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Feed aggregatorThe Substitution Principle
Submitted by Kaj_Sotala 40 comments
Partial re-interpretation of: The Curse of Identity What are the best careers for making a lot of money? Maybe you've thought about this question a lot, and have researched it enough to have a well-formed opinion. But the chances are that even if you hadn't, some sort of an answer popped into your mind right away. Doctors make a lot of money, maybe, or lawyers, or bankers. Rock stars, perhaps. You probably realize that this is a difficult question. For one, there's the question of who we're talking about. One person's strengths and weaknesses might make them more suited for a particular career path, while for another person, another career is better. Second, the question is not clearly defined. Is a career with a small chance of making it rich and a large chance of remaining poor a better option than a career with a large chance of becoming wealthy but no chance of becoming rich? Third, whoever is asking this question probably does so because they are thinking about what to do with their lives. So you probably don't want to answer on the basis of what career lets you make a lot of money today, but on the basis of which one will do so in the near future. That requires tricky technological and social forecasting, which is quite difficult. And so on. Yet, despite all of these uncertainties, some sort of an answer probably came to your mind as soon as you heard the question. And if you hadn't considered the question before, your answer probably didn't take any of the above complications into account. It's as if your brain, while generating an answer, never even considered them. The thing is, it probably didn't. Daniel Kahneman, in Thinking, Fast and Slow, extensively discusses what I call the Substitution Principle: If a satisfactory answer to a hard question is not found quickly, System 1 will find a related question that is easier and will answer it. (Kahneman, p. 97) System 1, if you recall, is the quick, dirty and parallel part of our brains that renders instant judgements, without thinking about them in too much detail. In this case, the actual question that was asked was ”what are the best careers for making a lot of money”. The question that was actually answered was ”what careers have I come to associate with wealth”. Here are some other examples of substitution that Kahneman gives:
All things considered, this heuristic probably works pretty well most of the time. The easier questions are not meaningless: while not completely accurate, their answers are still generally correlated with the correct answer. And a lot of the time, that's good enough. But I think that the Substitution Principle is also the mechanism by which most of our biases work. In The Curse of Identity, I wrote: In each case, I thought I was working for a particular goal (become capable of doing useful Singularity work, advance the cause of a political party, do useful Singularity work). But as soon as I set that goal, my brain automatically and invisibly re-interpreted it as the goal of doing something that gave the impression of doing prestigious work for a cause (spending all my waking time working, being the spokesman of a political party, writing papers or doing something else few others could do). As Anna correctly pointed out, I resorted to a signaling explanation here, but a signaling explanation may not be necessary. Let me reword that previous generalization: As soon as I set a goal, my brain asked itself how that goal might be achieved, realized that this was a difficult question, and substituted it with an easier one. So ”how could I advance X” became ”what are the kinds of behaviors that are commonly associated with advancing X”. That my brain happened to pick the most prestigious ways of advancing X might be simply because prestige is often correlated with achieving a lot. Does this exclude the signaling explanation? Of course not. My behavior is probably still driven by signaling and status concerns. One of the mechanisms by which this works might be that such considerations get disproportionately taken into account when choosing a heuristic question. And a lot of the examples I gave in The Curse of Identity seem hard to justify without a signaling explanation. But signaling need not to be the sole explanation. Our brains may just resort to poor heuristics a lot. Some other biases and how the Substitution Principle is related to them (many of these are again borrowed from Thinking, Fast and Slow): The Planning Fallacy: ”How much time will this take” becomes something like ”How much time did it take for me to get this far, and many times should that be multiplied to get to completion.” (Doesn't take into account unexpected delays and interruptions, waning interest, etc.) The Availability Heuristic: ”How common is this thing” or ”how frequently does this happen” becomes ”how easily do instances of this come to mind”. Over-estimating your own share of household chores: ”What fraction of chores have I done” becomes ”how many chores do I remember doing, as compared to the amount of chores I remember my partner doing.” (You will naturally remember more of the things that you've done than that somebody else has done, possibly when you weren't even around.) Being in an emotionally ”cool” state and over-estimating your degree of control in an emotionally ”hot” state (angry, hungry, sexually aroused, etc.): ”How well could I resist doing X in that state” becomes ”how easy does resisting X feel like now”. The Conjunction Fallacy: ”What's the probability that Linda is a feminist” becomes ”how representative is Linda of my conception of feminists”. People voting for politicians for seemingly irrelevant reasons: ”How well would this person do his job as a politician” becomes ”how much do I like this person.” (A better heuristic than you might think, considering that we like people who like us, owe us favors, resemble us, etc. - in the ancestral environment, supporting the leader you liked the most was probably a pretty good proxy for supporting the leader who was most likely to aid you in return.) And so on. The important point is to learn to recognize the situations where you're confronting a difficult problem, and your mind gives you an answer right away. If you don't have extensive expertise with the problem – or even if you do – it's likely that the answer you got wasn't actually the answer to the question you asked. So before you act, stop to consider what heuristic question your brain might actually have used, and whether it makes sense given the situation that you're thinking about. This involves three skills: first recognizing a problem as a difficult one, then figuring out what heuristic you might have used, and finally coming up with a better solution. I intend to develop something on how to taskify those skills, but if you have any ideas for how that might be achieved, let's hear them. Weekly LW Meetups: Cambridge, Houston, Melbourne, Pittsburgh, Vancouver, Waterloo
Submitted by FrankAdamek 0 comments
There are upcoming irregularly scheduled Less Wrong meetups in:
The following meetups take place in cities with regularly scheduled meetups, but involve a change in time or location, special meeting content, or simply a helpful reminder about the meetup:
Cities with regularly scheduled meetups: Austin, Berkeley, Cambridge, MA, London, Madison WI, Melbourne, Mountain View, New York, Ottawa, Oxford, Portland, San Francisco, Seattle, Toronto, Washington, DC, and West Los Angeles. If you'd like to talk with other LW-ers face to face, and there is no meetup in your area, consider starting your own meetup; it's easy (more resources here). Check one out, stretch your rationality skills, and have fun! If you missed the deadline and wish to have your meetup featured, you can reach me on gmail at frank dot c dot adamek. In addition to the handy sidebar of upcoming meetups, a meetup overview will continue to be posted on the front page every Friday. These will be an attempt to collect information on all the meetups happening in the next weeks. The best way to get your meetup featured is still to use the Add New Meetup feature, but you'll now also have the benefit of having your meetup mentioned in a weekly overview. These overview posts will be moved to the discussion section when the new post goes up. Please note that for your meetup to appear in the weekly meetups feature, you need to post your meetup before the Friday before your meetup! If you check Less Wrong irregularly, consider subscribing to one or more city-specific mailing list in order to be notified when an irregular meetup is happening: Atlanta, Chicago, Helsinki, London, Marin CA, Pittsburgh, Southern California (Los Angeles/Orange County area), St. Louis, Vancouver, Waterloo. If your meetup has a mailing list that you'd like mentioned here or has become regular and isn't listed as such, let me know! SkyLight Adapter Connects Microscopes To Smartphones SkyLight co-founders Andy Miller and Tess Bakke. The SkyLight is really a simple device derived to solve a simple problem: how to keep your smartphone still enough to take high quality photos through a microscope. Watching other people holding their cell phones up to their microscopes, SkyLight co-founder, Andy Miller, realized that he wasn’t the only one in search of a low cost and easy way to take pictures of microscope images. I recently had the joy of chatting with Miller and fellow co-founder Tess Bakke about how the SkyLight came to be, and how they think it will impact research, medicine and education. The SkyLight is essentially an adapter that fixes a smartphone to a microscope. Using the phone’s camera to peer through the eyepiece and snap photos, you get images that are practically indistinguishable from images taken with professional microscopy cameras. The big difference is that conventional microscope cameras can cost hundreds to thousands of dollars, while the SkyLight is just $60. Of course, you’ll need a smartphone too, but you probably already have one in your pocket. The SkyLight adapter consists of a movable platform that the smartphone fits into, and a base that locks onto just about any microscope eyepiece. After connecting the smartphone to the eyepiece, you adjust the platform position to align the camera correctly, and adjust it up and down for focus. Lock it up, and you’re ready to take pictures. “I was building a microscope in college,” Miller tells me casually, as if microscope-building was as normal as joining the chess club, “and I was trying to attach a telephone to that microscope and I realized, well, it’s fine if I can attach one cell phone to one microscope but it would be pretty feasible to have a universal adapter that would allow me to attach any phone to any microscope.” Miller likes to build microscopes, but there’s a purpose behind his geeky pursuit. While studying bioengineering and global health at Rice University, he designed and built the Global Focus microscope – a simple, affordable microscope that can be built for areas of the world with limited resources. With off-the-shelf lenses and mirrors, an LED flashlight for a light source, and running off batteries, the microscope could take bright field and fluorescent images and cost only $240 to make. Right now there are 20 prototypes being tested in the US, Central America, and Africa.  Not too shabby: a 10X image of esophageal cells taken by an iPhone 4S. As the Kickstarter page confesses, “Now he’s bent on making meaningful change through design.” The SkyLight is a simple idea that could have profound results. Connecting a cell phone to a microscope not only saves money, but in a developing country, it makes the difference between quality care or not. Don’t have a pathologist in your rural Kenyan village? No problem. Just send the images to the hospitals in Nairobi. SkyLight can literally bring together innovative solutions such as the Global Focus microscope and the $80 IDEOS Android smartphone, which 350,000 Kenyans had scooped up as of this past summer, to extend the reach of much needed quality healthcare. The idea for the SkyLight came to Miller while building the cheap microscopes in Africa. The lack of resources available there forced him to create a general design. “How do you make it work with anything you might have?” He made a product that would work with any cell phone. Had he been in the US and had all the resources he needed, Miller expects the adapter he’d have come up with would have been specifically built for an iPhone and only an iPhone, or a specific microscope together with a specific phone. The tightened constraints in Africa forced Miller to make a more general use device, and it’s all the better for it. The SkyLight can work for different phones and different microscope with different kinds of eyepieces. And even though they’re focusing on microscopes at the moment, the team expects that SkyLight will eventually be used to mate smartphones with other types of cameras such as spotting scopes, the telephoto cameras used by birders. Check out their gallery of images here. Think you could tell the difference between images taken with a phone and conventional camera? While they haven’t rigorously compared the images taken by their smartphone with images taken by conventional microscopy cameras, they’ve already passed the eyeball test. As Miller tells me, the Kickstarter page “received the most attention from…doctors, pathologists who want to do doctor-to-doctor consult.” Some physicians actually contacted the group and asked that they take pictures of samples. They took the pictures with an iPhone 4S with a resolution of 8-megapixels. After posting the pictures on their website they were contacted by multiple pathologists who told them that it’s good enough for them to make diagnoses. The SkyLight won the Proto Labs Cool Idea! Award in the program’s inaugural year. According to their website, Proto Labs is the “world’s fastest” maker of CNC machined and injection molded parts. Their Cool Idea! Award is aimed at producing high quality prototypes for startup businesses that might not have the resources to follow through on a good idea. In a press release about the award, Proto Labs cited how SkyLight enables researchers, clinicians and educators to communicate in new ways by combining tools already available to them. Winning the award was a key achievement for SkyLight’s mission to make the adapter available to those who need it. The mold that Proto Lab has created lowers production cost and makes it more affordable. The SkyLight was listed on Kickstarter for $60, but Miller and Bakke hope to work with an NGO in the future and offer the adapter for even less.
