Cordial Deconstruction

Observations from our shared single objective reality in a materialistic, naturalistic, & effectively macro-deterministic universe.

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Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 17 Season 4 Everything In its Right Place

Posted by Karl Withakay on April 7, 2012

A Gold/Yellow Episode

As always, an episode synopsis will be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent

What’s With the Cow Clothes?

What was the deal with cow wearing boots and cow sized FBI jacket and ball cap?  At first, I though maybe NerdLee was having a weird dream.

How Badly Did Astrid Screw Up in the Past?

Broyles:

“Not to diminish Agent Farnsworth’s assignment, but liaison duty is more of a formality, part of our mutual cooperation agreement.”

and also Broyles in response to NerdLee after NerdLee explains why he thinks it’s useful for him to do the job:

“You’re more important to me here on this side.”

Here we have more evidence that Astrid is assigned menial and unimportant duties not considered worthy of even relative newcomer agents.

Absolutely No Texting While Driving

…But video playback on the driver’s information console is just fine.

Universal Differences

In the Alterverse, the fictional Gotham City billionaire playboy turned superhero is Mantis instead of Batman.  Does that mean that Mantis exists as some alternate character in the Alterverse?

Also in the Alterverse, it seems that Millard Fillmore is on a fairly high denomination of currency.  Considering that we have already seen that Newt Gingrich is on the hundred, Fillmore seems likely to be on the fifty or perhaps they still issue five hundred dollar bill in the Alterverse.

Foreshadowing or Telegraphing?

I’m not sure how the writers could have made it any more obvious that Captain Lee was going to die and be quasi-replaced by NerdLee (who will probably end up in a relationship with Fauxlivia).  If you hadn’t already figured it out before the conversation between Lee and NerdLee about how irreplaceable Lee was, that conversation should have sealed the deal for you.

Gun Notes

With all the differences between the universes, it’s interesting to note that the tactical team in this episode was carrying the exact same HK MP5 submachine guns equipped with ACOG scopes, tactical lights, and laser sights that the team in our universe used in last week’s episode.  Fauxlivia used some variant of Kalashnikov type rifle to take out the sniper.  Based on the size and shape of the magazine, it was likely chambered in 7.62X51mm /.308 Winchester.

It Didn’t Go Wrong This Time, but…

Isn’t it about time both Fringe teams got together and hammered out a shapeshifter protocol?  You know, with obvious things like never leave a wingman/ team mate, and if a team mate is ever out of sight of another team member, they need to be examined to be sure they weren’t replaced.

Minor Computer Pet Peeve

“If we can hack this mainframe…” Not all big, important , or powerful computers are mainframes.  Mainframe computers are mostly used in large scale business applications, and they aren’t nearly as widely used as they once used to be.

Where is Mentat Astrid’s Mojo?

Shouldn’t Menat Astrid have been able to put together all the pieces and figure out that Colonel Broyles is a shapeshifter by now?

Posted in Fringe, Gold/Yellow Episode, Science, Television | Tagged: , , | 11 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 16 Season 4 Nothing As it Seems

Posted by Karl Withakay on March 31, 2012

A Gold/Yellow Episode

As always, an episode synopsis will be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent

Probably Not, But…

Would anybody else not be surprised if Olivia’s shrink turned out to be a doppelganger?

Note: Agent Must be Restricted Exclusively to Fringe Cases

Olivia’s eroding memories of her life from this timeline seriously compromise her value as an FBI agent.  It’s not particularly unlikely that a defense attorney would discover her memory issues during deposition, and use her unreliable memory to get any testimony given by Olivia thrown out of court.

Plot Convenience Theater #1

Was the whole point of the birthday presents was just to give Peter an excuse to hug Walter, thus symbolically and literally embracing this timeline and its inhabitants as his own?

Quote of the Show

Walter:

“I like porcupines.  It [sic] shows that God has a sense of humor.”

How Many Supervisors’ Dogs Did Astra Back Over Anyway?

I have previously speculated that Astrid must have done something really bad in the past to be relegated to her current assignment, and this episode just reinforces that opinion.  Astrid has several years of seniority in the Fringe division over newcomer NerdLee, but Nerdlee is given temporary lead of the team instead of Astrid while Olivia is away from the team.

Oh Yeah, by the Way, Maybe I Should Have Mentioned Before That There Might Be Another Monster Out There

Peter remembers the details of the case in his timeline down to the flight number, but doesn’t bother to mention that that Marshal had an also infected partner until they are at the TSA, wasting valuable time in tracking down the 2nd dangerous mutant-hybrid porcupine man.  Did it not seem important to mention that little detail back in the lab?

NerdLee, Prototypical Perfect Fit For Fringe Division

NerdLeee waits for about five seconds after knocking on the door before deciding to break in without a warrant.  How many people answer a knock on their door in less than 5 seconds?  Maybe the person was asleep or in the bathroom or basement.  My rec room is in the basement, and it takes me about 25 seconds to get upstairs and answer the door, and that is assuming that I instantly drop whatever I am doing to go answer the door.

Call Einstein, Somebody Broke the Law of Conservation of Mass-Energy

The guy from the plane turned into a giant porcupine man in the TSA bathroom and apparently grew much physically larger in the process without consuming anything to account for the increased mass.

Onion Rings and Cheesecake?

