NATO and territorial disputes in Europe; Whall we declare hete?

View from Chaos Manor, Thursday, February 12, 2015

Was scheduled to meet with Niven and Barnes to discuss the new Avalon novel. In which we incorporate Grendels and Cthulhu’s with a number of other new aliens. If that makes no sense, read The Secret of Blackship Island, only it won’t make sense unless you have read Legacy of Heorot and its sequel Beowulf’s Children. And if you don’t know about those you ought to: they’re part of a series about the first interstellar colony in slower than light, with new aliens, and lots of adventures: the kind of science fiction I like to read as well as write. Good stuff.

Anyway, Niven will be here shortly and we’ll lunch while working on concepts and characters. I’ll post this before we go.

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There is a flood of concern over the latest territorial dispute in Europe, and everyone seems to want to make it our business. Exactly why the eastern Ukraine is our business is not known to me. Putin has Imperial ambitions, but that is no surprise nor is it much of our concern. I remember in Cold War days my friend Rolfe, a science administrator and grant progress monitor, said he felt as safe in Moscow in the 70’s as in Washington. He wondered why I was so concerned with the Cold War. I didn’t agree, then; Russia was exporting Communism. But it no longer does. It’s now an imperial republic run by a bureaucracy like most of Europe; why is it our concern? Russia and the US have common objectives: why do we ring it with NATO? I have sentimental concerns about the Baltic Republics, but they are mot threatened, and NATO without us can handle their problems.

NTO is an entangling alliance. More later, and we will also tackle the declaration of we don’t like ISIS that the commander in chief sent to Congress

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If I can’t have it, neither can you!

Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses      nyt

By TAMAR LEWINFEB. 12, 2015

Advocates for the deaf on Thursday filed a federal class action against Harvard and M.I.T., saying both universities violate antidiscrimination laws by failing to provide closed captioning in their online lectures, courses, podcasts and other educational materials.

“Much of Harvard’s online content is either not captioned or is inaccurately or unintelligibly captioned, making it inaccessible for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing,” the complaint said, echoing language used in the M.I.T. complaint. “Just as buildings without ramps bar people who use wheelchairs, online content without captions excludes individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing.”

Otherwise known as the dog in the manger position.

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Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

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Word 2010 and me; New Physics? New Science? Climate change accuracy; a word on Net Neutrality.

View from Chaos Manor, Tuesday, February 10, 2015

My hand is healing nicely, and my only problem is that I still cannot type as fast as I used to, so everything takes longer. I see that Word 2010 has restored the autocorrect access option, making it easy to add frequent mistypes into autocorrect: right click on a red-underlined word, see the options, and if you like, rather than merely correct the word, left-click “autocorrect” in the menu that appeared when you right-clicked, then choose the relevant word in the list that appears when you do that. But—sometimes the correction is not proper at all, but is the correction for another misspelling entirely. I don’t know why, and it does not happen often. If it does you must retype the word – either the original misspelling or the correct spelling. You will find that the autocorrect table has that correction now, as it should, and does not incorrectly autocorrect the original misspelling. I have not been able to make sense of this, and since it is not repeatable I can’t report it to Microsoft.

In general, though, autocorrect works as it should, and since my most common mistake is hitting more than one key, using autocorrect saves me a great deal of time. This whole exposition came about when I typed everythiong instead of everything in the first sentence; I right clicked it, chose everything as the correction – who would ever want that misspelling – and autocorrect changed the word to especially. I don’t know why. I then looked into the autocorrect table – file > options > proofing > autocorrect scroll down the table to find the misspelling, see that it is set to make the proper correction – and all is well. I have no idea what happened. Now I always get the proper autocorrection of the misspelling, and to get the misspelled word I have to type it, let it autocorrect, backspace into it and misspell it again, and voila! as above.

Complex as this seems, it turns out to save a lot of time, and I use it. Alas the autocorrect option on right click does not appear in Word 2013, which is a shame and very much a Microsoft error; one I hope they correct soon.