Bakke emphasized SkyLight’s social enterprise aspect, mentioning their 5 to 1 promise: for every five SkyLights they sell they’re going to donate one to schools or other places like a local health program that could use them. We shouldn’t forget that the camera in use is still a phone. Miller and Bakke point out that SkyLight could be used live; that is, you could connect a collaborator with a live view through your microscope all the while having a conversation. “Can you move it a little to the left…great, now zoom in.” As an easy and inexpensive way to generate and share images, SkyLight is an ideal telemedicine tool. Wanting to explore SkyLight’s potential, the company has sending their prototype to telemedicine researchers to tap their imaginations. At the same time they’re encouraging apps developers to come up with apps to improve image-based smartphone telemedicine and telediagnosis capabilities. Miller mentioned one app that would be universally useful would be an app that pushes images directly to a server, and labels and organizes them. That way people wouldn’t have to email or text themselves every image they want to keep. Right now the adapter is still in its testing and production phase, but they expect SkyLight to be ready around the first of March. When that happens there will be no shortage of takers. Their first production run will be aimed at filling Kickstarter orders and getting feedback for improvement. Kickstarter is great for turning great ideas into real tools. SkyLight’s goal was to raise $15,000. They ended up with over $22,000. I have no doubt that these two, enthusiastic young people and the SkyLight will get a lot of attention in the coming months. All they did was find a way to combine technologies that already existed, showing us once again you don’t need to reinvent the wheel to create something useful. [image credits: SkyLight]
Bradshaw Crandell: Man of Distinction
By guest author Kent Steine
By the late 1940's Bradshaw Crandell had turned over the reigns of producing the covers at Cosmopolitan to Jon Whitcomb. Crandell himself had been Harrison Fisher's beneficiary in the 1930's. However the decade of the 1950's brought a new direction for Crandell. Throughout his career, Crandell had used pastel as his primary media for it's spontaneity and managing deadlines. He was ready for a change. He had taught himself to paint with oils, and with his unwavering dedication was producing work that would rival his magnificent pastel illustrations.  (Above: "Red Head", was also one of the featured pieces in the Bottoms Up collection. A "Red Head" was: 1 jigger Seagram's 7 Crown; 1 barspoon of kirschwasser; 1 barspoon raspberry cordial; Juice 1/2 lemon; Ice. Shake well. Strain in to cocktail glass. Drop twist of orange peel in to glass.)  (Above: Although Brad worked with oils throughout his career, by the 1950's that medium dominated his work. "Time on My Hands", painted in 1960, displays a lifetime of study. His draughtsmanship, and manipulation of light and shadow are what every artist strives to duplicate.) Crandell was now in his preferred element. Although he achieved immense success as a cover artist, it was only after he left the commercial field and began to concentrate on painting portraits, that he truly felt happy. He loved working with people directly. Crandell's models sat for him. He would work from photo reference as a backup to the original sitting. He instinctively knew that was the only way to make a great picture. Crandell never analyzed a subject to bring out the true nature of the sitter. He painted what he saw, where the real person came to life. Choosing to only see the good in people, he would capture his subjects at their best.  In 1954, Crandell made Madison, Connecticut his permanent residence. It had been his summer home and retreat for many years. He would maintain the East 52nd Street studio in New York for another eleven years. It was during this time that his status as a renowned portrait artist was established. Now instead of movie stars, his commissions were numerous Governors; heads of state; and society women. His career had come full circle. He was now fulfilled, producing art in the tradition of the masters he had long admired.  Throughout his life and career, Crandell had been at the top of his field. He received many of the accolades due a man and artist of his caliber (among other things you could walk into The 21 Club, or The Stork Club and order concoctions entitled "Red Head" and "Bachelor Girl", inspired by Crandell's work). Along with many associations, he was an active member of The Society of Illustrators, and was recently elected to their Hall of Fame. Crandell was very active within the "Society", contributing art, and goodwill throughout the membership. He was also a member of the Artists and Writers Association; and the Dutch Treat Club. Crandell was also an excellent and skilled chef. He was a member of the American Society of Amateur Chefs; as well as serving as President of the Property Owners Association in his hometown of Madison, Connecticut.  (Above: 1952 Dutch Treat Club Yearbook illustration by Bradshaw Crandell, featuring names and numbers of fellow club members) Sadly, by 1965 Bradshaw Crandell had contracted cancer. Reviewing letters written by him at this time, one finds no remorse or bitterness as a result of his condition. There is merely grateful appreciation for the innumerable admirers of his work. He passed away in the comfort of his home January 25, 1966 at the age of 69. (Below: John Bradshaw Crandell's NYT obituary, from Wednesday, January 26 1966.)  (Below: This original keepsake from Bradshaw Crandell's memorial was written by his wife, Myra.)  Today the measure of beauty has a different ideal in life and imagery. What likely appeals to the public in general during the year 2012, was a very different ideal in 1942. We are fortunate to have had likes of Brad Crandell to record a most unique period in history, when beauty was attractive, appealing, and refreshing.  (Above: Upon closer inspection, this example represents one of Bradshaw Crandell's very best pastel illustrations. Crandell preceded in scope and stature, nearly all of the illustrators associated with painting a pretty face or even pinup art . . . in some cases by twenty years. This masterfully simple, and perfectly rendered illustration presents an idealized and stylized face that set a standard for all who followed.) * Kent Steine is an artist, author and teacher. His renowned series of "Masters" articles for Step-By-Step magazine remain some of the best ever written on the history of illustration. With this week being the anniversary of Bradshaw Crandell's death, I'm very grateful to Kent for sharing the story of this fabulous artist with us. An abridged version of this week's series of posts originally appeared as an article in SXS magazine. ~ Leif Kent Steine's website * Several of today's (and this past week's) images are courtesy of the Heritage Auctions website 
Bradshaw Crandell: Artist of the Stars
By guest author Kent Steine
By 1930 Bradshaw Crandell was producing covers for many of the major periodicals of the time like The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's and American.  In 1925 he opened a "shop" at 405 Lexington Avenue and simply called it John Bradshaw Crandell Studios. Crandell himself only recalled producing one editorial or story illustration. That was produced for Redbook magazine early in his career. There were countless advertising illustrations produced for a variety of elite clients and products. The images usually depicted an attractive woman or couple engaged in some glamorous or exciting activity. He became widely recognized for his Old Gold ads and point of purchase displays. Crandell's depictions of beautiful women were the staple for Palmolive skin soap advertising campaigns during the early 1930's. However, it was his Cosmopolitan magazine covers that made Bradshaw Crandell a household name.  By 1935, Crandell dropped the 'John' from his name, moved to a new penthouse studio at 400 East 52nd Street (he would maintain this location until August of 1965), and was at the beginning of his 12 year run as the cover artist for Cosmopolitan. He also produced covers for Ladies' Home Journal and various other "Curtis" publications. During WWII Crandell produced a variety of war effort illustration art. In 1939 he provided the artwork for the Salvation Army fund drive, and also produced numerous illustrations for General Motors Pontiac Division, depicting workers and their roles in producing aircraft.  Cosmopolitan was known for it's beautiful covers portraying Hollywood's most popular and attractive movie stars. It was imperative that these depictions not only be recognizable, but more beautiful and glamorous than the camera or "real life" could present. There was an abundance of infinitely skilled illustrators in those days. Few however had the ability to draw and paint a pretty face like those produced by Bradshaw Crandell. Over the years there have been but few artists with this uniquely aesthetic ability.  (Above: This feature in FOCUS magazine from the 1940's nicely represents a typical Crandell model sitting, in addition to his notoriety during the time.) When Carole Lombard posed for Crandell in 1935, she was at the height of her acting career and popularity. In the image conscious movie industry of the 1930's to the 1950's, anything less than perfect would not be tolerated or accepted. This alone is a testament to Crandell's considerable abilities and influence within the studio system of yesterday. Movie stars of today are forced to embrace the public's fascination with the candid reality of photography. Somewhere along the line, the elements of fantasy and innocence have been lost.  (Above and below: These "Screen shots" of Bradshaw Crandell working, are from the historical movies produced by Frank Reilly. Filmed in 16mm between 1949 and 1952, they included many of Mr. Reilly's friends and fellow artists. Some of the finest illustrators of the last century participated in the project, and included: Crandell; Arthur William Brown (who documented everything in triplicate); William "Obie" Oberhart; John Falter; James Montgomery Flagg; Harvey Dunn; and featured Dean Cornwell's introduction and incredible demonstration. Here, Crandell begins a live portrait in pastel, and is shown looking back at his easel, drawing from memory.) Bradshaw Crandell's approach, or technique to producing a pastel picture was in effect, quite laborious. The process gave his finished pastel pictures a deeper, richer appearance than a direct application. The first stage was to draw his model from life with charcoal. For a portrait bust he worked large, approximately 22" x 30", on white heavyweight paper attached to a board, and locked in an easel. He employed all of the various blending and rubbing techniques common to pastel and charcoal drawing, and with a mouth atomizer, would apply a fixative at various stages. After the initial drawing was adjusted and corrected, he would then begin to add whites and lighter values to the drawing with pastel.  (Above: Brad has already begun to establish the color and refinement process of the picture, and here we see the the artist, drawing, and model in each position of perspective.) Now with a fully rendered B&W en grisaille drawing, he would apply a fixative with a mouth atomizer, and remove the drawing from the easel. Laying the work flat, Crandell applied a varnish/medium, to the entire working surface with a 2" sable brush. Once the surface was dry, he would begin to add the color with pastel.  (Above: A close up of Brad Crandell refining the details of the face. Like all well trained artists, he worked from the large to the small, from the simple to the complex.) This approach is similar to an undertone (verdaccio) used when oil painting. He worked in the same manner one might when painting with oil, ie: dark to light, establishing all of the dark values and passages first with a corresponding value of color. He created new hues, by blending the colors as they were applied one over the other. As the medium dictates, this was a process of refinement and polish. After the trademark Bradshaw Crandell signature, he would spray fixative over the entire surface, and the picture was complete. Although there are visual records of how Crandell created his pastel pictures, it would seem none of his working methods are available after he transitioned to painting with oils. However, it would be reasonable to presume his fundamental approach was similar. * Kent Steine is an artist, author and teacher. His renowned series of "Masters" articles for Step-By-Step magazine remain some of the best ever written on the history of illustration. With this week being the anniversary of Bradshaw Crandell's death, I'm very grateful to Kent for sharing the story of this fabulous artist with us. An abridged version of this week's series of posts originally appeared as an article in SXS magazine. ~ Leif Kent Steine's website 
Spime Watch: Physibles*Oh brother. *A declaration of intent from “The Pirate Bay.” “Evolution: New category. We’re always trying to foresee the future a bit here at TPB. One of the things that we really know is that we as a society will always share. Digital communication has made that a lot easier and will continue to do so. And after the internets evolutionized data to go from analog to digital, it’s time for the next step. “Today most data is born digitally. It’s not about the transition from analog to digital anymore. We don’t talk about how to rip anything without losing quality since we make perfect 1 to 1 digital copies of things. Music, movies, books, all come from the digital sphere. But we’re physical people and we need objects to touch sometimes as well! “We believe that the next step in copying will be made from digital form into physical form. It will be physical objects. Or as we decided to call them: Physibles. Data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical. We believe that things like three dimensional printers, scanners and such are just the first step. We believe that in the nearby future you will print your spare sparts for your vehicles. You will download your sneakers within 20 years. “The benefit to society is huge. No more shipping huge amount of products around the world. No more shipping the broken products back. No more child labour. We’ll be able to print food for hungry people. We’ll be able to share not only a recipe, but the full meal. We’ll be able to actually copy that floppy, if we needed one. “We believe that the future of sharing is about physible data. We’re thinking of temporarily renaming ourselves to The Product Bay – but we had no graphical artist around to make a logo. In the future, we’ll download one.” Posted 01-23 01:24 by WinstonQ2038 Dead Media Beat: DSL*One would like to see some stats from outside the USA, but if the big money’s in wireless (and it is), DSL is unlikely to thrive. http://gigaom.com/broadband/the-continued-decline-of-dsl/ “For a brief moment in the last decade, Verizon and AT&T gave cable broadband a good run for its money. Not anymore. As two of the largest phone companies have shifted focus to their more lucrative wireless business, cable broadband has been running away with the wired broadband market. The proof — admittedly in bits and pieces – comes from the recently reported earnings of AT&T, Verizon and Time Warner Cable. Both major phone companies reported astonishing revenue growth – most of it from the sale of smartphones and lucrative (and increasingly expensive) data plans for the customers. “During the fourth quarter of 2011 (ended December 31, 2011), Verizon lost 103,000 DSL lines. In comparison, it lost 118,000 DSL lines during the third quarter of 2011 (ended September 30, 2011) and 127,000 in the quarter ending June 39, 2011. The numbers at AT&T are worse. During the fourth quarter of 2011, Ma Bell lost 636,000 DSL lines up from 501,000 during the third quarter of 2011 and 451,000 during the three months ending June 30, 2011. “Now compare this with Time Warner Cable which added a whopping 130,000 broadband connections – way ahead of 96,000 lines Wall Street analysts were predicting for the fourth quarter. And that is one of the worst cable broadband providers in the U.S. It would be interesting to see how well Comcast does when it reports its earnings on February 15. “So why is DSL continuing to nosedive? First of all, the phone companies themselves are not interested in pushing the envelope on DSL, and instead are focusing on their higher end offerings…” Austinite invisibility scientists hopefully resisting Wellsian urge to become evil*Another advance in meta-materials. *The ability to conceal a 3d cylinder eighteen inches across has some boggling implications. Think of all the hairy stuff you could CONCEAL inside a nice big invisible cylinder. It’s like augmentation in reverse — “diminished reality.” http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/01/invisible-object/ (…) “A group of scientists at the University of Texas at Austin have figured out how to “cloak a three-dimensional object standing in free space.” That means the object is invisible, from any angle of observation. “This object’s invisibility is independent of where the observer is,” Professor Andrea Alu, the study’s co-author, tells Danger Room. “So you’d walk right around it, and never see it.” (…) “The latest research, published this week in the New Journal of Physics, (((<— not a publication given to kidding))) uses “plasmonic meta-materials” to make an 18-inch cylindrical tube invisible. Put simply: An everyday object is visible because light rays bound off it, hitting our eyes and allowing our brains to process the info. Different cloaking techniques take different approaches to messing with those light rays….” iRobot CEO Discusses Their New Robot AVA iRobot CEO, Colin Angle, with AVA. We found this video from CNNMoney, about AVA, iRobot’s latest personal assistance robot. We’ve covered AVA before, how it’s basically an iPad (or notebook) on a pretty sophisticated set of wheels. We don’t learn anything new about the robot, but watching AVA we begin to get a feel for how AVA might work in the home, particularly, as iRobot CEO Colin Angle points out, to assist the elderly. With laser range finders, acoustic sensors, accelerometers, bumpers, and two cameras for 3D vision, iRobot’s built AVA to have the tools to get around the home and be of service. What service will AVA provide exactly? Mainly telepresence communication between the elderly and healthcare providers. Angle’s main point is that the elderly don’t want to live in assisted living homes, and their relatives don’t want to pay the cost of assisted living homes. By having doctors, nurses, or other health personnel available at the tap of a touchscreen, AVA can mediate exchange of immediate health information between patients and their doctors. AVA would be perfect for the elderly who require minimal care but regular monitoring. And healthcare aside, AVA’s perfect for curing another major ailment of the elderly: loneliness. With AVA, friends and family members can “drop in” from time to time. Watching the robot scoot around, it’s actually got some personality, the way it’s head swings around and tilts to look at you – even thought it’s head is an iPad. Imagine a grandson’s face rolling into the living room, “Hi grandma!” I think she’ll take that over a telephone call any day. [image credits: CNNMoney via YouTube]
Embryonic Stem Cells Used To Improve Vision Of Blind Patients The man of the hour. UCLA's Steven Schwartz and his team partially restored vision to two patients by injecting stem cells into their retinas. Macular degeneration had left Sue Freeman, 78, legally blind. She couldn’t go for a walk by herself, she couldn’t go shopping or even cook by herself. Another woman, age 51, was suffering from Stargardt’s macular dystrophy, which causes the loss of cells located in the pigmented layer of the retina called the retinal pigment epithelium. Also legally blind, she was unable read the large letters on an eye chart used to test people with compromised vision. In July of 2010 doctors injected retinal cells derived from human embryonic stem cells into one eye of each woman in the hopes that they would regrow the cells needed to see. A couple weeks after surgery Freeman improved her visual acuity score from correctly identifying 21 letters (20/500 vision) to 28 letters (20/320). She could once again pour a glass of water without spilling it, read her own handwriting, and – to the chagrin of her husband – take notice of all the improvements that needed to be done on rental properties that they own. The other patient, who wishes to remain anonymous, could only detect hand motions prior to surgery. Two weeks following surgery she began counting fingers. She also improved from identifying zero letters on the acuity chart to correctly recognizing five. She woke up one morning and looked at the armoire in her bedroom. “It has a lot of detailed carvings and I thought wow, I was missing those before,” she told CNN.