Fat craving, infected NerdLee craves bacon, onion rings and cheesecake, but not peanut butter.  Peanut butter is pretty high in fat, why is he not interested in peanut butter?  If he only craved animal fat, why the desire for onion rings?  Did he only want onion rings if they were fried in animal fat?

Sure Looks Strange to Me

What’s better than a killer mutant-hybrid giant porcupine man?  A flying killer mutant-hybrid giant porcupine man.  However, for a creature of that size and weight it would probably need much larger wings to generate enough lift to fly.  It wasn’t likely built of the lightweight, hollow bone construction that birds have, so the wings would need to proportionally much larger than bird wings are.

Does Walter Still Own Massive Dynamic in this Timeline?

Because he could be rich if he isn’t already.  His ability to simulate the final product of the porcupine man infection from nothing but a blood sample from NerdLee is nothing shot of miraculous.

But It All Looks Cool

The team that went after the second porcupine man was equipped with HK MP5 submachine guns equipped with Trijicon ACOG 4X scopes (which they were not using), visible laser sights, and tactical lights (which they were also not using).  Although the four power magnification ACOG is an excellent combat scope and can be used in close quarters combat, it is not ideal for such short range situations, and a 1X/no magnification red dot sight is much better suited for such close ranges.  Also, if the team was going in dark like they were, it would make more sense to use invisible infra red laser sights and compatible infra red night vision systems.  I’ll give them a pass on the whole laser beams being visible (like a phaser beam) rather than just seeing the end point since that’s typical Hollywood.  I’ll also give them a pass on using laser sights, since this context, where the darkness and wearing of the bulky night vision systems makes sighting through the weapons’ sights problematic, is one of the few situations where laser sights are actually somewhat useful.

Exclusively for the Search Engines

My Google-fu returns no hits on “sleeping Indian defense”.  Admittedly, I did a simple search and didn’t spend any time on variations of the search terms.

Plot Convenience Theater #2

If you want to go in silently, then use earpieces/headsets for your radios; don’t cut yourself off from team communication.  Also, if you’re really concerned about going in silently, silence your cell phone, or there’s no point in going in silently.  Obviously the whole point in turning the radios off was to make it difficult for Olivia and Astrid to relay a critical piece of information to NerdLee.

Posted in Fringe, Gold/Yellow Episode, Science, Television | Tagged: , , , , , , | 8 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 15 Season 4, A Short Story About Love

Posted by Karl Withakay on March 23, 2012

A Gold/Yellow Episode

As always, an episode synopsis will be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent

Down the Rabbit Hole or Not?

Interesting that at the start of the episode where we later learn (or confirm) that this is Peter’s native world, the song White Rabbit by Jefferson Airplane was playing in Walter’s lab.

Someone Read an News Article They Didn’t Really Understand

While researchers at MIT have been able to create a one trillion frame per second video that allows them to capture the motion of a light pulse, it is not a device that can be used to slow down existing video from other sources, nor can it see individual light particles as Walter described.  Half of slow motion video is playing back the video at a slower frame rate than it was recorded at, but the other half is that the slow motion/ high speed video is recorded at a much higher frame rate than normal video, in order to capture motion that would not be recordable at the regular frame rate.  It’s not at all difficult to play back video as slowly as you want; the problem is recording the video fast enough in the first place.

Look at it this way, the video from that nanny-cam bear would have been recorded at a standard frame rate, likely no more than 60 frames per second, and so a frame of video would be captured every 1/60th of a second.  If an observer moved rapidly across the picture in less than 1/60th of a second, he either wouldn’t even be in the picture, or would just be a blur across the frame, no matter how slowly you played the video back.

Also, even if Walter had a one trillion frame per second video recording from the bear, if he slowed it down to play back at 60 frames per second, it would take 528 years for Walter to watch just one second of video, and he would need a the same amount of memory in the bear as would be required to store 528 years of video recorded at regular speed.  The video of the light pulse recorded by the MIT researchers represents just a miniscule fraction of a second of real time action.

WTF?

After Walter removes the message lens (for lack of a better description) form Peter’s eye and analyzing it, the following conversation takes place:

Walter:

“I suspect that this message, if left alone to run its course, would have fully dissolved, taking its place firmly in your mind’s eye.”

Peter:

“You think this would have etched itself into my brain?”

Walter:

“Organic ocular suggestion.  You wouldn’t be aware, but you be irritably compelled to visit.”

On one hand, it seems like the idea behind the message lens was that being overlaid over his eye, it would present the address as a subliminal message.  His conscious mind would not notice the address, but his subconscious mind would see it.  This idea is fairly implausible as the address would be way too close to his eye to be in resolvable focus, but this is science fiction after all, and though it’s pretty outlandish, it’s not that bad of a science fiction element.  But from what Walter says, it sounds like he is saying that the process of the message lens dissolving is what would cause it to be absorbed into Peter’s “mind’s eye”, which might be worse than the time Walter captured the last image seen by a murder victim.

Pull My Finger

I’ll just quote Wikipedia here, “…no pheromonal substance has ever been demonstrated to directly influence human behavior in a peer reviewed study.”  There is as yet, no conclusive support for the existence of human pheromones.

Extra, Extra, Read All About it!

