Curing Human Aging: The Engineering Approach

Bookmark: Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS): A practical way to cure human aging

The simple explanation:

... [O]ur ultimate goal is the availability to the entire human race of technology that will restore them to whatever degree of youth they desire and keep them there for as long as they want. That's a bit stronger than simply "a cure for aging" -- it says that the cure should be available (at a price that they can afford, of course) to absolutely anyone who wants it. ... [W]hat "youth" means for our purposes is physical robustness and vitality.

The less-simple explanation:

SENS is a detailed plan for curing human aging. SENS is an engineering project, in the same way that medicine is a branch of engineering. The key to SENS is the appreciation that aging is best viewed as a set of progressive changes in body composition at the molecular and cellular level, caused as side-effects of essential metabolic processes. These changes are therefore best thought of as an accumulation of "damage", which becomes pathogenic above a certain threshold of abundance. The traditional gerontological approach to life extension, namely to try to slow down this accumulation of damage, is a misguided strategy, firstly because it requires us to improve biological processes that we do not adequately understand, and secondly because it can even in principle only retard aging rather than reverse it. An even more short-termist alternative is the geriatric approach, namely to try to stave off pathology in the face of accumulating damage; this is a losing battle because the continuing accumulation of damage makes pathology more and more inescapable. Instead, the engineering (SENS) strategy is not to interfere with metabolism per se, but to repair or obviate the accumulating damage and thereby indefinitely postpone the age at which it reaches pathogenic levels.

World's First Commercial Spaceflight: June 21

According to Slashdot, the world's first commercial spaceflight on June 21 will send one lucky pilot over 100km above terra firma.

I'm so glad this is happening in my lifetime. Moonbase One, here I come.

Canon EOS 300D Digital Rebel Tips and Tricks

Bookmark: Canon EOS 300D Digital Rebel Tips and Tricks

There's some tips in here that apply to other digital cameras, like using a cheap drugstore ear syringe to replace an expensive dust blower and using cheap cellphone hands-free kits to replace expensive remote shutter release cords.

It's also nifty to read about the firmware hack that nearly turns a ~$800 camera into a ~$1,250 camera, in feature-set terms. I haven't developed my view on this matter fully, but my initial reaction is to say that I don't like companies that create products by crippling existing ones, as is the case with the Digital Rebel. To wit, from Slashdot:

Canon has so far said little on the hack but certainly cannot be happy with its potential effect on sales. This is, however, a reality that more corporations are having to confront. In an era where programming labour is relatively cheap and computer connectivity more frequent can artificial, marketing-driven, barriers between technology products, last?

But then a possibly good point ...

Canon has so far said little on the hack but certainly cannot be happy with its potential effect on sales.

That arguement is rediculous. What part of Canon's market that will shell out for that camera will apply this hack? Probably almost none of it, if they can find it or understand it. So that leaves the likes of the slashdot crowd, and that really isn't a big enough group to put a dent into Canon's sales.

... followed by another, contrasting, possibly good point:

What part of the normal music market will learn to download MP3s off the internet? Probably almost none of it, if they can find or understand them. So that leaves the likes of the Slashdot crowd, and that really isn't a big enough group to put a dent into cultural acceptance. Oh wait...

Ha!

Ooh, I'm Excited ...

... that I may finally have made a good gadget purchase decision. Casio has already released a firmware update for their Exilim Pro EX-P600 camera I plan to buy. Quick firmware updates for brand-new products usually mean the company means to support a particular model (as opposed to just plopping it down in the market), and I'm happy as a clam.

(Via Photography Blog)

iPodding Your Way Past Social Critique

Gizmodo:

Apple's silhouette iPod ads have been far more pervasive than anyone probably imagined, and now thanks to an anonymous New Yorker (or, more likely, New Yorkers) armed with a Sharpie the posters have become a platform for expressing the various feelings of hate, jealousy, passion, and, yes, poetry, that the tropical-hued advertisements and their white audio sperm inspire. Starting with the same argument levied against the iPod's great uncle, the Walkman, the phrase, "The "i" in iPod stands for isolation," was scribbled on the first ad, replicated down the line with "irrational," "insecure," and other iWords taking the place of "isolation." Deep! Ironically, the people that felt the need to parley an mp3 player into social critique are exactly the people we wear headphones to avoid.

Joel Johnson has been getting cheekier and cheekier, and his gadget-lust site Gizmodo just keeps getting better as a result. If he'd just cut the unnecessary profanity (seen in other posts), all would be good and right in the world.

Jon Stewart's ('84) Commencement Address

Jon Stewart's Commencement Address:

It begins:

Thank you Mr. President, I had forgotten how crushingly dull these ceremonies are. Thank you.

My best to the choir. I have to say, that song never grows old for me. Whenever I hear that song, it reminds me of nothing.

Bookmark: Slashdot | Teaching History In Schools With Video Games

Slashdot | Teaching History In Schools With Video Games

I've always thought history should be taught in reverse chronological order -- start with an event relevant to the day's students, then explain what happened on the way there.