While traveling through the American Southwest, we decided to stop at Four Corners, the point where four US states – New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and Utah intersect. But other than stand there and appreciate its abstract significance, what does one do at Four Corners? We invented an answer – play Twister!
This video is part of a larger American Southwest gallery. Click the link to see more great videos, photographs and interactive panoramas.
Early this morning I heard my cat Griffin give one of his deep, guttural meows from outside my front door, the type of cry that lets me know he’s just caught some sort of varmint. I race to the front porch to see him with his largest catch to date – a rabbit! He was so excited to bring it to me that before I knew it he raced into the house and into my room. This is where the video below picks up. (If you are getting this update through email, I recommend accessing everything directly through my site.)
This is not the first time Griffin has brought me a “gift”. In fact, recently he’s racked up quite a hit list.
I should have known this was coming. He’s displayed a natural propensity for observing birds both real and digital.
As you can see from the pictures, Seth the Cat gets in on the action too. Here, the two of them lethargically torment a mouse.
The Opportunity rover is still alive and kicking on Mars. Over its four month “winter break” it was stationed on the northern slope of Greeley Haven. From here, it took over 800 images of its surroundings in 360 degrees. Visible in this panorama I constructed are the past tracks of Opportunity, its dust covered solar panels and the interior wall of Endeavour Crater, which it is now exploring.
In the course of traveling through life, I occasionally intersect with others as passionate as I am about our world’s climate and energy crisis. I love to pick people’s brains and most of the time I can’t stop myself from asking them, “If you had one silver bullet policy in your pocket that you could implement today, what would it be?”
I have received responses ranging from “sign the Kyoto Protocol” (which I perceive as small beer) to “remove corporate money from politics” (which, while probably the correct answer, is wholly unrealistic).
Through these discussions, I believe I have settled (at least for today) on an answer of my own: “promote international development through green growth.” At a time when economic concerns drown out calls for foreign aid, I’m reminded of the saying, “The cleanest power plant is the one you never have to build.” And nowhere is the need for new power as acute as in the developing world.
For some, a Third World green intervention seems like a misallocation of limited resources. Why not just let them build a bunch of coal plants? For others (me included), this need provides real opportunity. In locations where firewood is the the primary sustainable resource, intelligent green investment can be sustainable in its own way – through profitability.
But with hundreds of international initiatives underway to support green growth, it’s easy to suffer from paralysis of too many options. What are the key strategies? Who’s doing what well? Where is there room for improvement?
In the United States, we look to Silicon Valley as the model of an innovation ecosystem. It is there that raw talent, research capability, and venture capital’s business-building power converge to create the planet’s premier environment for the generation of new products and wealth. While Silicon Valley itself has shown little interest in the developing world, their model remains a gold standard and its strategies are easily transferable.
Nurturing talent must start with education. The status quo of having one professor teaching standard courses to 1000 students will not get the job done. Training students in the basics is key, but education needs to become less abstract and more vocational. Let brewing beer be a study in chemistry. Let cows be a study in biology. If HP cannot offer copying equipment to parts of Africa due to a lack of qualified technicians, as was recently the case, teach technology to match the need.
Then, for research to be effective the world must work together. China and the United States are behemoths, and science agencies like the US’s National Science Foundation offer much in the way of support. Africa, however, is challenged by having 45 separate, smaller science foundations. Regional agencies must be formed to bring these groups together. If Rwanda relies solely upon its own scientists, it’s going to miss 99% of knowledge generated elsewhere.
Consider General Electric’s ecoimagination, an enterprise they describe on their website as “GE’s commitment to imagine and build innovative solutions to today’s environmental challenges while driving economic growth.” Thus far, their research has proven capable of meeting global needs like lowering carbon emissions, increasing energy efficiency, developing/deploying wind and solar, and maximizing water conservation. GE possesses massive resources, benefits from economies of scale and has a global presence. There’s still plenty of room for improvement, from geothermal investments in Indonesia to new public transport systems in Central America and Asia.
