the sport of hang gliding, as well as reviving the interest of some percentage of existing pilots. People who live in flat areas, or are repelled by their impression of the inherent risk and uncertainty of unpowered flight, may use see this as an excuse for giving the sport a second chance. DFs will also add to the cool-tech factor, expanding the potential customer base accordingly.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Barefoot With Shoes On
This blog is about an experiment in toughening the soles of my feet.
For the last three weeks I've gone hiking barefoot. The idea came to me at the end of a trail. Shoes were already off to wade in a cryogenic stream. The trail was about a mile and a half long, covered with sharp cubic quartzite gravel. It made for some slow going. Speed didn't come natural.
Which was good, because it made an otherwise short hike last longer. Instead of waiting in the parking lot, I was waited-for- at least for a couple minutes.
The next week was similar. About two miles total over a mix of gravel, scree, talus, and- toward the end- across the forest floor. My feet were sore after that one too. I was the slowest poke around. Again, a short hike made more substantial by barefooting it.
This last weekend, I hiked about 3.6 miles. This trail was through a pine forest, occasional sand, gravel, snakes (x2), and stone outcroppings. This week I didn't just hike, I jogged, I ran. I kept ahead of other shoe-wearers. I was no kind of slowpoke.
And my feet were about as sore as they'd been the previous two weeks. Not too bad.
Today I bought a single 3-tab shingle asphalt composite shingles from Home Depot. It traced my foot, cut off half my big toe (on the cut-out, not the toe itself) and made myself a pair of gravel-covered insoles to use without socks.
The shingles probably won't last a day before I wear all the gravel granules off. The combination of heat and friction will, doubtless, make short work of them.
What I need is a pair of durable, rough-gravel insoles that won't degrade from the heat typical to the human foot. If I can toughen my feet up on odd-numbered days, and maintain that toughness even when I'm not hiking barefoot, then going barefoot when I want to would be far more appealing. Instead of being an exercise in pain management, I'd be able to focus on the unique sensory experience of being in touch with the ground.
Is it strange to want to go barefoot? No, not really. Barefoot is healthy. It allows your feet and gait to take their natural shape. Going barefoot causes you to adapt to your surroundings, distribute your weight, tread lightly. Instead of pounding on your heels and jarring your knees, barefooting makes you glide, naturally. Vibram, of shoe tread fame, makes shoes that mimic the look and feel of going barefoot, called FiveFingers. They literally have five little toes. I admire the concept. For people who want to wear shoes, who don't want to experience the pain or risk of going shoeless, or who want to go out in hot or cold weather (shoeless even on white concrete in the summer is torture).
So, that's the idea. Durable foot-toughening insoles for graduating to shoelessness.
For the last three weeks I've gone hiking barefoot. The idea came to me at the end of a trail. Shoes were already off to wade in a cryogenic stream. The trail was about a mile and a half long, covered with sharp cubic quartzite gravel. It made for some slow going. Speed didn't come natural.
Which was good, because it made an otherwise short hike last longer. Instead of waiting in the parking lot, I was waited-for- at least for a couple minutes.
The next week was similar. About two miles total over a mix of gravel, scree, talus, and- toward the end- across the forest floor. My feet were sore after that one too. I was the slowest poke around. Again, a short hike made more substantial by barefooting it.
This last weekend, I hiked about 3.6 miles. This trail was through a pine forest, occasional sand, gravel, snakes (x2), and stone outcroppings. This week I didn't just hike, I jogged, I ran. I kept ahead of other shoe-wearers. I was no kind of slowpoke.
And my feet were about as sore as they'd been the previous two weeks. Not too bad.
Today I bought a single 3-tab shingle asphalt composite shingles from Home Depot. It traced my foot, cut off half my big toe (on the cut-out, not the toe itself) and made myself a pair of gravel-covered insoles to use without socks.
The shingles probably won't last a day before I wear all the gravel granules off. The combination of heat and friction will, doubtless, make short work of them.
What I need is a pair of durable, rough-gravel insoles that won't degrade from the heat typical to the human foot. If I can toughen my feet up on odd-numbered days, and maintain that toughness even when I'm not hiking barefoot, then going barefoot when I want to would be far more appealing. Instead of being an exercise in pain management, I'd be able to focus on the unique sensory experience of being in touch with the ground.
