Reading in the bath? You're doing it wrong!

Autonomous tech 'requires debate'

By Jason Palmer for BBC News

Wednesday, 19 August 2009

           

The coming age of lorries that drive themselves or robots that perform surgery is fraught with legal and ethical issues, says a new report. The Royal Academy of Engineering says that automated freight transport could be on the roads in as few as 10 years. Also, it says, robotic surgery will begin to need less human intervention. But it suggests that much debate is needed to address the ethical and legal issues raised by putting responsibility in the hands of machines. "We're all used to automatic systems - lifts, washing machines. We're talking about levels above that," said Lambert Dopping-Heppenstal of the Academy's engineering ethics working group. "It's about systems that have some level of self-determination."

Issues surrounding autonomous systems and robots with such self-determination have been discussed for a number years, particularly with regard to the autonomous machines of warfare. However, the era of autonomous road vehicles and surgeons is slowly becoming reality, making the issues more urgent, the report says. The removal of direct control from a car's driver is already happening, with anti-lock braking systems and even automatic parking systems becoming commonplace. But the next step is moving toward completely driverless road vehicles, which already exist in a number of contexts, including London's Heathrow Airport. The Darpa Grand Challenge, a contest sponsored by the US defence department's research arm, has driverless cars negotiating traffic and obstacles and obeying traffic rules over courses nearly 100km long. "Those machines would have passed the California driving test, more than I would have," said Professor Will Stewart, a fellow of the Academy. "Autonomous vehicles will be safer. One of the compelling arguments for them is that the machine cannot have an argument with its wife; it can run 24 hours a day without getting tired. But it is making decisions on its own."

Professor Stewart and report co-author Chris Elliott remain convinced that autonomous systems will prove, on average, to be better surgeons and better lorry drivers than humans are. But when they are not, it could lead to a legal morass, they said. "If a robot surgeon is actually better than a human one, most times you're going to be better off with a robot surgeon," Dr Elliott said. "But occasionally it might do something that a human being would never be so stupid as to do." Professor Stewart concluded: "It is fundamentally a big issue that we think the public ought to think through before we start trying to imprison a truck."

Just Finished Reading: Innocent Traitor by Alison Weir

England, 1537. Frances Brandon, Marchioness of Dorset, goes into labour with the hope of producing an heir for her husband. After a long and potentially dangerous effort she is disgusted to discover she has produced a useless daughter. Ignoring her new child she immediately hands her over to a wet nurse who dotes on the beautiful baby. In the first few years of life the child Lady Jane learns what it is to be the family’s unwanted eldest daughter. Groomed to be useful as a bargaining chip to be married off at the earliest opportunity neither of her parents notice that she is growing up to be an impressive young woman, in looks, in whit and in intelligence. Only her looks are considered as asset that can be used to snare a profitable match. When King Henry VIII finally fathers a male heir the Brandon’s conceive of their most ambitious plot yet – to seat Jane on the throne of England. But first they must scheme and plot to have her in the right place at the right time – and beat any resistance out of her in the process.

Such a brief synopsis does little credit to this tale of parental ambition in a very dangerous age. Not only are such schemes inherently dangerous in that they must overcome the schemes of others but such things can all too easily be seen as treason – a crime that all too often ends with the plotters heads on spikes on the walls of the Tower of London. If this was not enough in itself this is a time of religious upheaval when the new religion of Protestantism is in the process of ousting the old religion of Catholicism from centre stage. As each contender for the throne cleaves to one faith or the other the consequences of a ‘wrong’ monarch taking the throne would be calamitous to the opposing side. Weir is a world class historian who has turned her hand to the historical novel. In her first outing she impressed me with the feeling of realism that carries the reader through the book. Tudor England seems both alien and yet strangely familiar. I had a vague knowledge of the time gleamed from half-remembered school lesions and a smattering of movies, plays and documentaries of the period. I now think I know a lot more of what was going on in those very violent times. I never realised, until reading this novel, just how fraught with danger royal succession was. Backing the wrong contender could quite literally result in you losing your head. The tragic figure of Lady Jane Grey was one I had heard of but, again until reading this novel, I had no idea just how tragic her very short life really was. Pushed into a situation she clearly wanted no part in, her power hungry parents put her in an impossible position which resulted in dire consequences whilst she was still in her teens. Although I realised that children of the aristocracy where expected to grow up fast in those days I never realised that their childhoods were so compressed. Jane had an awful life – despite her very privileged background. In another time or place she might have made a real contribution to the world. Instead she was the victim of the ambition of others and paid the price for being a suitable bride for a future king.

I picked up Alison Weir’s third novel today on the strength of this book. It did feel a little heavy handed at times but generally I liked it very much indeed. It had a wonderful sense of time and place, very impressive characterisation and a very strong story to say nothing of a very strong central character in the guise of Jane herself. Highly recommended for anyone interested in the period or if you want a very fulfilling if tragic story to spellbind you.  