Some of the headlines on the newspapers on the wall in September’s apartment were:

MEN WALK ON MOON

LAST U.S. MARINE AIRLIFTED FORM EMBASSY IN VIETNAM

PRESIDENT KENNEDY KILLED

GREAT EARTHQUAKE

Home Sweet Home

As many of us have suspected, this is indeed Peter’s world, and this is his Olivia.  It remains to be seen how or if it will all be reconciled.  Will Walter forever be without the last four years he and Peter shared together?  Will Olivia loose her memories of her relationship with Nina?  How will the Alterverse come into play for all this?  Will there be a season five?

Not E’l Nina

Blair Brown herself has dubbed the evil Nina “Meana”, so when she appears in future episodes, I will use that moniker to refer to her.

Posted in Fringe, Gold/Yellow Episode, Science, Television | Tagged: , , , | 4 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 14 Season 4, The End of All Things

Posted by Karl Withakay on February 24, 2012

A Gold/Yellow Episode

As always, an episode synopsis will be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent

Dumbest Quote of the Show

NerdLee:

“You know that’s impossible”

Why would anybody that has seen even a small fraction of the things the Fringe team has dealt with ever say that anything was impossible?

Now We Need a Name for Evil Nina

It seems that this is the Nina from the Alterverse and not a shape shifter, though it’s still possible that it is a shape shifter that has replaced the alternate Nina.  Until someone comes up with something better, I will call her E’l Nina for Evil Nina.

Can You Lend Me a Hand?

Did Jones replace E’l Nina’s hand with a robotic prosthetic just to make her match Nina?  How devoted a follower is E’l Nina?  Are we sure she’s not a shape shifter?

Storage Terminology Nitpick

Peter twice referred to the flash memory card as a disk.  It would be OK to call it a drive, but a flash memory card is not a disk.

Did You Wipe When You Were Done?

There’s a problem or two with Peter’s recovery of older images form the flash drive.  The first is that flash memory is different from magnetic disks.  If you completely over-write a magnetic disk, it is can still be possible to recover the old data because there may be a residual magnetic signature of the old data left behind, much like with a palimpsest as Walter mentioned.  This is why a “government level wipe” requires multiple passes of over-writing every bit of data on the drive, although now even that is considered insufficient and it is recommended to degauss the hard drive, effectively destroying it. (Note:  Some maintain that one pass is sufficient with modern drives.)

However, a flash drive is a bit different, and I don’t know if transistor based flash memory can have residual traces of over-written data like magnetic disks can if you completely wipe and over-write the entire drive even one time.

Even if you could recover residual data from a flash drive like you can with a magnetic drive, Peter stated that the drive recorded in 60 minute loops*, and this is the second problem.  If we assume that 60 minutes was all the flash card had room to hold and not that it had room for hundreds of hours of video, but for some reason was configured to only buffer 60 minutes, then every hour, the entire data set would be over-written.  The drive would receive the equivalent of 24 full pass wipes every day, and it would be essentially impossible to recover any data more than a few hours old.

*  I’m guessing that the purpose of the local storage of the video loop was to buffer the recording in case the connection to wherever the camera was sending its data was temporarily interrupted so that no data would be lost.

Mama Said Knock You Out

Another minor nitpick:  Did you ever notice that nobody ever seems to suffer from post concussion syndrome (other than maybe a headache immediately after regaining consciousness) after being knocked unconscious in the movies or on TV?

Clear As Mud

It seems the show is being deliberately vague and ambiguous as to whether this is or isn’t Peter’s Olivia.  Peter seems to again believe it is not, but September never stated that it was not Peter’s Olivia or that this wasn’t Peter’s native/proper multiverse.

Posted in Fringe, Gold/Yellow Episode, Science, Television | Tagged: , , , | 11 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 13 Season 4, A Better Human Being

Posted by Karl Withakay on February 18, 2012

A Gold/Yellow Episode

As always, an episode synopsis will be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent

Spur Your Memory

As far as I know, DNA profiling done for criminal investigations doesn’t involve photographically imaging the chromosomes.  If we accept that that the Fringe team does produce images of the chromosomes, then it’s plausible that Walter would remember and recognize the “chromosomal spur” from Shawn’s chromosome images.

A Stand of Truth

Calling a chromosome a “strand of DNA” is roughly analogous to calling a ball of yarn a strand of yarn or a spring a strand of wire.  A chromosome is a piece of coiled DNA that is technically a strand of DNA , but when I hear the term strand used, I usually think of something that is unwound.

I  Spy With My Little Eye…

Apparently Walter can eyeball two DNA profiles at different times and determine from memory that they share a single common parent and only a single common parent.  You certainly couldn’t tell that from images of the chromosomes, even if you over-layed the two images.

Far More Likely Than Winning The Lottery, but Still…

Before the learning of the Doctor’s genetic involvement, Walter should have been very suspicious of 4 different half siblings sharing a common, rare chromosome.  If it is rare, we can assume the common parent carried only one copy of the rare chromosome, and had a 50% chance of passing that chromosome to any individual offspring.  The odds that 4 children of that parent would all inherit the rare version of the chromosome is 1 in 16 or 6.25%.

You Keep Using that Word.  I Do Not Think it Means What You think it Does.

“There are many cases of siblings communicating non–verbally, typically identical twins, but not always.”

Yes, deaf siblings do it quite often.  It’s called sign language.  Most siblings, even the ones who can hear and speak will frequently use non verbal communication, such as facial expressions, hand/arm gestures, groaning, sighing, poking, shoving, etc.  Depending on how you define verbal communication, writing, emailing, texting, Facebooking, and Tweeting could all be considered non verbal communication as well.

