Bob Taylor died on April 13, 2017 aged 85. An ordinary sounding name for someone who had a hand in founding almost every computing-related technology in the last 50 years.

Bob Taylor was a firm believer in the power of teamwork; one of his favorite proverbs was, “None of us is as smart as all of us”. And, the teams he was part of, and directed or funded, are stuff of Silicon Valley Legend. To name but a few:

In 1961, as a project manager at NASA, his support of computer scientist Douglas Engelbart, led to the invention of the computer mouse.

In 1966, at ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) Taylor convinced his boss to spend half a million dollars on an experimental computer network. This became known as ARPAnet — the precursor to the Internet that we all live on today.

In 1972, now at Xerox PARC (Palo Alto Research Center) he and his teams of computer scientists ushered in the era of the personal computer. Some of the notable inventions at PARC during Taylor’s tenure include: the first true personal computer (Xerox Alto); windowed displays and graphical user interfaces, which led to the Apple Macintosh; Ethernet to connect networks of local computers; a communications protocol that later became TCP/IP, upon which runs most of today’s Internet traffic; hardware and software that led to the laser printer; and word and graphics processing tools that led engineers to develop PhotoShop and PageMaker (Adobe Systems) and Bravo, which later became Microsoft Word.

Read more about Bob Taylor’s unique and lasting legacy over at Wired.

Image: Bob Taylor, 2008. Credit: Gardner Campbell / Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 2.0.

Two theories for these FRBs are relatively mundane. One theory proposes that FRBs are generated by powerful magnetars — highly magnetized, fast-rotating superdense stars. A second theory suggests that a FRB is a created by an especially exotic type of black hole.

And, then, there is a third, more fascinating, theory — that FRBs are the result of alien spaceship propulsion systems.

From the Economist:

Similar unrepeated signals have since been noted elsewhere in the heavens. So far, 17 such “fast radio bursts” (FRBs) have been recognised. They do not look like anything observed before, and there is much speculation about what causes them. One possibility is magnetars—highly magnetised, fast-rotating superdense stars. Another is a particularly exotic sort of black hole, formed when the centrifugal force of a rotating, superdense star proves no longer adequate to the task of stopping that star collapsing suddenly under its own gravity. But, as Manasvi Lingam of Harvard University and Abraham Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Centre for Astrophysics observe, there is at least one further possibility: alien spaceships.

Specifically, the two researchers suggest, in a paper to be published in Astrophysical Journal Letters, that FRBs might be generated by giant radio transmitters designed to push such spaceships around. With the rotation of the galaxies in which these transmitters are located, the transmitter-beams sweep across the heavens. Occasionally, one washes over Earth, producing an FRB.

Read the entire article here.

Those bright women and men at NASA have done it again. This time they’ve discovered 7 exoplanets all revolving around the same distant star. The cool news is that on the cosmological distance scale it’s relatively close, only around 40-light years away — a mere 230 trillion miles or so. And, even more fascinating, three of the system’s planets are within the so-called “Goldilocks” habitable zone.

The system is named TRAPPIST-1 (Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope). The TRAPPIST telescope in Chile originally discovered 3  exoplanets. Now, using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope, researchers have upped the total to 7 exoplanets.

I’m ready. Now, just need a spacecraft, and a quick one at that.

From NASA:

NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water.

The discovery sets a new record for greatest number of habitable-zone planets found around a single star outside our solar system. All of these seven planets could have liquid water – key to life as we know it – under the right atmospheric conditions, but the chances are highest with the three in the habitable zone.

“This discovery could be a significant piece in the puzzle of finding habitable environments, places that are conducive to life,” said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator of the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. “Answering the question ‘are we alone’ is a top science priority and finding so many planets like these for the first time in the habitable zone is a remarkable step forward toward that goal.”

Read more here.

Image: An illustration of seven Earth-sized planets observed by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope around a tiny, nearby, ultra-cool dwarf star called TRAPPIST-1. Three of these planets are firmly in the habitable zone. Courtesy: NASA.