Both patients continued to show improvement in the treated eye four months after surgery and did not show any adverse side effects. Importantly, the eyes that did not receive stem cells did not show improvement. The patients were also given immunosuppressants to prevent their bodies from rejecting the foreign tissue. The trial was led by Steven Schwartz, an opthalmologist and chief of the retina division at UCLA’s Jules Stein Eye Institute, and the results were published in The Lancet. Although the results are extremely promising, Dr. Schwartz is quick to temper enthusiasm over the trial. Only two patients were treated, after all. Many more will need to be successfully treated before the procedure can be accepted as a robust option. He justified publishing the study after only two patients given the amount of interest in the field. Qualifying the study further, Dr. Schwartz cautioned that the improvement in eyesight for one of the women could be a placebo effect.  Pigmented epithelial cells were grown from embryonic stem cells prior to injection. The stem cells were treated before being injected into the patients’ eyes. Researchers at the company that had provided the stem cells, Advanced Cell Technology, had induced the cells to become retinal pigment epithelial cells. The procedure, which included the injection of about 50,000 cells, took half an hour. The team received stem cells from Advanced Cell Technology, which had gotten them from an embryo stored at a fertility clinic. The couple who’d produced the embryo decided not to use it and then donated it to the company. After stem cells were derived from the embryo it was destroyed. The hope is that in the future stem cells will be taken from embryos without the need to destroy them. The stem cell treatment gives new hope to the blind. Macular degeneration is the leading cause of vision loss among the elderly. When the light-sensitive photoreceptors of the macula degenerate people can no longer bring objects into focus. Stargart’s muscular dystrophy, or Stargart’s disease, is a common cause of vision loss among children and young people. Right now there is no treatment for Stargart’s disease, and while drug injections, laser treatment and diet alteration can slow the progression of age-related macular degeneration, it is also considered incurable. Others are working towards a stem cell cure for macular degeneration. In 2010 researchers successfully grew a retina in the lab from human embryonic stem cells. It was the first time a 3D tissue was produced from stem cells. Curing macular degeneration is an ideal target for stem cell treatments. The number of cells needed is low compared to, say, regrowing the neurons of a damaged spinal cord. Unlike other cells in the retina, cells of the retinal pigment epithelium don’t need to form synapses to work. Lastly, the retina’s immune environment is more tolerant, thus decreasing the need for immunosuppressants. Pharmaceutical giant Geron Corporation used to represent one of the best chances for making stem cell treatments a reality. But recently after the company had begun human trials on their promising cell line that allowed paralyzed mice to walk again, they dropped out of the stem cell game altogether. If the UCLA trial results hold, it could entice more companies like Advanced Cell Technology to invest in stem cell research. According to a commentary on the trial, when Geron ended their trial it left ACT and Dr. Schwartz and his colleagues as the sole group treating patients with embryo-derived stem cells. That’s not good enough. Let’s hope the trial not only brings the world into focus for its patients, but also brings the potential of embryo-derived stem cells back into the focus of medicine. [image credits: UCLA Jules Stein Eye Institute, CNN and The Lancet]
The Future of War, 1993*Yeah, those were the days. http://battellemedia.com/archives/2012/01/the-future-of-war-from-jan-1993-to-the-present.php
Bradshaw Crandell: The Natural
By guest author Kent Steine
Anxious to return to his studies, he enrolled at the Art Students League. However, again he only attended for a few short months. This was undoubtedly due to the fact that he had already begun to receive commercial commissions and had never stopped independently studying.  (Above: In addition to his glamorous magazine covers created during the 1930's and 40's, Brad Crandell painted advertising art for many high profile accounts. Along with Haddon Sundblom, and Harry Anderson, Crandell also made pictures for Coca-Cola. These were typically done in oil, and likely reflected the art director's preference, or perhaps Crandell's fee. Oil on canvas: 50" x 36") Crandell truly studied all of his life. At the Art Institute; and the Art Students League, he never advanced beyond the basics of working in charcoal as well as drawing and sketching from life and sculpted casts. For Crandell the sound fundamentals he had been taught would carry him far.  (Above: Veronica Lake's appearance in Preston Sturgis' Sullivan's Travels made her an overnight sensation. When Crandell was tapped to produce this portrait for the November 1941 cover of Cosmopolitan, the movie studio brass instructed him to avoid portraying her trademark peek-a-boo hairstyle, being copied by women around the country. Many were working in factories contributing to the war effort, and Uncle Sam considered the look a safety hazard.) He was amazed at the work of the "Old Masters", and diligently studied them. He would have loved to live in the era when apprentices studied under the great masters of art. Learning first how to draw, then to paint.  (Above: The pastel illustration of Ingrid Bergman for the December 1942 cover of Motion Picture, showcases Crandell's considerable abilities. Bergman is completely idealized, yet maintains an absolute on-model likeness of the famed actress.) Crandell felt that nothing truly great could be achieved or accomplished without hard work in any field. He deplored careless work. "Unskilled painting over inaccurate drawing." He truly felt it was an illness of the times - a desire to slide through life without working.  (Above: Bradshaw Crandell, Oct 24, 1949. At the time, he was enjoying celebrity status that rivaled the movie stars of the era. Seen here in an advertisement for Lord Calvert.) Although he had been producing advertising illustration for various clients, his first major contract was to produce a cover illustration for Judge magazine, in 1921. This event, a mere four years after graduating from high school, would set in motion a career that would take him to the top of his field as a magazine cover artist.  (Above: At 39.5" x 29.5", and masterfully rendered, "Fine Feather", a pastel illustration produced for Gerlach - Barklow, becomes difficult to discern whether it was produced as an oil painting, or pastel picture.) * Kent Steine is an artist, author and teacher. His renowned series of "Masters" articles for Step-By-Step magazine remain some of the best ever written on the history of illustration. With this week being the anniversary of Bradshaw Crandell's death, I'm very grateful to Kent for sharing the story of this fabulous artist with us. An abridged version of this week's series of posts originally appeared as an article in SXS magazine. 