However, if Walter is talking about telepathic communication, The James Randi Education Foundation will pay one million dollars to anyone who can demonstrate such an ability under controlled testing conditions using a mutually agreed upon protocol.  The paranormal challenge has been in place since 1964, and has been worth $1,000,000 since 1996.  To date, nobody has ever gotten past the preliminary test.

Science!

I’m not sure what the point of looking at Olivia’s hair sample under a microscope was.  Can you see evidence of cortexiphan in a hair sample under a microscope?

Cool Science

“Many forms of non-verbal communication exist in nature.  Eels use electrical pulses.  Whales use echolocation, elephants use seismic vibrations.”

Electric eels (which I learned while writing this are not eels, but knife fish) produce two different types of electric discharges.  One is high voltage used for hunting and defense, and the other is a low voltage discharge thought to be used for both location and communication.

However, I think Walter is confusing whale sounds (which includes echolocation) with echolocation used by toothed whales, dolphins, and porpoises.   As far as I can tell, echolocation is not used for communication.

While elephants do use the soft underside of their feet to detect low frequency sound, I’m not sure that these sounds could reasonably be called seismic vibrations, as seismic means relating to or caused by earthquakes.  The next time an earthquake happens, be sure to shush the elephants.

Actually, if you think about it, non-verbal communication is really the norm in nature, as only humans use verbal communication, whereas all other forms of communication used in nature by other life forms and humans are non-verbal.  In fact, up until a few million years ago, all communication used on Earth was non-verbal.

Are We So Sure the Drugs Were Bad?

Yes, he didn’t have schizophrenia, but maybe the drugs did help Shawn maintain his identity and protect him from succumbing to the collective identity.

Typically, but Not Always

Recombinant DNA is usually made of DNA from two or more different species, but it doesn’t have to be.

Where Did You Go to Evil Medical School/ Did you Go to the Same School as Walter?

“I promised them successful pregnancies and healthy babies, and that’s what I gave them.”

The good doctor doesn’t seem to understand what was fundamentally wrong with what he did.  What he did was illegal and unethical for numerous reasons.  First and foremost from an ethical viewpoint, he violated informed consent, which is one of the most fundamental concepts in medicine.  In medicine, a patient must be properly informed of the nature and risks of what is being done to them so that they make an informed decision of whether to consent to the treatment or not.  You’re especially not allowed to experiment on people without their knowledge.  Oh yeah, and there’s all those laws he broke as well.

Übermensch

Dr. Owen Frank:

“I attempted to re-introduce abilities that we humans have long since evolved away from, the hard wired instincts that we share with other animal species.”

Olivia:

“And that would include telepathy?”

Frank nods and grunts in acknowledgement

A few points here.

First, species don’t generally evolve away from traits that confer a survival benefit.  If humans had evolved away from a trait, it would have likely been because that trait was no longer beneficial.

Second, why would you want to re-introduce hard wired instincts?  Surely one of the advantages of being human is to be able to think rationally (though you might not know it during an election year) and not just react instinctively.

Third, is either Olivia or the doctor saying that

A.) Humans once had telepathic abilities,

and/or

B.) we shared those abilities with other animal species?

Confidentiality

Considering the doctor has no regard for ethics or the law, I guess I can’t really harp on him for sharing confidential medical records with the Fringe team without either a warrant or signed consent of the former patients.

Is it Live, or is it Memorex?

So, was Nina pretending to be held prisoner with Olivia, or is the Nina running Massive Dynamic a shape shifter?

Posted in Fringe, Gold/Yellow Episode, Science, Television | Tagged: , , , | 9 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 12 Season 4, Welcome to Westfield

Posted by Karl Withakay on February 11, 2012

A Gold/Yellow Episode

As always, an episode synopsis will be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent

It’s Probably Safe and Not at All Laced with Drugs

Peter and Olivia are either brave or stupid.  I don’t think I’d ever drink anything Walter prepared in his lab, even if I watched him prepare it.

The Machine

I still can’t believe anyone would let Peter and Walter play around with the destroyer of universes machine.

Steel Frames?

Just a note:  I checked every pair of glasses I’ve had in the last 25 years (which I still have for spare parts purposes), and none of them have frames that are attracted by a magnet.

Electromagnetism, Where to Start?

Wow, I don’t really fell like writing a primer textbook on electromagnetism, electromagnetic fields, magnetic fields, magnetism, electromagnetic force, and electromagnetic interference, but holy cow, the writers need to understand that these terms are not synonymous and the concepts are not interchangeable.

Only in Bizarro Wolrd (or Fringe Land)

Broyles:

“Approximately three hours ago, every vehicle on this stretch of highway inexplicably lost power”

Olivia:

“Could be some sort of interference.  Are there any high frequency towers around?”

What is Olivia smoking?  If all it took to shut down vehicles and electronics was a high frequency tower, any future wars would have to be fought steam punk style.

It Must Have Been a Rental or a Cab

Luckily Walter just happened to find a car that still used steel hubcaps, and didn’t have aluminum wheels or aluminum or plastic hubcaps like most vehicles these days.

May the Force Be With You #1

Walter:

“On the contrary, it seems that the electromagnetic force in this area was increased dramatically.”