Cartoon Time.

Oh, great..... More rain......

Thinking About: The Lives of Others

I’ve been lucky so far in the people I work with. To date I haven’t had the misfortune of working with people I don’t like or even actively dislike. The present team I’m a part of is no exception to this. We are a diverse lot from very different backgrounds who have, over the past few years, gelled together as a highly effective project management team. Inevitably though there is somewhat of a fly in the ointment.

About half of the team seem to be inordinately interested in the lives of other people. In our periodic downtimes between the crises we handle on a daily basis, when the conversations regarding work have been exhausted, the talk often turns to the public and private lives of those we work with. Some members of the team seem fascinated with the fashion and hair colour choices of those around us, others speculate on sexual orientation and holiday destinations, others gripe about people who bend (or possibly break) in-house rules and seem to get away with it. I’m sure that when I’m not around they talk about me too – though I can’t imagine what they say. I doubt if I give them much to gossip about. Of course when everyone’s habits have been discussed to death (again) the conversation will inevitably move onto the latest celebrity goings on, who is shagging who, who is having who’s baby and the rest, then there’s so-called reality TV and conversations about what X was wearing and that they never liked them anyway. After 20-30 minutes of this I sometimes want to scream. With what else is happening in the world their focus on trivia (which actually gives trivia a bad name) astounds me. Maybe it’s because they don’t want to face what’s really happening out there. Maybe they just can’t think about it without going off the deep end – so it’s The Apprentice and My Big Fat Greek Wedding instead.

I do wonder if their lives are so empty that they need to incorporate other people’s lives into their own to add a bit of sparkle. But this can’t be true. They have lives – partners, families, young children and everything else that goes with it. Surely it should be someone like me who needs to wrap themselves in other people’s every day existence to add something more to their lives. On the contrary, I struggle to understand why anyone is really interested enough in the lives of total strangers to be hooked on Big Brother and all of the other relentless prime-time TV shows that bring so-called ordinary people into our homes. It wouldn’t be so bad if any of these people where actually interesting. As far as I can tell they are far from it. Maybe, as has been put forward to explain the Jerry Springer phenomena, it’s that watching people who are basically fuck-ups makes the viewing audience feel good because no matter how bad our lives get at least we’re not as bad as those people. Maybe that’s it? Maybe my life just isn’t too complicated, too boring or too frantic for me to need to relax in front of the Box while watching other people’s lives fall apart? Maybe I’m not watching the numberless mind-numbing ‘Talent’ shows because I know that most of the people simply don’t have the talent of a hamster. The shows are designed not to sift out the talented ones but for us, the audience, to laugh at those who don’t have talent but only think they do. This, I’m afraid, is what passes for entertainment in the 21^st Century and I will have none of it. But I digress……

The vast majority of people on this planet will forever remain strangers: Even those with thousands of Facebook ‘friends’ will remain ignorant of the lives of billions of other people. This is how it should be. The puerile interest in the failings, disasters and poor taste of people we will never meet and never know more than superficially through the medium of television honestly appals me. It panders to humanities baser instincts and we undoubtedly will regret the fact that we’ve let it become so pervasive. I have never understood the desire to poke and pry into other people’s lives and have no interest in doing so. It saddens me that so many people see this as entertainment. If this is human nature then I’ll be handing my membership card back – cut in half.     

Cartoon Time.

Killing in the name…….

“Religion resides in the heart and not in the body, which is why the swords of kings and princes cannot reach it. The church can no more be built by persecution and violence than a wall can be built by cannon blasts. Therefore to kill a man is not to defend a doctrine but simply to kill a man.”

Sebastian Castellio (1515 – December 29, 1563)

The very essence of cool......

Moons like Earth's could be more common than we thought

By Jason Palmer for BBC News

5 June 2011

About one in 10 rocky planets around stars like our Sun may host a moon proportionally as large as Earth's, researchers say. Using computer simulations of planet formation, researchers have now shown that the grand impacts that resulted in our Moon may in fact be common. The result may also help identify other planets that are hospitable to life. A report outlining the results will be published in Icarus.

Last year, researchers from the University of Zurich's Institute of Theoretical Physics in Switzerland and Ryuja Morishima of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in the US undertook a series of simulations to look at the way planets form from gas and smaller chunks of rock called planetesimals. Our own moon is widely thought to have formed early in the Earth's history when a Mars-sized planet slammed into the Earth, resulting in a disc of molten material encircling the Earth which in time coalesced into the Moon as we know it. The team used the results from their initial study as the input to a further "N-body simulation" to find out the likelihood that large-scale impact events could form large satellites in the same way. Their results showed that there is about a one in 12 chance of generating a system comprising a planet more than half the Earth's mass and a moon with more than half that of our Moon (taking into account the errors in the simulation, the full range of probabilities was between one in 45 and one in four). Sebastian Elser of the University of Zurich said the new estimates for the likelihood of Moon-sized satellites could inform the hunt for extrasolar planets. Such large moons can confuse the measurements that spot the planets, and knowing that large satellites may be common could make the measurements easier.