Rollin’ Justin Robot Gets Agile, Learns How To Throw A Ball (video) The gangly Agile Justin, ready to toss a ball to its robotic twin Rollin' Justin. Where was Agile Justin last year when we needed him to throw out the first pitch at a Philadelphia Phillies game? The PhillieBot was booed by Phillies fans after bouncing the ball to home plate. It would have been a different story had DLR’s latest robot been there. Last summer DLR showed us Rollin’ Justin’s amazing ability to catch. Now they’ve created a robot that can toss the ball to Rollin’. Just as Rollin’ Justin was a great test platform for robotics technologies behind high-speed perception, catching strategy, dexterity and body control, Justin’s Agile twin presents DLR programmers with the challenge of effective ball tossing – something that PhillieBot failed miserably at. As Hizook reports, DLR started with Rolling Justin and added “1.5 faster arms through different gear ratios; completely new wheel electronics and bus architecture, which allows a 500Hz control loop over all four wheels and steering [degrees of freedom] on the mobile platform; 1kHz control loop for the arms, torso and hand [degrees of freedom].” Watch the ball toss in the video below. Obviously Agile Justin throws like a robot, kind of sidearm/underhand, not much like a major league pitcher. The coordination between arm, torso, and wheels gives new meaning to the term “pitching mechanics.” [image credits: hizook via YouTube and DLR]
Police Are Making A Scanner To Detect Concealed Weapons 80 Feet Away (video) Just like scanner in "Total Recall," the terahertz scanner can spot metallic weapons through clothing. The New York Police Department is working with the Department of Defense to develop a scanning device that would allow them to detect concealed firearms on a person 80 feet away. The scanner detects electromagnetic waves with a frequency in the terahertz range. Terahertz waves sit at the higher frequency end of infrared on the electromagnetic spectrum, just before the microwave range. The device works the same way an infrared detector does. Just as our bodies emit infrared radiation, so do they emit terahertz waves. These waves can pass through non-conducting material such as paper or clothing but are blocked by conducting material such as a piece of metal – or a gun. So if a person has a piece of metal under their jacket, such as a gun, the police will see the telltale outline of the weapon. The waves also pass unperturbed through wood and brick so the device can scan through walls. The NYPD has a prototype that they’re testing at the department’s Rodman’s Neck shooting range in the Bronx. Right now, the prototype only has a range of three to five meters, but they hope to eventually be able to scan for weapons on people up to 25 meters, or 85 feet, away. Of course, we can’t mention police and scanners and people without mentioning the ACLU. The New York Civil Liberties Union isn’t taking a hardline stance against the frisking from a distance. In a statement, the group acknowledged New York’s problem with gun violence and pointed out that using the scanner could decrease the city’s stop-and-frisk rate by a half-million people annually. They also caution that “the ability to walk down the street free from a virtual police pat-down is a matter of privacy.” New York state’s handgun licensing regulations are among the strictest in the country. As a result, 90 percent of guns used in New York crimes are illegal and from out-of-state. Currently the method for sniffing out guns tucked into jackets and jeans is to stop the person and frisk them. According to the New York Civil Liberties Union, 88 percent of these stop-and-frisks carried out in the city turn up nothing. That’s a lot of inconvenienced, annoyed and embarrassed people. In 2011, however, the NYPD collected over 800 guns – including an AK-47 – through stop-and-frisk. If police were able to park a van on a street corner and scan the people as they walk by – exactly the scenario the NYPD has in mind – the amount of people being screened would obviously increase dramatically. But, as the NYCLU’s point indicates, not everyone’s going to take kindly to being frisked without even knowing it. No doubt trying to allay these types of concerns, NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said that the police department has been in discussions with their lawyers for the past three years and that they foresee no constitutional issues with the device, reported NBC New York. Privacy rights aside, they’re going to have other problems if they stop too many people with concealed iPhones and Androids. [image credits: Law Enforcement Today and Scrape TV]
Urges vs. Goals: The analogy to anticipation and belief
Submitted by AnnaSalamon 56 comments
Partially in response to: The curse of identity Related to: Humans are not automatically strategic, That other kind of status, Approving reinforces low-effort behaviors. Joe studies long hours, and often prides himself on how driven he is to make something of himself. But in the actual moments of his studying, Joe often looks out the window, doodles, or drags his eyes over the text while his mind wanders. Someone sent him a link to which college majors lead to the greatest lifetime earnings, and he didn't get around to reading that either. Shall we say that Joe doesn't really care about making something of himself? The Inuit may not have 47 words for snow, but Less Wrongers do have at least two words for belief. We find it necessary to distinguish between:
This distinction helps explain how an atheistic rationalist can still get spooked in a haunted house; how someone can “believe” they’re good at chess while avoiding games that might threaten that belief [1]; and why Eliezer had to actually crash a car before he viscerally understood what his physics books tried to tell him about stopping distance going up with the square of driving speed. (I helped Anna revise this - EY.) A lot of our community technique goes into either (1) dealing with "beliefs" being an evolutionarily recent system, such that our "beliefs" often end up far screwier than our actual anticipations; or (2) trying to get our anticipations to align with more evidence-informed beliefs. And analogously - this analogy is arguably obvious, but it's deep, useful, and easy to overlook in its implications - there seem to be two major kinds of wanting:
Implication 1: You can import a lot of technique for "checking for screwy beliefs" into "checking for screwy goals". Urges, like anticipations, are relatively perceptual-level and automatic. They're harder to reshape and they're also harder to completely screw up. In contrast, the flexible, recent "goals" system can easily acquire goals that are wildly detached from what we actually do, wildly detached from any positive consequences, or both. Some techniques you can port straight over from "checking for screwy beliefs" to "checking for screwy goals" include: The fundamental:
The Hansonian:
The satiating:
Implication 2: "Status" / "prestige" / "signaling" / "people don't really care about" is way overused to explain goal-urge delinkages that can be more simply explained by "humans are not agents". This post was written partially in response to The Curse of Identity, wherein Kaj recounts some suboptimal goal-action linkages - wanting to contribute to the Singularity, then teaching himself to feel guilty whenever not working; founding the Finnish Pirate Party, then becoming the spokesperson which involved tasks he wasn't good at; helping Eliezer on writing his book, and feeling demotivated because it seemed like work "anyone could do" (which is just the sort of work that almost nobody is motivated to do). Kaj forms the generalization "as soon as my brain adopted a cause, my subconscious reinterpreted it as the goal of giving the impression of doing prestigious work for the cause". I worry that our community has a tendency to explain as e.g. status signaling or "people really don't care about X", observations that can also be explained by less malice/selfishness and more "our brains have known malfunctions at linking goals to urges". People are as bad at looking into hospitals for their own health as for the sake of their parents' health; Kaj didn't actually gain much prestige from feeling guilty about his relaxation time. We do have a status urge. It does affect a lot of things. People do tend to massively systematically understate it in much the same way that Victorians pretended that sex wasn't everywhere. But that's not the same cognitive problem as "Our brain is pretty bad at linking effective behaviors to goals, and will sometimes reward us for just doing things that seem roughly associated with the goal, instead of actions that cause the consequence of the goal being achieved." And our brains not being coherent agents is something that's even more massive than status. Implication 3: Humans cannot live by urges alone Like beliefs, goals often get much wackier than urges. I've seen a number of people react to this realization by concluding that they should give up on having goals, and lead an authentic life of pure desire. This wouldn't work any more than giving up on having beliefs. To precisely anticipate how long it takes a ball to fall off a tower, you have to manipulate abstract beliefs about gravitational acceleration. I have an urge to drive a car that runs smoothly, but if I didn't also have a goal of having a well-maintained car, I would never get around to having it serviced - I have no innate urge to do that. I really have seen multiple people (some of whom I significantly cared about) malfunctioning as a result of misinterpreting this point. As a stand-alone system for pulling your actions, urges have all kinds of problems. Urges can pull you to stare at an attractive stranger, to walk to the fridge, and even to sprint hard for first base when playing baseball. But unless coupled with goals and far-mode reasoning, urges will not pull you to the component tasks required for any longer-term goods. When I get into my car I have a definite urge for it not to be broken. But absent planning, there would never be a moment when the activity I most desired was to take my car for an oil change. To find and keep a job (let alone a good job), live in a non-pigsty, or learn any skills that are not immediately rewarding, you will probably need goals. Even though human goals can easily turn into fashion statements and wishful thinking. Implication 4: Your agency failures do not imply that your ideals are fake. Obvious but it needs to be said: People are as bad at looking into hospitals for their own health as for the sake of their parents' health. It doesn't mean that they don't really care about their parents, and it doesn't mean that they don't really care about survival. They would probably run away pretty fast from a tiger, where the goal connected to the urge in an ancestrally more reliable way and hence made them more 'agenty'; and they might fight hard to defend their parents from a tiger too. There's a very real sense in which our agency failures imply that human beings don't have goals, but this doesn't mean that our ungoaly ideals are any more ungoaly than anything else. Ideals can be more ungoaly because they're sometimes about faraway things or less ancestral things - it's probably easier to improve your agency on less idealy goals that link more quickly to urges - but as entities which can look over our own urges and goals and try to improve our agentiness, there's no rule which says that we can't try to solve some hard problems in this area as well as some easy ones.[2] Implication 5: You can align urges and goals using the same sort of effort and training that it takes to align anticipations and beliefs. Although I've heard people saying that we discuss willpower-failure too much on Less Wrong, most of the best stuff I've read has been outside Less Wrong and hasn't made contact with us. For a starting guide to many such skills, see Eat That Frog by Brian Tracy [3]. Some basic alignment techniques include:
And much the same way that a lot of craziness stems, not so much from "having a wrong model of the world", as "not bothering to have a model of the world", a lot of personal effectiveness isn't so much about "having the right goals" as "bothering to have goals at all" - where unpacking this somewhat Vassarian statement would lead us to ideas like "bothering to have something that I check my actions' consequences against, never mind whether or not it's the right thing" or "bothering to have some communication-related urge that animates my writing when I write, instead of just sitting down to log a certain number of writing hours during which I feel rewarded from rearranging shiny words". Conclusion: Besides an aspiring rationalist, these days I call myself an "aspiring consequentialist".
[1] IMO the case of somebody who has the belief "I am good at chess", but instinctively knows to avoid strong chess opponents that would potentially test the belief, ought to be a more central example in our literature than the person who believes they have an dragon in their garage (but instinctively knows that they need to specify that it's invisible, inaudible and generates no carbon dioxide, when we show up with the testing equipment). [2] See also Ch. 20 of Methods of Rationality: Professor Quirrell: "Mr. Potter, in the end people all do what they want to do. Sometimes people give names like 'right' to things they want to do, but how could we possibly act on anything but our own desires?" Harry: "Well, obviously I couldn't act on moral considerations if they lacked the power to move me. But that doesn't mean my wanting to hurt those Slytherins has the power to move me more than moral considerations!" [3] Thanks to Patri for recommending this book to me in response to an earlier post. It is perhaps not written in the most LW-friendly language -- but, given the value of these skills, I’d recommend wading in and doing your best to pull useful techniques from the somewhat salesy prose. I found much of value there. CES 2012 and Consumer Robotics: Informative yet confusing… and bad food!