I think Walter meant to say either the magnetic field strength or the electromagnetic field strength increased dramatically.

This is Heavy, Man (Or Not)

Walter:

“I didn’t think that those levitating effects that the witnesses described were the result of a change in gravity”

Well, that fact that only ferromagnetic materials (and only fairly light ones at that) levitated might have been a clue to that as well.

May the Force Be With You #2

Walter:

“It was strong enough to leave a residual magnetic force in all metal objects in the vicinity.”

As a scientist with expert knowledge in this field, Walter would never speak those words.  What he should have said was that the magnetic field was strong enough to permanently magnetize all ferromagnetic materials in the area.  It’s absurd and nonsensical to say a residual magnetic force was left behind, and it wouldn’t have magnetized non-ferromagnetic materials.

Olivia Dunham: Keen Instincts Finely Tuned by 4 Years on the Fringe Team

After finding the payphone out of order, having no cell phone signal, and having just left the scene of a strange electromagnetic phenomenon that lead to a plane crash, it should have occurred to Olivia that the area might be dangerous, and that it might be a good idea to run back to Peter and Walter and get the heck out of town ASAP.

Turn Around, Bright Eyes/ You Spin Me Right Round

Peter:

“You must have gotten turned around some place.”

Um, how do you get turned around without making a turn?  No turn was shown, and you can tell from the sound inside the card that the car never slowed to make any turn.

I Need More Power!

Peter should be smart enough to know that you can’t just hook up a generator to a radio and boost the signal.  All he would have ended up doing is frying the circuitry of the radio.  Even if he tried to re-wire the radio, the components likely wouldn’t have been able to handle the extra power.

Apocalypse 101

I wouldn’t have given Walter a gun either, but I wouldn’t have left those two shotguns behind either.  You can always use a few extra guns in the apocalypse.  It’s always good to have a spare or two in case one breaks, or you lose one.  Also there’s the important concept of the hand out gun- a spare gun you can give to any new found survivors so they can help defend the group.

Guns for Beginners

If the teacher really had never used a gun before, one of the worst guns Peter could give him would be a hand gun.  It’s actually fairly difficult to be effective with a handgun, even at close ranges.  I don’t have a source handy, so take this with a  grain of salt, but most handgun fights take place at about 7 yards distance, and most shots miss. (think about that for a few seconds)  While a shotgun does not have the spray radius shown in the moves and video games (figure about a 1” diameter pattern for every yard from the muzzle for buckshot from 18” un-choked barrel), it’s still far easier to hit something with a (stocked) shotgun (or any long gun) than with a pistol, especially for a beginner.

But it Sounds Cool…

Of course, when possible danger approaches, Peter cycles the action of his shotgun.  Knowing he was headed into a dangerous situation, Peter should have already had a round in the chamber to allow a faster reaction time in case of surprise.  Either we wasn’t ready, or he just wasted a shell by ejecting it when he cycled the action.

Division Error

Walter’s hypothesis/speculation about rapid mitosis being responsible for the duplicate body parts was barely superficially sensible.  If it was accelerated mitosis:

-I wouldn’t expect new, duplicate parts so much as growth/ enlargement of existing parts.

-I really wouldn’t expect new tooth growth and especially not a complete duplicate set of teeth.

-I would think that the accelerated cell metabolism required for the rapid cell reproduction would require extra energy (food) intake to fuel it.

-If new teeth had grown in so rapidly, I would have expected severe pain from the teeth forcing their way through existing tissue to the open.

-I would also expect the possibility of quickly developing cancers from the extremely rapid cell division.

Was Causality Broken Too?

Peter to Olivia:

“Let Walter test your blood too.  It’s the only way you’re going to know for sure.”

Art this point, Walter has not yet established if there is anything special in the victim’s blood, so he doesn’t yet know of a way to determine if someone is or will be affected or not.

Biology 101

Walter:

“I found 92 chromosomes in her DNA.”

Again, as a scientist with expert knowledge of human biology, Walter would not speak this sentence.  Chromosomes are made up of DNA, they are not found in DNA   Walter should have said he found 92 chromosomes in (each of) her cell nuclei.

It’s Easy if you Try

I don’t know how powerful amphilocite is supposed to be, but we can peg an extreme upper limit on it.  Amphilocite is likely a chemical energy source, which has a far lower energy density than a nuclear power source.  Antimatter-matter reactions are the highest energy to mass yields that are possible to get, and using Einstein’s E=mc^2, we can figure out how much energy would be released from 1 kg (~2.2 lbs) of antimatter reacting with 1 kg of matter, and that number is 43 megatons.

If amphilocite’s energy is chemical in nature (or even nuclear), we can expect it has an energy density several orders of magnitude less than antimatter, but even if it was antimatter, although 43 megatons is a huge amount of energy, it is still 7 megatons less than the largest nuclear bomb ever detonated.  Considering Jones collected about 100 pounds of ore, we can expect that 100 pounds yielded significantly lass pure material, so I can’t believe he could produce an amount of energy from it so large that Walter couldn’t have imagined such an energy source, even outside of amphilocite.

What’s Your Vector, Victor?

Walter:

“The sum of opposite and equal vectors is zero.”

Actually, you can’t have two vectors that are simultaneously opposite and equal, as a vector has properties of both magnitude and direction.  If they are in opposite directions, than two vectors are not equal, though they can be of equal magnitude.  Again, Walter should know this and not speak this way.  The sum of two vectors of equal magnitude and opposite direction is zero.