But while technology is the glue between green and growth, solving the R&D problem alone doesn’t mean you have a competitive product. It certainly doesn’t guarantee a valid business model, nor is it necessarily scalable. For instance, a company the size of GE is not optimized to sell solar panels to villages one at a time.
So while nations like Burundi will seldom outperform the science team of a company like GE, that shouldn’t be their role. Developing nations are much better positioned to understand their own needs, constraints and goals. Perhaps they can host franchises that spin-off First World tech to deploy on village-sized scales. Then, the smaller region’s needs can spur local innovations of First World “big box” technologies.
For example, to process coffee, beans must be washed, hulled, polished, sorted, etc. A developing nation relying on its own technology will be priced out of the market by big box technology that scales. But since the final coffee product depends keenly on the details of the processing method, innovations of big tech at local sites can provide an end product neither the First nor Third Worlds could have achieved entirely on their own.
However, research and business can only do so much. If conditions on the ground are not fertile for green growth, roots won’t take hold. Electricity cannot be transported if the government fails to maintain electrical wires. If the state heavily subsidizes coal or oil, green technologies competitive in a free market won’t survive in a rigged one. Without patent protection and sharing of intellectual property, tech transfer will not occur. Agencies like the World Bank can be coaxed into giving their assistance, but they rarely lead. The bed must first be set by gathering global support for investment, e.g. by connecting principle investigators in neighboring countries or by getting the World Bank to fund distributed solar (perhaps by crowdsourcing) in developing markets.
Many of these issues will be discussed in June at the Rio+20 Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. If representatives can figure out how to link regional science foundations, introduce researchers to businesses (venture capital-style) and direct First World technology to Third World innovations, this might be the silver bullet most worth firing.
It’s time for more federal appropriations fun! Earlier this week the House and Senate released their versions of the 2013 NSF appropriations bills. Now they have done the same for NASA.
The House has recommended that NASA be funded $17.6 billion (a decrease of 1.3% from 2012), while the Senate has recommended $19.4 billion. According to a statement from the Senate Appropriations Committee, “The large increase results from a reorganization of operational weather satellite procurement from NOAA into NASA. Without the funds for weather satellite procurement, this level represents a $41.5 million cut from the fiscal year 2012 enacted level.”
Here’s the funding breakdown (approximately) for the various NASA directorates:
Science: $5.0 billion
Space Operations: $4.0 billion
Exploration: $3.8 billion
Cross-Agency Support: $2.9 billion
Space Technology: $0.6 billion
Aeronautics: $0.6 billion
Education: $0.1 billion
There are a number of recommendations in the report, but I will focus primarily on the two projects most relevant to astrophysicists – the Wide Field Infra-Red Survey Telescope (WFIRST) and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST).
WFIRST is a proposed wide-field space-based observatory capable of mapping the distribution of 2 billion galaxies. It will be able to detect thousands of supernovae which can be used to measure the expansion rate of the universe and study dark energy. WFIRST will study the formation and growth of black holes as well as how galaxies evolve over cosmic time. More locally, WFIRST will observe star clusters and exoplanets within our own Milky Way.
The WFIRST mission was identified as the astronomy community’s #1 space-based priority for the next 10 years in the National Academy of Sciences’ Astro2010 decadal survey. Yet over a year ago, astronomers feared that in a challenging budget environment there was some risk that WFIRST would be ignored. If this happened, the only way for American scientists to get in on the game would be to piggyback off of a European Space Agency (ESA) satellite, Euclid. There was some question of how the astronomy community should proceed. Should they hedge their bets and throw their support behind Euclid? If they did, would this disincentivize funding for the American-led WFIRST? On this issue, the House Appropriations Committee report said the following:
“The Committee believes that NASA’s proposal to spend up to $9,000,000 in fiscal year 2013 on a hardware contribution to the European Space Agency’s Euclid mission is in conflict with the NRC’s recommendation to make such an investment only in the context of a strong commitment to NASA’s Wide Field Infra-Red Survey Telescope, for which no funding is requested.”