CES 2012 was a mammoth display of the trend toward smart, connected devices for every form of consumer activity: toys, appliances, entertainment, health, mobility, etc. More than 20,000 new products were launched at this year’s CES and a large portion of them could be considered “smart.” “Smart” (robotic-like) products profess to add value, assure safety, and provide convenience through connectivity… claims that in many cases are true, particularly with in-car infotainment systems. 3,100 exhibitors, 1.86 million sq ft of exhibition space, 153,000 attendees of which 34,000 were international and only one good food stand (Nathan’s hot dogs – you can’t ruin a Nathan’s hot dog). Massive crowding, slow moving, loud, extravagant and wonderful. Thin TVs – so thin they looked like they couldn’t stand up by themselves without bending – 3D with and without glasses, projectors, smart appliances, and apps for everything from TVs to refrigerators to scales. Consumer robotics represented a very small part of CES but had the same combination of glitz, glamour, marvelous stuff, misrepresentation, uninspiring products and hidden gems, just like the rest of CES. Robotics Trends hosted a Robotics Tech Zone but the action was well beyond their purview because many of the companies wanted to emphasize their consumer orientation instead of highlighting the robotic.  Romibo One of the most interesting areas was focused on Digital Health – where one could easily see benefits from sensors and smart apps providing data for the cloud to process and selectively inform doctors or users of the results, and progress over time. The highlight of the area was Life Technologies $150,000 Ion Proton Genetic Sequencer, which, by the end of the year, will be able to sequence an entire human genome for about $1,000 in a few hours. Digital Health was also the only area where research was shown and where the NSF/Carnegie Mellon University Quality of Life Technology booth was located, an area packed with healthcare inventions and eager young inventors. Few fell under the robotics umbrella (most were digital apps and devices) except these three:
Tosy also showed their other robotic toys: DiscoRobo, a dance to the beat with lights toy, and Sket-Robo, a robot that draws.
Cubelets, $160, by Modular Robotics, had a small booth and a big hit for their educational robot construction kit. These magnetic blocks can be snapped together to make an endless variety of robots with no programming and no wires. Since each cube has unique functions, you can build robots that drive around on a tabletop and respond to light, sound and temperature.
Parrot, a French manufacturer of hands-free wireless devices for cars and phones, was the hit of CES 2010 with their AR.Drone, a quadcopter with two cameras that is driven from an iPhone or iTouch. This year they upgraded the camera to enable hi-def video, improved their software for still and video capture, and added a range of games and customization accessories… all shown at a huge outdoor booth at CES.
iRobot launched their Roomba, Scooba, Verro and Looj vacuums, floor washers, pool cleaners and gutter cleaning robots at previous CES’s, but at this CES they only had office visits for demos and marketing where they were also showing off their AVA concept robot and promoting their partnership with InTouch Health, a provider of telepresence collaboration for doctors, nurses, paramedics and patients and a place where iRobot’s lower cost AVA robots could be armed with InTouch Health’s hospital experiences and enable the resulting systems to be available to a larger audience. More than 7 million robot vacuum cleaners have been sold thus far with real competition for iRobot showing up recently with a flurry of similar cleaners – all displayed at CES:
Another consumer products manufacturer (of home theater systems), South Korean Moneual, also sells a robot vacuum and a more interesting $1,000 home mobile air filter / security device. The mobile air filter is also designed as a safety system for the elderly, it connects with a wrist band that can detect a fall and can call for help if one occurs.  A skinless Pleo showing it's complex innards Pleo, the baby robotic dinosaur, was represented by both the seller (Innvo Labs) and the manufacturer (Jetta Co. Ltd.) that reincarnated the old bankrupt company, and was showing the new Pleo rb (reborn), with accessories and software enhancements. Amongst the pseudo robotic products were three which act as a pedestal for the camera and video functions of iPhones and swivel or have wheels or tracks to move as wirelessly directed:
Karotz, by Violet (a subsidiary of Aldebaran, the builder of the Nao robot), announced the launch of their Karotz “intelligent internet companion” into the U.S. market with a $99 special price for the rabbit and 30% off all accessories. Ideal for learning how to develop apps with voice recognition and Internet connectivity, and now with Aldebaran stewardship, this interesting little device may hold a key to the future of human-robot communication. Other vendors under the robotic umbrella included:  (from left to right): Windoro, Sphero, Ladybug, Mantarobot, Paro, Crawler
Not exactly robotic, but for prototyping and DIY’ers, there were three 3D printers of note: Makerbot announced their new $1,750 two-color 3D printer, Essential Dynamics showed their $3,000 Imagine Printer that prints with a whole host of materials, including food, chocolates, silicone, cheese, epoxy, organics, etc., and the Cube from Cubify which offers both a $1,300 3D printer and also a service for those that just want to send their designs in and get back the finished product. So there you have it — 25+ robot vendors focused on consumer products — less than 1% of CES — and perhaps only one or two to rave about. Maybe next year…. [source: This story originally published by Frank Tobe on Everything-Robotic]
MIT Media Lab Rolls Out Folding Car The Hiriko, designed by MIT Media lab, is part of MIT's plan to develop smart and efficient technology for tomorrow's cities. You think European cars are small now, wait till the Hiriko takes to the roads in Spain’s northern Basque country. The two-seater is about the size of a SmartCar, but when parked, it can actually fold. After folding the car takes up about a third of a normal parking space. This is the kind of car you need, I suppose, when the city roads have become too crowded for all those space-wasting Mini Coopers. Hence the Hiriko, Basque for “urban car,” folds as the rear of the car slides underneath its chassis. Every square foot counts. The car is the brain child of MIT Media lab. They’re collaborating with seven firms in Spain’s Basque country part of Hiriko Driving Mobility. Its primary use will be along the line of ZipCars, owned by the city and hired out temporarily. But if you simply want to be the only guy on the block with a folding car, you can buy one for about €12,500. The Hiriko runs on electricity, of course, since there’s no room for a gas tank. It’s part of MIT’s goal of building a next-generation vehicle. Mechanical control systems that are traditionally found in the steering column, throttle, and brakes are replaced with electrical, drive-by-wire technology. The motor, which is located in the wheels, can drive about 120 kilometers (75 miles) when fully recharged. Although you may want to stop along the way to stretch your legs. You exit the car George Jetson style, by pushing open the glass window and stepping out. And the car’s smart: its top speed is programmed to obey city speed limits. The Hiriko prototype is being presented to European Union president Jose Manuel Barroso, and another 20 prototypes are to be built and tested this year. Hiriko Driving Mobility is currently approaching other European cities that might want to build a Hiriko for themselves. CityCar project is part of their Changing Places program that seeks “How new strategies for architectural design, mobility systems, and networked intelligence can make possible dynamic, evolving places that respond to the complexities of life.” The world population just passed 7 billion on its exponential trajectory upward. And half of those people are living in urban centers, a first in world history. As mentioned in the video, MIT thinks city driving can be much improved. Instead of a bulky, inefficient car they opt for a small, efficient, smart car that is shared by city dwellers. After using the car people will just leave it at the destination for someone else to take. The Next Web shot this video of the Hiriko at Media Evolution’s The Conference. Check it out and let the half-scale Hiriko prototype fold its way to your city-dwelling heart. [image credits: the next web via YouTube]
Apple’s iBooks Praises Begin To Wither As Skepticism Settles In iBooks 2 promises a digital textbook revolution, but it's more mainstream than it appears. Apple started off 2012 with the $10 billion textbook market in its crosshairs. Last week, the company unveiled iBooks 2, the next iteration of its iBooks software now beefed up for the textbook market, and with it, a Steve Jobs-worthy dose of fanfare for its accompanying authoring software aptly dubbed iBooks Author. While media sources we’re quick to laud the move as Apple “reinventing” the textbook, concerns began to emerge about Apple’s licensing agreement, which restricts commercial ownership to any textbook developed with iBooks Author to Apple products and a requirement that it be sold through iBookstore (it can be given away for free anywhere). Only time will tell if Apple can defend its license to the tech and educational community. However, while many may look at this move as innovative, the truth is it is a huge step backward for the revolution that Apple was leading in education with the rapid adoption of iPads and apps for learning. The idea behind iBooks 2 and iBooks Author seems timely. A publishing platform that would embed videos and polls right into textbooks allows them to become more interactive, and since anyone can download iBooks Author for free, educators around the world can start creating textbooks immediately and either give them away or sell them, presumably cheaper than their print equivalents. Pilot programs are already showing student math scores are 20% higher using iPads instead of print textbooks, and the word on the street is that 350,000 textbooks for iBooks have been downloaded in the first 3 days. See, traditional textbooks suffer a few inherent problems. First, they cost a lot to print, especially when they are chock full of glossy, bright images. Second, information changes over time (though not as rapidly as textbook publishers might want you to think). So new textbook editions are released about every three years, even if the book undergoes minimal changes such as new images and a few rewritten sections. This means that the most expensive part of textbook publishing is launching a new title, and it typically takes years for the investment to pay off. Third, it is a highly competitive market with very slim profit margins, which is why publishers make deals with entire school districts and textbooks come bundled with CD-ROMs and online access to resources (they help with the more-bang-for-your-buck selling point). It makes sense then that Apple would want to use the iPad to replace textbooks. The company announced that high school texts will sell for about $14.99 compared to the $60 price tag of print books. These digital books can be updated instantly without the high cost of a reprint as well as the hassle of trying to talk everyone into getting the latest edition. And because the books will be sold in iBookstore, it promotes a free market for textbooks rather than dealmaking between publishers and school districts. <object width=”420″ height=”243″><param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/KJxZG2Nv4KA?