Monthly Archives: August 2005

Science — Comments Off on Absolutely amazing anemones
23
Aug 05

Absolutely amazing anemones

We are living among aliens and we barely know them. I would be very interested to read more about the evolutionary strategies of species at the group level. Anemone Armies Battle to a Standoff via robotwisdom.

Clashing colonies of sea anemones fight as organized armies with distinct castes of warriors, scouts, reproductives and other types, according to a new study.

The sea anemone Anthopleura elegantissima lives in large colonies of genetically identical clones on boulders around the tide line. Where two colonies meet they form a distinct boundary zone. Anemones that contact an animal from another colony will fight, hitting each other with special tentacles that leave patches of stinging cells stuck to their opponent.

(Snip)

When the tide is out, the polyps are contracted and quiet. As the tide covers the colonies, “scouts” move out into the border to look for empty space to occupy. Larger, well-armed “warriors” inflate their stinging arms and swing them around. Towards the center of the colony, poorly armed “reproductive” anemones stay out of the fray and conduct the clone’s business of breeding.

When anemones from opposing colonies come in contact, they usually fight. But after about 20 or 30 minutes of battle the clones settle down to a truce until the next high tide.

It’s not just polyps along the border between two clones that clash. Polyps three or four rows away from the front will reach over their comrades to engage in fights, Grosberg said.

Uncategorized — Comments Off on Software alternatives
23
Aug 05

Software alternatives

I’ve been converting a lot of my normal functional necessities to software alternatives. Here are a few things I’ve been using a lot:

eFax
I’ve been using eFax for a few weeks. In the course of a couple months I went from using a fax machine (toner cartridges suck) to using a fax modem and a land line, and then finally to eFax. My phone line was costing me about $27 a month, and I receive faxes infrequently. However, I have to have a fax line because a few clients love to send jobs this way, e.g. they’ll print out their website and write their desired edits on the printout.

What I like:

  1. Faxes can be sent to multiple email addresses. This allows me to share my fax number with select individuals.
  2. Faxes can be received anywhere I can check my email.
  3. Faxes can be sent as TIF’s or PDF’s. You can even convert them to text using OCR.
  4. It’s cheaper than a land line at $13 a month.

What I don’t like:

  1. It costs 20 cents to send a fax.
  2. I don’t like having to change my fax number, although I was able to get a local one.

Skype
Lately, my cell phone bill has been $100 and over. I have no idea where the additional minutes have come from since it’s normally just $50, but it’s amazing how much cellular service can end up costing. I’ve been trying to use Skype a lot more for certain types of calls I can make while at my desk since it’s almost free and I can really talk for free as long as I want to other Skype users. I also like the fact that my phone number goes with me wherever I have internet access. So for example, people can call my SkypeIn telephone number when I’m at home or when I’m at work and I’ll always be able to pick it up. I experimented today with setting my cell phone to auto-forward to my SkypeIn number, but it’s occasionally unreliable.

What I like:

  1. Free calls over the internet anywhere I have broadband access. Just need a mic and headset.
  2. Voicemail
  3. Local numbers can be purchased in any locality. In other words, you could have a local German telephone number and an American number. Good for dispersed families.
  4. Chat / file transfers / encryption

What I don’t like:

  1. I can’t forward my SkypeIn number
  2. I can’t save voicemail as a wav or mp3 from within Skype
  3. Skype doesn’t email voicemail or allow you to check it without Skype
  4. SkypeIn is still unreliable, but then it is in Beta.
Personal — Comments Off on Poor impulse control plus alcohol equals trouble
22
Aug 05

Poor impulse control plus alcohol equals trouble

After seeing Mister Sinus Theatre (Red Dawn) at the Alamo Drafthouse on friday, Phillip, Courtney, Sab, Erik, Jody, Phillip’s brother, and I went out for some impromptu carousing. I’m not a big drinker and rarely imbibe, but I made up for the whole rest of the year that night. The debit card transactions are just now starting to roll in, telling a tale of drunken marauding that spanned (apparently) much of downtown Austin. I swear my card was overcharged at least once, but I’ll be damned if I know where those receipts are, and my memory of the night is spotty at best. I’m here to tell you that it will never happen again. If I never get drunk again it will be too soon. Sure, the alcoholic buildup was pleasurable and novel in its own way, but I was sentenced to an aftermath worthy of Greek tragedy replete with disgraceful episodes of sickness and foolishness. I was still inebriated when I woke up the next morning wondering what the hell had happened and hoping to God I had not said all the things I thought I remembered saying.

General — 2 Comments
22
Aug 05

Werewolf

This game, Werewolf, sounds really fun:

Werewolf is a simple game for a large group of people (seven or more.) It requires no equipment besides some bits of paper; you can play it just sitting in a circle. I’d call it a party game, except that it’s a game of accusations, lying, bluffing, second-guessing, assassination, and mob hysteria.

I like party games like this, although I have no idea who I could play it with.

General — Comments Off on Corporate psychopathy
19
Aug 05

Corporate psychopathy

Is Your Boss a Psychopath?:

Intriguingly, Babiak believes that it’s extremely unlikely for an entrepreneurial founder-CEO to be a corporate psychopath because the company is an extension of his own ego — something he promotes rather than plunders. “The psychopath has no allegiance to the company at all, just to self,” Babiak says. “A psychopath is playing a short-term parasitic game.” That was the profile of Fastow and Dunlap — guys out to profit for themselves without any concern for the companies and lives they were wrecking. In contrast, Jobs and Ellison want their own companies to thrive forever — indeed, to dominate their industries and take over other fields as well. “An entrepreneurial founder-CEO might have a narcissistic tendency that looks like psychopathy,” Babiak says. “But they have a vested interest: Their identity is wrapped up with the company’s existence. They’re loyal to the company.” So these types are ruthless not only for themselves but also for their companies, their extensions of self.