In the end, the Senate Appropriations Committee invoked both the NAS recommendation and the awarding of the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics to JHU’s Adam Riess (for his discovery of dark energy) to justify their support of WFIRST. In what will amount to the first direct appropriation for the astronomy’s community’s #1 space-based priority for the next 10 years, the Committee has granted $10 million to begin planning and development.
Despite high-profile threats to defund it last summer, the Senate also “strongly supports completion of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)“. Members of Congress were concerned that with scheduling delays and cost overruns, the price tag of JWST was approaching $9 dollars, far more than was originally envisioned. The Committee asked for an independent assessment, the Casani Report, of the telescope which found that “NASA had never requested adequate resources to fund its development.” Quoting directly from the Senate Committee report:
“As with many other projects, budget optimism led to massive ongoing cost overruns because the project did not have adequate reserves or contingency to address the kinds of technical problems that are expected to arise in a complex, cutting edge project. Without funds, the only other way to deal with problems is to allow the schedule to slip. That slip, in turn, makes the project cost even more, when accounting for the technical costs as well as the cost of maintaining a pool of highly skilled technical labor through the completion of the project.
“In response to the Casani report, NASA has submitted a new baseline for JWST with an overall life-cycle cost of $8,700,000,000. NASA has assured the Committee that this new baseline includes adequate reserves to achieve a 2018 launch without further cost overruns. The Committee intends to hold NASA and its contractors to that commitment, and the bill caps the overall development cost for JWST at $8,000,000,000. The Committee expects to be kept fully informed on issues relating to program and risk management, achievement of cost and schedule goals, and program technical status.
In addition to WFIRST and JWST, the committee also provided the full requirement of $98 million for continued operation of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). Discoveries can occur quickly in astrophysics, and it was important to the community that funds be left available through the Explorer Program for stand-alone missions of opportunity. These missions are generally mid-sized and deployable on shorter timescales, like the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP).
Other science priorities laid out in the appropriations reports are:
The United States House and Senate have just released their versions of the FY 2013 appropriations bills for the National Science Foundation, one of America’s most prominent scientific funding bodies. Both chambers of Congress are more or less in agreement that the NSF should be funded about $7.3 billion, which is an increase of approximately 4% over FY 2012 levels. According to the Senate Appropriations Committee report, “The Committee’s fiscal year 2013 recommendation renews its support for Federal long-term basic research that has the potential to be transformative to our economy and our way of life in the context of a Federal budget that is shrinking.”
Of that $7.3 billion, about $5.9 billion is dedicated for research and related activities while the remainder goes to major research equipment, facilities construction and education. Of the $7.3 billion, about 3.4% of that is directed to astronomy research. The following justification and explanation for the astronomy appropriations comes directly from the Committee report:
“Astronomy. — The Committee recommends the full budget request of $244,550,000 for astronomical sciences in fiscal year 2013, of which $161,890,000 shall be used for infrastructure. The Committee welcomes the line item identification of pre-construction funds for future major MREFC [Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction] projects, including the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, the astrophysics decadal survey’s top ranked ground-based priority in the coming decade. This joint NSF-Department of Energy project will provide unprecedented views of the changing sky and will drive key advances in cyber-infrastructure and large-volume data management. The Committee provides funding at the request level in order to make progress towards a potential new start in a subsequent year, subject to the project meeting the necessary conditions for such action.
“The Committee notes that the Foundation has proposed a wide ranging review of the portfolio for investments in astronomy including optical astronomy facilities, radio astronomy facilities, and individual investigator grants. Although the overall budget request level for fiscal year 2013 proposed an increase for NSF of 4.8 percent over fiscal year 2012, astronomy infrastructure was proposed to be held constant in the fiscal year 2013 request. The Committee intends to review any proposed restructuring of the portfolio for astronomy to ensure balance among the competing programs, and that core infrastructure capabilities needed to preserve U.S. leadership and broad access for the community are preserved.