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0″></param><param name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”></param><param name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”></param><embed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/KJxZG2Nv4KA?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” width=”420″ height=”243″ allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true”></embed></object> And this is why the EULA is a problem. By binding textbook authors to selling in iBookstore only, it creates a new kind of bureaucracy for textbooks because it forces schools to have iPads to benefit from the innovation. In other words, it’s a way to force iPad sales. When textbooks are written for future iPads that require HD or more memory, schools will have to upgrade. At the rate that iPad innovations are coming, Apple may be creating their own version of the three-year edition cycle. Apple has already sold 40 million iPads for a whopping $25 billion in sales, but the tablet market is becoming increasingly competitive, especially with the latest success, the Amazon Fire. Because revolutions often inspire more revolutions (just look at the history of France) and Google’s Android is spreading like wild fire, perhaps Apple is wisely jumping into textbooks now before Amazon makes another attempt.  Digital textbook projections look very promising in the next few years, and that was before Apple's iBooks 2 announcement. (from SiliconIndia) Here at Singularity Hub, we’ve monitored and profiled the amazing sales growth of iPads, how they are changing books, and especially how they are increasingly being used in the classroom with great success to usher in digital education. (TechCrunch has recently offered the alternative view that classrooms aren’t quite ready for digital textbooks). In fact, Apple states that over 600 districts are already implementing one-iPad-per-student programs. So the big questions is: Why on Earth would Apple not allow the quantum-leap-like transformation that began with the iPad to take its natural course of conquering education and accelerating the extinction of the textbook format? It’s almost as if Apple took something from the automobile industry’s playbook: sell hybrid vehicles to the public in the short term to acclimate them toward all-electric cars in the long term. But the issue is that the iPad isn’t experiencing adoption problems. It seems that more and more schools are using iPads for learning and app developers are coming out with more educational apps to suit the demand. It may be that Apple’s foray into textbooks is simply a way to penetrate further into the educational market, bring old schoolers into the tablet world, and slowly watch textbooks get smaller and smaller until they are app sized and app publishers emerge as the new educational publishers. In other words, make some money, bide some time, and keep everyone addicted to iPads. Before his death, Steve Jobs had targeted the textbook industry and dubbed the American educational system as “hopelessly antiquated.” Clearly, iBooks 2 and iBooks Author are part of his legacy and only time will tell if these tools can change the role textbooks play in education, either through transforming them to the digital age or obliterating them with apps. If he were alive today, he might even be able to give us one last “And one more thing…” that would hint at which way he wanted it to go. But sadly, the future that Apple envisioned for schools seems a lot less spectacular and a lot more mainstream than ever. [Media: Apple, SiliconIndia, YouTube] [Source: PC Magazine, Washington Post]
Bradshaw Crandell: ImpressionableBy guest authorKent Steine He was born John Bradshaw Crandell, June 14, 1896 in Glen Falls, New York.  (Above: Of Bette Davis, Crandell remarked, "She was a swell model, and was always on time." Davis sat for Crandell on three separate occasions, with each session lasting about 2 hours. He encouraged his models to talk while he worked, claiming, "It helps make the picture interesting.") Brad, as friends knew him, became interested with art through the majestic covers of the various periodicals of the time. Magazines like Colliers, The Saturday Evening Post, Century and others were the forms of entertainment. They were as recognizable and accessible as the nightly news on television is today. And like this modern day parallel, the person who delivered this product was as important as the product itself.  (Above: This charcoal study was produced during the 1930's, and was a variation of several images ultimately used by Palmolive.) By the time Crandell graduated from high school, he knew that he wanted to produce artwork for the covers of these great publications. After graduation, he moved to Chicago and began attending classes at the Art Institute. Although his stay there would be brief (6 months), he most likely had the opportunity to study with Vanderpoel.  (Above: Although the precise date of this little editorial piece in the NYT is unknown, the reference to Crandell taking over for Harrison Fisher at Cosmopolitan, and McClelland Barclay, respectively place this between 1935 and 1943.) Famed anatomist John H. Vanderpoel was the drawing instructor at the Institute, and various students of his were contemporaries of Crandell's. Artists such as Rolf Armstrong and George Petty studied under Vanderpoel. The great J.C. Leyendecker himself credited Vanderpoel with much of his success as a draughtsman and illustrator.  (Above: The study presented here, was produced around 1938. It was unsigned, and possibly a preliminary sketch for a calendar reproduction. Characteristically large, at 20" x 33", it was undoubtedly drawn from life, and lighted with absolute precision.) For reasons unknown, Crandell stopped attending classes at the "Institute", and enrolled at Wesleyan University. While he was at Wesleyan, World War I erupted in Europe. Crandell interrupted his education and enlisted in the Navy serving as a Machinist's 1st mate.  (Above: At 25 1/2" x 18 3/4", the 1940 cover of Cosmopolitan typified Brad's working dimensions for his pastel pictures. Using a variety of boards and papers, some were as large as 30" x 40".) After a medical discharge, he returned to New York and worked in the canteen at the Bryant Park YMCA as a cashier. It was during this period he met and married Myra Clarke. * Kent Steine is an artist, author and teacher. His renowned series of "Masters" articles for Step-By-Step magazine remain some of the best ever written on the history of illustration. With this week being the anniversary of Bradshaw Crandell's death, I'm very grateful to Kent for sharing the story of this fabulous artist with us. An abridged version of this week's series of posts originally appeared as an article in SXS magazine. 
How I Ended Up Non-Ambitious
Submitted by Swimmer963 187 comments
I have a confession to make. My life hasn’t changed all that much since I started reading Less Wrong. Hindsight bias makes it hard to tell, I guess, but I feel like pretty much the same person, or at least the person I would have evolved towards anyway, whether or not I spent those years reading about the Art of rationality. But I can’t claim to be upset about it either. I can’t say that rationality has undershot my expectations. I didn’t come to Less Wrong expecting, or even wanting, to become the next Bill Gates; I came because I enjoyed reading it, just like I’ve enjoyed reading hundreds of books and websites. In fact, I can’t claim that I would want my life to be any different. I have goals and I’m meeting them: my grades are good, my social skills are slowly but steadily improving, I get along well with my family, my friends, and my boyfriend. I’m in good shape financially despite making $12 an hour as a lifeguard, and in a year and a half I’ll be making over $50,000 a year as a registered nurse. I write stories, I sing in church, I teach kids how to swim. Compared to many people my age, I'm pretty successful. In general, I’m pretty happy. Yvain suggested akrasia as a major limiting factor for why rationalists fail to have extraordinarily successful lives. Maybe that’s true for some people; maybe they are some readers and posters on LW who have big, exciting, challenging goals that they consistently fail to reach because they lack motivation and procrastinate. But that isn’t true for me. Though I can’t claim to be totally free of akrasia, it hasn’t gotten much in the way of my goals. However, there are some assumptions that go too deep to be accessed by introspection, or even by LW meetup discussions. Sometimes you don't even realize they’re assumptions until you meet someone who assumes the opposite, and try to figure out why they make you so defensive. At the community meetup I described in my last post, a number of people asked me why I wasn’t studying physics, since I was obviously passionate about it. Trust me, I had plenty of good justifications for them–it’s a question I’ve been asked many times–but the question itself shouldn’t have made me feel attacked, and it did. Aside from people in my life, there are some posts on Less Wrong that cause the same reaction of defensiveness. Eliezer’s Mandatory Secret Identities is a good example; my automatic reaction was “well, why do you assume everyone here wants to have a super cool, interesting life? In fact, why do you assume everyone wants to be a rationality instructor? I don’t. I want to be a nurse.” After a bit of thought, I’ve concluded that there’s a simple reason why I’ve achieved all my life goals so far (and why learning about rationality failed to affect my achievements): they’re not hard goals. I’m not ambitious. As far as I can tell, not being ambitious is such a deep part of my identity that I never even noticed it, though I’ve used the underlying assumptions as arguments for why my goals and life decisions were the right ones. But if there’s one thing Less Wrong has taught me, it’s that assumptions are to be questioned. There are plenty of good reasons to choose reasonable goals instead of impossible ones, but doing things on reflex is rarely better than thinking through them, especially for long-term goal making, where I do have time to think it through, Type 2 style. Here is the definition from my desktop dictionary: (1) A strong desire to do or to achieve something, typically requiring determination and hard work: her ambition was to become a model | he achieved his ambition of making a fortune. (2) Desire and determination to achieve success: life offered few opportunities for young people with ambition. The first definition sounds like a good description of me. Since around tenth grade, I’ve had a strong desire to study nursing, and it’s required a moderate amount of determination and hard work, especially the hands-on aspects, which are harder for me than academics has ever been. I want to be the kind of person described in (1). What about the second half? More people than I can count have asked me why I’m not studying medicine. Or physics. Or just about anything aside from nursing, which is apparently kind of low-status. I inevitably get defensive when these conversations occur, and I end up trying to justify why nursing is the morally correct thing for me to do. For some reason, in some deep-down part of me that I don’t normally have conscious access to, I don’t want to be the sort of person described in (2). Introspection isn’t accurate enough for me to automatically find my true rejection of ambitious goals, but I will take the rest of the post to speculate on my own personal reasons. They may or may not be reasons that generalize to anyone else. 1. Idealism versus practicality My mother tells me I would be a good academic, and enjoy it too. She’s usually right about that kind of thing, but I decided around eighth grade that academia wasn’t for me. Why? Well, my mother and father both studied science at the undergraduate level (biology and physical chemistry, respectively) and then both went