Is it strange to want to go barefoot? No, not really. Barefoot is healthy. It allows your feet and gait to take their natural shape. Going barefoot causes you to adapt to your surroundings, distribute your weight, tread lightly. Instead of pounding on your heels and jarring your knees, barefooting makes you glide, naturally. Vibram, of shoe tread fame, makes shoes that mimic the look and feel of going barefoot, called FiveFingers. They literally have five little toes. I admire the concept. For people who want to wear shoes, who don't want to experience the pain or risk of going shoeless, or who want to go out in hot or cold weather (shoeless even on white concrete in the summer is torture).
So, that's the idea. Durable foot-toughening insoles for graduating to shoelessness.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Everyone is an a Continuum Relative to Suicide.
Visualize this. On the far right is the person so determined to do himself in that he'd bite his own wrists open. That's the extreme. That's the person that can't be talked down.
On the far left is someone who doesn't want to die. Period. You could put them in a concentration camp and they'd keep fighting to stay alive. This is the person who, after a 100 years of misery still says, "I'm not ready to die. I want to keep going."
This continuum is defined by extremes. A genuine extreme is something beyond which there could be nothing more extreme. As such, these endpost personalities aren't likely to be represented in reality.
And that means that everyone is somewhere on the continuum of relative tenacity for life.
Let's place some types.
The soldier, who is willing kill to stay alive, but also to actively risk death on behalf of his country, is right around the middle. The parent who lives for her kids, but- if it was her or them, wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice her life. She's right in the middle. Even the Kent State sniper, despite his glioblastoma, was somewhere in the middle. He knew that by killing others, he was killing himself. And yet, he acted as if he was defending himself from death. There's no question that his behavior was extreme, but it doesn't represent an extreme on this continuum.
Both extremes indicate pathology. On the "life at all cost" end, we may have a sociopath who values his own existence more than anything, or anyone, else. Most of the time, he'll keep his head down and no one gets hurt. But when pushed, he's capable of murderous preemptive self defense. At the life extreme, nothing can be more important than personal survival.
On the opposite side- on the "death by any means necessary" side- we can only define such compulsion as an extraordinary insanity. Not to oversimplify, but severely suicidal depression isn't characterized by a preoccupation with death itself, but with the experience of intense psychic pain. Psychic pain that is in no way different from physical torture, only the cause is invisible. If the pain is improvable, then- the complexity of human psychology notwithstanding- the subject should be expected to slide left. Left towards life.
As a society, we view suicide as a binary problem. Either you are or you aren't. It's as if there were two extremes and *nothing* in between. This is an artifact of our culture, and of our shame, and not of the underlying reality. I'm not proposing that serious psychologists see things in such black and white terms, but they belong to a system of thought, a cultural bias, that pushes them toward a binary definition of "suicidal tendencies."
At this point, you either agree or disagree. Either way, I'm continuing on with the next stage of my case.
First, we need to acknowledge that we are all somewhere on a continuum. It is not "unthinkable" that either we or anyone we know could be an a one-way trip to the right. Most people who succeed at suicide would have preferred to succeed at something else. They would have preferred to have been surrounded by different circumstances. Suicide becomes a final solution only when the problem is fully defined as unsolvable. And that point of apparent insolvency occurs at different places on the continuum for different people. What I'm saying here is that the continuum doesn't have the same extremes for everybody. Most people will never experience an extreme. In some cases, or in most cases to some extreme, attempted suicide (or self-defense murder, for that matter) is a reaction to the experience of an extreme.
One piece of evidence for this assertion is that exposure to suicide, even in fictional depictions- increases the incidence of suicide among people that otherwise might not have killed themselves.
I assert, without delay, that we need to expose people to stories of survival in better-than-equal measure. Stories of overcoming extremes. Heroes that overcome- on both sides of the continuum.
Another facet of my general assertion is based on risky behavior. We don't call motorcycle accidents where the deceased was going 140 mph without a helmet a "partial suicide" but it's no great stretch to imagine that, if this person was a bit more tenacious about staying alive, they might not have bought a motorcycle in the first place.
