Marshall Brain's Blog

With "I, Robot" now in theaters, here are several prior posts related to this movie:

• I, Robot
  
• "I, Robot" clips - "A documentary of the future"
  
• The future of robotic police
  
• The three laws of robotics

The post called The Price of things is getting a lot of traffic today for some reason (perhaps because it quotes the price of Martha Stewart's $10,000 handbag). It's a fun read...

I have long considered the appearance of bottled water to be a product revolution. Somehow, through marketing and subtle social pressure, companies took a free substance and turned it into a very expensive substance. In many airports and hotels, a bottle of Dasani water costs more than a bottle of orange juice. I was at a convention in Orlando two weeks ago, and bottled water was $2.50 from a vending machine. When you consider that the cost of producing the bottle of water is a penny or two, that is an unbelievable markup.

Since bottled water's arrival, I have been waiting for the "next big thing". And this may be it:

Will's weird WC obsession

Apparently, Will Smith (star of movies like Men in Black and I, Robot) is advocating that we all switch to wet toilet paper rather than the rolls of dry stuff we have been using for the last century. In the words of the article: "Will Smith seems to have become slightly obsessed with personal hygiene and is on a mission to educate the world - about wet-wipes!"

If you have a baby, you know what these are -- diaper wipes. They come in a sealed plastic box to keep them moist. You can even buy diaper wipe warmers lest something too cool touch your baby's skin.

So I am wondering if the toilet paper industry can create the next consumer revolution, eliminating rolls of toilet paper and replacing them with this more expensive product. Time will tell. One potential problem with this revolution: big clogs in the sewer system.

I had gone out this morning at about 6:20 to get the newspaper. As I was walking back toward the front door, I walked by the flower bed. We planted something called "Vista Red Salvia" this summer, and it has had spikes of small red flowers all summer long.

I stopped walking when I noticed that a hummingbird was buzzing around the Salvia flowers at the other end of the bed. Based on the bright red feathers under its throat, I am going to guess that it was a ruby throated hummingbird.

I'm standing there watching him. He drinks from one flower while hovering in the air, pulls back, looks, turns and zips to the next flower, drinks, pulls back... He visits only the brightest red flowers. As he is flying, you can see the leaves below him moving from his wings' downdraft. As he gets down toward my end of the bed, I can actually feel the downdraft myself on my legs and feet when he truns and moves. His wings are moving so fast they are invisible.

As I am watching this I notice something else. About 3 inches in front of my face is a strand of spider silk. If I had stopped 3 inches later I would have broken it. After the hummingbird finishes and flies away, I look at this strand. Then I follow it. It is about 30 feet long - a single strand attached at one end to a tree's leaf and at the other end to the downspout on the house. No spider can be seen, and there is no web. Just the strand.

As I walk back to the front door, the bird that's built a nest on the front porch flies away, again. Every time you use the front door she flies over to a tree 10 feet away. Then, as soon as you step off the porch, she flies back.

Then when I walk in the front door, I notice that I'm not the only one taking this opportunity to enter the building. A big red beetle decides to walk in as well. He must have been sitting on the door's threshold waiting for his chance to get in.

Where did all these bugs and plants and animals come from? It's just amazing when you think about it...

One of the first and most popular posts in this blog is named Smoking and sex. It asks the question, "Why do we consider smoking to be sexy?" Smoking is a pretty disgusting habit when you get right down to it, so it seems very odd to associate smoking with sex. The answer to this paradox is simple: smokers are far more sexual. 19-year-old women who smoke are nearly four times more likely than non-smokers to be sexually active. See Smoking and sex for details. Cigarettes are essentially a marker for sexuality, so "smoking" becomes "sexy".

According to this article, cell phones are about to become even sexier than cigarettes. The article states: "According to The Mirror, the researchers, who questioned more than 10,000 youngsters between the age-group of 13-18, found that 60 per cent of teenagers who use mobiles a lot had sex, whereas, only nine per cent of the children who seldom or never used mobile phones had had sex."

It would be interesting to see this same sort of research applied to tattoos and other markers. And then there are the combinations: what does it mean when you see a tattooed teen with a cigarette in one hand and a cell phone in the other?

Welcome to the Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program Web site!

From the site:

The Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program provides a unique academic experience for undergraduate students to successfully propose, design, fabricate, fly and evaluate a reduced gravity experiment of their choice over the course of six months. The overall experience includes scientific research, hands-on experimental design, test operations and educational/public outreach activities.

The site has an extremely nice video to go with it (about 20 minutes). The video says that 800 college students have flown in microgravity on NASA's KC-130.

I keep the three XP machines I own up-to-date on all the Microsoft updates. So yesterday when the updater said, "There are updates ready to install", I was expecting one or two new updates. Instead, here's what is needing to be installed today:

Cumulative Security Update for Outlook Express 6 Service Pack 1 (KB837009)
Download size: 1.9 MB, < 1 minute
A security issue has been identified in Microsoft Outlook Express that could allow an attacker to read files on your computer, or cause a program to run. You can help protect your computer by installing this update. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer. Read more...

