putting the j in jjosh

(shoes painted directly onto feet, from the below ref’d NY Magazine walking article)

Last Summer when we moved to NYC I started running again. I wanted to do it right, so I went to a running specialty store to get the best shoes I could find. They had me run on a treadmill and videotaped it from 4 different angles, and then analyzed it on a computer — very hi-tech! It turned out that I was seriously "overpronating" (or something), which means that my ankle was hitting out over my foot…they recommended a shoe that was super-corrective for that. It was a big, clunky, heavy, running shoe called The Beast. The Beast!!! When I first ran wearing The Beast, it felt like lead weights, but I soon got used to it and figured that when I switched to lighter shoes later it would feel so freeing.

After a few months of running, I developed really painful shin splints. I did some online research and tried to do everything they suggested — various strengthening exercises, running on the softer ground instead of pavement, spending extra time warming up and cooling down — but nothing seemed to help. It completely shut down my running for the whole winter and into Spring. I would try to run every now and then but it would be too painful. Finally I went to my doctor and she suggested that maybe it was the shoes. The Beast?!?! Could it be?

Well, I just bought new, lighter, neutral, shoes and so far so good ( knock on wood). It seems so obvious in retrospect.

Then I just read this great article from NY Magazine on how shoes by their very nature are bad for us. I’m a believer! Sign me up for the barefoot world!

From the article:

"Epidemiologically speaking, it’s been estimated that, by age 40, about 80 percent of the population has some muscular-skeletal foot or ankle problem. By age 50 to 55, that number can go up to 90 or 95 percent.” Ninety-five percent of us will develop foot or ankle problems? Yeesh. Those are discouraging numbers—but wait. Are we talking about 95 percent of the world population, or of North America? “Those are American figures,” he says. Which makes me think, North Americans have the most advanced shoes in the world, yet 90 percent of us still develop problems? We’ve long assumed this means we need better shoes. Maybe it means we don’t need shoes at all.

Also…

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Done by Larry Cuba, the guy who made the graphics for the attack briefing scene in the original Star Wars, these graphics look so different from the cg of today. They have an organic quality, and are strangely beautiful.

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In the jjosh effort to keep you up to date on all potential black hole occurences, it should be noted that John Wheeler, the scientist who coined the term "black hole", has just died, at the age of 96. New York Times obit here. Here is a great quote from him:

The black hole “teaches us that space can be crumpled like a piece of paper into an infinitesimal dot, that time can be extinguished like a blown-out flame, and that the laws of physics that we regard as ‘sacred,’ as immutable, are anything but."

Too bad he died before we potentially create a "black hole" in "Sweden."

Thanks again to Pat G, without whom we wouldn’t be aware of the impending black hole-ness of Spring 2008. Pat sends a link to a new article about that Large Hadron Collider we’re keeping an eye on in Sweden. Here are a list of the questions they think they might be able to solve once they fire that thing up:

Is the foundation of modern physics right or wrong? What existed during the very first moment of the universe’s existence? Why do some particles have mass while others don’t? What is the nature of dark matter? Are there extra dimensions of space out there that we haven’t yet detected?

Well hey that all sounds good. It would be good to know the answers to those questions right? Especially about the extra dimensions…

But there’s this other group that’s more nervous about the following questions:

Could the collider create mini-black holes that last long enough and get big enough to turn into a matter-sucking maelstrom?Could exotic particles known as magnetic monopoles throw atomic nuclei out of whack? Could quarks recombine into "strangelets" that would turn the whole Earth into one big lump of exotic matter?

Bit of a conflict. So they’re suing to get enough time to make sure none of the bad stuff will happen. As Pat wrote me in his e-mail:

This is pretty funny, some people are suing to prevent the earth getting sucked into a black hole.  Of course then again, who will be laughing as we get sucked into a black hole?

O.k., this is officially described as:

"Twin Solid State Musical Tesla coils playing Mario Bros theme song at the 2007 Lightning on the Lawn Teslathon sponsored by DC Cox (Resonance Research Corp) in Baraboo WI."

Nice. What you need to know is that the music is actually somehow generated by the sounds of the sparks themselves, and not through any kind of speaker. More info:

The Tesla coils stand 7 feet tall and are each capable of putting out over 12 foot of spark. They are spaced about 18 feet apart. The coils are controlled over a fiber optic link by a single laptop computer. Each coil is assigned to a midi channel which it responds to by playing notes that are programed into the computer software. These coils were constructed by Steve Ward and Jeff Larson. Video was captured by Terry Blake. What is not obvious is how loud the coils are. They are well over 110dB.

As someone in the youtube comments section put so eloquently, amazing work, nerds.

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There’s a nice article in the WSJ about how there might be a part of the brain that triggers an opioid hit when we are given new information that we need to absorb and interpret. That in the past we would need to gather this type of information in order to survive, so we’ve evolved to feel good when we get it, much like eating lots of fats and carbs. 