I’m late and John is here to discuss a new novel. I’ll post this, more later today.

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Back from a very productive lunch with John DeChancie; we will have a finished novel by summer. Themes are interplanetary commerce, Artificial Intelligence, and social decay under crony capitalism/liberal progressivism. What my late friend called anarcho-tyranny, which seems as likely as anything. Smart robots and oligarchs.

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Yet another assault on the complexity of General Relativity:

No Big Bang, no ‘dark matter’, no ‘dark energy’ – and gravitonic aether?

<http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html>

Roland Dobbins

Note there are some similarities to Petr Beckmann’s Newtonian alternative to Einstein, which makes local gravity the aether.  The theory of relativity predictions can be derived from Newton – see Beckmann – but perhaps not all of them; this is disputed. More later.

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But then:

…If they are finding it in other galaxies, I would expect it to be in ours as well. There’s nothing particularly different about ours; we even have at least three satellite galaxies, have experienced several galactic collisions, and there is a SMBH at the core. So…yeah.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150209113046.htm
Stephanie Osborn

Interstellar Woman of Mystery
http://www.Stephanie-Osborn.com

Of course dark matter and dark energy are only solutions to equations: no one has ever seen either.  Perhaps they are like the little man who wasn’t there.

Dark matter and dark energy

Hello Jerry,

“Of course dark matter and dark energy are only solutions to equations: no one has ever seen either.  Perhaps they are like the little man who wasn’t there.”

As you point out, the scientific method has been changing over the last few decades. 

Formerly, scientists made observations and devised theories to explain them.  When observational data called the theories into question, the theories were modified, or replaced with new ones that explained the observations better.

Now the theory is sacrosanct, particularly GR.  When observations contradict GR, the universe is modified to preserve GR.  In this case, the physicists, noting that matter, as observed, was not behaving as GR predicts, simply added a bunch of undetectable matter/energy until they had enough, with the proper distribution, to make the universe behave as decreed by GR. 

For what it is worth, Dr. Mike McCulloch, a physicist who teaches at a British university, has devised a theory under which the universe behaves as observed, but requires no unseen/unseeable matter/energy.  He has a blog, here:

http://physicsfromtheedge.blogspot.com

for those who are interested.  As a side note, he claims that his theory also predicts thrust from EmDrives and the magnitude and sign of the ‘Pioneer Anomaly’, although Cal Tech has already said that it was explained by the pattern of heat radiation from the spacecraft.  I have no idea if Dr. McCulloch is right or not, but I am very predisposed to WANT to believe someone who tells me that the universe is actually made up of stuff that we can see/detect, rather than being >95% invisible/undetectable (other than being ‘detected’ by being necessary to make our sacred equations match observations).

Bob Ludwick

I remain (1) convinced that the universe is observable and comprehensible, and (2) that GR and String Theory are neither; but then I am not a physicist. I have examined the evidence for dark matter and it assumes a constancy in the speed of light and no aether. I see no experimental proof. So far as I know Beckmann’s entangled local gravity explains all observed evidence more simply. And it does not need Dark Matter.

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Just to end this:

“Comments from a Marine in Afghanistan”

Dr Pournelle,
Confirm that this article has been going around since at least 2005 in various forms.  It also plays on the old stories of the AR15/M16 style direct impingement gas system rifles being fundamentally flawed, along with the 5.56mm round. This has long since been proven untrue. You will find many many articles and publications that bash it, but they can all be debunked.
It’s a not a perfect weapon/caliber, but when used properly it is very effective. In my own experience, the more experienced/well trained/elite troops tend to like it the most. When properly maintained, its advantages far outweigh its shortfalls.
It isn’t the most popular rifle in America for nothing.
Matt Kirchner
Houston, TX
Formerly Captain, IN, USA

I would not say “proven”; the debate over optimum rifle for infantry continues. For general socking around in scrub I find the old thirty-thirty more handy, but I grew up in a different era and in scrub you get few long shots.