The cataclysmic impact that resulted in the Moon still presents a number of computational mysteries Also, our Moon has served to stabilise the tilt of the Earth's axis - or its obliquity - which could otherwise have varied drastically over relatively short time scales. That in turn would wreak drastic changes to the way heat from the Sun is distributed around the planet. It thus can be said that the Moon's presence made a more stable environment in which life could evolve, Mr Elser said. "Checking for the possibility of an obliquity-stabilising moon is a good thing if you're trying to find out how many habitable worlds are out there in the galaxy," he told BBC News. "But it's surely not the only one and not the most important." Eiichiro Kokubo is a planet formation expert who has published widely on the mechanics behind the development of both the planets in our Solar System and the Moon. He called the result an "interesting estimate" but cautioned that there are several as-yet unknown parameters "which greatly affect lunar formation and evolution and thus the probability of hosting a large moon". He told BBC News that, for example, it is still impossible to put numbers to the effects of a planet's initial spin before impact, or how the disc of material is formed and evolves after it. "I think we should take the paper as a trial calculation based on what we know about formation of terrestrial planets and moons today,"

[An interesting estimate indeed....]

That Summer feeling...............

Just Finished Reading: The Science of Battlestar Galactica by Patrick Di Justo and Kevin R Grazier

How could I resist? - after all I’m trying to read more science based books! So this seemed an ideal way to break back in without reading yet another VSI book. Those of you who have watched the re-imaged (and IMHO much superior) version of BSG will already know that, as much as possible, the science fiction elements of the story relied very much on real science. OK they threw in FTL ‘jump’ technology but that’s at least theoretically possible with a bit of imagination and a pinch of salt. Just about everything else is either within our present technology or understanding given enough time and effort.

The book itself – which contains many shots from the series as well as publicity shots – runs through the whole gamut of science from definitions of life (are the Cylons alive as we understand the term for example), to the possibility of ‘hive minds’, the ability (or possibility) of downloading memories, an interesting diversion into discussions about Cylon brain structures (and why the differences are so difficult to detect), how we could get from Colonial plus Cylon plus native to existing humanity (which will only make sense if you saw the end of the last series), the drugs used in the Colonial fleet, quite a bit of basic physics all the way up to Einsteinian Relativity, the problem with Gravity (both dealing with it in space and generating it on a ship), the basics of radiation, and the effects of nuclear weapons, explorations of the galaxy and the possibility of habitable worlds, the formation of planets, stars and black holes, various propulsion systems both sub-light and FTL (complete with equations), the problems of navigating across vast distances within our galaxy and much else besides. Subjects are discussed in enough depth to give you a good taste of things without getting too technical (OK, I skipped over the math) or too boring. Also throughout the book the link to the show itself is constantly referenced – helped by the fact that Grazier was the scientific advisor on BSG and works for NASA so knows his stuff.

This was a breeze of a read and informative both from the point of straight science and from the perspective of BSG so I found that I learnt stuff about both aspects which was nice. It’s an easy book to get into (though it helps being a fan or at least familiar with the show) and easy to pick up lots of information without too much effort. All in all a very enjoyable weekend reading experience. Recommended.      

Cartoon Time.

Just Finished Reading: Guernica by Dave Boling

Northern Spain 1935. On a drunken night out with friends in the small fishing village of Lekeitio, young Miguel Navarro attacks a member of the Civil Guard and has to flee for his life. He is sent to live with his uncle in Guernica where he learns a new trade and falls in love with the beautiful daughter of the town’s strong man. When he finally gets permission to marry her he cannot believe his luck. Meanwhile Miguel’s brother is hiding in France and becomes part of the local smuggling fraternity moving hard to find or expensive items over the porous boarder between the two countries. As the years pass and Spain slips into civil war times become hard and the local community begins to fracture. Then, on the fateful day of 26^th April 1937, their world is torn apart as German bombers of the Condor Legion use Guernica as an example of what airpower can achieve against undefended civilian populations. In the first example of its kind the town is bombed continually for several hours. Many lie dead or gravely injured and nothing is the same ever again.

By the time I reached the half-way mark in this amazing first novel I had already decided that it was the best book I had read this year. I honestly had fallen in love with a diverse and wonderful cast of characters. You hear people say that they couldn’t put a book down, that it gripped them so much that it was painful to turn their backs on the people they had developed such affection for. This is one of those books. After the awful attack in April ’37, described in just enough detail that I managed to keep my lunch down, things changed. With a jolt the focus was lost – or actually shifted – from Guernica and the families living there to the child refugees packed off to England for their safekeeping. For a long while I thought that the author had made a huge mistake taking his eye off the ball. I resented every page based in England that should have been based in the Basque Region. I mentally begged him to shift the focus back – and he did, sort of. The focus was now split between the refugees and the survivors, both coming to terms with their loss of home, friends and loved ones. In its own way it was as poignant as the first half of the book. In it we (the readers) suffered and triumphed as the main characters did – coping with lost limbs and ruined livelihoods. The smugglers now had a new cargo – people escaping the Occupation in France or airmen shot down over enemy territory. Everything had changed though much had stayed the same.