Automobiles 101

First of all, is possible to have fuel injection without electronics.  The 1957 Corvette was available with a mechanical fuel injection system, and the WWII Messschmitt bf109 fighter plane was available with a mechanically fuel injected engine as well.  There were other even earlier instances of mechanical fuel injection

Secondly, though few cars in the 1970s featured electronic fuel injection, electronic ignition was standardized by Chrysler in 1973 and by Ford and GM in 1975, and so most cars from the 1970s would not function, contrary to what Olivia said.

Pepper Spray 101/ It’s Not aPhaser

At that distance, Peter would have undoubtedly gotten some pepper spray in his eyes and lungs, and, the rest of the people in the enclosed bus probably would have been somewhat affected by the spray as well.

Abandon Bus!

It looked to me like there was plenty of room on either side walk for that bus to drive on one of them and that it wasn’t necessary to continue on foot when road was blocked.

Blind Peter

Peter is still completely oblivious as to how his leaving might affect Walter, in spite of the fact that they are clearly growing closer to each other.

Posted in Fringe, Gold/Yellow Episode, Science, Television | Tagged: , , , | 19 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 10 Season 4, Forced Perspective

Posted by Karl Withakay on January 28, 2012

A Gold/Yellow Episode

As always, an episode synopsis will be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent

Occam’s Razor

Broyles:

“The Spanish Flu, isn’t that extinct?”

Olivia

“Well, the last reported epidemic was in 1919, which makes him a minimum of 91 years old.”

Setting aside Olivia’s deficiency in basic math skills (it is 2012, not 2010 right?), and the fact that the last reported epidemic doesn’t matter as much as the last reported case, what’s more likely, that there’s a man over 93 years old that appears to be about half that age, or that a man managed to expose himself to a virus that wasn’t been circulating in 93 years, but is not truly extinct.  Samples of the Spanish Flu have been recovered from the bodies of its victims and used in research in laboratories fairly recently.   It’s at least as likely, if not more so (to anyone unfamiliar with the nature of the observers, at least) that the man in question had been exposed to the Spanish Flu in one of these laboratories.

HIPPA HIPAA Violation?

So health services informs Broyles of Olivia’s visits without any concern for confidentiality or HIPAA violations?  Do Fringe agents have to sign a waiver/release to allow their supervisors to have access to confidential, personal medical information?

Observer Bias?

Do the Observers’ ability to see/experience all possible futures include those that may result from Peter’s tinkering with The Machine, or is The Machine a confounding variable even they have trouble accounting for?  They didn’t anticipate Peter continuing to exist/ returning after the last use of the machine.  Maybe Olivia doesn’t have to die, after all.

I Be Jammin, Man

It’s a good thing the Fringe team somehow knew that the bomb was triggered by a coded signal rather than just any signal on the frequency.  If the detonator was more primitive, like my old radio controlled car I had as a child, their attempt at jamming could have easily triggered the bomb.

Major Plot Problem

It seems the whole point of the bomb in the truck in the garage beneath the building was that it wouldn’t be possible to get a bomb past the building security check point.  How then did Albert get his vest bomb and detonator through the check point, and why did he bother with the truck bomb at all, since the vest bomb rendered it redundant, and it was less precise than the vest bomb?

By Definition, His Actions Demonstrate He is Ready to Die

Given Albert’s deliberate, premeditated, and well planned actions, and the fact that he had been foreseen to have actually carried out his plan, Olivia’s statement, “I’m not ready to die, and I don’t think that you are ready to die either.” don’t seem too well thought out, but given the situation and the need to think fast, I’ll give her a bit of a pass on not making too much sense there.

I Never Really Loved Mom or Danny

Father:

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

Emily:

“I knew you’d be here.”

She supposedly also knew her mom and brother wouldn’t be there.  I guess she didn’t care about saying goodbye to them.

Stroke Me, Stroke Me…

Peter

“They said it was some kind of stroke.”

Olivia:

“Yeah, the overload of electrical activity in her brain was just too much.”

Excessive electrical activity in the brain is called a seizure.  A stroke is an interruption of the blood supply to the brain.  Somewhere terminology is getting messed up by someone.  I suppose that the earlier mention of her brain “drawing” elevated levels of oxygen and blood could be interpreted to imply elevated blood pressure, which could lead to an aneurism, which could result in a hemorrhagic stoke if it ruptured, but it wouldn’t be due to any overload of electrical activity in the brain.

Plot Conveniently Unpreventable

How can Walter be so sure that Emily’s death was unpreventable?  Nobody ever mentioned any previous attempts to use drugs to suppress Emily’s ability.  It seems at least plausible that either drugs or surgery could be used in an attempt to suppress her precognition.  Both drugs and various forms of surgery have been used to treat epilepsy (which is what you call it when someone has a neurological condition that causes chronic seizures) with varying degrees of success.

Thick as a Plank, or Just Not Pushing It?

Is Peter really that dense that he accepts Olivia’s protestation that she hasn’t been contacted by an Observer, or is he just letting it slide?