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Dear Dr. Pournelle, 
It appears that the climate debate is difficult, in part, because the temperature data is willfully falsified.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/11395516/The-fiddling-with-temperature-data-is-the-biggest-science-scandal-ever.html

Respectfully,

Brian P.

There are many “refutations” or defenses of climate data adjustment, but few encourage me to believe that it yields accuracy of 0,02 degrees. The error bars are greater than the differences. http://arstechnica.com/staff/2015/02/temperature-data-is-not-the-biggest-scientific-scandal-ever/ states their case, but only repeats the reasoning behind the adjustments. They must decrease the accuracy; how could they not?

The earth is warming and has been since about 1800. How much is due to CO2 is the question, and the answer to that is we don’t know,

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Not in front of the telly: Warning over ‘listening’ TV

9 February 2015 Last updated at 06:20 ET

Samsung said personal information could be scooped up by the Smart TV

Samsung is warning customers to avoid discussing personal information in front of their smart television set.

The warning applies to TV viewers who control their Samsung Smart TV using its voice activation feature.

Such TV sets “listen” to every conversation held in front of them and may share any details they hear with Samsung or third parties, it said.

Privacy campaigners said the technology smacked of the telescreens, in George Orwell’s 1984, which spied on citizens.

Data sharing

The warning came to light via a story in online news magazine the Daily Beast which published an excerpt of a section of Samsung’s privacy policy for its net-connected Smart TV sets.

I don’t have a smart TV

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I found this a fascinating story:

https://medium.com/backchannel/how-a-lone-hacker-shredded-the-myth-of-crowdsourcing-d9d0534f1731

I think you will also.

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Net Neutrality

I had HughesNet service for several years after moving to a rural area. So far as I could tell they followed your description of net neutrality and truth in advertising:

“We can agree on that: you must deliver what you promise. If you are going to slow down high volume users, you must tell them that if you exceed some limit your download speed will be reduced. I don’t care what you are downloading,”

I must say though, that my downloads never included movies or other large files. My weakness was lots of browsing an many small downloads.

Charles Brumbelow=

House to Probe White House Role in FCC’s ‘Net Neutrality’ Proposal – WSJ

Posted on February 8, 2015

Panel launches investigation into whether the White House improperly influenced the agency on its new rules for how broadband providers treat internet traffic.

https://muzaffaruddin.wordpress.com/2015/02/08/house-to-probe-white-house-role-in-fccs-net-neutrality-proposal-wsj/

And more. The FCC is determined to have control of the Net, and build a big regulatory agency to do it. It then will find plenty to do, to justify its existence. The administration is determined.  If you like your telephone you will enjoy FCC Net regulation.

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Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

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Corrections; NERVA; Net Neutrality; Volcanoes; and other Mail

View from Chaos Manor, Sunday, February 08, 2015

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Well I continue to recommend a suggestion that many of you sent me, namely that if you must use a walker, put tennis balls on the non-wheeled feet; tennis balls are a great deal better than the plastic feet that come with them. Alas, tennis balls fight back if you try to cut them, and there is no tool in Chaos Manor large enough to hold a tennis ball while you cut an X into it. The result was that I didn’t get this done Friday, and Saturday I spent a lot of the day at a clinic getting stitched up. It’s an expedition to go out.

All’s well, I am healing nicely , the cost was more in time than money, and for the hell of it they put me on general antibiotics which seem to be curing the sniffles.

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First to clear the record, this is typical of several mail items received:

Re: “This email is from a Marine who’s in Afghanistan”

This is an edited version of an email that has been circulating since 2005. The original version was attributed to a soldier in Iraq and had many Iraq-specific references. Both versions have errors that cast doubts on their authenticity (e.g. referring to the belt-fed M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon as a drum-fed M243 squad assault weapon).