The issue is whether we will continue to elevate, celebrate, and reward so many executives who, however charismatic, remain indifferent to hurting other people. Babiak says that while the first line of defense against psychopaths in the workplace is screening job candidates, the second line is a “culture of openness and trust, especially when the company is undergoing intense, chaotic change.”

Europe is far ahead of the United States in trying to deal with psychological abuse and manipulation at work. The “antibullying” movement in Europe has produced new laws in France and Sweden. Harvard’s Stout suggests that the relentlessly individualistic culture of the United States contributes a lot to our problems. She points out that psychopathy has a dramatically lower incidence in certain Asian cultures, where the heritage has emphasized community bonds rather than glorified self-interest. “If we continue to go this way in our Western culture,” she says, “evolutionarily speaking, it doesn’t end well.”

The good news is that we can do something about corporate psychopaths. Scientific consensus says that only about 50% of personality is influenced by genetics, so psychopaths are molded by our culture just as much as they are born among us. But unless American business makes a dramatic shift, we’ll get more Enrons — and deserve them.

Software / Internet — Comments Off on GOOG
18
Aug 05

GOOG

Google just announced it would be introducing $4 billion worth of new shares into the market in order to raise capital for acquisitions while the stock price is still high. Of course, this has the unfortunate problem of diluting the share value of anyone who holds Google stock (I’m not one of them). This article makes several good points:

In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said it would use some of the cash to make unspecified acquisitions, while the rest would be used for general corporate purposes. But it?s no secret that Google?s success has made it a target of large technology firms such as Yahoo and Microsoft, among others. And now the company is essentially admitting it needs more money to develop new products to fight off competition.

Also there was a good analysis of an appropriate valuation for the stock:

To look at Google, Damodaran fired up that same valuation model, which he designed specifically for valuing fast-growing firms. It employs a two-stage growth model that includes a single high-growth period followed by a stable growth period. (After all, no company can grow faster than the economy forever.) And it takes into account everything from operating leases that grant the use of equipment and other assets to future dilution from outstanding stock options. Using numbers from Google’s most recent quarterly financial report, Damodaran made several optimistic assumptions. He assumed revenues would climb 60% annually for the next three years before gradually declining to a stable growth rate of 4% a year after ten years (for a compounded average of 27% per year). He also assumed that pre-tax operating margins would decline gradually to 20% in ten years, from a current 32%, which is even more optimistic since that would yield operating income of almost $10 billion.

In the end, Damodaran’s analysis produced a value that’s far less than the current stock price. He figures Google is currently worth just $110 per share. And this assumes that the company will grow like gangbusters, taking in $49 billion in sales by mid-2015, compared with just $3.2 billion last year—an increase of some 1,400%.

For his part, Damodaran is baffled that anyone would pay close to $300 per share for Google. To justify paying this much, he says, you will need compounded revenue growth of about 40% a year, which would generate revenues of $135 billion and operating income of almost $30 billion in ten years. “If you believe this can happen, the stock is a good buy,” he says. “Is it possible? Sure. Is it likely? I don’t think so.”

General — Comments Off on A little dose of laughter
18
Aug 05

A little dose of laughter

Yesterday’s Onion is just fantastic:

  1. Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New ‘Intelligent Falling’ Theory
  2. Rumsfeld Makes Surprise Visit To Wife’s Vagina
  3. And my personal favorite: “Dog befriends Roomba”.

From Waxy, I learned of Flying Spaghetti Monster in Wikipedia, which also made me laugh out loud.

Science — Comments Off on This alien world
16
Aug 05

This alien world

Crocodile blood may yield powerful new antibiotics:

Scientists in Australia’s tropical north are collecting blood from crocodiles in the hope of developing a powerful antibiotic for humans, after tests showed that the reptile’s immune system kills the HIV virus.

The crocodile’s immune system is much more powerful than that of humans, preventing life-threatening infections after savage territorial fights which often leave the animals with gaping wounds and missing limbs.

“They tear limbs off each other and despite the fact that they live in this environment with all these microbes, they heal up very rapidly and normally almost always without infection,” said U.S. scientist Mark Merchant, who has been taking crocodile blood samples in the Northern Territory.

Personal — 5 Comments
15
Aug 05

Ye olde good olde days

Science — 12 Comments
15
Aug 05

Provocative results on male / female arousal

Via robotwisdom and article: What Makes People Gay? I’m curious in what other ways men, gay men, and women experience things differently:

Researchers at Northwestern University, outside Chicago, are doing this work as a follow-up to their studies of arousal using genital measurement tools. They found that while straight men were aroused by film clips of two women having sex, and gay men were aroused by clips of two men having sex, most of the men who identified themselves as bisexual showed gay arousal patterns. More surprising was just how different the story with women turned out to be. Most women, whether they identified as straight, lesbian, or bisexual, were significantly aroused by straight, gay, and lesbian sex. “I’m not suggesting that most women are bisexual,” says Michael Bailey, the psychology professor whose lab conducted the studies. “I’m suggesting that whatever a woman’s sexual arousal pattern is, it has little to do with her sexual orientation.” That’s fundamentally different from men. “In men, arousal is orientation. It’s as simple as that. That’s how gay men learn they are gay.”

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