Julian's Polymath Explorations

Last updated May 2023 Q: "How is aging a disease?" A: It's a dynamic system that veers away from its homeostasis (normal equilibrium point): hence a form of slow-progressing illness. Labeling it as 'natural' is a surrender to our traditional state of ignorance and powerlessness, which fortunately is beginning to be changed! Aging is "normal" only from the point of view of the "selfish gene", for whom the body is a disposable carrier. Individuals organisms - for whom self-preservation has a different meaning than for genes - have received scant help from evolution... with rare exceptions such as the T. dohrnii jellyfish (which I discuss here )... but now the time has finally arrived for our rational design to remedy some of the cellular flaws that evolution never bothered to correct!   The above is my standard answer to an oft-asked question. The science of aging is by all evidence very misunderstood by the general public.  Hype,...

Time for the opening shot of a series about Semantic Technology , and in particular contrasting-and-comparing the opposing (but perhaps ultimately complementary) camps of:   RDF Triple Stores , aka Triples-Based Graphs.   For example, Blazegraph or Apache Jena   (Labeled) Property Graphs .  For example, Neo4j or Blazegraph (For this article, I'll assume that you have at least a passing acquaintance with both.  Here is background info on Triplestores and Property Graphs ) It’s my opinion that modeling in terms of Subject/Predicate/Object triples (aka RDF ) might be appealing to mathematicians or philosophers for its minimalist foundation (though a lot of baroque add-on’s quickly come out of the closet!) Modeling in terms of (Labeled) Property Graphs might be appealing to computer scientists, because such graphs appear more usable and less clunky once you start actually doing something with them. Perhaps because I straddle both the Math and CS camps...

“Education is the kindling of a flame, not the filling of a vessel.” -Socrates.  [UPDATED Mar. 2021] Acquiring knowledge has been a hobby of mine since 4th grade, so it's no surprise that I'm the proverbial "kid in the candy store" when it comes to online courses!   As of writing, I have followed over 20 so far, and trying to decide what the next one will be... Utopia or Dystopia? You ever find yourself imagining the future, and wondering whether it'll turn out to be “utopian” or “dystopian”? Well, the state of higher education in the United States is decisively dystopian , with its absurdly ballooned costs and runaway student loans (a “bubble” that may burst sooner or later, mark my words!),  BUT there’s a counterpoint that is decisively utopian , namely the explosive rise of free online courses 😊 Here’s a brief 2012 Ted talk about the rise of free online courses , dated but still of interest. The gist of that TED talk is that online learning has com...