You may well have noticed that my writing schedule here at theDiagonal has become a little more sporadic of late. Yes. I’ve been distracted by the needs of my post-truth project — Post*factua!ly.

The Oxford Dictionary recently made “post-truth” the word of the year, for 2016. A timely addition. They define post-truth as follows:

“Relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective  facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals  to emotion and personal belief.”

I do agree. But, for 2017 I suspect we’ll need an even more important collection of related words: post-factual and postfactually. My definition goes as follows:

“Describing circumstances where only lies matter and all fact is meaningless.”

Please stay tuned for this important post-truth, post-factual project; and, normal service at theDiagonal will resume shortly.

What to believe about Area 51? Over the decades it has inspired hundreds of conspiratorial theories — extra-terrestrial spaceship landings, alien abductions, illegal governmental experimentation. Indeed, an entire tourist-based industry has arisen to attract myth-seekers to the Nevada desert. One thing does seem to be true: there’s a lot going on behind the barbed wire fences and security gates, and it’s probably all military.

From StumbleUpon:

In the middle of the barren Nevada desert, there’s a dusty unmarked road that leads to the front gate of Area 51. It’s protected by little more than a chain link fence, a boom gate, and intimidating trespassing signs. One would think that America’s much mythicized top secret military base would be under closer guard, but make no mistake. They are watching.

Beyond the gate, cameras see every angle. On the distant hilltop, there’s a white pickup truck with a tinted windshield peering down on everything below. Locals says the base knows every desert tortoise and jackrabbit that hops the fence. Others claim there are embedded sensors in the approaching road.

What exactly goes on inside of Area 51 has led to decades of wild speculation. There are, of course, the alien conspiracies that galactic visitors are tucked away somewhere inside. One of the more colorful rumors insists the infamous 1947 Roswell crash was actually a Soviet aircraft piloted by mutated midgets and the wreckage remains on the grounds of Area 51. Some even believe that the U.S. government filmed the 1969 moon landing in one of the base’s hangars.

For all the myths and legends, what’s true is that Area 51 is real and still very active. There may not be aliens or a moon landing movie set inside those fences, but something is going on and only a select few are privy to what’s happening further down that closely-monitored wind-swept Nevada road. “The forbidden aspect of Area 51 is what makes people want to know what’s there,” says aerospace historian and author Peter Merlin who’s been researching Area 51 for more than three decades.

“And there sure is still a lot going on there.”

Read the entire article here.

Image courtesy of Google Search.

From Readers Digest:

Anyone who reads understands the bittersweet feeling of finishing a good book. It’s as if a beloved friend has suddenly packed her things and parted, the back cover swinging closed like a taxicab door. Farewell, friend. See you on the shelf.

If you’ve ever felt weird for considering fictional characters your friends or fictional places your home, science says you no longer have to. A new body of research is emerging to explain how books have such a powerful emotional pull on us, and the answer du jour is surprising—when we step into a fictional world, we treat the experiences as if they were real. Adding to the endless list of reading benefits is this: Reading fiction literally makes you more empathetic in real life.

Not all fiction is created equal, though—and reading a single chapter of Harry Potter isn’t an instant emotion-enhancer. Here are a few key caveats from the nerdy scientists trying to figure out why reading rules.

Rule #1: The story has to “take you somewhere.”

How many times have you heard someone declare that a good book “transports” you? That immersive power that allows readers to happily inhabit other people, places, and points of view for hours at a time is precisely what a team of researchers in the Netherlands credit for the results of a 2013 study in which students asked to read an Arthur Conan Doyle mystery showed a marked increase in empathy one week later, while students tasked with reading a sampling of news articles showed a decline.

Read the entire article here.

Why do zebras have stripes? Well, we’ve all learned from an early age that their peculiar and unique black and white stripes are an adaptation to combat predators. One theory suggests that the stripes are camouflage. Another theory suggests that the stripes are there to confuse predators. Yet another proposes that the stripes are a vivid warning signal.