Boling had obviously done his research. The feel of this book was marvellous and I loved it as much as I loved the characters portrayed between its pages. Part of me felt that I really knew these people and part of me wanted to get on the next plane and go there. The kind of community in this novel is a rare beast these days though I’m confident that it still exists in places like Guernica. It was definitely a highlight of the year for me. I must warn you however that it might be a good idea to keep a handkerchief ready and if you’re in anyway emotionally inclined be prepared to have a good cry. Highly recommended.   

Cartoon Time.

HUBBLE DIRECTLY OBSERVES A PLANET ORBITING ANOTHER STAR

From NASA

Nov. 13, 2008

RELEASE: 08-289

WASHINGTON -- NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has taken the first visible-light snapshot of a planet circling another star. Estimated to be no more than three times Jupiter's mass, the planet, called Fomalhaut b, orbits the bright southern star Fomalhaut, located 25 light-years away in the constellation Piscis Australis, or the "Southern Fish."

Fomalhaut has been a candidate for planet hunting ever since an excess of dust was discovered around the star in the early 1980s by NASA's Infrared Astronomy Satellite, IRAS. In 2004, the coronagraph in the High Resolution Camera on Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys produced the first-ever resolved visible-light image of the region around Fomalhaut. It clearly showed a ring of protoplanetary debris approximately 21.5 billion miles across and having a sharp inner edge.

This large debris disk is similar to the Kuiper Belt, which encircles the solar system and contains a range of icy bodies from dust grains to objects the size of dwarf planets, such as Pluto. Hubble astronomer Paul Kalas, of the University of California at Berkeley, and team members proposed in 2005 that the ring was being gravitationally modified by a planet lying between the star and the ring's inner edge.

Circumstantial evidence came from Hubble's confirmation that the ring is offset from the center of the star. The sharp inner edge of the ring is also consistent with the presence of a planet that gravitationally "shepherds" ring particles. Independent researchers have subsequently reached similar conclusions. Now, Hubble has actually photographed a point source of light lying 1.8 billion miles inside the ring's inner edge. The results are being reported in the November 14 issue of Science magazine.

"Our Hubble observations were incredibly demanding. Fomalhaut b is 1 billion times fainter than the star. We began this program in 2001, and our persistence finally paid off," Kalas says. "Fomalhaut is the gift that keeps on giving. Following the unexpected discovery of its dust ring, we have now found an exoplanet at a location suggested by analysis of the dust ring's shape. The lesson for exoplanet hunters is 'follow the dust,'" said team member Mark Clampin of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Observations taken 21 months apart by Hubble's Advanced Camera for Surveys' coronagraph show that the object is moving along a path around the star, and is therefore gravitationally bound to it. The planet is 10.7 billion miles from the star, or about 10 times the distance of the planet Saturn from our sun. The planet is brighter than expected for an object of three Jupiter masses. One possibility is that it has a Saturn-like ring of ice and dust reflecting starlight. The ring might eventually coalesce to form moons. The ring's estimated size is comparable to the region around Jupiter and its four largest orbiting satellites.

Kalas and his team first used Hubble to photograph Fomalhaut in 2004, and made the unexpected discovery of its debris disk, which scatters Fomalhaut's starlight. At the time they noted a few bright sources in the image as planet candidates. A follow-up image in 2006 showed that one of the objects is moving through space with Fomalhaut but changed position relative to the ring since the 2004 exposure. The amount of displacement between the two exposures corresponds to an 872-year-long orbit as calculated from Kepler's laws of planetary motion.

Future observations will attempt to see the planet in infrared light and will look for evidence of water vapor clouds in the atmosphere. This would yield clues to the evolution of a comparatively newborn 100-million-year-old planet. Astrometric measurements of the planet's orbit will provide enough precision to yield an accurate mass. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled to launch in 2013 will be able to make coronagraphic observations of Fomalhaut in the near- and mid-infrared. Webb will be able to hunt for other planets in the system and probe the region interior to the dust ring for structures such as an inner asteroid belt.

[Old news but still very cool news.]

It's tough out there.... especially for the little guys.

Who shall be judge?

“Calvin says that he is certain, and they say they are; Calvin says that they are wrong and wishes to judge them, and so do they. Who shall be judge? Who made Calvin the arbiter of all sects, that he alone should kill? He has the Word of God and so have they. If the matter is certain, to who is it so? To Calvin? But then why does he write so many books about manifest truth?.... In view of all the uncertainty we must define the heretic simply as one with whom we disagree. And if then we are going to kill heretics, the logical outcome will be a war of extermination, since each is sure of himself. Calvin would have to invade France and all other nations, wipe out cities, put all the inhabitants to the sword, sparing neither sex nor age, not even babies and the beasts. All would have to be burned save Calvinists, Jews and Turks, whom he excepts.”

