Killer Robots

 I wanted to refer to a particular robot as an android the other day, but I didn't - because of potential confusion in the reader with a slew of mobile phone technology, as the word is now synonomous with open o.s. on cellphones which are not made by a certain company.
Android is often used in place of 'robot'.
The word 'robot' was first used in the play R.U.R. in 1921 by Czech writer Karel Capek.

Robot rebellion in a production of Rossums Universal Robots

The three laws of robotics were created in 1942 by sci-fi author Isaac Asimov, and
they basically laid a foundation for peaceful interaction between robots and humans,
but now we have phrases which are almost duplicitous, and don't tell us the reality : for instance a new phrase is Lethal Autonomous Weapons System , referring to robot soldiers in battle.

For a second I thought I was living in a blockbuster Hollywood sci - fi , in which the phrase "I'll be back" assumes global significance.
But it's real.
Killer robots are real. 

Well, real enough to lead to a series of ongoing ethical debates and even a campaign.
The debate hinges on whether robots should ignore the 'prime directive' and be allowed to kill humans at all.
The question is a deeply moral one,  affecting the issue of free will / artificial intelligence.
Let me take a step back :

We are actually debating whether we should allow robots which we have created, to kill us.

One of the most frightening questions posed in a multitude of  fictions is suddenly real.
The only good thing is - hey, it's a first world problem- no battlefield here !
Phew, huh ?

We've all heard of and gotten used to the idea of drones being used in battle zones as delivery systems for death.
You could almost say that we're blasé about them.
Drones allegedly first came into use during the war in the Balkans, but have since been used in Iraq, Afghanistan, and to a lesser degree, Pakistan.
They're always somewhere over there, far away.
Which makes it somehow removed;
abstract even
But no less true:
Battles are being waged quietly
and death is being delivered
By silent little drones with lethal cargos.

                                 

Image of Mars (blue areas are sand dunes apparently)

The flipside of that coin is the image I saw the other day (included here), which resonated deeply in a similar but good way - the photo taken by the Mars Reconnaisance Orbiter of  the rover 'Curiosity' on  the lower slopes of Mount Sharp.

Slightly enlarged view- the blob in the square is Curiosity

Whilst not a stunning image, it is immensely powerful - a photograph taken by a  man - made satellite of a man-made robotic explorer , examining a planet where no human has ever set foot.

That blew my tiny mind.
The future is now.
It's truly amazing what we can achieve.
Let's just ease off on the death thing, right ?





p.s. photos used are property of ESA and the RUR photo, unsure of provenance. Educational purposes...

A Planet Named Percival

Recently I wrote of Saturn, and in passing, mentioned the New Horizons voyage to Pluto, the tiny body on the outer edges of our solar system.
In doing so I felt compelled to further trace its history - and quite a charming one it is too -
Pluto, following the tradition of planets being named after old Greco - Romano gods, was named after the god of the underworld (who apparently could be invisible).
It is said that the idea of the underworld was evoked because the planet was presumed to be dark and cold, being so far from the sun - of course, ironically hell is traditionally scorchingly hot, so maybe Mercury would have been more appropriate ?
Regardless, at the present time, Pluto is in retrograde, therefore moving backwards in the firmament, and if you follow that sort of thing, you'll know the implications.
Think 'mirror universe' or 'Bizarro world '.
But I digress -
The whole story stems from a wealthy Bostonian man named Percival Lowell, who established an observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, in the U.S.A in 1894, and set about solving the mystery of what was then referred to as 'Planet X', an object so far distant that it was all but invisible even to the strongest telescopes of the day, and whose existence could seemingly only be deduced by its effects on other planetary bodies nearby.
Sadly, though, Percival Lowell passed away before the mystery world was finally discovered by Clyde Tombaugh in 1930.