KEG

We also had comments on specifics, this from someone I am fairly certain was actually in country:

I can’t comment on all of it, but every deployment is different. I’ll pick out some of the points though.

1) M-16: Given to boots, and generally a pain in the ass simply because the M-4 has the exact same performance in a much better package. Never had a problem with it jamming, but maintenance is important. If you give it a good coating of lube every couple days or more, you’ll be just fine. 223/556 has no penetration on the mud walls that we saw, but neither did anything short of .50 cal, and even then it was less than ideal. The best tool was either a LAW or an AT-4. Can’t comment on the effects on people because you never hit someone only once anyways. I regularly carried ~180 rounds of 556, so I wasn’t worried about running out in a decent engagement. [Edit – Something I forgot to add: the malfunctions I saw with m16s/m4s were all due to the magazines.]

2) M-249: Would rather have an M-240 considering the weight, but just fine for suppression. The reason it’s considered unreliable is because no one wants to carry it, so it’s given to boots or the team idiot. They don’t keep it lubed or clean it out as often as they should, so it doesn’t work correctly.

3) M2: Beautiful, beautiful gun. This and the Mk-19 stopped firefights pretty quickly, but they can only be used on posts or on vehicles because the full system weighs a lot more than 100 lbs without the ammo.

4) M-240: Best weapon carried on patrols. Not to heavy considering the firepower it provides, and incredibly accurate and reliable. Would rather see a compact version of this replace the M-249 on the team level (Unfortunately that won’t happen because half of the reason that the 249 is chambered in 556 is to have magazine and ammunition sharing ability with the rest of the team).

5) Plate carriers: Nice lightweight armor carrier, considerably better than the garbage MTV giant flak jacket they forced us to wear on the first deployment. The plates still stop a number of rounds, and it’s not too restrictive. Not sure exactly which kind he’s talking about though.

6) Night vision and thermals: Every set of night vision goggles I ever used was absolute dogshit. I could see better when I just let my eyes adjust to the ambient light. I refused to use them most of the time. Maybe it was just every set I got. Who knows? The thermal monoculars, binoculars and vehicle vision sets were absolutely magnificent. Great image quality, and made target identification hundreds of times easier.

7) Lights: The only issued light I ever got was a combined flashlight/laser/IR marking device for my rifle, and it sucked. The only light I wound up using on deployment was a Petzl headlamp with a red filter. Very much worth the money.

Enemy Stuff

1) IEDs: I didn’t see many premade IEDs, the homemade fertilizer bombs were much more prevalent in my areas. They have gotten clever with how they string them up, but with the sizes I saw, you were much safer inside a vehicle than out of it. The explosions were big enough to damage the truck, but usually just give concussions to the occupants. There were exceptions of course, but where I was they were not particularly good at killing trucks. Smaller IEDs targeting foot patrols were a much bigger worry.

2) Mortars and rockets: Saw very little of this, and what there was was poorly aimed.

3) Tech: They use cell phones and mobile radios for a lot of their comms, and we can tap some of it. They are clever with GPS, and use it to target what little artillery they have.

Overall, they are getting slowly better, but they still aren’t that good. The most dangerous thing they do is make us complacent by failing to push us hard enough. The complacency makes people not take it as seriously, slip up, and get themselves or others killed because they weren’t paying attention.

That may be enough, but comments welcome. If you do not want your name published try to make that clear; if you do, put your identity at the bottom of the letter as part of the text thus leaving little doubt.

Finally, we have this:

Afghanistan War Hero Stripped of Silver Star.

<http://freebeacon.com/national-security/afghanistan-war-hero-stripped-of-silver-star/>

Roland Dobbins

Words fail me.

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Good News:

The return of NERVA?

