Comments

I think that Tlalim is visionary to use Wiimotes this way. I am either too old to appreciate his music or the reproduction was weak, or he lacks much innate musicality. I'm headning to iTunes Store to see what he sounds like at a higher bandwidth. As an old EE, I would probably have a variety of mods, and reserve wiimote 8 for moving through them. For example, one might include a distortion guitar, sax and drums, while another could include a strings, woodwinds and brass ensemble. By using more raw noise (this sounds like sampling with the wiimote modifying the pitch and volume) I think he sacrifices true musicality in a misguided attempt to go avante-garde. Another alternative is to sample instruments and then mod from there--but not wind, jet airplanes or audio feedback.

I was an AP biology teacher In 1993. Back then I asked a friend who was a doctor if some gut microbe couldn't be engineered to deliver insulin. He laughed. He said the naturally occuring bacteria are too well adapted to share space with a suboptimal organism. I countered that we could start with a patient's own flora, but he said simply adding or deleting anything would render it suboptimal. In 1997 we attended a lecture on genetic medicine at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, the doctor was very sharp and forward-thinking. He said these avenues are "interesting but beyond our reach at present." In 1999 my wife graduated with a B.A. in microbiology and almost every honor her university confers. Her signature position was that we view microorganisms the wrong way--a very small percentage are pathogens, while a large number are symbiotes--that we need to learn to work with them. Anyway, I asked her to mention my idea to her faculty. When she did, she was ridiculed by the full professors, tolerated by the more recent Ph.D.s, and taken quite seriously by the M.S. level instructors and graduate students. I'm gratified that she stuck with it long enough for us to learn that tenure often seems to impair the mind! Fast forward to 2008. People are actually talking about my idea; while her idea is far more important. This plethora of Antimicrobial products not only threatens our personal micro-biomes, but it also accelerates resistance. These products should be tightly controlled lest we really do produce superbugs: PATHOGENS! It's great if we can get friendly bacteria to do good things for us; it's terrible if we end up killing them off every time we use soap, toothpaste, lotion or even drink water!

Economics and Game Theory are about trade-offs: costs vs. benefits. Punishments should be an "incentive of last resort." Rewards tend to get the job done much better. Unfortunately, it seems like every economic problem involving networks becomes intractable, but I don't think this one must. When a truck arrives at the local store, it should return to its base loaded with tons of empty reusable packaging containers. High quality reusable containers could and even should cost about as much as whatever they contain. Something like this plan works wonderfully here in Germany--though the return values need to be higher to assure better compliance. The initial start-up costs include the actual deposit money (typically paid by customers, but potentially offset by a government grant for a start-up period), more durable packaging, perhaps some additional semi-trailers, and a rethinking of transportation networks. Presently numerous tractors ferry trailers carrying diverse loads to multiple stores. If a "localized distribution center" model is adopted, each store would get a single trailer as often as needed. This trailer would be unhitched at the store and a "returns" trailer would be attached. The returns trailer would be loaded with all the reusable materials the store had collected since it's last delivery. Then the store workers would unload the trailer as needed and replace the load with recyclables. Such a scheme would reduce the need for warehouse space which offsets the additional cost for trailers. Larger stores might receive three trailers, one each for meats/produce/dairy, frozen items and everything else. The great challenge in packaging will be to remove control of the industry from packaging companies who make the most money from disposable packaging. Or we could just penalize severely for making disposable materials. Another system that could be better developed is bulk foods and customer-owned packaging. Bulk foods are far cheaper than individually packaged foods. If this model seems strange, consider how we buy meat at a butcher, most things at a deli or bakery, produce normally almost everywhere (though sadly the produce model is changing). All presently follow the bulk foods model. Without a doubt, the packaging industry makes BILLION$ polluting our environment and squandering our resources!