Science doom vs the media

I am a lot of things, but a luddite, I am not. I adore new tech. Even more than that, I enjoy the idea of new tech – the human race’s amazing ingenuity to influence our world and shape our society using the blended fuels of creativity and science.

However.

I get ever so slightly nervous when scientists build an enormous machine that smashes matter together to see what happens. Especially, when what happens can be unexpected black holes and chain reactions involving exotic matter (eg stragelets) which could turn the planet into the proverbial grey goo.

Now, I’m not saying to Mama Science that she shouldn’t go ahead with the May opening of the Large Hadron Collider. Heck, I ride a motorbike, so I’m pretty much an adrenalin-induced catastrophe away from oblivion regardless. However, what I would really really really like is for the mainstream media to care about things like this.

Why is it that the potential extinction of humanity doesn’t rate page one if it contains too much science? Why does the mainstream media think that the the word “quark” is less exciting than the phrase “breast implant”. Have you ever seen the phrase “breast implant” uttered in the same paragraph as “apocalypse”? To prove the point, I did two searches on Google:

Search #1: “breast implant” AND apocalypse
Number of results: 11,600

Search #2: “quark” AND apocalypse
Number of results: 155,000

Point made? As humanity barrel’s down the path of science at ever increasing speed, it is we the people’s responsibility to understand where we are being taken. And it’s the job of the media to help us build that understanding. That means lucid, balanced, page 1 discussion, Media. Ok?

To help you along, I sat down and thought up a nice headline that you can use for your story. Please don’t bother to thank me – I do it because I care.

NEW SCIENCE TOOL COULD BLOW UP PLANET
ALSO SOLVE MYSTERIES OF SPACE AND TIME

The Dot-This Meme

The Dot-This Meme is the name given to a class of internet memes that have the property of being self-referential. The first Dot-This Meme meme was in fact this article, which refers to itself to give itself meaning and truth.

Properties of Dot-This Memes
Dot-This Memes have the following properties:

• They refer to themselves in order to give themselves definition and credibility.
• The self-referentialism is explicit, so the reader knows he/she is not being “hoaxed”, but is rather creating the truth of the meme through the act of reading it.

“Actualised” vs “in-the-wild” status
A Dot-This Meme is said to be “actualized” when it is given credibility as a meme by sources outside of and not associated with itself . For example, once a Dot-This Meme is linked to by an article discussing the meme and created by an independent source, it is said to be actualized.

Until a Dot-This Meme is actualized, it is referred to as being “in the wild” . Currently, the Dot-This Meme meme is in the wild.

Bragging rights
The first person/website that writes an article linking to a Dot-This Meme that is in the wild (and is thus responsible for actualizing the meme) is said to have “bragging rights” over the meme. That is to say, a person who actualizes a Dot-This Meme is able to publicly claim to have actualized the meme .

Naming
The naming of the Dot-This Meme is a geeky reference to the keyword “this”, which is used in a number of programming languages such as C++ and Java to return a reference to the current object. In Java, for example, one may write:

this.x = y;

to refer to a local copy of “x” where it may have an additional context.

Examples
An example of a Dot-This Meme is the Dot-This Meme meme, which is in fact this blog post. The reason the Dot-This Meme meme is a Dot-This Meme is because it defines itself and gives itself credibility. It also is up-front about its self-referentialism. So, it is both the meme and the meme’s definition simultaneously.

Convergence is moving from the pocket-space to the livingroom

Wikipedia describes the term “convergence” as:

a trend where some technologies having distinct functionalities evolve to technologies that overlap, i.e. multiple products come together to form one product, with the advantages of each initial component.

Think about the mobile phone – it started as a phone that you could put in your pocket without any wires tethering your pants to a phone socket. Now it’s a paragon of tech convergence – a phone, a stills camera, a video camera, a GPS unit, a calendar, email client, internet browser, mp3 player and a game console.

Convergence is everywhere. Heck, even the PSP is Skype-enabled, LG’s internet fridge is already passe and bordering on retro, and Sony’s major strategy for moving Blu-ray discs off the shelves was to converge its Playstation console with a Blu-ray player.

So, does this spell the end of the single-use technology appliance?

My point is, yes. And it’s not just because of the sheer utility of converged gadgetry. It’s an issue of space. As more and more gadget functions become available, pockets and handbags are becoming more and more valuable real-estate. No company is going to win the battle for that vital 20cm cubed of space, unless that 20cm cubed can be invested in a dozen or so killer apps.

Livingroom convergence

My prediction for the next three years is that this convergence obsession – this perceived scarcity of personal space and the industry response to it – is not going to end with phenomenally useful devices for one’s pocket. It’s going to move into the livingroom.

As tech becomes more and more ingrained with our lifestyle, people will want more and more integration between their person and their personal domain. The answer, though, is not more shelf-space for gadgets and single-use appliances in the common areas of one’s house. It’s convergence. Why can’t your livingroom wall also be a TV screen with downloadable media streams (goodbye DVD player, bunny-ears aerial, and stereo system), integrated with surround-sound speakers (bye free-standers), image-viewing facilities (bye paintings), webcam/mike set (bye telephone) and an integrated email, Facebook and Google Gadget alert service.

Theoretically, you can come pretty close to this already – if you’re a tech buff with a good credit card. But, I reckon that by 2010, you will be able to get one of these, fully installed, out of the box, for the price of a plasma. Market demand, and the amazing, shrinking livingroom, will kick it along nicely.

Of course, the success of this livingroom convergence will be 100% dependent on usability. And that’s why I feel kinda comfy in my second prediction: that the first interactive wall will have an Apple logo on it.