Posted in Fringe, Gold/Yellow Episode, Medicine / Health, Science, Television | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 9 Season 4, Enemy of My enemy

Posted by Karl Withakay on January 20, 2012

A Gold/Yellow Episode

As always, an episode synopsis will be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent

Kids in the Hall Tactics

Jones uses a Kids in the Hall tactic to show he’s not one to be trifled with.  (Tactic first used at about 40 sec in the vid.)

But How Many of Them Were Just Facebook Friends?

NerdLee: “I lost a partner”

Peter: “I lost a universe”

Of course, Peter probably didn’t know everyone in his lost universe/timeline personally.

We’ve Got Him Right Where He Wants Us.

In regards to releasing Jones, Walternate says, “Obviously we’ll be keeping him under constant surveillance.”   Did it not occur to anyone that since Jones has been two steps ahead of them the whole way so far, that he might already have a plan to escape that surveillance?

It’s all About the Newts

In case you didn’t catch it, in the Alterverse (in this timeline at least), Newt Gingrich is on the $100 bill.

Does this Timeline Have a Spinal Tap?

Olivia missed an opportunity for a Spinal Tap reference by finishing the line “On a scale from one to ten…” with “a lot.”  instead of “eleven.”

Can I Get One of Those?  Pretty Please?

I know the situation is unusual, but shouldn’t NerdLeed at least asked Peter if he had ever used or even handled a gun before handing him one like it was a party favor?  Frankly, if Peter had told him the truth about some of the previous times he had used a gun on his Fringe team, NerdLee might have been a little more reluctant to arm Peter.

The Only Ship in the Quadrant

I know they didn’t have much time to assemble a team, but I would have expected more Fringe agents on the team that went to the quarry, plus some snipers and a few helicopters maybe.

Minor Observation

Olivia must have stopped her SUV before the portal closed because the remaining half  tire and wheel were oriented with the flat side facing forward, indicating they did not roll at all after being sliced in half.  If the SUV was still in motion at the time the portal closed, I would expect the tire and wheel would have continued to roll until that the flat side was on the ground.

A Refined Observation

Fauxlivia said Jones must have at least 100 pounds of the mineral.  For her to be able to estimate that, she had to know or estimate the following:

1        How much material Jones collected.

2        The average concentration of the mineral in the sample collected.

3        The approximate yield of the process used to refine the raw ore into a usable form.

Posted in Gold/Yellow Episode, Science, Television | Tagged: , , | 4 Comments »

Deconstruction Review of Fringe, Episode 8 Season 4, Back to Where You’ve Never Been

Posted by Karl Withakay on January 13, 2012

A Gold/Yellow Episode

As always, an episode synopsis will be found over at Scott’s Polite Dissent

No Fringe Event Science to Deconstruct

This post is going to be somewhat short as I didn’t find very much worthy of Deconstruction.  It was a good episode, but there really wasn’t much fringe science to deconstruct and the episode focused mainly on laying the groundwork for the rest of the season.

Is There a Picture of Peter in the Dictionary Next to the Word Selfish?

Wow, not only does Peter not care whatsoever about the cold war between the two universe’s in this timeline (“not my fight”), but he’s willing to use the machine and risk destroying both universes, and killing about 12 billion people on the two Earth’s combined (depending on how many in the alterverse have lost their lives in Fringe events) in addition to whatever civilizations on other worlds might be wiped out, just to get back to his native timeline, assuming it still exists (which he can’t be sure of).

Here it is, Item 317, Destroyer of Worlds: Aisle 5, Top Shelf, Next to the Printer Paper

If the use of Walter’s portal device was the cause of all the Fringe events in the first place, why would Olivia ever consider using it to recon the other side (or help Peter), especially now that both sides have been stabilized?  Wouldn’t it be kept under very tight security, and not just kept “in storage”?

We Have a New Automotive Sponsor

Remember the days when product placement was just a product being used in a show, but not necessarily in an obviously, in you face kind of way?  Neither does Nissan.

Quote of the Show/ But was it Just to Watch Him Die?

NerdLee:

“Just out of curiousity, if this thing closes while I’m still crossing through, what happens?”

Peter:

“It’ll cut you in half.  I killed a guy like that once.  Eh, Don’t worry, he was a bad guy.”

This Was Not Among the Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men.

Apparently  the Fringe team needs to employ an eight year old child to let them know when they’ve come up with an incredibly bad plan.  Their plan to have NerdLee pass for Lincoln Lee and escort Peter to Walternate had more holes in it than Swiss cheese.

-What if Lincoln Lee had been at Liberty Island at the time?

-What if they needed a password or code (Shapeshifters are in play after all.)

-What if handprints were not identical across universes, just like they are not identical between identical twins? (Maybe that was previous established, and I’m forgetting.  Even still, Lincoln could still have a scar on his palm that NerdLee dosen’t)

-What if they required the Show Me? (Shapeshifters are in play after all.)  Not having a plan for dealing with the universally required  Show Me was a total non-starter, end of story; go back and start over and tell me when you have a real plan.

I could go on, but you seem my point

It Wasn’t a Problem This Time, but…

Neither Olivia nor Fauxlivia have yet figured out not to separate from their partner.  In addition to all the things that tend to go wrong when that happens, WE’RE DEALING WITH SHAPESHIFTERS THESE DAYS!  There should be protocols in place for what to do if you ever lose sight of your partner.  Admittedly, the Alterverse Fringe team members are just starting to realize the shapeshifter threat to their universe, but it’s still a bad idea to abandon your wingman and be without backup.