Sebastian Castellio (1515 – December 29, 1563)

Just Finished Reading: A Gentle Axe by R N Morris

St Petersburg, Russia – 1866. As a freezing winter grips the city a woman looking for firewood comes across what appears to be a murder-suicide. Reported to them much later, the police initially agree with the assessment until Police Detective Porfiry Petrovich examines the crime scene more closely. Over the objections of his superiors, who think he is wasting his time, Petrovich just wants to clear up a few nagging doubts. Soon he finds himself buried deep in the cities underclass before returning to more gentile surroundings in search of those who dabble in child prostitution, pornography and murder.

The well read amongst you will recognise the name of Police Detective Porfiry Petrovich. For those who don’t (I didn’t) he was the investigator in Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky. The events in this novel take place approximately 18 months after the events in C&P. I did worry a bit that I’d be lost as I had not read the Dostoevsky novel. I need not have worried. Although the events in C&P are mentioned briefly in passing they are not central to the plot of this impressive story. I was impressed, as always, by good characterisation and a very striking sense of place. Not only was the city of St Petersburg the backdrop against which the action and intrigue took place it was almost a character in itself. The dominating part of the book I found – apart from the deep feeling of despair emanating from the teeming underclass – was the ever present and energy sapping cold. You could feel it at the turn of every page like a physical thing trying to get out of the book. It crushed the poor especially who spent most of their time either huddled around inadequate fires, searching for anything to burn or drunk on cheap vodka as a way of keeping at least the illusion of warmth. Although not a racy novel complete with car chases and dramatic fights, this book certainly did not plod along. It moved relentlessly to its conclusion powered by the detectives unbending curiosity and his desire to uncover the truth. Without anything but the most basic forensic help, which was only just coming to prominence, he followed clues, checked stories and inexorably followed the evidence. He was implacable and is a worthy addition to the historical detective fraternity. This is the first book in the series and I have added the next three to my Wish List. Recommended, but I’d advise wearing something warm before you settle down to read it.     

Cartoon Time.

Well, that's a tad confusing.....

Thinking About: Other People

A little while ago I had a week off and spent it in a cottage a few miles outside Hereford. Although not exactly isolated it was far enough off the beaten track to give one friend dark enough skies to use his telescope and to give some of the others problems with cell-phone and Internet access – 5 out of 6 people brought laptops which I found more than a little amusing.

Despite the fact that I needed the break from work and I was in the company of friends I have known for years I still, after a few days, began looking forward to being back in my own home and to sleeping in my own bed. I wasn’t homesick (something I have never suffered from) but I was very conscious that I was in the company of other people for 7 days straight and for almost 24 hours of each day. That is highly unusual for me. Normally I spend most evenings and weekends on my own – at least physically. When I got back home I honestly relished the silence in my house (before I put some of my music on) and loved the idea that I could use the bathroom whenever I liked and that I didn’t have to take anyone’s wishes, opinions or feelings into account whenever I thought about what I wanted to do next. But don’t get me wrong. I like other people. I’ve even loved some of them and a smaller sub-set has loved me too. But I am fully aware of the fact that I not only like being on my own and want to spend time alone that I actually need to be on my own. My idea of Hell, to misquote Sartre, is to be in the company of other people 24/7 365. It would, I strongly believe, send me insane.

One thing I’m unsure of though – whether this feeling is the result of me being alone so much or whether it’s the cause. Have I simply adapted to my circumstances by preferring being alone? There might be an element to that but I don’t think that’s the whole story. It’s true that I have had to adapt to a largely solitary life but I doubt that I could have adapted so well if I did not already possess a predisposition to wanting/needing to be alone. Despite missing having a ‘significant other’ in my life I cannot conceive actually living with someone no matter how much I love them. If I did go so far as to share a house with someone there would have to be part of it that was purely mine where she would be excluded. She would have to be a very special person to put up with that kind of thing I think.

I have known several people who are clearly terrified of being alone for more that very short periods. I have always marvelled at their overpowering drive to be with other people (often to be with anyone rather than no one). They have been equally amazed at my ability to stand long periods of solitude. Personally I believe that I could spend a year on a deserted island without breaking a psychological sweat. The other people I know would probably have killed themselves in the first month if or sooner – or built a raft out of old coconuts and sailed to the nearest inhabited landmass. I do not understand this need – at least on an emotional level – and it is one of those things that perplex me. I suppose that in many ways I’m rather odd. If most people felt as I do there would probably be a lot less of us around. Maybe I’m missing a gene somewhere. It might explain a few things. If this ‘condition’ is genetic I’m pretty confident that it’s not going to be passed on to future generations. In the mean time I shall continue being on my own (I strongly suspect) and enjoying it (mostly). 