But Tim Caro, professor of wildlife biology at the University of California, has a thoroughly different idea, conveyed in his new book, Zebra Stripes. After twenty years of study he’s convinced that the zebra’s stripes have a more mundane purpose — a deterrent to pesky biting flies.

From Wired:

At four in the morning, Tim Caro roused his colleagues. Bleary-eyed and grumbling, they followed him to the edge of the village, where the beasts were hiding. He sat them down in chairs, and after letting their eyes adjust for a minute, he asked them if they saw anything. And if so, would they please point where?

Not real beasts. Despite being camped in Tanzania’s Katavi National Park, Caro was asking his colleagues to identify pelts—from a wildebeest, an impala, and a zebra—that he had draped over chairs or clotheslines. Caro wanted to know if the zebra’s stripes gave it any sort of camouflage in the pre-dawn, when many predators hunt, and he needed the sort of replicability he could not count on from the animals roaming the savannah. “I lost a lot of social capital on that experiment,” says Caro. “If you’re going to be woken up at all, it’s important to be woken up for something exciting or unpredictable, and this was neither.”

The experiment was one of hundreds Caro performed over a twenty year scientific odyssey to discover why zebras have stripes—a question that nearly every major biologist since Alfred Russel Wallace has tried to answer. “It became sort of a challenge to me to try and investigate all the existing hypotheses so I could not only identify the right one,” he says, “but just as importantly kill all those remaining.” His new book, Zebra Stripes, chronicles every detail.

Read the entire story here.

Image: Zebras, Botswana. Courtesy: Paul Maritz, 2002. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0.

UBI is a form of social security where a government institution pays its citizens a regular, unconditional sum.

Finland is testing UBI by handing around $600 per month to 2,000 jobless Finns for the next two years. It’s a bold experiment aimed at helping the long-term unemployed.

From Business Insider:

Finland has an ambitious New Year’s resolution in mind: learn how offering free money for two years helps the unemployed get back to work.

Starting January 1, 2017 and lasting until 2019, the federal social security institution Kela will distribute roughly $590 each month to 2,000 jobless Finns.

Regardless of whether they find work during that period, the money will keep coming in at the beginning of each month — a trial version of basic income, one of the past year’s most popular theories of how to solve poverty.

Under universal basic income (UBI), people receive a standard amount of money just for being alive. By handing out the money to everyone, regardless of their income status, UBI advocates say the system prevents people from falling through the cracks.

Marjukka Turunen, head of Kela’s legal benefits unit, says the experiment in Finland should provide insights on two fronts.

The first is whether basic income could help clean up Finland’s messy system of social security. Depending on their specific needs, Turunen says residents could be on one of 40 different benefit systems. Each benefit — whether it’s for someone who’s sick, unemployed, a student, or so on— is calculated differently and must be changed when the person’s status changes.

“That’s really a burden for customers and Kela to do all those status changes,” Turunen tells Business Insider. A form of basic income could mean people just need to apply for one status indefinitely, no changes required.

The experiment will also provide clues about how people behave when they’re receiving free money. Skeptics say people will sit on their couch all day. Proponents claim they’ll actually use the money to make their lives better. (Limited evidence from developing countries suggests it’s more of the latter.)

Turunen suspects the experiment will compel at least a few wannabe entrepreneurs to make the leap into starting their own business — a risky proposition in Finland today since business owners who are forced to close shop don’t receive unemployment benefits. It’s not unlike the system in place in most US states.

Read the entire story here.

Image: Finland coat of arms. Courtesy: Vzb83 / Wipipedia. Public Domain.

My pet octopus has moods. It can change the color of its skin on demand. It watches me with its huge eyes. It’s inquisitive and can manipulate objects. Importantly, my octopus has around half a billion neurons in its brain, compared with around 100 billion in mine, and around 50 million in your pet gerbil.

Ok, let me stop for a moment. I don’t actually have a pet octopus. But the rest is true — about the octopus’ remarkable abilities. So, does it have a mind and is it sentient?