Clyde Tombaugh who discovered Pluto from photographic evidence

The discovery was made by comparison of photographs, using a device called a 'blink comparator'- a steampunk name if ever I heard of one.
However, the newly discovered 'planet X', still needed a name.
Early suggestions included 'Percival' in memory of the late Mr Lowell, but the final name 'Pluto' was given by an eleven year old English schoolgirl called Venetia Burney.
I include a link to an interview from  2006 between N.A.S.A. and Venetia Burney -Phair, part of which is reproduced below.
I found this to be a great collision of two worlds  (N.A.S.A. and Oxford) and Venetias selfless replies to be atypical of that old school sang-froid:

When you look back at your life, isn’t it exciting that there you were an 11 year old school girl who named this planet, and we’ve come so far technologically that now we can send a spacecraft all this distance in the solar system to this planet Pluto? 

Yes, it is absolutely amazing, but it is paralleled by almost everything that has happened in the world, hasn’t it. I mean we have stepped so far into the future as it were since the 1920’s and 1930’s. It leaves one absolutely stunned. 

Do you like to look up at the stars? 

Very much. Sadly it gets increasingly difficult to (do this). It’s so well lit around here that only the brightest stars really get a look-in unless we have a power outage of course. But occasionally if one is in the country, and it is a good clear night, it is absolutely wonderful. 

Of course, even that snippet of the interview is weighted towards the novelty angle of an eleven year old schoolgirl naming a planet - in fairness, Venetia was the grandaughter of  former librarian at the Bodleian Library in Oxford, (the wonderfully named Falconer Madan) whose brother, when Master of Science at Eton, had suggested the names Phobos and Deimos for the moons of Mars.
So there is a pedigree there, and speaking of pedigree, which we weren't -
 There is the cartoon Disney dog, and for some time, much to the consternation of Venetia and others, it was alleged that the planet had been named after the dog.
In truth, the character who became known as Pluto, was originally a bloodhound called 'Rover', and was not re-christened until one year after the rocky planetoid was named.

Actual Selfie on camera lens of PlutoLander

"ESO-L. Calçada - Pluto (by)" by ESO/L. Calçada - Pluto (Artist’s Impression). Licensed under CC BY 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons 

"It has now been satisfactorily proven that the dog was named after the planet rather than the other way round", Venetia told the BBC in 2006, "So, one is vindicated".

And finally, we can look forward to the first ever flypast  of Pluto later this year (July 14th), when the New Horizons craft, on its seemingly endless journey (well, nine years and counting - apparently it's heading out to the Kuiper Belt , which is a whole new unexplored territory).
The New Horizons spacecraft contains the ashes of Clyde Tombaugh, former midwest American farmhand who discovered the little planet all those years ago.

A Storm (In A Teacup) On Saturn

Today I learned that there are storms every 30 years on Saturn . I also learned that Saturn and Jupiter are possibly the oldest planets in our solar system, and that New Horizons has been travelling at 30,000 mph for nine years and it still hasn't reached Pluto!
As if that wasn't enough, I also learned that Ben and Jerry were inspired to try to make grape ice cream at the request of Jerrys sister, Becky. The big deal here is that no-one has ever managed to make Grape  ice cream . Anyway, they apparently succeeded by incorporating the skin of the grapes which allowed the stuff to actually freeze - but someones dog ate it and died because apparently anthocyanin is poisonous to dogs.
Which is probably why there is no Grape Ice Cream available.
- and my point is ?
The internet is a repository of unverified facts and misinformation.
Seriously though, it's become a minefield of inaccuracy.

The storm on Saturn is 8 times the size of Earth...

Popular satirical site 'The Onion' even has its own parody of  'Buzzfeed' called 'Clickhole' - so frighteningly similar that the irony is almost invisible - I kid you not, the irony is embedded so deep now that truth is a liability, speaking of which (irony, that is) I recently got into an online 'tussle' when I called into question the necessity for a fake 'racist' allegedly war-time 1940 comic.
My point was that with many 'real ' racist titles that spewed rhetoric at the time, why add a fake title in the name of 'irony' ?
What happened next will amaze you.
Anyway, that link takes you to the article, but my point is why ?
Like a remake of  Bladerunner, why ?
Like a parody of a parody, why?
Is our 21st Century world like a serpent eating its own tail ?

