All posts by Wan Kong Yew

Science

Recent Interesting Science Articles (January ’10)

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Three articles of scientific import for the first month of the new year. The first one is about stem cells. Nothing really exciting except that it demonstrates, if in a rather grisly manner, how magically effective they work at staving off the effects of aging. The second one is about liquid diamond on the planets Uranus and Neptune. The last one is about a new theory on how human brains understand music and why we find it appealing.

Stem cells are old news by now but this article from Harvard Magazine describes a simple experiment that nonetheless successfully demonstrates the regenerative powers of stem cells in a very dramatic fashion. The experiment, led by Amy Wagers of Harvard University, surgically joined two mice so that their blood supply became shared. One of the animals was old. The other was young. The idea was that the blood from the young mouse would awaken the stem cells of the old mouse and enhance its regenerative abilities.

Continue reading Recent Interesting Science Articles (January ’10) →

Politics, Religion

Scientologists in Haiti

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This article about scientologists going to Haiti to help save the quake victims cracked me up. It only mentions that the plane was provided by a wealthy private donor but I’ve read elsewhere that it was personally piloted by John Travolta. Anyway, while I understand that they also carried emergency supplies with them and that is certainly a contributed that deserves appreciation, I’m also disgusted that they’re also sending along Scientology ministers who practice “touch” healing and other techniques that are frankly just snake oil.

Of course, there’s no danger of the scientologists trying to recruit in Haiti. They’re only interested in rich people and the Haitians are too poor to afford their expensive auditing procedures. But the intent is clearly to buff up their image and earn credibility for their quack medicine. As such, I think legitimate medical authorities should be readier to denounce bad science whenever they see it.

Films & Television, Philosophy

The Passion of Ayn Rand

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Strangely enough, I first discovered the existence of this film while browsing through a video rental store in the Solomon Islands. There was no way in hell that any of my colleagues would be the least interested in it so I didn’t manage to watch it then but I do wonder sometimes at whoever thought to bring it into that country. Since my wife recently procured a Chinese version of Atlas Shrugged from Taiwan and read it, I thought it would be a good idea to finally get around and watch this film.

First of all, there’s nothing that’s really new to me in this film as I’ve long known how much of a mess Ayn Rand’s life was. Michael Shermer’s article The Unlikeliest Cult in History is a pretty good summary. The main thing about this account that particularly stood out for me is how sympathetically it portrays Barbara Branden’s role in the events. This is hardly surprising as the film was based on the book by Barbara Branden but it’s notable how manipulative and cynical both Nathaniel Branden and Ayn Rand are shown to be while Frank O’ Connor  is a doddering hanger on who’s too stupid to understand anything. Barbara Branden by contrast is shown as an intelligent woman who simply makes the mistake of allowing herself to be dragged along by the odd ideas of her husband and Rand.

Another thing is how astonishingly different Helen Mirren looks in this film compared to say, her performance that is probably best known today as the title character in The Queen. Everything about her including her demeanor, her accent and the way her hair curls at one side, combine perfectly to make her a believable Ayn Rand. In fact, all of the actors do a great job and names like Peter Fonda and Julie Delpy are hardly run of the mill television fare. It’s a made for tv movie but its production values are high enough that it could almost pass as film made for theatrical release.

Still, the subject matter is so esoteric that I can’t really imagine it being the least interesting to anyone who doesn’t already know about Ayn Rand and her work. The film makes no attempt to explain Rand’s philosophy so I would imagine that the motivations and rationale of the different characters must have been mystifying to those unfamiliar with it. Where it does succeed is in communicating that Ayn Rand was indeed a woman and a fiercely passionate one at that. It also shows how difficult it was for her to finish writing Atlas Shrugged and implies that her relationship with Nathaniel Branden was instrumental towards that end.

Overall, this film probably isn’t worth watching unless, like me, you’re one of those whose lives have been greatly impacted by reading her work. Even so, I think I would have preferred to watch a film of her early life, detailing her flight from the Soviet Union to her early success with The Fountainhead. The Passion of Ayn Rand begins with her as a writer who is already established and successful and focuses exclusively on the unconventional relationship between the four main characters. As an author whose work continues to sell hundreds of thousands of copies a year even today, I think her life deserves a more complete and complex film than this one.

Philosophy

Philosophical machines

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Someone on QT3 linked this earlier this month. It’s a website with instructions to build what is billed as the “most useless machine ever”. Based on a design by Claude Shannon who is known as the founder of information theory, it’s a machine whose sole function when switched on is to switch itself off. Here’s the embedded video showing it in action:

Just today, I discovered something along the same lines, a machine that perpetually tries to sell itself on Ebay. Basically it’s a solid black box with a basic computer inside that can be connected to the Internet. Once every week, if it is able to connect to the Internet, it lists itself as being for sale on Ebay following the hard-coded instructions in its software. Its creator has written a comprehensive contract that goes along with the machine, mandating that every owner must allow it to connect to the Internet and must accept that the machine will sell itself one week after it comes into their possession.

