Marc Abrahams's Blog, page 452

More than a bit of sun—Mr. Sun—for you

Especially if you are in the Northern hemisphere and are craving more sun, here’s a film called “Our Mr. Sun“, made in 1956 by Frank Capra for Bell Labs.

It stars the sun, of course. It also stars that star of stars of the 1950s science fim world: Dr. Research. Click on the image on the right to be whisked away to the Internet Archive site, where Mr. Sun and Dr. Research and their friends will strut their stuff for you. Or watch it here:

BONUS (unrelated): an insipid Mr. Sun song, sung by Barney:

 

BONUS: The Hybrid Solar Eclipse of 2013 Nov 03, and a live online tracker of it

 

Driving a lemon, sort of

When people talk about “driving a lemon“, they generally mean “lemon” to mean a defective automobile. A US patent granted in 1990 to Robert D. Whitworth describes a ”Process for purifying limonene for fuel and the like“. A more detailed description, from the patent document:

A plant source fuel is disclosed per se and as a blend constituent for conventional petroleum fuels along with a process for producing same. Limonene obtained from citrus and other plants when distilled and treated to avoid formation of gums is blendable with conventional petroleum fuels up to about 20 volume percent to form blends that meet the standards for such fuels.

The patent was assigned to Lemco Energy, Inc. of Greenville, South Carolina, a company that has not yet prospered wildly or perhaps at all.

(Thanks to investigator Kurt Verkest for bringing this to our attention.)

BONUS: ”Car glass antifoggant wet tissue with lemon flavor”, Chinese patent application 2012. The document specifies [auto-translated into English]:

CLAIMS

1 A 1 lemon smell rotten antifogging agent automobile glass wipes; consisting of a mixture of cotton spunlace and composition; material and its percentage in the mixed solution of citric acid I ~ 2%, Tween -802 to 5%, 2-3% silicone oil, 2 to 5 percent oleic acid, polyethylene glycol esters I ~ 2%, glycerol dimer 2 ~ 3%, carbomer f 3% and the balance deionized water….

 

Sinnott’s scary masks / zoo animals experiment

Hast thou seen Sinnott’s experiment with scary masks and zoo animals? This study makes tell of it:

“Perception of Scary Halloween Masks by Zoo Animals and Humans,” Joan M. Sinnott [pictured here], H. Anton Speaker, Laura A. Powell, and Kelly W. Mosteller, International Journal of Comparative Psychology, 25 (2012): 83-96. (Thanks to investigator Neil Martin for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at the University of South Alabama, explain:

Zoo animals were tested to see if they perceived the scary nature of Halloween masks, using a procedure that measured the avoidance response latency to take food from a masked human experimenter. Human perception of the masks was also assessed using a rating scale, with results showing that a Bill Clinton mask was rated not scary, while a Vampire mask was rated very scary. Animal results showed that primate latencies correlated significantly with the human ratings, while non-primate latencies did not….

The stimuli were primarily thirteen Halloween masks (Figure 1, panels 1-13) with eyeholes that allowed the masked experimenter to clearly look at the test animal. In addition, a human wearing no mask was used as a control stimulus for zoo animals only (E2, see below, Figure 1, panel 14).

1. Bill: a relatively normal human face, with a small grin showing a few teeth.

2. Al: a relatively normal human face, with a big grin showing lots of teeth.

3. Joe: an ugly human face, with frowning eyebrows and a down-turned mouth.

4. Mike: a normal but completely expressionless white human face, with disheveled hair.

5. Gorilla: a normal black gorilla face, with a grinning mouth showing a few teeth, and disheveled hair.

6. Scream: a white human skull, with glaring eyes, a cut-off nose, and a wide open mouth showing no teeth.

7. Quiltman: an abnormal brown human face, with patches of face material in strange patterns, resulting in several eyes, ears, noses and mouths.

8. Sewage: a skull-like whitish-green scaly human face, with frowning eyebrows, a cutoff nose, and a wide open mouth showing teeth.