Discuss...

When the primary source of factual information is Wikipedia (to which anyone can contribute anything ) then there are problems.
Like trolling comments on You Tube, it's 'Par for the course',  as we used to say:
well, at least I did, and many people I've known.
"That's par for the course"
Meaning that something or some form of behaviour was accepted given the circumstance : for instance, drunken frolics on a stag night.
"That's par for the course"
Was just an accepted figure of speech,
One that I never knew the origin of .
So I decided to remedy that gap in my knowledge immediately, thereby taking control of my own trivial knowledge.
No more being buffeted by the waves of random things that flood into my personal reality from the online world !
For instance, when I woke up this morning , I did not expect to learn that Saturn had a storm cycle of thirty years.
Or the thing about poisonous grape juice.
So I thought, hey! Enough is enough - let me reclaim my ability to think nonsense of my own , thank you Mister Interweb !

So - according to the Cambridge Dictionary, the first Google search result I received, (note: not the esteemed Oxford Dictionary, so I'm already worried: after all Cambridge was the base of Oliver Cromwell during the English Civil War and forever since has worn the shadowy cloak of republicanism and is likely a hotbed of malcontents and revolutionary academics...)*
"Par for the course" refers to behaviour that is generally not good, but is expected, given the circumstances.
There are a slew of online sources offering various meanings and interpretation of the phrase, and for this, I'm glad, because it actually worried me that perhaps the phrase had already passed into obscurity from everyday parlance.
And there's another glaring example of unusual wordplay.
Parlance.
Of course, 'parlance' is from the old French ' to parler', to talk - but perhaps the key is really the word 'Par'
There we go again - now I see that the word 'par' might be the central thing here.
Par itself seems to be an indicator of 'standards' or averages - feeling 'below par' meaning not so well.
Par also features in golfing terminology.
So perhaps it's par for the (golf) course

So there we have it.
My pointless quest to discover the origins of the phrase 'par for the course', has led to a slew of trivia worthy of the very irrelevant internet world I sought to ignore.
I only hope that in times to come, my irrelevant rambling posts can be seen as perfect examples of how not to apply 'Occams Razor' to an issue.

From the lofty heights of storms on Saturn to my own 'storm in a teacup', I have presented a meaningless post filled with trivia.
Still, I'm glad I got to use the word 'Saturn' in the title.
It has a nice ring to it.








*this assertion is entirely groundless,but I reserve the right to make spurious claims.

Move Along, Nothing To See Here!

As we head towards an election, the fate of the western world hangs by a thread.
Actually, it doesn't, but that's what they'd have you believe.
At such times, rampant scaremongering tends to be the case - after all, the safe choice is the best choice, and you're safe with us™© !
So it comes as no surprise when I read the news ( on the BBC website, no less) that 80,000 people in the U.K. might die if an infection resistant to antibiotics appeared.

So basically, nothing has actually happened and the postulated infection doesn' t even exist.
Phew, huh?
I thought we were goners for sure !
Thank goodness then, for the National Risk Register of Civil Emergencies: because the statistics come from their offices.
Another redundant government initiative, you cry ?
Okay, I'm going to give the benefit of the doubt here- it may well be the case that the NRRCE (couldn't they get someone to sex-up the acronym even a little ? ) are preparing for a worst case scenario - but why is this presented as news ?
Slow day for news , perhaps ?

