The Conversations of Doomed Men

I read this last night, and have found myself strangely moved and preoccupied with it ever since.

Popular Mechanics has a transcription of the black-box record aboard Air France Flight 447, the plane which crashed into the Atlantic Ocean on June 1st, 2009, killing everyone on board.

What's very interesting is that they recount the conversation between the two co-pilots who were flying at the time, and intersperse it with descriptions of what was actually going on with the plane as the discussion took place.

Let me quote the part of the article that is most puzzling:

The Airbus's stall alarm is designed to be impossible to ignore. Yet for the duration of the flight, none of the pilots will mention it, or acknowledge the possibility that the plane has indeed stalled—even though the word "Stall!" will blare through the cockpit 75 times. Throughout, Bonin will keep pulling back on the stick, the exact opposite of what he must do to recover from the stall.

I quote that much merely to encourage you to read it all- if I quote more, I am going to do injustice to just how strange it is to read the whole transcription. So you should definitely read the whole thing. And when you're done (and only then), come back and read the rest of my thoughts below the jump:

Global Warming FTW

Apparently scientists have found well-preserved bone marrow from a woolly mammoth.

Why is this a big deal? Because it means that they now might be able to clone one, by implanting the mammoth DNA inside an elephant. The claimed time frame is five years. I'm guessing there's a margin of error there, but it sure is cool.

And how did they get access to this pristine specimen?

Warmer temperatures tied to global warming have thawed ground in eastern Russia that is almost always permanently frozen. As a result, researchers have found a fair number of well-preserved frozen mammoths there, including the one that yielded the bone marrow.

That's right, when you're riding around town on your pet woolly mammoth in 10 years time, be sure to thank the guy driving around in the Hummer. Glorious consumption AND prehistoric animals brought back from the dead!

The article also ends with one of the most hilariously lame warning notes I've read in ages:

Is it such a good idea, however, to clone animals that have long been extinct? For a while there's been some discussion of a real life Jurassic Park setup containing such animals. Introducing these beasts into existing ecosystems could be like bringing in a potentially invasive species that would try to fill some space presently held by other animal(s). Even if the cloned animals were contained in special parks, there could still be a risk of spreading.

Yes, because when I think 'invasive species', my mind immediately turns to ... woolly mammoths. You know, if one gets loose in Oklahoma, it'll just start reproducing like crazy, and we'll never be able to track them all down. Because Lord knows it's not easy to spot an elephant-sized prehistoric creature walking around - people may confuse it with, say, a minibus or a carnival ride. And it might end up filling the niche in the ecosystem currently occupied by the Bald Eagle, the Atlantic Salmon or the Prairie Dog.

Here's my red hot prediction - everybody's concerns about 'Jurassic Park'-style scenarios are going to evaporate within two seconds of the birth of the woolly mammoth, as they realise how awesome it is to have crazy prehistoric animals walking around again.

Phrases that I challenge ANYONE to explain the logic behind

(After the plane has landed):

"You may now use your cell phones but all other electronic devices must remain off."

Gotcha. Now we've reached the seventh circle of anti-scientific hell - my iPod might cause the plane to crash into the hangar, but when they installed a cell phone receiver to make it an iPhone, this somehow fixed the problem.

Ugh.

Sad But Timely

Thinking about Steve Jobs reminded me of this XKCD comic describing how cancer survival rates actually work.

This is why you can be cured of your pancreatic cancer, and still die a few years later.

The picture at the bottom is sobering - give it enough time and all the paths go off to the right, into that night which shall be yours, anon.

Steve Jobs, of course, was well aware of what this all meant:

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

...

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Feynman on Beauty in the Natural World

Richard Feynman discusses how science illuminates beauty in the natural world. There are additional videos where he discusses curiosity and honours.

It reminds me of Eliezer Yudkowsky's post on taking joy in the merely real - that there is more excitement in understanding how something works than in not understanding it.

As Eliezer wrote in a similar context:

I was pondering the philosophy of fantasy stories, and it occurred to me that if there were actually dragons in our world - if you could go down to the zoo, or even to a distant mountain, and meet a fire-breathing dragon - while nobody had ever actually seen a zebra, then our fantasy stories would contain zebras aplenty, while dragons would be unexciting.

Just so. The world is a fascinating place alright.

(via Jason Kottke)