I'm not saying that people who engage in risky behavior are "suicidal." That, again, is the binary assumption speaking. I'm saying that, just like soldiers, parents, and brain-tumor victims, they are on the continuum. We are on the continuum. It is not for me, or anyone, to say that riding a motorcycle is a right-leaning indicator. It may represent a left-leaning love of life (perhaps obfuscated- at least in the eyes of non-riders- by a motorcycle-specific definition of what it is to "be alive" in the first place).
So, if the point of insolvency comes at different points for different people, then we're not talking about an objective continuum anymore. We're talking about a personal, invisible, inscrutable continuum that is only superficially connected to humanity as a whole. By that I'm saying that, if someone kills themselves, it is not different that if they were all the way to the right. Same results.
One of the problems with suicide is that it's seen as a rare problem. But suicide is one of the top-ten killers in developed nations. It probably would be a top-ten killer in undeveloped nations as well if it weren't for AIDS, TB, malaria, measles, and other childhood killers. Comparatively speaking, if suicide were a disease, thousands of people would be working on developing a vaccine. If only it were a disease, right?
I believe it is a disease. It's a cultural virus. The very idea of suicide is a fatal meme.
Because we define "suicidal" as a binary condition, we consign the desperate among us to ask the question, "Am I now, like those before me, ready to kill myself?" In a binary world, the answer is either "no" or "yes." And if the answer turns up "yes" then one would hope they'd ask again before acting on this conclusion.
We need a different approach to the desperate question. We need to ask a qualitative question. "How bad is it?" "How much worse do I feel compared to yesterday?" "How much harder is it to continue this life?" Essentially, the question should be, "How far am I to the right?" Because if we openly treat suicide as a continuum, and define healthy, average, statistically normal people as representing the center- if we admit that any of us can be moved to the right- then we're not abandoning the desperate to think of themselves as separate, different, untenable in society's eyes.
If someone is truly at the end of their rope; if all they want is death- and there are miserable circumstances that make death into a rational option- and only the individual knows their own pain- then that's one thing. I don't think suicide is 100% avoidable. But if someone is contemplating oblivion because of changeable circumstances, the last thing they need is to feel that "being suicidal" has been added to their disenfranchisement.
For my own part, I own life insurance. I rock climb. I drive a car. I expect to die someday. What scares me about death is that, no matter when it happens, there's no way on earth that I'll have finished doing the things I wanted to do. And the longer I live, the more I see, the more I want to participate. It bothers me that, to make a soldier- someone willing to kill and be killed- you need a young person who hasn't learned to think like this. Someone who hasn't had time to learn to lean hard to the left. Someone blank and malleable. It bothers me because I know that if war were the exclusive domain of middle-aged men, it would be more rare, and for more intractable reasons.
We're all on the continuum, but some of us are where we've been put by others.
So, aside from admitting that the desire for life and death is not binary, we need to do more for the cause of life. Part of the cure is to have the power to control your risks. Not just your actuarial risk, but your existential risks.
People need purpose. Not "peoples need purposes." They need something they can control, something they can master. They need room to grow. They need to be able to experience the benefits of their efforts. We may now live in a society where a well-designed video game gives a person a greater feeling of empowerment than the eight hours they spend at school or at work. We may be doing intolerable violence to our psychic selves by never attempting the impossible.
Here's a quote from the blog that got me thinking about this:
"A 2005 article in Psychiatric News says some jumpers aren't necessarily depressed or chronic suicide attempters—sometimes people are simply overwhelmed by a sudden desire to leap—and that thwarted jumpers rarely go on to kill themselves in other ways. One researcher followed the lives of 515 people who were pulled from the Golden Gate Bridge: After an average of 26 years each, 94 percent were either still living or had died of natural causes. Another study, of the Duke Ellington Bridge in Washington, D.C., showed that its suicide fence caused no increase in suicides at the Taft Bridge, which has no fence and is only one block away."
What do you think?
On the far left is someone who doesn't want to die. Period. You could put them in a concentration camp and they'd keep fighting to stay alive. This is the person who, after a 100 years of misery still says, "I'm not ready to die. I want to keep going."
This continuum is defined by extremes. A genuine extreme is something beyond which there could be nothing more extreme. As such, these endpost personalities aren't likely to be represented in reality.
And that means that everyone is somewhere on the continuum of relative tenacity for life.