Cartoon Time.

Eisenhower's Worst Fears Came True: We Invent Enemies to Buy the Bombs

by Simon Jenkins for the Guardian

Friday, June 17, 2011

Britain faces no serious threat, yet keeps waging war. While big defence exists, glory-hungry politicians will use it. Why do we still go to war? We seem unable to stop. We find any excuse for this post-imperial fidget and yet we keep getting trapped. Germans do not do it, or Spanish or Swedes. Britain's borders and British people have not been under serious threat for a generation. Yet time and again our leaders crave battle. Why?

Last week we got a glimpse of an answer and it was not nice. The outgoing US Defense Secretary, Robert Gates, berated Europe's "failure of political will" in not maintaining defense spending. He said NATO had declined into a "two-tier alliance" between those willing to wage war and those "who specialize in 'soft' humanitarian, development, peacekeeping and talking tasks". Peace, he implied, is for wimps. Real men buy bombs, and drop them. This call was echoed by NATO's chief, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who pointed out how unfair it was that US defence investment represented 75% of the NATO defense expenditure, where once it was only half. Having been forced to extend his war on Libya by another three months, Rasmussen wanted to see Europe's governments come up with more money, and no nonsense about recession. Defense to him is measured not in security but in spending. The call was repeated back home by the navy chief, Sir Mark Stanhope. He had to be "dressed down" by the Prime Minister, David Cameron, for warning that an extended war in Libya would mean "challenging decisions about priorities". Sailors never talk straight: he meant more ships. The navy has used so many of its £500,000 Tomahawk missiles trying to hit Colonel Gaddafi (and missing) over the past month that it needs money for more. In a clearly co-ordinated lobby, the head of the RAF also demanded "a significant uplift in spending after 2015, if the service is to meet its commitments". It, of course, defines its commitments itself.

Libya has cost Britain £100m so far, and rising. But Iraq and the Afghan war are costing America $3bn a week, and there is scarcely an industry, or a state, in the country that does not see some of this money. These wars show no signs of being ended, let alone won. But to the defense lobby what matters is the money. It sustains combat by constantly promising success and inducing politicians and journalists to see "more enemy dead", "a glimmer of hope" and "a corner about to be turned". Victory will come, but only if politicians spend more money on "a surge". Soldiers are like firefighters, demanding extra to fight fires. They will fight all right, but if you want victory that is overtime. On Wednesday the Russian ambassador to NATO warned that Britain and France were "being dragged more and more into the eventuality of a land-based operation in Libya". This is what the defense lobby wants institutionally, even if it may appall the generals. In the 1980s Russia watched the same process in Afghanistan, where it took a dictator, Mikhail Gorbachev, to face down the Red Army and demand withdrawal. The west has no Gorbachev in Afghanistan at the moment. NATO's Rasmussen says he "could not envisage" a land war in Libya, since the UN would take over if Gaddafi were toppled. He must know this is nonsense. But then he said NATO would only enforce a no-fly zone in Libya. He achieved that weeks ago, but is still bombing.

It is not democracy that keeps western nations at war, but armies and the interests now massed behind them. The greatest speech about modern defense was made in 1961 by the US president Eisenhower. He was no leftwinger, but a former general and conservative Republican. Looking back over his time in office, his farewell message to America was a simple warning against the "disastrous rise of misplaced power" of a military-industrial complex with "unwarranted influence on government". A burgeoning defense establishment, backed by large corporate interests, would one day employ so many people as to corrupt the political system. (His original draft even referred to a "military-industrial-congressional complex".) This lobby, said Eisenhower, could become so huge as to "endanger our liberties and democratic processes". I wonder what Eisenhower would make of today's US, with a military grown from 3.5 million people to 5 million. The western nations face less of a threat to their integrity and security than ever in history, yet their defense industries cry for ever more money and ever more things to do. The cold war strategist, George Kennan, wrote prophetically: "Were the Soviet Union to sink tomorrow under the waters of the ocean, the American military-industrial complex would have to remain, substantially unchanged, until some other adversary could be invented." The devil makes work for idle hands, especially if they are well-financed. Britain's former special envoy to Kabul, Sherard Cowper-Coles, echoed Kennan last week in claiming that the army's keenness to fight in Helmand was self-interested. "It's use them or lose them, Sherard," he was told by the then chief of the general staff, Sir Richard Dannatt. Cowper-Coles has now gone off to work for an arms manufacturer. There is no strategic defense justification for the US spending 5.5% of its gross domestic product on defense or Britain 2.5%, or for the NATO "target" of 2%.