Science that’s scary

In the last couple of weeks, the media have (barely) reported some really scary science news.

Example 1: Scientists discover giant void in universe

It seems that our boys in lab coats have discovered what is effectively a humungous hole in the universe, containing stupid amounts of nothing-at-alls. I mean, you don’t have to have read much science fiction to wonder if (a) it’s growing, (b) whatever ate all that stuff is heading our way, (c) the void is a hole to a parallel universe containing some titanic evil (btw, the scientists now think that at least the first half of possibility c is true).

Can you imagine being the scientists to discover it?

Scientist #1: Dave, I just got the latest WMAP scans in.
Scientist #2: Ok, hmm, let’s see…HOLY F***, THERE’S A BIG F***ING HOLE IN THE UNIVERSE!
Scientist #1: OH F***
Scientist #2: Wait, let’s not panic. How big is it?
Scientist #1: Um… it’s…ONE BILLION LIGHT-YEARS ACROSS??? F***!
Scientist #2: F***! F***!
Scientist #1: Do not want!

If this isn’t scary enough, consider:

Example 2: Scientists observing dark matter may have doomed the universe (oops)

This is a brainwave from some physicists who realised that, by observing dark matter, we are collapsing the outrageously improbable probability wave that allows our universe to continue existing indefinitely. Ie, our scientific enquiry into dark matter is letting the universe know that it should probably disappear in a little poof. Not wise.

Scientist #1: F***! STOP OBSERVING DARK MATTER! WE’RE KILLING THE UNIVERSE’S STATE PROBABILITY FUNCTION AND DOOMING THE UNIVERSE TO AN EARLY DEMISE.
Scientist #2: What? Wait. What? Oh. My. Sweet. F***ing. Christ.
Scientist #1: F***!
Scientist #2: Do not want!

When you put these babies up next to the usual media preoccupations like Iraq, climate change, the sub-prime mortgage collapse and Paris Hilton, the science makes the rest look like little guppies. And yet, are they being covered beyond their first page 7 two-columner? Are we seeing daily headlines like: DOOMING SCIENTISTS APOLOGISE TO ANGRY MOB or NO GIANT TENTACLED HORROR SPOTTED IN THE GREAT DARKNESS? Nope.

To the mainstream media: Just because it’s complex, doesn’t mean it’s not important, guys. So, could you please let any cosmologically significant catastrophe kinda float up to weekly coverage at page two? Please? Ok?

Powerpoint warriors, be free!

In 2000, I got more-or-less exclusive access to a data projector. I was very excited – this thing was sleek! Weighing in at a mere 6 kilorgrams, it was no bigger than my torso and came in ultra-designery beige-and-grey. Six months later, I sprained my wrist trying to put it on a table. I made a little whimpering sound, and the executives around the table asked me if I was ok.

Move forward to 2006 – my latest projector weighs in at 1.5 kilograms, is the size of my foot (I’m a size 13), and comes in a curvy iPod white. It hooks up to my laptop successfully three out of every four times I try, and sounds like a small propellor plane starting up whenever I turn it on.

Like digital cameras, projectors have improved over the last few years. Unlike digital cameras, they have not become tiny, ubiquitous and integrated into the average joe (or joanna’s) average day.

If you’re anything like me, you dream about finding a very small, very portable projector. So imagine how excited I was when I stumbled on this:

Microvision’s pico projector is described in one of their recent press releases as “ultra-minature”. The same press release talks about their teaming up with Motorola to build the first projector integrated into a cell phone. Up to now, price and portability have restricted projector use to powerpoint warriors and home theatre nuts. But now, I can see the ability to easily and flexibly project data on any surface for an audience (or even for one’s own personal use) becoming socially and professionally important.

And I can’t wait to see how consumers start to use this capability in ways the designers could never have guessed.

7 things that should win a Nobel prize

I let loose a small cheer today when I heard that Elbert Fert and Peter Gruenberg won a Nobel prize for some slick science that led to the development of really little hard drives, which in turn led to iPods, which in turn led to a revolution in music and media consumption.

I mean, mp3 players are a big deal. I have friends who rediscovered music because they shelled out a couple of hundred bucks on one of these devices and spent the next year bopping to their own personal soundtrack. How often is it that you can point to a nobel prize winner and say, “Cooooooool.”

In the spirit of rewarding groovy science, I hereby propose to the Nobel Committee that the following category be added to next year’s list:

The Nobel Prize for Coooooool

Obvious contenders would be:

1. Google. Because how cool is a search engine that finds everything from pornography to…well, all that other stuff on the internet. Like funny pictures and Dilbert and stuff.

2. Facebook. Because I experience indecent amounts of schadenfroid I whenever I read the latest status update of that big kid who used to beat me up in school (”Johnny is verry proud because he is teh employee of the months at macdonnalds”).

3. Twitter. I want to know every inane thing you are doing, all the time. Because I am a stalker.

4. ____sucks.com. Because revenge is sweet, and finally, the little guys can use the internet to protest injustice like it’s the world’s biggest megaphone.

5. Spore. Because it’s a game that lets you start with a little bacteria and evolve it to a super-race space-faring conquistadors. That’s cool. It should also annoy creationists. That’s cooler.

6. Buffy. I know, it’s passe now, but c’mon, you secretly worship Buffy. She kung fu’s vampires, for Chirst’s sake. Kung Fu’s. Vampires.

7. Pirate vs Ninja Batteries. Because they’re Pirate vs Ninja batteries.

Nobel prize organisers, note well.