“Radio Astronomy. — United States-based astronomy facilities continue to make groundbreaking discoveries and conduct world-class scientific research. NSF should consider allocating adequate funding within the amounts provided to sustain operations at domestic radio astronomy facilities while transitioning to full operation of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array.
While 3.4% of the overall science budget may seem small, the National Science Foundation provides support for all frields of fundamental science and engineering, except for medical sciences (these are primarily handled by the National Institutes of Health). Also, this allocation typically does not fund space-based science missions, which fall under NASA’s purview.
The shellacking delivered upon American Democrats during the 2010 midterm elections did not need to happen. And if Democratic strategists had applied a psychological principle utilized every day by millions of people all over the world, it may not have.
Conservatives’ resounding electoral victory in 2010 was fueled by anger over what would eventually become the Obama administration’s signature legislative achievement, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or “Obamacare.” For liberals, the act marked a necessary improvement upon a broken health care system. For conservatives, it was the signal of a massive government takeover.
What the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats failed to fully appreciate was that passing the bill was only half the goal. The other half was managing public opinion so that the momentum of this massive reform would carry over into the midterm elections. A Democratic victory there would help facilitate passage of the party’s other priorities for at least two more years.
To be fair, Democrats attempted to lure voters to their side through a series of town hall meetings, but these were destined to fail. They focused too heavily on what people think, the set of rational justifications for reform like, for example, that patients would no longer be denied coverage for preexisting conditions, or that children would be able to stay on their parents’ health plans until they reach 26.
Few people are wonkish on policy and most develop their opinions based on gut instincts and basic premises. Rare is the blue collar worker who can discuss the merits of a cap and trade system versus a carbon tax, for example.
Instead, Democrats should have focused on how people think. They needed to understand how two identical proposals can be viewed into two totally different lights depending upon the path taken to get there.
Their fundamental flaw was the choice of starting point. As any haggler or negotiation expert will advise, start high and let the other side come to you. But President Obama, the eternal mediator, believed in letting Congressional Democrats set the stage. They began with a collection of “reasonable” proposals that conceded so much to conservatives right off the bat, that many liberals considered the bill’s starting point to be right of center.
The key the Democrats needed to understand was that the purpose of a “high starting point” was not to compel conservative legislators towards the center – that was never going to happen within a party for which compromise is anathema. Following Obama’s election, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell proclaimed that making Obama a one-term President was his “single most important political goal along with every active Republican in the country.” It should have been clear to Democrats that earning any concessions from the other side of the aisle would be extremely difficult.
Rather, their purpose should have been to use negotiation tactics to persuade the public at large. By launching with a strongly leftist health care proposal, then migrating towards the center, centrists and conservatives would have had no choice but to view each new version of the bill relative to older, more liberal versions.
And as psychological research reveals, people are more sensitive to relative position than to absolute position. For instance, someone who enters a 55 degree room from a winter blizzard is going to perceive the temperature to be more favorable than someone who’s been sitting there for an hour.
While it is not always consciously acknowledged, this principle is employed by commercial outfits all the time. Skilled real estate agents admit to showing undesirable properties first, like those in dangerous neighborhoods or near busy highways, not because they expect them to be purchased, but because it will make the better houses they intend to show later look plum by comparison. Run the experiment in reverse by showing mansions first, and the plum house will seem insufficient in contrast.
Step into any Best Buy and you will doubtless be confronted by walls of HDTVs. The majority cost several hundred dollars, some will top $1000 and a select few “elite” units retail for over $7000. Without the elite sets, the $1000 items are the most expensive of the lot, and consumers rarely purchase the most expensive item available. Offer a couple HDTVs that are 7 times the price, and all of a sudden a $1000 unit looks like a huge value by comparison. The presence of the extreme option enhances the perceived value of the mid-range option.