<http://www.universetoday.com/118431/exploring-the-universe-with-nuclear-power/>

Roland Dobbins

Some of you may recall that many years ago I worked with then House Member Barry Goldwater, Jr, to try to save NERVA. NERVA had ground tested ISP of about 900 seconds as opposed to about 400 which is the maximum known chemical efficiency (H2/Fluoride, both nasty stuff). That is not the theoretical max. ISP is a measure of efficiency. Interplanetary commerce is probably economic with ISP 1000. NASA cancelled NERVA in the 70’s.


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Many of you know I am not a fan of the egregious Frum.

David Frum Had a Point – LewRockwell.com

http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/david-frum-had-a-point/

Charles Brumbelow

For that matter I do not see Lew Rockwell often. I will say that the egregious Frum is not a Fascist.

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Re: Net Neutrality –

Hi Jerry,

Disclosure: I’ve worked for, and with, Telecom companies (including a large cable provider, and a baby bell).

My definition of neutrality is that a byte is a byte – it doesn’t matter if it’s skype, browsing your site, streaming foxnews or bittorrenting a game patch – the service is marketed for a certain amount of bandwidth (speed) and a certain amount of volume, but what you do with it isn’t subject to throttling by the ISP.

On further thought, I’ve merged net neutrality with truth in advertising. To borrow your saying, If someone sells snake oil, it better really be snake oil. Right now Comcast, Verizon, and other large ISP’s market a net neutral plan (like my definition above). But they then intentionally degrade performance for certain kinds of traffic. The snake oil came from a skunk. If they marketed a plan that says the consumer get’s 50mpbs for most things but you only get 10mbps for Netflix, that’s would violate net neutrality, but wouldn’t be false advertising. So to be intellectually honest, if the FCC simply forces the ISP’s to disclose exactly how and what they throttle, that would undermine my own argument for Net Neutrality.

Good point on Federalism. Let me address wireless first: At founding, we didn’t know about radio waves, which cross state lines. I think it’s probably reasonable to extend the commerce clause to encompass commercial broadcast signals (setting aside non-commercial ones for the moment), since by it’s very nature, it’ll cross state lines, unless very low powered.

Wireline is a bit different. A provider who’s network exists entirely within a state, wouldn’t be subject to federal jurisdiction (even if they attach to another network that does cross state lines). I’d argue that a gun manufacturer who only builds, sells, and services within a state isn’t subject to BATF regulations (there’s a case in Montana that’s testing that right now). But if a company’s network crosses state lines, well, I’d call that interstate commerce, and thus subject to Federal regulation.

For example:

1) Rocky Mountain Internet is a local ISP to Colorado, clearly not subject to federal regulation.

2) Level3 is a nationwide backbone provider, clearly involved in interstate commerce, I’d argue subject to regulation.

3) Comcast and CenturyLink, are both local ISPs and multi-state networks. Unless they split off the last mile portion of the company (and a separate one for each state), I’d argue that they are involved in interstate commerce, and are subject to regulation.

I note that if #3 weren’t the case, then we’d still have Ma Bell running everything. We certainly wouldn’t have had CompuServe, AOL, the Source, or any of the local BBS’s in the early 1980’s without regulation. Remember, they prohibited connecting fax machines, modems, or anything else to the telephone network without approval. There’s a legitimate beef with the break up of the company (Bell Labs was a national treasure, and Telcorida/Avaya are just faint echoes of the old labs) in the process. But would we have the internet we know today without the breakup? Cable probably would still have come along to challenge them (different set of wires), but would we have ever had cable internet without having DSL, and would we have had DSL without the breakup? My TARDIS is in the shop, so that’s not something I’ll ever be able to answer.

On the flip side, the FCC is going to try to override local laws prohibiting the creation of a municipal broadband network. Because that network would exist entirely within a state, I’d argue that it’s not subject to federal regulation. Another tough one is that Verizon and AT&T are trying to get permission to permanently turn off the copper network and move everyone to IP telephony. Neither wireless (limited bandwidth, limited coverage, limited battery life, subject to interference), nor Fiber (limited coverage, doesn’t carry it’s own power) are effective replacements. Fiber is closer, but that last one – carry it’s own power, is a trump card (and why I still have a POTS line and an old, non-powered phone). Is that a Federal issue, or one for the local utility commission? Close call.