Let's place some types.
The soldier, who is willing kill to stay alive, but also to actively risk death on behalf of his country, is right around the middle. The parent who lives for her kids, but- if it was her or them, wouldn't hesitate to sacrifice her life. She's right in the middle. Even the Kent State sniper, despite his glioblastoma, was somewhere in the middle. He knew that by killing others, he was killing himself. And yet, he acted as if he was defending himself from death. There's no question that his behavior was extreme, but it doesn't represent an extreme on this continuum.
Both extremes indicate pathology. On the "life at all cost" end, we may have a sociopath who values his own existence more than anything, or anyone, else. Most of the time, he'll keep his head down and no one gets hurt. But when pushed, he's capable of murderous preemptive self defense. At the life extreme, nothing can be more important than personal survival.
On the opposite side- on the "death by any means necessary" side- we can only define such compulsion as an extraordinary insanity. Not to oversimplify, but severely suicidal depression isn't characterized by a preoccupation with death itself, but with the experience of intense psychic pain. Psychic pain that is in no way different from physical torture, only the cause is invisible. If the pain is improvable, then- the complexity of human psychology notwithstanding- the subject should be expected to slide left. Left towards life.
As a society, we view suicide as a binary problem. Either you are or you aren't. It's as if there were two extremes and *nothing* in between. This is an artifact of our culture, and of our shame, and not of the underlying reality. I'm not proposing that serious psychologists see things in such black and white terms, but they belong to a system of thought, a cultural bias, that pushes them toward a binary definition of "suicidal tendencies."
At this point, you either agree or disagree. Either way, I'm continuing on with the next stage of my case.
First, we need to acknowledge that we are all somewhere on a continuum. It is not "unthinkable" that either we or anyone we know could be an a one-way trip to the right. Most people who succeed at suicide would have preferred to succeed at something else. They would have preferred to have been surrounded by different circumstances. Suicide becomes a final solution only when the problem is fully defined as unsolvable. And that point of apparent insolvency occurs at different places on the continuum for different people. What I'm saying here is that the continuum doesn't have the same extremes for everybody. Most people will never experience an extreme. In some cases, or in most cases to some extreme, attempted suicide (or self-defense murder, for that matter) is a reaction to the experience of an extreme.
One piece of evidence for this assertion is that exposure to suicide, even in fictional depictions- increases the incidence of suicide among people that otherwise might not have killed themselves.
I assert, without delay, that we need to expose people to stories of survival in better-than-equal measure. Stories of overcoming extremes. Heroes that overcome- on both sides of the continuum.
Another facet of my general assertion is based on risky behavior. We don't call motorcycle accidents where the deceased was going 140 mph without a helmet a "partial suicide" but it's no great stretch to imagine that, if this person was a bit more tenacious about staying alive, they might not have bought a motorcycle in the first place.
I'm not saying that people who engage in risky behavior are "suicidal." That, again, is the binary assumption speaking. I'm saying that, just like soldiers, parents, and brain-tumor victims, they are on the continuum. We are on the continuum. It is not for me, or anyone, to say that riding a motorcycle is a right-leaning indicator. It may represent a left-leaning love of life (perhaps obfuscated- at least in the eyes of non-riders- by a motorcycle-specific definition of what it is to "be alive" in the first place).
So, if the point of insolvency comes at different points for different people, then we're not talking about an objective continuum anymore. We're talking about a personal, invisible, inscrutable continuum that is only superficially connected to humanity as a whole. By that I'm saying that, if someone kills themselves, it is not different that if they were all the way to the right. Same results.
One of the problems with suicide is that it's seen as a rare problem. But suicide is one of the top-ten killers in developed nations. It probably would be a top-ten killer in undeveloped nations as well if it weren't for AIDS, TB, malaria, measles, and other childhood killers. Comparatively speaking, if suicide were a disease, thousands of people would be working on developing a vaccine. If only it were a disease, right?
I believe it is a disease. It's a cultural virus. The very idea of suicide is a fatal meme.
Because we define "suicidal" as a binary condition, we consign the desperate among us to ask the question, "Am I now, like those before me, ready to kill myself?" In a binary world, the answer is either "no" or "yes." And if the answer turns up "yes" then one would hope they'd ask again before acting on this conclusion.
