Thursday, August 28, 2008

Obama's Nomination Acceptance Speech

If you watch Fox for news and Comedy Central for comedy OR believe Barack Obama is an Unpatriotic Marxist Muslim Hopemonger not born in these United States of America, Either your brain or your parents have failed you ;) reading further could only help! for hard words, use google on the series of tubes we call the internets!

Barack Obama's Nomination acceptance speech tonight was concise, informative, and very forward looking.

The Pundits are saying he should be more hard hitting against McCain, and I agree for some individuals he and the democratic party must do this. But for thoughtful and intelligent citizens, he just has to list out what he is going to do and how compared to what McCain wants to do. Which he has done extensively. Those who say he hasn't either haven't read his material or haven't listened to Barack Obama.

He obviously understands that we need an aggressive revolution in our educational system and energy framework(by implementing renewable energy acquisition/distribution networks, especially solar power).

I also like how he said that improving our education system doesn't just involve increased funding of our public schools (increased salary and affordable teaching technology can do wonders), but also the involvement of parents in their kids' life. A child in an environment that celebrates ignorance and induces children to watch tv for 4+ hours a day will create zombies of apathy who allow power-hungry ultra-religious(as in abolish separation of religion/state) nut jobs to get into office. When will they learn separation of religion/state is there to protect religious freedom.
(note: all science-fiction or political satire is exempt from this as it induces thought and invention ;)

For specific implementation details of all the plans Obama has laid out. see their official document below.

http://www.barackobama.com/pdf/ObamaBlueprintForChange.pdf

I would like to construct a small budget analysis for at least 2 major components of Obama's planned policy below (education,energy). note: we could have been doing this for the last 8 years.

Current Bush Executive Governmental Body:
- Iraq war: 200 billion/year

Under Obama led Executive Governmental Body:
-Continued American Elite Forces in Iraq: 10 billion/year
-Education Reform: 10 billion/year
-Energy Reform: 15 billion/year

Also, here are some weekly/monthly pod casts that Obama would do to help inform people of policies and decisions he was making and WHY.

http://obama.senate.gov/podcast/

my background: I am a computer scientist who graduated college after being raised in the foster care system. Individuals who devoted their lives to the foster care system placed me in loving homes. I agree that sometimes people are in really shitty situations, and "have no boots to pull themselves up with". Having a government implemented safety net allows those individuals to succeed and contribute back to society.

I also agree in the belief of the individual and the responsibility one must take for him/herself in order to improve one's own state of being (as well as those around them).

I am excited about Obama not because of his speeches, but because of the policies he has laid out, and the thoughtfulness with which he has done so. (the podcasts are great if you aren't into speeches)

[Stewart & Colbert for President - 2016]!!

note: No Fox News viewers were injured in the making of this blog.

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Death? and Taxes

[Death? and Taxes]


welcome, you have stumbled upon the web site of bryon fitzgerald bowers
Benjamin Franklin once wrote, “...nothing is certain but death and taxes
but I would like to suggest that if he lived today,
his scientific mind might have questioned part of that statement
although, it would appear I am either insane or highly optimistic,
I can assure you I am sane, and highly skeptical by nature
- required premise of above statement: I am sane ;)

My Plan for Immortality

Many people have asked me why 'on earth' would I like to live forever.

wouldn't I get bored? (This always comes before ethical over population question...are we all bored of life? Is it that bad?)

shouldn't I worry about over population of the planet?

If I get bored, I can simply let myself die.

As far as over-population is concerned, this is a problem we will have to deal with very soon, whether individuals live indefinitely or not.

I believe necessity is the mother of invention and that we will figure out creative ways to live on our planet with the resources at hand. (Control how many children we have, colonize other star systems..etc..)

Also, eventually we have to leave the planet since the Sun will burn out (in 6 billion years or so), might as well do it sooner than later...

[also, just found out the moon will leave Earth's orbit in about 1 billion years, causing earth to spin wildly, of course we could put rockets on the moon to keep it from departing orbit, but better safe than sorry :)]

the Origin of my Crazy plan to Live Forever

long story short, the future fascinates me, and indefinite life extension is one way to get there. I am a computer scientist by trade, so I tend to view solutions to problems in terms of manipulating autonomous machine states.

So I started to ask whether a human body could be repaired like we repair computers when a part goes bad.

This question initiated my quest for a pragmatic workable approach to identifying and preventing human aging (hopefully within my own lifetime)


Possible Plans of Action (very broad)
Plan A:

I would like to participate in the capturing (and enhancement) of the human brain. I then hope to store my own neural configuration in a robust storage mechanism. In order to capture the human consciousness, the molecular processes which contribute to the function of the many different kinds of neurons (brain cells) must be discovered, formalized, and manipulated in order to capture and store the human brain. There has been much research in this field, and here are a minute number of sites relating to the theories of information storing mechanisms of the human brain. (more to come)


Plan B: [the pro-life version ;-)]

An alternative to storing my brain in a non-destructable format would be to contribute to the development of a cure for cellular aging, or Senescence. With the advances in molecular analysis of what we are made of, we are starting to view the human body not as a magical black box, but as a machine composed of trillions of cells being driven by underlying molecular processes working in concert. These underlying molecular processes control our aging process. I would like to contribute in whatever way I can to discovering, formalizing, and manipulating these processes in order to control (hopefully prevent) the individual human expiration date. Here are a minute number of sites which contain some known information about these molecular processes. (more to come)


My Credentials:
  • I have a Bachelor of Sciences degree in Computer Science from the University of Texas at Austin
  • I have only been briefly introduced to Artificial Intelligence and Networks via Academia.
  • I am currently working towards obtaining a degree in Biochemistry from the University of Texas at Austin. However, because of cost and the fact that I have a full time job which is not related to this area of study, this process will be very slow. As I attain a more formal education (either self-taught or academia) in the molecular processes of the human body, I hope to be able to contribute to 'Plan A' and 'Plan B' effectively within the next 10 years.
  • Addendum: I have attained a job with a domain of knowledge in the biological sciences, and have started my quest for immortality...still no flying cars..