They say that there is no smoke without fire, and there is a movement complaining of the lack of new antibiotics, i.e. resistance to all available medicines has reached a high point, so we need more, new antibiotics.
Of course, there is another thread that says Big Pharma would happily keep plying us with medicines because there's more money in medicine than there is in cures...when last did we cheer as a cure was found ?
Certainly the dread TB, once thought eradicated , seems to be re-emerging: and then there's the anti - vaccine brigade, pushing back decades of progress in the fight against childhood maladies.
Many people, myself included, are reluctant to take anti-biotics on the grounds that they swiftly stop being effective.
It is of benefit to  maintain a strong immune system (something I adhered to  until I was diagnosed with MS, a condition in which the immune system fights itself ).

But this post was not originally about the medicines, or shortcomings of the much maligned NHS.

It was about misdirection, in which a casual interest in the news led to a pointless piece of statistical scaremongering.

In hindsight, I might 'spike' this piece, with the ominous words ' needs more zombies'

Easter Bunnies and Chocolate Eggs

This is an image I posted elsewhere in honour of this day of celebrations.
Be they the turning of a bird into a rabbit, fertility rites, or even the resurrection tradition of Abrahamic myth.
From hollow chocolate eggs and bunnies to the risen Lord, there should be room for all forms of celebration in the spring.
I hear repeated anger from atheists that the (old testament probably) Bible condones rape, pillage and murder and suchlike.
Of course, it does - the Talmud was also pretty grisly and the vengeful God thing is a thread passing down through millenia.
The 'scriptures' did not interrupt some idyllic, utopian paradise - of that I'm pretty sure.
The weakest link in the chain is humanity.
Faith can move mountains.
It can also lead to the execution of non-believers.
As a species,we are capable of horrific acts of cruelty .
We are territorial.
We are egotistical.
Yet we are also capable of creating great beauty, capable of acts of kindness, capable of driving our own evolution in a search for better.

Personally, I feel that the act of placing yourself in the care of a greater spirit-based and potentially non-existent being is equal to abnegating yourself, and absolving  responsibilities for individual actions (just ask for forgiveness!).
At its worst, it creates mob mentality, justifying outrageous behaviours.
Then there are the thorny issues of literal interpretations of scriptures , which give rise to schisms , cults, and persecution .
Ultimately, who is right ?
Are the atheists right, with their preference for empirical truth born of scientific rationale, and evidence based reality ?*
Are the worshippers of a patriarchal monotheistic creator god right ?
Are the pagans with their old ways and many shades of magic right ?
What is right ?

And who says the Pope is infallible ?
In Reformation England 1550 , there was a great resistance to the adoption of the Julian calendar on the grounds that it was driven by the Pope, who had previously been named as 'The Antichrist'.**
Protestant and Catholic traditions continue to create divisions - I  fell foul of these divisions in my Scottish childhood.
"Celtic or Rangers ?" was a frequent question, the wrong answer to which resulted in violence.
Far from being a football issue, of course, the question is born of sectarian division.
I remember as a youngster being confused by all of this, up to the point where I would gaze out of the window of our flat in Edinburgh, wondering why we couldn't go outside when the Orange men were marching.
I even wondered whether the name was because they drank orange juice.


* ...of course, the entire fossil record was actually falsified.

** Thomas Cranmer, John Knox and a slew of Lutherans, but also Anabaptists and Methodists upheld this belief...

Information Overload

Information overload is a very real thing.
Even if you don't want that infomation
I never much cared for tabloid media news but in this switched on world of trending posts and clickbait fodder, it's increasingly hard to ignore pointless drivel.
A week ago, if you asked me who Zayn Malik was, I would have stared at you blankly.
Now, through relentless media hype, I know that he is in the band One Direction.
Except he's not, as he's leaving.
My fascination with the subject ended before I wrote any of that.

The current media hype in this country is the suspension (now sacking) of Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson following a violent outburst during which he punched a producer.
The two stories have merged.
This has resulted in endless satirical pictures:

This is one of many such 'amusing' memes...