Posted in Fringe, Gold/Yellow Episode, Product Placement, Science, Television | Tagged: , , | 4 Comments »

Cordial Deconstruction of Neil deGrasse Tyson’s SIUE Talk

Posted by Karl Withakay on December 8, 2011

EDIT 12-12-11  I encourage you to read the comments at the end of this post, including one by Neil deGrasse Tyson himself!  Based on some of the constructive comments and criticisms I’ve gotten here and on Facebook, I’m backing off on the average criticism a bit, but I am leaving it in the post for the purpose of integrity and not pretending like I didn’t say something I did say.

Some of my friends and I went to see Neil deGrasee Tyson speak at SIUE last night (12-7-11).  His talk was very somewhat similar (~25% the same) to his keynote address given at TAM 9 from Outer Space last July, and he made a couple of statements (one of which was repeated from TAM9) that I thought were worthy of a little Cordial Deconstruction.

I know it seems disingenuous to preface a criticism of someone by stating how much you like them, but I’m still going to preface this with the statement that I’m a big fan of Neil deGrasee Tyson, and relish every opportunity to hear him speak, but I did have  problems with a couple of the things he said last night.

An Average Mistake

Dr. Tyson went through a series of slides showing statements made by various people that demonstrate a lack of understanding of science and or mathematics, but his criticism of one of the statements was not very well thought out, in my opinion.  I don’t remember the exact quote, but the essence of the statement was “half of all students are below average”, and Dr. Tyson’s criticism was that this statement was so definitively self obvious as to not require stating.  He said that it was kind of the whole point of average, and that half of any sample would always be below average since average represents the middle.  I know Dr. Tyson understands the concepts of median, mean, and mode, but in spite of that, he apparently didn’t think through his criticism of the statement in that slide.  He made the same point at TAM9, and he apparently hasn’t revised it since then.  It’s just not correct to say that half of any set will always be below average.

Before I can go any further, we have to determine what someone means when they say average.  The most common use of that term is in regards to the arithmetic mean, which is when you add up all the values and divide by the number of values.

I’ll use a simple hypothetical situation with math simple enough to be done without a calculator.  Let’s say I administer a ten question exam to ten students.  Nine students score a perfect 10, and one student scores a perfect 0.

The mean score is 9 ((9*10+0)/10).  In this example using mean for average, 1 student (10%) of the sample scored below average, and 9 students (90%) scored above average.

Sometimes, one might be referring to the median value when they use the term average.

From Wikipedia:

 “Median is described as the numerical value separating the higher half of a sample, a population, or a probability distribution, from the lower half”

By definition would seem to fit Dr. Tyson’s statement.

However, I see two problems here.  Firstly, while it may not be technically incorrect to intend median when referring to the average value, the typical understanding of what is meant by average is the arithmetic mean.  In my opinion, in order to avoid confusion, the use of the word average with general audiences should usually be restricted to refer to the arithmetic mean, and one should say median when they mean median.

The other problem is that even median doesn’t always result in half of a given sample being below average.

Also from Wikipedia:

“At most, half the population have values less than the median, and, at most, half have values greater than the median. If both groups contain less than half the population, then some of the population is exactly equal to the median.”

In the above example, when following the rules used to determine the median value, it comes out to be 10.  Using median for average, 10% of the students are still below average, while 90% are average, and nobody is above average.

There are other things that one could intend when using the term average, such as mode, but these uses would be even more uncommon and really need to be specified when intended.

Initial Mistake

Dr. Tyson also made what in my opinion, was an even grosser misstatement regarding the New Horizons probe to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt.  (To clarify, it was unquestionably a factual misstatement; it is my opinion that the severity of this misstatement is larger than that of his comment about averages.)

He stated that New Horizons was the fastest thing we had ever sent anywhere, and it would eventually overtake the Voyager probes as the most distant man made objects from the Earth.  This is factually incorrect, though there is a grain of truth at the heart of this statement.

While it is true that the New Horizons probe achieved the highest launch velocity of any craft so far, left Earth faster than any other mission or probe, and had the highest initial solar escape trajectory, it neither has the record for highest maximum velocity (the Helios probes hold that distinction), nor is it traveling faster than Voyager 1.  While New Horizons had a higher initial velocity than Voyager 1, Voyager’s velocity was boosted by gravitational slingshots with outer planets to a higher final velocity than New Horizon’s, and New Horizons will never overtake Voyager 1 as the most distant man made object form the Earth (or Sun).

Footnote Acknowledgement of Personal Fallibility

Normally, when I Deconstruct something, I like to be able to review it several times, so I can be sure my Deconstruction is valid, and I am not missing something that would invalidate my criticisms, but the talk last night was live, I can’t review a video of it, and I didn’t take any notes. (Notes would only help me remember things I noticed at the time and would not allow me to look for things that I may have missed anyway.)  As a result, this post was written based on my recall and understanding of what Dr. Tyson said last night (and last July), and is therefore subject to various limitations that could leave me in error in regards to my Deconstruction of the two points discussed in this post.  I therefore acknowledge the possibility that I may have misheard, misunderstood, or improperly recalled the points put forth by Dr. Tyson, and I could be off base on one or both of my criticisms, which is one of the reasons why I allow commenting on my posts, and I invite any relevant commentary anyone might have to add.

Posted in Criticism, Science, Space, TAM | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 10 Comments »

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