Critical Update for Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 (KB831167)
Download size: 378 KB, < 1 minute
An identified issue may cause errors when Internet Explorer attempts to renew a connection to a server. You should apply this update if you begin to receive errors connecting to websites after you have applied the KB832894 security update to Internet Explorer. After you install this item, you may need to restart your computer. Read more...

Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 (KB832894)
Download size: 2.8 MB, < 1 minute
Identified security issues in Internet Explorer could allow an attacker to compromise a Windows-based system. For example, an attacker could run programs on your computer while you view a Web page. This affects all computers with Internet Explorer installed (even if you don’t run Internet Explorer as your Web browser). After you install this item, you may need to restart your computer. Read more...

Security Update for DirectX 9.0 (KB839643)
Download size: 443 KB, < 1 minute
A security issue has been identified that could allow an attacker to cause DirectX, or applications using DirectX, to become unresponsive. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer. Read more...

Security Update for Windows XP (KB840374)
Download size: 854 KB, < 1 minute
A security issue has been identified that could allow an attacker to compromise a computer running Windows and gain complete control over it. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer. Read more...

Security Update for Windows XP (KB837001)
Download size: 284 KB, < 1 minute
A security issue has been identified that could allow an attacker to compromise a computer running Windows and gain control over it. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer. Read more...

Security Update for Windows XP (KB828741)
Download size: 284 KB, < 1 minute
A security issue has been identified that could allow an attacker to compromise a computer running Windows and gain control over it. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer. Read more...

Security Update for Windows XP (KB835732)
Download size: 284 KB, < 1 minute
Multiple security issues have been identified that could allow an attacker to compromise a computer running Windows and gain complete control over it. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer. Read more...

Security Update for Microsoft Data Access Components (KB832483)
Download size: 2.0 MB, < 1 minute
An identified security issue in Microsoft Data Access Components could allow an attacker to compromise a Windows-based system and take a variety of actions. For example, an attacker could execute code on the system. By installing this update, you help protect your computer. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer. Once you have installed this item, it cannot be removed. Read more...

Security Update for Microsoft Windows XP (KB828035)
Download size: 357 KB, < 1 minute
A security issue has been identified that could allow an attacker to remotely compromise a computer running Microsoft® Windows® XP and gain complete control over it. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer. Read more...

Security Update for Microsoft Windows XP (KB825119)
Download size: 298 KB, < 1 minute
A security issue has been identified that could allow an attacker to remotely compromise a computer running Microsoft® Windows® XP and gain complete control over it. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer. Read more...

Critical Update for Windows Media Player Script Commands (KB828026)
Download size: 2.8 MB, < 1 minute
This update contains a change to the behavior of Windows Media Player’s ability to launch URLs in the local computer zone from other zones. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer. Read more...

Update Rollup 1 for Microsoft Windows XP (KB826939)
Download size: 282 KB, < 1 minute
This update consists of previously released critical and security updates, for Windows XP, rolled into one convenient package. Installing this item provides you the same results as installing the individual updates. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer. Read more...

Security Update for Microsoft Windows (KB824105)
Download size: 225 KB, < 1 minute
A security issue has been identified in Microsoft Windows that could allow an attacker to see information in your computer’s memory over a network. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer. Read more...

Security Update for Microsoft Windows (KB823182)
Download size: 424 KB, < 1 minute
A security issue has been identified that could allow an attacker to remotely compromise a computer running Microsoft Windows and gain complete control over it. For example, an attacker could execute code on your system. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer. Read more...

Security Update for Microsoft Windows (KB824141)
Download size: 2.1 MB, < 1 minute
A security issue has been identified that could allow an attacker to compromise a computer running Microsoft Windows and gain control over it. To attempt an attack, the attacker would have to be able to log on to the computer. You can help protect your computer by installing this update from Microsoft. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer. Read more...

816093: Security Update Microsoft Virtual Machine (Microsoft VM)
Download size: 5.1 MB, < 1 minute
This update helps resolve a vulnerability in the Microsoft virtual machine. After you install this item, you may have to restart your computer. Once you have installed this item, it cannot be removed. Read more...

It's about 20 MB of patches. It will take 10 to 15 minutes to install. If you were to read about each one, it could take well over an hour.

Perhaps that is why US-CERT is suggesting people use other browsers. See also this post on the cost of maintaining XP.

This is starting to feel like a national security issue. The military, government agencies and most American businesses, not to mention hundreds of millions of normal citizens, use Microsoft software every day. If something "bad" were to happen on a large scale to this software, the entire nation would feel it. Yet the software is highly vulnerable. Why is Microsoft allowed to sit on $50 billion in cash rather than being forced to fix the problems it has created?