9. Hair: a green ape-human face, with a grinning mouth showing teeth, and a lot of hair.

10. Martian: an olive-green skull-like human face, with glaring eyes, a cut-off nose, a grinning mouth showing teeth, and an expanded brain case.

11. Big-Mouth-Closed (BMC): a greenish reptile-like scaly face, with frowning eyebrows, pointed ears, and a closed mouth showing large canines.

12. Big-Mouth-Open (BMO): a brownish reptile-like scaly face, with frowning eyebrows, and a wide open mouth showing large canines.

13. Vampire: a grayish human-like face, with frowning eyebrows, an open mouth with very large canines.

14. The control face of E2 (see below): a normal human face with a slight smile.

At the very end of the paper, the authors seem to suggest replicating the study on kinds of animals, including trained dolphins.

Taking the MIQ to new levels

There’s a famous un-PC rock&roll musician’s gag from the 1980′s . . .

Q. “Which is more intelligent, a drum-machine or a drummer?”

A. “A drum-machine. You only have to punch in the information once.”

Jokes aside, the heated scholarly debate rolls on (and on) about whether a machine can ever be truly ‘intelligent’. Perhaps it might help to resolve matters if there was a reliable method to measure a device’s ‘intelligence’ – say, a washing machine for example? And some researchers believe there is. In the same way that the Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test purports to quantify human intelligence, perhaps the Machine Intelligence Quotient (MIQ) could attempt to measure machine intelligence.

[NOTE: Improbable has not been able to determine the exact origin of the phrase MIQ, but it was certainly in use as early as 1995. See this introduction to 'Neuro-Fuzzy and Soft Computing' by professor emeritus Lotfi Zadeh ]

Various research teams have attempted to implement an MIQ test. For example Zeungnam Bien, Yong-Tae Kim and Se-hyun Yang of the Dept. of Electrical Engineering, at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) who presented a paper in: Proceedings of the WAC (World Automation Congress)’98, Albuquerque, NM USA, Vol. 8, May 1998, pp. 275-280 ‘HOW TO MEASURE THE MACHINE INTELLIGENCE QUOTIENT(MIQ) : TWO METHODS AND APPLICATIONS’. [sorry, no link at present] The team not only took forward the development of the MIQ idea, but also, as a proof-of-concept they describe their procedure to measure the MIQ of a washing machine.

“ln this paper, definitions on intelligent machine and machine intelligence are suggested in the viewpoint of both oncologists’ [sic] and phenomenologists’ and, based on these definitions, the novel measurement methods of MIQ are also proposed in both viewpoints.” [They mean ontologists]

Fifteen years on, however, there is still no industry-wide standardised MIQ test. One reason might be lack of a median benchmark.

QUESTION: If an averagely intelligent person is deemed to have an IQ of 100, then what machine could be used as as a standard for MIQ 100? As always, Improbable looks forward to readers’ suggestions.

[The photo shows an LG 'Truestream' washing machine – MIQ unknown.(picture courtesy user Puramyun31 at Wikipedia). LG sponsored the KAIST study.]

Editorial correspondence: Rejection

From time to time I share some tiny part of our vast, varied editorial correspondence. It’s again time. This note arrived today (I have redacted details that might identify the author):

Dear Mr Editor,

I wish to submit my research paper “[REDACTED]” to your journal. I hope my paper is suitable for publication.

I already submitted a paper to AIR about 13 years ago (“[REDACTED]” or something like that): it was refused and answer came 8 minutes after submission. In that circumstance I did congratulate with the editor for this incredible speed, and it was answered to me that (in line with your original policy, I have to say) you were working hard to try and respond even before a paper was submitted. So I did wait some 30 minutes before submitting the attached paper, but I did not receive any answer, so in the end I decided to submit the paper, even if this was rather disappointing to me.

Best regards

[REDACTED]

I replied, a few hours later:

Hi [REDACTED].

I am sorry to be so slow to reject it this time. Consider it rejected.

The idea is funny, but the article did not make me laugh (or think). The most basic problem: [REDACTED]. Most of the [REDACTED] are not in the characteristic patterns that one expects from [REDACTED].

So… better luck next time!

Marc

A bit about spudcans

Today’s Technical Word of the Day is spudcan.