The same premise that works in business manifests itself in personal relationships. Schadenfreude and the idea of “keeping up with the Joneses” both capture the idea that human happiness is a function of our position relative to others. Several years ago when I asked one of my more ambitious friends from MIT about his career plans after graduation he commented, “Well, I’m either going to get a job at Goldman Sachs, or I’ll become a bum.” While this statement seems objectively ridiculous, it’s far less so when you realize that he, like most of us, tends to measure our worth relative to those immediately around us.
For Democrats, their great missed opportunity in the health care debate was their failure to offer their own “elite” version of health care – the type of over-the-top plan where the government pays for any health care you want, offers it instantly, forever and throws a popsicle in to boot.
This broad relinquishment of power to the government would have admittedly been too much for many conservatives to stomach, but the point would never have been for them to swallow. The proposal would have been a straw man created for political opposition like Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the Tea Party to lash into and eviscerate.
But as in business, moving towards a more reasonable position adds value en route. Infomercials advertise the ShamWow not for $60, not even for $40 – but for only $19.99! And if you buy right now, you’ll get a second set and
the ShamWow mop absolutely free! These types of sales pitches are ubiquitous because they are effective. The base price is kept artificially high so that the discounted price they intended to sell at the entire time seems like a tremendous value in comparison.
Gradually, the Democrats could have reined in their plan, approaching the house they intended to sell the entire time. Each center-converging policy iteration would have added value in the eyes of the swayable center and saddled the conservative media with the burden of railing against a plan that conceded to many of their objections. Should the criticisms persist long enough, the unwavering opposition runs the risk of being perceived as increasingly petulant and unreasonable.
However, this value added approach is no panacea. Hardcore conservatives and Republican lawmakers dead set against health care reform would have voted against it regardless of how the final proposal was reached. But since relative reform adds value, a Democratic proposal reached via concessions would have had greater worth in the eyes of the public than the same version which was just dropped on the country. Ultimately, a series of value added liberal policies could have shifted the political center leftward and better facilitated a sustainable majority.
They say you never realize what you had until it’s gone. If the Democrats are smart, they will take their 2010 electoral walloping as a lesson in messaging and missed opportunity. If they do, the Democrats of the future just may be smart, competent and persuasive – if only by comparison.
Earlier today I was asked the question, “Why do people enjoy professional wrestling when other things, like mixed martial arts, are real?” I include below the response I wrote for Quora.
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This question presumes that the choice between MMA and WWE is an either/or proposition. Despite sharing common elements, the two are distinctly different forms of entertainment and are appealing for different reasons.
MMA is a legitimate athletic sport, while professional wrestling is a form of entertainment. While MMA’s results are not predetermined, this can be either a blessing or a curse. At best, mixed martial arts can be highly dramatic and unpredictable. At worst, it can be drawn out, boring or over in a flash.
Professional wrestling offers an improvement over the MMA model – it has the artistic liberty to craft its own narrative. If done well, there should never be a boring professional wrestling segment.
Furthermore, the creative domain of pro wrestling is large. Unlike MMA, pro wrestling offers tag team matches, lucha libre-style bouts (i.e. highly acrobatic performances), hardcore matches, elaborate music/video/pyrotechnic displays and storyline developments that make heroes, villains, and underdogs out of its characters.
Some people are troubled by this. They wonder how anyone can enjoy pro wrestling’s offerings when they know what they are seeing isn’t real. Strangely, they seldom fret over the scripted nature of television, movies, novels or other similar works. The key with all these art forms is the same – suspension of disbelief. The only way to truly enjoy a performance is by allowing yourself to be sucked in by it.
My second response is that it is naïve to consider professional wrestling “fake.” Not only must wrestlers possess real resilience and athleticism, but what is presented in arenas around the world is far more “real” than most people understand.
While the key storylines and finishes to matches are predetermined, what happens between the ropes is mostly improvised. The effect is similar to that of improv comedy. Two performers who understand the basic toolbox of their craft can play off each other, creating a completely original performance each time out. In pro wrestling, as with comedy, becoming a master requires years of training and experience.
Connoisseurs of wrestling acknowledge these skills and are appreciative of seeing moves, counters and chains they never have before. For many fans the “real” aspect of in-ring performance is more important than the scripted component of who wins and loses. In most cases, the latter is a tool to enhance the former.
