Tag: research

History of the world through a game

We had a few discussions about Civilization IV game today in the office.  I wasn’t paying much attention as I am not a big fan of strategy games, especially turn-based strategy games.  But at some point I was looking at this technology research tree diagram (click for full-sized version, source).

Civilization IV technology tree
Civilization IV technology tree

And I couldn’t help to get impressed on how far the world has come in terms of research.  And also how much was actually discovered in the last few decades.

Yes, I know, not everything on that diagram is a technology, and not everything was actually researched.  But, on the other hand, there are many technologies which were researched and worked on, and they aren’t on that tree diagram.

A diagram like this provides a perspective on how much people knew back in the early days and how much more complex (not necessarily complicated) the modern world is.  Of course, when playing such a game against a few opponents, the perspective becomes even more realistic – the more stuff you have researched, the more you can do and more powerful is your nation.

If only now we could incorporate these games with history classes somehow …

Walking robot fun

Via Exler’s blog I came across these two videos. First is the really amazing walking robot. This is the best I’ve seen so far (although I am not a big robot fan or anything). This robot walks better than many humans that I know. Even better than I can do myself. A must see.

Secondly comes the hilarious parody for the above video. If you saw the first video and haven’t laughed at the second one – there is something really strange with your sense of humor. It must be broken I guess.

Check them out!

Black people in science and innovation

It’s been a few times already that I heard the argument that “black people made no contribution to computer science“.  I’ve also heard a few alternative versions, which were less or more specific, varying from “African blacks” and “no innovations“, to “black women” and “no contribution to science“.

Depending on the overall direction of the discussion, variation of the argument, and sensibility of the opponent, it can be very easy or rather impossible to reason. For example, an argument like “there is not one black programmer in the world” is pretty trivial to destroy.  There are at least a few respectable Perl Monks of the black race.  Over the last few years, I personally have been in contact (IM, email, phone) with a few black programmers and system administrators.  On the other hand, a request for a name or a biography of a black computer scientist might be much harder.  I am not very good with names and biographies, and I don’t know many scientist by name at all.  Picking representatives of a certain race using my own memory is close to impossible.

So, I asked The Mighty Google for a few names and biographies, and it replied.  Here are a few links that I picked from the results:

I have to admit that I was a little bit surprised by the low number of results.  Finding the above weren’t very easy.  Also, many links were very outdated.  Sometimes I’d come across a quote that slowed me down before I could “sink it in”.  Here are a couple of such examples:

one quarter of one percent (.25%) of computer scientists are black

from the “Computer Scientists of the African Diaspora” page, which seems to be from the 1990s.

Throughout the United States, there are only 32 African-American computer science (CS) professors.

from the “A Model for Department Diversity” article, which was posted in 2004.

I think that the above references are enough to convince any sane person that both science and innovation have benefited from black people.  Whether the benefits were to the same degree as those of the other races is a totally different question.  I am not going to debate it now, but perhaps I will come back to it later.

(NOTE TO MYSELF for when and if I do: consider that most computer science innovation is happening in the USA [obviuos, but citation needed], and that black people make only about 12% of the USA population [Wikipedia]. )

How marketing research works

Here is a quote of an insightful comment from this Slashdot discussion:

IDC just released its predictions for 2008 with regards to data storage trends. Its research shows…

If you’ve ever been involved in an IDC, Gartner or whatever marketing discussion, you know that the “research” mainly consists of going from vendor to vendor (data storage vendors in this case) and asking what, in their wildest dreams, would the ideal demand curve look like. Then they charge for actually coming up with some supporting information to meet the vendors’ preferred conclusion, and release the whole thing to consumers in the hopes of stimulating some demand for the paying vendors. Very scientific.

The future is expensive. Very expensive.

Again, news from Slashdot:

“The City Car, a design project under way at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is envisioned as a two-seater electric vehicle powered by lithium-ion batteries. It would weigh between 1,000 and 1,200 pounds and could collapse, then stack like a shopping cart with six to eight fitting into a typical parking space. It isn’t just a car, but is designed as a system of shared cars with kiosks at locations around a city or small community.”

Here is one of the ways I see it:

  • most families won’t be able to afford children (“two-seater electric vehicle”)
  • most families won’t be able to afford petrol powered cars (“powered by lithium-ion batterries”)
  • most families won’t be able to afford their own cars (“shared cars”)
  • most families won’t be able to afford parking spaces (“six to eight fitting into a typical parking space”)

I’m glad that science in general and MIT in particular are here to help us survive in the future.

P.S.: by the way, most families won’t be able to afford university education either, so MIT is giving out for free already – MIT OpenCourseWare.

P.P.S.: yes, I’m just kidding.  The stuff linked to from above is cool.