From the Atlantic:

Drawing on the work of other researchers, from primatologists to fellow octopologists and philosophers, Godfrey-Smith suggests two reasons for the large nervous system of the octopus. One has to do with its body. For an animal like a cat or a human, details of the skeleton dictate many of the motions the animal can make. You can’t roll your arm into a neat spiral from wrist to shoulder— your bones and joints get in the way. An octopus, having no skeleton, has no such constraint. It can, and frequently does, roll up some of its arms; or it can choose to make one (or several) of them stiff, creating an elbow. Surely the animal needs a huge number of neurons merely to be well coordinated when roaming about the reef.

At the same time, octopuses are versatile predators, eating a wide variety of food, from lobsters and shrimps to clams and fish. Octopuses that live in tide pools will occasionally leap out of the water to catch passing crabs; some even prey on incautious birds, grabbing them by the legs, pulling them underwater, and drowning them. Animals that evolve to tackle diverse kinds of food may tend to evolve larger brains than animals that always handle food in the same way (think of a frog catching insects).

…

Like humans, octopuses learn new skills. In some species, individuals inhabit a den for only a week or so before moving on, so they are constantly learning routes through new environments. Similarly, the first time an octopus tackles a clam, say, it has to figure out how to open it—can it pull it apart, or would it be more effective to drill a hole? If consciousness is necessary for such tasks, then perhaps the octopus does have an awareness that in some ways resembles our own.

Perhaps, indeed, we should take the “mammalian” behaviors of octopuses at face value. If evolution can produce similar eyes through different routes, why not similar minds? Or perhaps, in wishing to find these animals like ourselves, what we are really revealing is our deep desire not to be alone.

Read the entire article here.

Image: Common octopus. Courtesy: Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 3.0.

Perhaps the rise of the hipster beard, handle-bar mustache, oversized glasses, craft brew, fixie (fixed-gear bicycle), thrift store sweaters, indie folk and pickling is a sign. Some see it as a signal of the imminent demise of social media, no less.

Can the length of facial hair or jacket elbow pads and the end of Facebook be correlated? I doubt it, but it’s worth pondering. Though, like John Biggs over a TechCrunch I do believe that the technology pendulum will eventually swing back towards more guarded privacy — if only as the next generation strikes back at the unguarded, frivolous, over-the-top public sharing of its parents.

Then, we can only hope for the demise of the hipster trend.

From TechCrunch:

After the early, exciting expository years of the Internet – the Age of Jennicam where the web was supposed to act as confessional and stage – things changed swiftly. This new medium was a revelation, a gift of freedom that we all took for granted. Want to post rants against the government? Press publish on Blogspot. Want to yell at the world? Aggregate and comment upon some online news. Want to meet people with similar interests or kinks? There was a site for you although you probably had to hunt it down.

The way we shared deep feelings on the Internet grew out of its first written stage into other more interactive forms. It passed through chatrooms, Chatroulette, and photo sharing. It passed through YouTube and Indie gaming. It planted a long, clammy kiss on Tumblr where it will probably remain for a long time. But that was for the professional exhibitionists. Today the most confessional “static” writing you’ll find on a web page is the occasional Medium post about beating adversity through meditation and Apple Watch apps and we have hidden our human foibles behind dank memes and chatbots. Where could the average person, the civilian, go to share their deepest feelings of love, anger, and fear?

Social media.

…

But an important change is coming to social media. We are learning that all of our thoughts aren’t welcome, especially by social media company investors. We are also learning that social media companies are a business. This means conversation is encouraged as long as it runs the gamut from mundane to vicious but stops at the overtly sexual or violent. Early in its life-cycle Pinterest made a big stink about actively banning porn while Instagram essentially allowed all sorts of exposition as long as it was monetizable and censored. Facebook still actively polices its photographs for even the hint of sexuality as an artist named Justyna Kiesielewicz recently discovered. She posted a staid nude and wanted to run it as an targeted advertisement. Facebook mistakenly ran the ad for a while, grabbing $50 before it banned the image. In short the latest incarnation of the expository impulse is truncated and sites like Facebook and Twitter welcome most hate groups but most draw the line at underboobs.

Read the entire article here.

Image courtesy of Google Search and all hipsters.