These figures merely formalize existing commitments and interests. At the end of the cold war soldiers assiduously invented new conflicts for themselves and their suppliers, variously wars on terror, drugs, piracy, internet espionage and man's general inhumanity to man. None yields victory, but all need equipment. The war on terror fulfilled all Eisenhower's fears, as America sank into a swamp of kidnapping, torture and imprisonment without trial. The belligerent posture of the US and Britain towards the Muslim world has fostered antagonism and moderate threats in response. The bombing of extremist targets in Pakistan is an invitation for terrorists to attack us, and then a need for defence against such attack. Meanwhile, the opportunity cost ofappeasing the complex is astronomical. Eisenhower remarked that "every gun that is made is a theft from those who hunger" – a bomber is two power stations and a hospital not built. Likewise, each Tomahawk Cameron drops on Tripoli destroys not just a Gaddafi bunker (are there any left?), but a hospital ward and a classroom in Britain.

As long as "big defense" exists it will entice glory-hungry politicians to use it. It is a return to the hundred years war, when militaristic barons and knights had a stranglehold on the monarch, and no other purpose in life than to fight. To deliver victory they demanded ever more taxes for weapons, and when they had ever more weapons they promised ever grander victories. This is exactly how Britain's defense ministry ran out of budgetary control under Labour. There is one piece of good news. NATO has long outlived its purpose, now justifying its existence only by how much it induces its members to spend, and how many wars irrelevant to its purpose it finds to fight. Yet still it does not spend enough for the US Defense Secretary. In his anger, Gates threatened that "future US leaders … may not consider the return on America's investment in NATO worth the cost". Is that a threat or a promise?

[I find it interesting that I came across a quote from Eisenhower a few days ago in a book I’m reading and then discover this article yesterday. I do like that sort of thing. Anyway – just think of what we might have been able to achieve without the expense in money, time and effort spent on and by the military. It honestly staggers belief at how much we spend (hence waste) on bombs and bullets. War? What is it good for….?] 

At least she's trying to be Green.

So True….. So Sad.

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its labourers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”

Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953.

Just Finished Reading: Why I am not a Christian by Bertrand Russell

Lately I’ve been trying to catch up on some of the reading I attempted in my youth and failed to finish. Several of them – from my local library – where by Bertrand Russell. This was one of them. As I have said on several (OK, many) occasions I have never believed in God. I am one of those lucky people who have never had to go through religious withdrawal systems later in life after being indoctrinated into the faith at an earlier and more impressionable age. In my teens I looked for some structured underpinnings of my faithlessness but was too young to appreciate books like this. Now, almost 40 years later I do appreciate books like this. Unfortunately I’m also knowledgeable and experienced enough to find this book in particular somewhat disappointing.

I’m sure that, even when first published in 1957, this slim volume caused quite a stir – though somewhat less I’m guessing than if it had been published some decades earlier. By the late 50’s (1957 was a mere 3 years before I was born) Christianity in England at least was showing early signs of its terminal decline. So I doubt if much book burning or calls for legal action followed its publication. However, when the opening lecture – and title of the book – was delivered in 1927 I’m guessing it caused a few more raised eyebrows although not a single comment in the press. In it Russell outlined the classic arguments for God and demolished them one by one. It seems that such demolition has been going on ever since – which doesn’t deter Christians from presenting the same old tired ‘arguments’ in favour of Gods existence. None of this came as much of a surprise to me and I honestly yawned my way through the first part of the book. Russell was not exactly preaching to the converted but he hardly had to make much effort for me to appreciate his arguments. That was the first source of my disappointment. The other source was that Russell, being the product of his time and class background was simply too nice and obviously didn’t want to upset his readers too much. A clear example of this was his debate, broadcast on the BBC in 1948, with Father F C Copleston about the existence of God. Despite the opportunity to land some very good (and all too easy) blows against a very weak argument put up by Copleston he continually failed to do so – being in this instance too polite for his own good. My final disappointment was the fact that, because of the age of the majority of the articles, Russell did not have information to hand that could have enabled him to make much stronger arguments for his cause – knowing what we do now about the nature of consciousness, the early universe and the mechanisms of evolutionary biology.

Despite all of the above reservations however, this is still an interesting and, in some ways at least, a valuable historical document. What it won’t do is to convince anyone to give up their Christian beliefs nor will it greatly undermine them. Likewise it will give little comfort to those deciding to jump the Christian ship for a life of Atheism. It’s just not that strong. It is however worth adding to an atheist’s book collection as an example of how far we have come in the last 50 years. For that alone this is a book worth reading.   

Cartoon Time.

Just Finished Reading: Ship of Rome by John Stack

The Western Mediterranean – 264BC. Rome is consolidating its hold on the Italian mainland and is looking to expand further. The island of Sicily is an obvious target. Playing one city off against another, the implacable Roman legions have managed to occupy half of the island but their hold is tenuous at best. Dependent on supplies from the mainland they are vulnerable and know it. Determined that Sicily will not be another Roman province the regional superpower Carthage strikes at the very vulnerability they know will cause most damage and destroy the Roman merchant fleet in a daring attack. Rome is left with an apparently insurmountable dilemma – how can they build a fleet and defeat the Carthaginian navy before their legions on Sicily starve. Only one alternative is open to them. They must build the fleet and develop new tactics to defeat the best navy in the world – all in a matter of months. Carthage is confident that such a plan is doomed to failure – but they have yet to understand the Roman way of things.