My point is that I don't want to know or care about the events in the lives of Mr Malik or Mr Clarkson :
Neither of them impact on my world, but it seems as though such things are becoming commonplace.
I mean purely in terms of demographics, is there a crossover audience for Jeremy Clarkson and One Direction , because I doubt it.
So the point is..?.

Add caption

These images are used for educational purposes

Of course, a common piece of advice these days is that if you don't agree with something, just move on.
That's the nature of the online world: and in fairness, I have no opinion on 1-Direction, or infact, any such popular combo, but I resent being swamped with electronic spam reminding me endlessly of their continued existence.
And whilst I'm ignoring them, we get this warped crossover moment, and I swear I can see the machinations of hell at work.
It's trivial, it's pointless, and it's in your face.

Whatever happened to - gasp- news ?

Information overload is a very real thing: the figures below are taken from analysis by GoGulf  :

Every Sixty Seconds

168 million emails sent

694,445 Google searches

695,000 Facebook status updates

370,000 Skype calls are made

98,000 tweets on Twitter

20,000 new posts on Tumblr

13,000 iPhone apps downloaded

6,600 new pictures on Flickr

1,500 new blog entries posted

600+ videos posted totalling over 25 hours duration on YouTube
 These figures are for the U.S.A.

Of course it's important that we have the opportunity to switch our brains off occasionally, for fear of overheating - especially in the 24/7 info culture we currently embrace.
But do we switch off?
An incoming text makes a noise or vibration on your smartphone - do you check ?
How long can you resist the allure of 'The Book of Face' - a friend of mine has even given it up for Lent !
Sign of the times, or a real addiction ?

Apparently the average Farcebook user spends 7 hours and forty - five minutes online with FB every month.
In my mind, I see  a chap with a stopwatch and a notebook following someone from room to room.

Unsettling, isn't it ?

Exactly, and on that note, we should all write to our collective MPs.
Or just 'like' the form...

This timewasting trivia brought to you by me.

Thank you !

Updates To Date

This is a revised version of the previous 'Excuse us while we catch up', as that post included a tribute to the late, great Leonard Nimoy,  whereas the updates (and Mr Nimoy) are best with a dedicated page, so here it is.
There's a pattern quickly emerging, which seems to be that news swiftly follows my postings, so regular updates are needed !

Anti-Social Media' was so anti-social, it vanished !

My post (Nudge Nudge Wink Wink !) , was inspired by news of an impending clampdown by Google on blogs containing explicit material.
That clampdown was amended to a light spanking, and all's well that ends well (apart from the outrage I feel at having needlessly exposed my teenage secrets)...that said, I wonder if Google were simply following the adage "If you want a correct answer to something online, just post the wrong one and wait..."
Perhaps they realised that the very threat of censorship would have bloggers up in arms and creating lewd and salacious content in defense of free speech, thus generating lots of online 'traffic' - if so, well played, Google, you sly dogs!


In the post Kindergarten Konspiracy, I gave a thumbs up to those campaigning (in the U.S.) for Net Neutrality, and that was ultimately upheld by the FCC, so well done, freedom fighters - and boo hiss to the corporate Keepers of the Gateway (Verizon and Comcast) who sought to create a two lane virtual highway with broadband throttling for those who didn't pay more for their interweb.
Like most things in my blog, that's a gross over - simplification , but anyways...


Recent post Leaving Before The Rush, written on the sad passing of  author Terry Pratchett, is now an example of serendipity, in that I mentioned my first exposure to his work was book number 33 in the  Discworld series, Going Postal , and now, as an ongoing tribute to his genius, a line of code has been inserted into the headers of many web servers, as happened in that very book following the death of  John Dearheart, because: "A man is not dead whilst his name is still spoken".


This link is to the relevant article from The Guardian 


P.S.

The post 'Anti - Social Media' has been removed on the grounds that it is negative and pointless. Saying that, I have included a collage  (above)  I made for that post, which should give you an idea of what a 'bad trip' it was...

Further updates pending !