Detroit electro: in memorium

James Stinson of the enigmatic and influential Detroit electro act Drexciya passed away Tuesday. An email from Mike Clark shot around electronic music lists yesterday shocking unexpected fans (including me).

This past two years were quite prolific for the duo, releasing three singles and a full-length album, all hailing highest respects in reviews (even those outside the techno scene). It makes me wonder whether James was aware of his malady, and was driven to create the most polished and well received work of his life, or not. I’ve always been moved by their dark and beautiful universe under the sea, and currently have Neptune’s Lair and Harnessed the Storm in exclusive rotation.

It’s a sad day in the world of techno.

Aural debug

Standard coding environments are fairly regular in their approach to the process of debugging, relying heavily on a programmer’s visual representation of the computational process. Research at Loughborough University suggests that using other parts of the perceptual apparatus can help coders identify and repair code in considerably less time.

Paul Vickers and James Alty have been developing a system which visualizes Pascal programs as music, and have shown considerable performance gains in bug identification. Subject’s musical knowledge did not seem to affect their results, which suggests that their aural representation takes advantage of a universally untapped cognitive resource all coders posess.

New Scientist: Musical approach helps programmers catch bugs

Research results (PDF): Musical Program Auralisation: Epirical Studies

Vicker’s PhD Thesis: A Musical Program Auralisation System…

Optimizing the condom

Engineers in South Africa have reduced condom application time by an order of magnitude, from 30-40 seconds down to only 3. The inventor declined comment on the source of his inspiration, as his wife apparently would never forgive him if he told the media. I did a bit of sleuthwork, and came up with nothing; the design seems to still be fairly undercover. However, the South African Bureau of Standards thought it was the bomb.

Ananova: Inventors create condom which can be fitted in three seconds

Gene manipulation

Some of the research in biotechnology these days is starting to sound a little too much like Neil Stephenson to be taken seriously. Nature reports today that researchers at Berkeley have discovered methods for controlling gene expression with light. At current, heat and chemical methods are the only techniques used to operate gene expression.

Meanwhile, here in the Media Lab, Joe Jacobson has been controlling DNA synthesis using a remote control: after attaching a few gold atoms to the butt of an RNA molecule, they have been able to control gene transcription with electromagnetic waves. What’s next? Nanobot mind control? Human-animal hybrids?? Computers that can TALK?! If this is the direction that science is heading, then I’m going to start calling myself a sociologist.

NSU: Light switch turns genes on and off

Nature: Nanotechnology: Flip the switch

Another by Hayao Miyazaki

Last night I was fortunate enough to catch a sneak preview of Hayao Miyazaki’s new animated movie Sprited Away (Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi), thanks to James Seo who obtained an original Japanese copy with English subtitles. Miyazaki was propelled into
the spotlight when his last movie, Princess Mononoke, was dubbed in English with a stellar cast; it appears that Disney will be releasing this one in US theaters on September 20th, complete with flashy website to hype it.

The lowdown? Another masterpiece, pushing the envelope on animation, with a slew of new perspectival and 3D effects that are impossible for me to give justice to with words. I was awestruck again by the brilliance of Miyazaki’s stories, which sucked me in within seconds and spit me out only a few minutes before the end (Princess Mononoke suffered from similar cheese-related issues late in the story) Oh, and did I mention that it’s so cute it’ll make you puke? The cast includes (but is not limited to):

  • an adorable 12 year old girl protagonist with spindly little legs and big feet
  • an overweight hamster that has to be flown around by his little mosquito buddy
  • thousands of little jumping balls of fluffy ash with big eyes that eat lucky charms for dinner

Like Princess Mononoke and My Neighbor Totoro, something about Miyazaki’s style in Spirited Away clicks with me: he toys with my emotions and makes me beg for more. I’ll definitely be seeing this one again in the theater, but as with every other anime I’ve seen, I’m sure the original Japanese voices will be superior to whoever Disney decides to cast.

Don’t call me a monkey, cheater

Researchers at UCSB have recently found that cheater detection is an age-old cognitive system. Using a subject they call “R.M.” who has a cognitive disability to the part of his brain that decodes social and emotional signals, they found that this fellow performed much better in certain tests of honesty than others, showing that the subsystem that controls cheater detection is separate from other areas of cognitive faculty.

Cheater detection also appears to be an evolutionarily old system, which can be found in all social primates. My limited experience with my dog Montana shows that even domesticated pets are quite good at this sort of thing. After playing fetch with him for a few years, I started to play tricks (as all good dog owners do), pretending to throw a stick and then hiding it behind my back. After one or two tosses, his cheater detector became quite refined, and he subsequently refused to play fetch with me for months. And then he ran away. These events may or may not be connected.