on to complete PhDs. From the sound of it, those student years were among the happiest in their lives. My father went on to do a postdoc at Cambridge, and then to get a crappy part-time teaching position at a small university in Washington State. He hated it. Eventually he quit and we moved up to Ottawa, Canada, where he worked at Nortel, was laid off during the company’s decline, and eventually found another job at a small company that takes apart computer chips and analyzes them. Meanwhile, my mother spent most of those years as a housewife, and has only recently begun working again, part-time and for a token salary. I’ve asked my father what he thinks of the decisions he made, and he told me that his biggest problem was that he didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life. He told me that he still doesn’t. His job is boring and stressful, but he can’t quit because he didn’t start saving for retirement until he was 40. As a grad student, he worked with John Polanyi, a well-known academic; much later he told me he “always sort of thought I would end up being well-known and cool like that, but all of a sudden I’m almost 50 and I realize that’s not going to happen.” I remember the year when he developed a sudden passion for career self-help books, of the ‘What Color Is Your Parachute’ and ‘The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ variety. I must have been about thirteen years old. He encouraged me to read them, and warned me that “it’s better to think about what you want to do, not what you want to be.” The lesson my 13-year-old self I took from all this: don’t have hopes and dreams, especially not ambitious ones. You won’t achieve them, and you’ll end up in a mid-life crisis with no retirement savings, full of regrets. Far better to have a practical, achievable life plan, and then go out and damn well achieve it. I read the self-help books, figured that nurses did around the same stuff all day as doctors and didn’t have to spend eight years in school paying tuition, and never looked back. The lesson I didn’t learn from all this: my parents weren’t actually ambitious either. They enjoyed their studies in university, but primarily they had fun: going to the philosophy faculty parties, getting drunk with chemistry students, volunteering on coffee plantations in Nicaragua... Those are the stories they tell me from their studies, not stories of the research they did and the papers they published. I can’t be sure what their true feelings were at the time, but I don’t think they cared especially. They were smart young people who wanted to have a good time and didn’t especially care if they had no money. And I don’t think they have as many regrets as I assumed when I was thirteen. They didn’t exactly make life goals and then fail to achieve them. They just hadn’t made their long-term goals ahead of time. The lesson I should have learned: if you head into adulthood without big goals, don’t be surprised if you don’t achieve them. 2. Fear of failure The second life lesson about ambition happened a few years later, when I was around fourteen. I had been training as a competitive swimmer for a number of years. My parents didn’t sign me up because they wanted me to go to the Olympics someday; they wanted me to stay fit and have opportunities to socialize. It was a good decision; swim team made me happy, to the point that I often forget how unhappy I was up until then. But after a while I started to get good at swimming, and coaches, even kids’ coaches, implicitly want their athletes to win, and keep winning, and maybe someday they’ll be known as the one who coached an Olympic athlete. Training made me happy, but competition emphatically did not; anxiety, stress, and bursting into tears before a race soon became part of my day-to-day life. My coaches told me that if I worked hard and believed in myself, I could do anything. But eventually I hit a point when I was racing kids who were simply more talented than me: taller, slimmer, bigger hands and feet, a genetic predisposition to fast-twitch muscles, whatever. And then I hit my body’s limits, and I stopped getting faster at all, no matter how hard I trained. My coaches accused me of not trying hard enough. Understandably, this made me feel worse, since I certainly felt like I was trying as hard as I could. The lessons my 14-year-old self learned from this: don’t have high expectations for yourself when competing against other people. You’ll just end up feeling worthless and depressed. In fact, don’t compete against other people at all. Do things that are solely based on how good you are, as opposed to how good you are relative to other people who might be more talented. Even better, do things that aren’t that hard in an absolute sense, so that you don’t risk failing. This is kind of a fallacy, of course. Success in anything is measured relative to other people, if only relative to the average. Even grades, because classes and tests and grades are set up for students of average intelligence, so students of relatively higher intelligence will find them easier, and students of lower-than-average intelligence will feel like they’re fighting a losing battle, as I did in swimming competitions. Possessing above average intelligence let me grow up seeing school as non-threatening, but I know that isn’t true for everyone. I’ve known people whose above-average athletic skills led them to be far more confident in sports than at school. Still, fallacy or not, I later applied this idea to a lot of my decision. I was interested in physics all along, but my father’s tales of academia and the competition and pressure involved turned me off it. I also considered studying music theory and composition, but decided not to because, aside from being impractical for finding a job afterwards, I’d heard it was an incredibly competitive field. To a degree, this is why I chose not to make a career as a writer. (A degree in English didn’t seem particularly interesting to me, so I doubt I would have studied it, but even in high school I never really thought about earning money with my writing.) Success or failure was too far beyond my control for comfort. The lesson I didn’t learn from this: find an area where you do have natural talent on your side, and use it for all it’s worth. In fact, I’ve done the opposite of this: one reason I chose nursing was because I felt that I was bad at a whole range of skills; empathy, social skills, fine motor skills and coordination, reacting in emergencies; and I wanted to force myself to improve. As a result, I’m far from the strongest student in my classes, and labs, simulations, and hospital placements bring me to a level of anxiety far above anything I ever experienced during academic tests or exams. The lesson I should have learned from this: you never know what you are and aren’t capable of until you try it. I tried competitive swimming, and found out I didn’t have the raw talent to go to the Olympics. Who knows if this would have been true of physics? My father tells me that in his fourth year of undergraduate studies, he took several physics courses with a level of advanced math that he found almost impossible. He had reached his brain’s natural limit in math, which he might or might not have been able to exceed with hard work and hours of study; still, it was much more advanced than the first-year calculus I took as an elective. I have no reason to think that I’m worse at math than my father, and I suspect my obsessive work ethic would help me exceed any limits I did bump up against. And why not try? 3. The morality of ambition There’s a third aspect of my aversion to ambitious goals, and I can’t say where it comes from. It might be my parents’ attitude of moderation in everything: they consistently disapproved of my involvement in any ‘obsessive’ activities, swim team included. It might be the way my mother always got mad at me for talking about my achievements, even my grades, in front of friends; it’ll make other people feel bad, she said. (For a long time I was incredibly self-conscious about high grades, and wouldn’t tell my friends if they were above 90%.) It might be the meme that ‘money doesn’t buy happiness’ or the idea that it’s greedy to be ambitious, or that power corrupts and wise people choose not to seek it. I can’t trace the roots of this idea completely, but for whatever reason, I spent a long time thinking that being ambitious was in some way immoral. That really good people lived simple, selfless lives and never tried to seek anything more. That doing something solely because you wanted more money or more respect, like going to med school instead of nursing school, was selfish and just bad. It might come from the books I read as a kid, or maybe it’s just a rationalization to cover up my other reasons with a nobler one. But if this is my true reason, then it’s a way to feel superior to people who’ve accomplished cooler things than me, of whom part of me is actually jealous, and that’s not the person I want to be. 4. Laziness I don’t normally think of myself as a lazy person. Other people are constantly telling me that I’m diligent and have an excellent work ethic. But there’s a way in which all this hardworking dedication to my current occupations has prevented me from spending much time thinking or acting about what I’m going to do next. Working a bunch of 12-hour shifts makes me feel productive, brings the direct benefit of a fat paycheck, and leaves me pretty exhausted at the end of the day, too tired to do the (in some ways harder) work of searching for cool job opportunities, looking at online classes to take, and in general breaking the routine. I hate breaking my routine. It makes me anxious, and I have to spend more energy motivating myself, and in general it’s hard. I tend to only depart from that routine when forced. Conclusion I think I was right about some of the conclusions I drew from these various experiences. Practicality is important: ask the English majors working at Starbucks. Thinking about what you want to do all day, as opposed to the title and respect associated with what you want to be, is good life advice and will likely result in a more satisfying career. Trying hard to project an image of success, i.e. “keeping up with the Jones’”, isn’t a good path to happiness. And relative talent is a factor to take into consideration; if my dream career were to be an Olympic swimmer, unfortunately I wouldn’t be likely to succeed. But one of the problems with thinking things through too deeply when you’re young, and think you’re wiser than everyone else, is a tendency to over-generalize. Doing cool, interesting, world-changing things with your life...even if the actual job position are competitive and hard to obtain...well, on reflection, it doesn’t seem be a bad idea. The lesson my current self has learned from this: investigate more. Spend less time on work and more time on actually planning future goals. Seek out interesting things to do, and interesting people to work with. Go for opportunities even if they're inconvenient and I have to break my routine a bit. Set concrete goals, and don’t wiggle out of achieving them because they’re ‘not actually that important.’ They’re probably more important than working at a community centre, and I seem to be able to dedicate 1000 hours a year to that... Try not to worry about sunk costs (although it’s worth finishing nursing school, since an RN certificate is incredibly versatile in Canada and will guarantee me a job if any other prospects fail.) Force myself to step out of my comfort zone once in a while and do something kind of crazy, but awesome. And if I can do that, succeed to the point that I can break my reflex-of-being-average...then I'll know for sure whether rationality, of the Less Wrong variety, will help me to 'win'. The lesson my future self will learn from this: who knows?
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