In today’s info-saturated world though (like our food-saturated world), we are able to get so much information that it’s a bit like the monkey pushing the pleasure-stimulating lever until it dies (although this oft-cited experiment might be fake?). This accounts for why it’s so fun to cruise the web for info, to read blogs, to forward links, to post to blogs.

From the article:

Matt M clued me in to the world of Melvyn Bragg, a writer and sort of intellectual character in the UK who gets to seemingly do whatever he wants on his radio show "In Our Time"…he explores history, religion, science — whatever he wants! And he gets in all these smart people who are experts in whatever he’s discussing and they go at it. The podcasts are available on his website, and they can be pretty mindblowing. There was a great one on The Nicene Creed, The Charge of The Light Brigade, and this mindbuggler posted below on The Multiverse.

I can’t explain it very well, but there’s a great idea in there…

much like early people thought they were the center of the universe, only to learn that we go around the sun;

and then thought the SUN was the center of the universe, only to learn that our solar system is one of many in our galaxy;

and then thought our GALAXY was the center of the universe, only to learn there are lots of galaxies….

so too will we one day learn that we were wrong when we thought THERE WAS ONLY ONE UNIVERSE…

Whoa.

This podcast is about 50 minutes, so I recommend downloading and listening later, though you’re welcome to listen to it here too. If you dig it, subscribe to his podcast, it’s a blast…

Melvyn Bragg’s "In Our Time" – The Multiverse

So after posting that bit about the CERN collider perhaps creating a black hole, I didn’t want to freak you out and let you know that when they start up that huge collider it might also create a rift in space-time and allow time travel to be possible. But hey, it might.

Instead I want to let you know (courtesy joshgranger.com science coorospondent Pat G) that some badass scientist named Scott Funkhouser (yes!) thinks he may have unearthed some kind of new cosmic constant, and it’s 10 to the 122. Nice. Good work, Funkhouser. It comes into play in trying to explain that "dark matter" we keep hearing about, and also:

"the ratio of the mass of the observable Universe to that of the smallest possible ‘quantum’ of mass is about 6×10¹²². And the number of ways in which the particles of the current Universe can be arranged throughout space (a measure of entropy) is 2.5×10¹²²."

According to Funkhouser (preach it, Funkhouser!) “It is unlikely for chance alone to be responsible for generating so many pure numbers from just several fundamental parameters.” In other words, it looks like design! I love it when science gets out in the fringes…

Meanwhile, let’s take a moment to reminisce on another, more classic cosmic number:

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Wizards, robots, math, science, hip-hop — I love this video! It’s by comedy/music duo Hard n Phirm.

They’re also known for their medley of Radiohead songs done in a bluegrass style. Of course they are. It’s called Rodeohead, check it out…according to wikipedia (can we ever believe them?!) Radiohead themselves approved the track…

Hard n Phirm – Rodeohead

A great drinking chat with Chris B about God, Zen and the universe reminded me of this cool animation from The Vancouver Film School. It’s basically two films telling the story of the origin of life, one from a creationist perspective, and one from an evolutionary perspective. The fun is that the (religious) creationist one tells it as though it’s pure science, while the (scientific) evolution one tells it like it’s a religious text.

Kind of tough to understand when written out, but easy once you see the films.

Then they take it to the next level by letting you watch both films at the same time, so you can hear the competing creation worldviews giving both sides simultaneously. Whew. I’d post it here, but I can’t match their shmancy simultaneous player. Good stuff, check it out!

Find it here.

Well, apparently there’s a possibility of black holes appearing in Switzerland this May as a result of the upcoming Large Hadron Super-collider work that’s coming up.

In this huge machine (the LHC), in Cern, near Geneva, they’re going to collide two counter-rotating proton beams. Hmmm, wonder what that means. Anyway, basically they don’t know what will happen when they do this. Black holes might appear.

There might also be strangelets and monopoles; unfortunately, only brainiac scientists know what they heck those things are, so they don’t seem like such a big deal.

Black holes on the other hand are sexy, very sexy.

You can read the whole paper that assess the risks here, if you dare (thanks, Pat!).

Or I can just quote you the money part of the paper here (liberally *snipped*):

"It is important to notice that: The study for the [previous collider] had concluded that no black holes will be created. For the [LHC super super collider]  the conclusion is very different: "Black holes could be created!" !

The main danger could be the complete destruction of our beautiful planet. Such a danger shows the need of a far larger study before any experiment !

If we add all the risks for the LHC we could estimate an overall risk between 11% and 25%!.

We cannot build accelerators always more powerful with interactions different from natural interactions, without risk. Our desire of knowledge is important but our desire of wisdom is more important and must take precedence. The precautionary principle indicates not to experiment. The politicians must understand this evidence and stop these experiments before it is too late!"

Well, come May some scientists are going to be eating their words. Maybe the guys who wrote this paper, or maybe the rest of the world.

I find it hard to worry about this stuff though…there’s enough going on at the ground level to be worried about without some shmancy sci-fi fears of black holes appearing.

Still, I’m gonna track when they’re switching that thing on…