Quote: (Otterman @ 21 Aug. 2008, 17:20 )
Quote: (nealhunt @ 18 Aug. 2008, 15:00 )
For those that remember Alan, she's Zoe now, even though the name of the blog is still "aebrain". I'm afraid I'm clueless about the politically correct protocol.
Sorry for being so dense here, but are we talking transgenderification? If so, that is kind of a head-scratcher for appropriate protocol.
Yes, that's it. His blog is all about hard-wired gender identity research.
I've known people post-transition and that's no problem because that's the only way you've ever known them, but I've never known anyone before/after. Luckily, he's quite open about it so I'm pretty sure anyone who knew him from back in the day could just contact him and just be polite and apologize up front for any lapses.
Incidentally, he wrote an article that I still recall because I thought it was so cool. He was working with a group designing missile defense systems and they set up a design optimization process using sexual reproduction and evolution models. Basically, they wrote a bunch of computer model scenarios to defend against and programmed a bunch of missile systems with different attributes - "spray and pray" versus precise target acquisition, lighter projectives and volume versus lower, etc. - then ran them through the scenarios. The ones with the best survival rates were "bred" so their traits were reinforced and the others discarded.
They also tried different combinations of sexes - mutation from a single sex, 2, 3, and I believe 4 sexes. As it turned out, 2-sex reproduction produced the most efficient evolution. He couldn't release any of the missile results, but he was able to write an article on the sexual reproduction model.
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PS. Sorry for the total thread hijack.