We need a different approach to the desperate question. We need to ask a qualitative question. "How bad is it?" "How much worse do I feel compared to yesterday?" "How much harder is it to continue this life?" Essentially, the question should be, "How far am I to the right?" Because if we openly treat suicide as a continuum, and define healthy, average, statistically normal people as representing the center- if we admit that any of us can be moved to the right- then we're not abandoning the desperate to think of themselves as separate, different, untenable in society's eyes.
If someone is truly at the end of their rope; if all they want is death- and there are miserable circumstances that make death into a rational option- and only the individual knows their own pain- then that's one thing. I don't think suicide is 100% avoidable. But if someone is contemplating oblivion because of changeable circumstances, the last thing they need is to feel that "being suicidal" has been added to their disenfranchisement.
For my own part, I own life insurance. I rock climb. I drive a car. I expect to die someday. What scares me about death is that, no matter when it happens, there's no way on earth that I'll have finished doing the things I wanted to do. And the longer I live, the more I see, the more I want to participate. It bothers me that, to make a soldier- someone willing to kill and be killed- you need a young person who hasn't learned to think like this. Someone who hasn't had time to learn to lean hard to the left. Someone blank and malleable. It bothers me because I know that if war were the exclusive domain of middle-aged men, it would be more rare, and for more intractable reasons.
We're all on the continuum, but some of us are where we've been put by others.
So, aside from admitting that the desire for life and death is not binary, we need to do more for the cause of life. Part of the cure is to have the power to control your risks. Not just your actuarial risk, but your existential risks.
People need purpose. Not "peoples need purposes." They need something they can control, something they can master. They need room to grow. They need to be able to experience the benefits of their efforts. We may now live in a society where a well-designed video game gives a person a greater feeling of empowerment than the eight hours they spend at school or at work. We may be doing intolerable violence to our psychic selves by never attempting the impossible.
Here's a quote from the blog that got me thinking about this:
"A 2005 article in Psychiatric News says some jumpers aren't necessarily depressed or chronic suicide attempters—sometimes people are simply overwhelmed by a sudden desire to leap—and that thwarted jumpers rarely go on to kill themselves in other ways. One researcher followed the lives of 515 people who were pulled from the Golden Gate Bridge: After an average of 26 years each, 94 percent were either still living or had died of natural causes. Another study, of the Duke Ellington Bridge in Washington, D.C., showed that its suicide fence caused no increase in suicides at the Taft Bridge, which has no fence and is only one block away."
What do you think?
Punishing Obnoxious Advertisers With Attention
I've never manage to write a short blog yet. Maybe this will be the one.
Let's say you're visiting a website and some advertisement insults you in some way. Maybe it uses weasely language, employs scarevertising, guiltvertising, or tries to sell you something you find morally objectionable.
What do you do?
In most realms, the best answer would be to simply ignore the advertising, right?
Let's think about that. For most forms of advertising, the advertiser has already paid for the privilege of assaulting your senses. Online advertising is different. Advertisers pay a relatively small amount for "views" and a relatively large amount for "click throughs." So, if you want to punish an advertiser for insulting you, click their ad, visit their site, and then leave without buying anything. Make them pay for their ineffective advertising.
Obnoxious advertisers will benefit by seeing that click-throughs aren't turning into sales. Hopefully they'll realize what's going on and change their ways.
(BTW, PLEASE DON'T DO THIS ON MY BLOG)
Let's say you're visiting a website and some advertisement insults you in some way. Maybe it uses weasely language, employs scarevertising, guiltvertising, or tries to sell you something you find morally objectionable.
What do you do?
In most realms, the best answer would be to simply ignore the advertising, right?
Let's think about that. For most forms of advertising, the advertiser has already paid for the privilege of assaulting your senses. Online advertising is different. Advertisers pay a relatively small amount for "views" and a relatively large amount for "click throughs." So, if you want to punish an advertiser for insulting you, click their ad, visit their site, and then leave without buying anything. Make them pay for their ineffective advertising.
Obnoxious advertisers will benefit by seeing that click-throughs aren't turning into sales. Hopefully they'll realize what's going on and change their ways.
(BTW, PLEASE DON'T DO THIS ON MY BLOG)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)