The FAQ also states that in accordance with Ebay’s rules, the current owner cannot bid on the auction himself so he must allow the machine to be sold to someone else. The original creator, Caleb Larsen,  however promises that he will be around to provide maintainance for the device and to update its software if necessary. For example, if Ebay goes out of business, the software will be altered so that the machine will list itself for sale on an alternative platform. Its creator has named it “A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter”.

Politics

Baidu.com is awesome

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I’ve written about China’s censorship of the Internet before, so I didn’t have much to say that’s new about the brewing dispute between the U.S. and China over the cyberspace attacks that Google recently went public with. However as everyone knows, if Google does pull out of China, the company that stands to gain the most would be Baidu.com, China’s dominant search engine with more than 60 percent of the market. Baidu.com’s shares have duly shot up on the news of Google’s possible withdrawal.

Being a home-grown Chinese company, Baidu of course has absolutely no qualms about enforcing any of the country’s censorship edicts. Since the search engine is actually accessible from anywhere in the world, it’s possible to test it for yourself to see how it filters its results. For an easy test, search for the keywords”falun gong” on Baidu.com and see what happens. Warning: don’t do this if you are actually in China or any territory controlled by China and don’t do this if you’re actually afraid of getting onto China’s hatelist.

Religion

Allah in Malaysia

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I haven’t posted anything on this because I’ve already vented about it on discussion forums and as comments on the blogs of other people. This means this is mostly just a recap of opinions I’ve written elsewhere. Basically I think that both parties are right. The Roman Catholics should have the right to use the “Allah” name for their deity. On the other hand, I think that the Muslims in the country are justified in fearing that this is a move that’s meant to confuse Muslims and to proselytize Christianity to Malays by stealth.

I realize that while there are non-Malay groups who primarily speak the Malay language, particularly in the more remote parts of Sabah and Sarawak, I think it’s also worth pointing out they represent a tiny minority of the population. By far, the vast majority of those who use the Malay language as their mother tongue are Malays and according to Article 160 of the constitution of Malaysia, Malays are Muslim by definition. Generally speaking, it is impossible in Malaysia for Muslims to convert to another religion. At the same time, deliberately conflating two religions to confuse people is an accepted part of the missionary’s playbook. This is for example how Buddhism spread in China, by taking on the names and characteristics of the existing Confucian and Taoist beliefs and appropriating them into itself.

Naturally the Christians in the country don’t claim to want to spread Christianity to Malays but I don’t see how they can reconcile this with their wish to use “Allah” as the name of their deity and the wish to import and distribute Bibles in a language that Malays can easily understand. 15,000 Bibles in the Indonesian language is a pretty impressive number. This is the 500-pound elephant in the room that everyone involved in the debate is shying about from. Of course it is unfair that non-Muslims can convert to Islam but Muslims can’t convert out of it. I can’t see how you can call it religious freedom while such restrictions exist. But this is the accepted reality and challenging this really would tear the country apart, which is why I think that pushing the issue in such a sly way is a really obnoxious move on the part of the Roman Catholics.

As a libertarian I’m all for true freedom of speech and true freedom of religion but unless the Roman Catholics are willing to come out and really state out what they want without avoiding the main issue, and face the inevitable consequences, all of this is just a distracting sideshow.

Films & Television, Fun

Avatar fans upset that Pandora isn’t real

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Avatar is currently well on its way to becoming the highest grossing film of all time, proving that James Cameron still has the magic touch. Part of it might be because of unusually high numbers of repeat viewers. Just as Titanic inspired legions of teenaged girls to sit through the ill fated romance again and again, Avatar is inspiring its own fans to do the same thing. As this CNN article explains, fans become so immersed in and enchanted by the idealistic planet of Pandora that they feel depressed when the movie ends and they need to come back to dreary, meaningless Earth. So they go back to watch the movie again. One even claimed to be contemplating suicide in the hopes of being reborn on Pandora. You can read the original forum thread where the fans share their woes here.

I think these people need to be reminded that Avatar is a commercial movie made for the purpose of earning money. This being so, buying into the whole thing would be contrary to the ideals of the simplistic, communitarian way of the life of the Na’vi. Not that the ideals made much sense or were even coherent anyway. Did anyone notice that for all the talk of hunting in the movie, you never actually see any of the Na’vi eat anything? I think Cameron knew very well that showing the Na’vi barbecuing the wildlife and chomping into them, animal juices flowing from their lips and chins, would not mesh with the overall pro-environmental message. These people just need to grow up and solve their own problems instead of thinking that running away would make the problems go away magically.

Anyway, while movies have preyed on the white man’s guilt before and made viewers wish they belonged to another ethnic group, such as the Native Americans in Dances with Wolves or the noble Japanese of The Last Samurai, I think Avatar is the first movie to make people wish to be a different species entirely!