February 20, 2008

Werewolves of Portland

Yes, we saw the lunar eclipse tonight, Renee and I. Got there a few minutes before the last bright wedge disappeared behind the umbra, and then walked around the neighborhood for a while looking for darker blocks.

Unfortunately, I don't possess camera equipment sensitive enough to capture this in city lights, so memories will have to do.

Posted by dpwakefield at 07:14 PM | Comments (0)

July 11, 2007

Earthquake!

I can't remember with certainty when we last experienced a notable earthquake here in Tualatin, but I do remember that I was half-asleep in bed. This time, I was noodling on the computer. It was a 2.9, maybe ten miles away and 16 miles down. There was no missing it, but not enough force to knock things over.

So long as that's the strongest I experience, cool!

The shakiest quake I ever experienced was in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. I was in our apartment, and could see the floor lamp's shade swinging left and right as I felt the entire building sway. That one had me worried for awhile...

Update

Ooh! Overnight it got upgraded. The automatic machinery gave it a 2.9, but it's now ranked a 3.3! Cool!

Posted by dpwakefield at 09:06 PM | Comments (0)

August 10, 2006

Fear of Flying

...an American’s chance of being killed in one nonstop airline flight is about one in 13 million (even taking the September 11 crashes into account). To reach that same level of risk when driving on America’s safest roads — rural interstate highways — one would have to travel a mere 11.2 miles.

Steve Berliner Johnson

Posted by dpwakefield at 09:23 PM | Comments (0)

July 25, 2006

Butterflies Are Free

When we got home, we discovered that the butterflies had emerged. I'm glad I insisted that we leave some orange wedges in the canopy. We waited until it cooled off a little in the evening, then Renee and I took the canopy out to the back balcony. One of the butterflies fled immediately when we opened the canopy. A couple more escaped as I was adding a fresh wedge of orange. There was one straggler climbing around, looking a bit weak. I checked again this evening and it's gone. So that's it. Renee is a naturalist!

Posted by dpwakefield at 09:42 PM | Comments (0)

February 12, 2004

Oliver Sacks

Another link for someone else, this time my wife:

Oliver Sacks has a web site. Too bad it has the annoying trait of resizing your web browser...

Posted by dpwakefield at 09:21 PM

December 11, 2003

Uncanny Valley

If like me you were unfamiliar with the phrase "uncanny valley", you can get a great introduction by reading this paper (pdf document) by Dave Bryant:

Stated simply, the idea is that if one were to plot emotional response against similarity to human appearance and movement, the curve is not a sure, steady upward trend. Instead, there is a peak shortly before one reaches a completely human "look" ... but then a deep chasm plunges below neutrality into a strong negative response before rebounding to a second peak where resemblance to humanity is complete.

If you get creeped out by zombie movies, or see a face in the fog on your bathroom mirror and the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, Dr. Masahiro Mori would explain it this way: these are things which seem very human, but off-kilter, uncanny in a way the brain can't explain. Dr. Mori was a roboticist, interested in what made humanoid robots more effective. As it turns out, making them too human creeps people out, because they end up in the 'uncanny valley'.

The conclusion drawn by the good doctor is that designers of robots or prosthetics should not strive overly hard to duplicate human appearance, lest some seemingly minor flaw drop the hapless android or cyborg into the uncanny valley -- a fate to be dreaded by all concerned.

Posted by dpwakefield at 09:03 PM