The best professional wrestlers not only know more moves than their MMA counterparts, but because wrestling is more a showcase than a pure competition, they are permitted more opportunity to display them. For example, a top rope hurricanrana or a superkick are spectacles to behold in wrestling, but they, like many other moves, are unthinkable in MMA. Again, people seldom seem concerned when similar actions occur in the context of, say, a Hollywood fight scene.
In MMA, the fighters who make it to the top of the card (ignoring political considerations) are generally the most skilled, but not necessarily the most entertaining. The best professional wrestlers are not only tough and athletically gifted, but also can speak well on a microphone, have great innate charisma, and possess the underrated ability to tell a compelling story using in-ring psychology.
Fan involvement is more pronounced in professional wrestling. If the fans chant for, buy the merchandise of, and generally support a particular performer, then WWE will, as a financially motivated company, push that performer higher up the card. This ability to drive the trajectory of the product creates a level of fan involvement MMA doesn’t provide. The pro wrestling business is a meritocracy, one in which fans are in control of who gets promoted.
I have also found the emotional connection fans have for their favorite wrestlers are often stronger than those they have for their favorite MMA fighters. Starting as a kid, I watched one of my favorites, Shawn Michaels, on television every week for years, gradually becoming more invested in the character.
But over time, I began to appreciate that the best wrestlers are hardly characters at all (e.g. CM Punk), but are merely exaggerated versions of their real personas. When I cheer as a fan, I am not only helping create a lively atmosphere, but I’m also expressing support to the performer behind the character. When your favorites win, it’s a vindication of sorts. It means that those who script the show see as much value in them as you do. Whenever you get a chance to meet the wrestlers at events (which happens surprisingly often), it only serves to make that connection stronger.
And the thing is, when all of these pieces fall together in just the perfect combination, there is nothing better in the world than professional wrestling. For those who want to experience this for themselves, I suggest you check out WWE’s Summer of Punk 2011 surrounding the Money in the Bank PPV and its main event match of the year.
Finally, for fans who are really in-the-know, pro wrestling websites offer backstage news that provides an entirely new dimension to the business. For example, in late March 2012, news broke that former UFC champion Brock Lesnar was in negotiations to return to WWE. This built fans’ hopes and anticipation for an imminent return. Trying to predict when it will occur and under what circumstances can be just as much fun as the matches themselves.
For another example, consider the case of WWE Superstar Daniel Bryan. After winning and defending the title for months in weaselly ways, this undersized but exceptionally skilled wrestler defended, and lost, his World Heavyweight Championship in near record time at Wrestlemania 28. As a big fan of Daniel Bryan, I was intrigued by how WWE would choose to present him at the show, an aspect distinct from his actual performance.
After the loss, I can’t help but wonder about the backstage politics that led to the title change. Has the company lost faith in him or was this done just for shock value? Is the fact that the new champion’s first defense is against another returning Superstar suggestive of the fact that Bryan’s time is over? I don’t know how things will shake out for him, but I can’t wait to find out.
This post contains the results of the final four Family Feud questions asked during my 2011 survey. If you would like to participate in 2012’s survey, please click this link or the button below. Polling is completely anonymous, but we do need at least 72 more answers, so please forward this along to your friends, family, significant others’ roommates, Brazilian hair stylists or anyone else who wants to waste time.
Please click on the images to see them in higher resolution. We asked 100 people to…
That’s it everyone! Again, this is the last chance to participate in this year’s Family Feud survey. Thanks!
This post contains the results of four Family Feud questions asked during my 2011 survey. If you would like to participate in 2012’s survey, please click this link or the button below. Polling is completely anonymous, but we do need at least 75 more answers, so please forward this along to your friends, family, thesis advisers, oil tank repairman or anyone else who wants to waste time.
Please click on the images to see them in higher resolution. We asked 100 people to…
Tomorrow I will reveal the results to the following four questions:
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