What’s a spudcan? A spudcan, answers Answers.com to that question, “is the foot on a leg of a ‘Jack-up’ type oil platform.” This short, possibly exciting video is about a spudcan—specifically about a Tarzan spudcan on a gorilla-class rig:

This next video shows a driveby of a gorilla-class rig:

And this third video shows Tarzan, who is related to spudcans only in name:

“And what of penetration resistance?” you may ask. For info on that, consult this study:

“Penetrometer-Based Assessment of Spudcan Penetration Resistance,” Junhwan Lee, Mark Randolph, Journal of Geotechnical Geoenvironmental Engineering, 137 587 2011.Epub 28 October 2010. DOI: 10.1061/(ASCE)GT.1943-5606.0000469. (Thanks to investigator Tom Gill for bringing it to our attention.)

 

The Influence of Time of Day on Unethical Behavior

What time is it? That simple question gains new meaning in this study:

“The Morning Morality Effect: The Influence of Time of Day on Unethical Behavior,” Maryam Kouchaki [pictured here] and Isaac H. Smith, Psychological Science, epub October 28, 2013. (Thanks to investigator Cheryl Isley for bringing this to our attention.) The authors, at Harvard University and the University of Utah, explain:

“Are people more moral in the morning than in the afternoon? We propose that the normal, unremarkable experiences associated with everyday living can deplete one’s capacity to resist moral temptations. In a series of four experiments, both undergraduate students and a sample of U.S. adults engaged in less unethical behavior (e.g., less lying and cheating) on tasks performed in the morning than on the same tasks performed in the afternoon. This morning morality effect was mediated by decreases in moral awareness and self-control in the afternoon. Furthermore, the effect of time of day on unethical behavior was found to be stronger for people with a lower propensity to morally disengage. These findings highlight a simple yet pervasive factor (i.e., the time of day) that has important implications for moral behavior.”

PR headline of the week: Prof Finds No Support for Evil Genius Theory

This week’s Press Release Headline of the Week appears in a press release issued by Longwood University in Farmville, Virginia:

Research by Longwood professor finds no support for “evil genius” theory

Here is a photograph of the professor standing next to a statue of a former President of the United States of America:

 

BONUS (unrelated): Publicity for Evil Genius Beer

Big Dogs Bark Deeper (than small dogs)

With the video above in mind, here’s an hypothesis (or, if you prefer, a hypothesis) :

• Do bigger dogs (by and large) have longer, more voluminous vocal tracts? And, if so, might they bark with lower notes?

The hypothesis was broadly confirmed in a comprehensive 1999 experimental study by investigators professor Tobias Riede and professor Tecumseh Fitch, and which was published in The Journal of Experimental Biology, 202, pp. 2859–2867

VOCAL TRACT LENGTH AND ACOUSTICS OF VOCALIZATION IN THE DOMESTIC DOG (CANIS FAMILIARIS)

The team examined x-ray images of 12 dogs of various sizes, measuring the Vocal Tract Length (VTL). They also recorded the same dogs’ growls. (“Growling was induced by staring into the dog’s eyes.”) Subsequent comparisons of the two datasets revealed distinct correlations :

“… we have found clear evidence that vocal tract length is correlated with body size in domestic dogs, despite the apparent variation in skull and vocal tract shape induced by selective breeding. As predicted by acoustic theory, vocal tract length was inversely correlated with the spacing between formant frequencies, which means that formant spacing provides a reliable cue to body size [log(body mass)] in the sample of dogs studied here.”

In other words, not only is it possible to predict (with reasonable accuracy) that a large dog will have a low(ish) ‘voice’ – but the reverse is also true – if you hear a low-pitched bark, its likely to have originated in a big dog.

Note: The study was preceded by another from professor Fitch which found that the same effect applies in rhesus macaques (“… and probably many other species.”)

Skeletons Not For Halloween: Another Example

Our annual reminder that not all skeletons are suitable for use as Halloween costumes:

“Penises as variable-volume hydrostatic skeletons,” Diane A. Kelly, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1101, 2007: 453-463.