I have had a ‘thing’ about Rome for as long as I can remember. Despite all of the bad press they inevitably receive about slavery, the gladiatorial games and their imperial ambitions there is still something glorious about the idea of Rome. Set in the early days of the republic before Rome became the empire it was destined to become this novel brings out that ‘can do’ attitude that surprised and terrified all who opposed them. Most of the regional powers of the time would have taken the Carthaginian attack as the end of their ambitions. Rome, of course, saw it as a challenge – rightly seeing it as a make or break situation. At the centre of the story are two friends, one of Greek descent who captains a fast trireme as part of the Roman coastal defence fleet. The other is a captain of marines and ex-legionary whose job it is to board and defeat the enemy on his own ship. Whilst in Rome itself two Senators scheme and bribe their way into positions of power to manipulate the upcoming battles. Of course an important place in the narrative is reserved for the triremes themselves. These ships, normally powered by the sweat of slaves, are truly awesome pieces of ancient technology loving described by the author as they engage in battle against forces superior in every way. It is both numbers and ingenuity that will win the fights ahead and the Romans have both. So starts the First Punic War and the rise of Rome seen from the Senate house and from the blood soaked decks of the ships that will build an empire. Full of strong characters and breath-taking action sequences this was a highly entertaining novel. I’ve already bought the sequel – oddly enough not available in paperback from Amazon – and will be reading it fairly soon. I just need to know what happens next!        

Cats.

As a big fan of the feline community I, rather inevitably, acquire and post pictures of cats on this Blog. To make these easier to find I've fished them out of the Random Pix pile and have given them their very own label. More to come.....

Cartoon Time.

Dusty Shock Waves Generate Planet Ingredients


From JPL @ NASA


Nov. 11, 2008

Shock waves around dusty, young stars might be creating the raw materials for planets, according to new observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The evidence comes in the form of tiny crystals. Spitzer detected crystals similar in make-up to quartz around young stars just beginning to form planets. The crystals, called cristobalite and tridymite, are known to reside in comets, in volcanic lava flows on Earth, and in some meteorites that land on Earth. Astronomers already knew that crystallized dust grains stick together to form larger particles, which later lump together to form planets. But they were surprised to find cristobalite and tridymite. What's so special about these particular crystals? They require flash heating events, such as shock waves, to form.

The findings suggest that the same kinds of shock waves that cause sonic booms from speeding jets are responsible for creating the stuff of planets throughout the universe. "By studying these other star systems, we can learn about the very beginnings of our own planets 4.6 billion years ago," said William Forrest of the University of Rochester, N.Y. "Spitzer has given us a better idea of how the raw materials of planets are produced very early on." Forrest and University of Rochester graduate student Ben Sargent led the research, to appear in the Astrophysical Journal. Planets are born out of swirling pancake-like disks of dust and gas that surround young stars. They start out as mere grains of dust swimming around in a disk of gas and dust, before lumping together to form full-fledged planets. During the early stages of planet development, the dust grains crystallize and adhere together, while the disk itself starts to settle and flatten. This occurs in the first millions of years of a star's life. When Forrest and his colleagues used Spitzer to examine five young planet-forming disks about 400 light-years away, they detected the signature of silica crystals. Silica is made of only silicon and oxygen and is the main ingredient in glass. When melted and crystallized, it can make the large hexagonal quartz crystals often sold as mystical tokens. When heated to even higher temperatures, it can also form small crystals like those commonly found around volcanoes.

It is this high-temperature form of silica crystals, specifically cristobalite and tridymite, that Forrest's team found in planet-forming disks around other stars for the first time. "Cristobalite and tridymite are essentially high-temperature forms of quartz," said Sargent. "If you heat quartz crystals, you'll get these compounds." In fact, the crystals require temperatures as high as 1,220 Kelvin (about 1,740 degrees Fahrenheit) to form. But young planet-forming disks are only about 100 to 1,000 Kelvin (about minus 280 degrees Fahrenheit to 1,340 Fahrenheit) -- too cold to make the crystals. Because the crystals require heating followed by rapid cooling to form, astronomers theorized that shock waves could be the cause. Shock waves, or supersonic waves of pressure, are thought to be created in planet-forming disks when clouds of gas swirling around at high speeds collide. Some theorists think that shock waves might also accompany the formation of giant planets.

The findings are in agreement with local evidence from our own solar system. Spherical pebbles, called chondrules, found in ancient meteorites that fell to Earth are also thought to have been crystallized by shock waves in our solar system's young planet-forming disk. In addition, NASA's Stardust mission found tridymite minerals in comet Wild 2.