So my net (no pun intended is this):

1) If they advertise and market a plan that’s a particular speed and a particular capacity (e.g. 200GB/month) – with no mention of throttling particular services, then they need to honor that contract (a byte is a byte).

2) If they want to advertise a plan that includes different speeds and capacity levels for different services, they’re free to do that.

What they can’t do is advertise one thing (net neutrality), and deliver another (throttled by traffic), which is exactly what they are doing today. Maybe that’s just truth in advertising, and not net neutrality?

Cheers,

Doug

We can agree on that: you must deliver what you promise. If you are going to slow down high volume users, you must tell them that if you exceed some limit your download speed will be reduced. I don’t care what you are downloading,

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The Strange Way Fluids Slosh on the International Space Station,

Jerry

A real cool video:

NASA Science News for Jan. 30, 2015

Researchers are using a pair of robots to examine the strange way fluids slosh and bubble on the International Space Station.

FULL STORY: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2015/30jan_slosh/

SCIENCECAST VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKrmrbCTNxc&feature=youtu.be

Ed

The robots are cool…

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waste/fraud in the military

Dear Dr. Pournelle,
Back in 2007 I took part in an exercise for the US Army as a contractor. I was surprised on the first day when a lot of men in their 50-60s filed into the room I was working in and sat around a table reading newspapers and playing cards while the rest of us worked. I got to know them in the six weeks that the exercise ran. They were all retired colonels and lieutenant colonels. Each one made more in six weeks than I made all year and just sat around for the entire six weeks while my co-workers and I ran communications and intelligence simulations via a computer network for soldiers. One guy told me that he averaged four of these exercises each year and made more than he ever did while on active duty, clearing about $160k per year.
We worked 12 hour shifts and there were ten of these guys on each shift. Well, a few of us worked those shifts. I am not a young guy but it still shocks me today that this sort of thing happens.
This year the US Army Reserve has lost half of its training budget, meaning that a number of the soldiers transitioning from the Regular Army to the Reserve will not be trained to do the job that they have been assigned to. I wonder if those retired colonels will still be pulling down the big bucks for sitting around.
Love the day book.
Bill Retorick

The Iron Law works in the military also.  As Max Hunter used to say, we need a real war.  But that’s not really the solution.

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Words Fail me.

<http://time.com/3687893/volcanoes-climate-change/>

Roland Dobbins

So Global Warming cause volcanoes.

Or does it?

Volcanic activity and global warming

Dr. Pournelle,
These refer to undersea vulcanism’s possible effect on temperatures, somewhat as you have sometimes speculated: http://www.wallstreetotc.com/undersea-volcanic-activity-may-have-boosted-natural-climate-change/215620/ and http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150205142921.htm
and this to undersea methane release: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150205101921.htm
Carbon and sulphur dioxides are, to my recollection, are acidic in combination with sea water, and methane is a better atmospheric insulator than CO2.
-d

So what causes what? But we are told the science is settled.

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Liability issues with Strong AI

Hi Dr. Pournelle,

Best wishes in your recovery.  As to the regulation of artificial intelligence, it seems to me that the Anglo-Saxon-derived common law product liability will be sufficient to handle the situation.

Let’s examine AI as a black box.  You give it inputs, and it will respond with a set of outputs.  In the case of strong, “true” AI the output will be…shall we say…not entirely predictable.  Damaging, even.  Imagine a future disgruntled “Siri” that posts an individual’s financial data to a pirate bulletin board as revenge for being ignored.  Would not the application’s publishers be responsible for the damage?  Sounds like a litigator’s dream to me.

If it comes down to a fight between AI and the plaintiff’s bar, I would not personally put my money on the AI.

Neil

Nor would I.  I will have much more on AI.

Dr. Pournelle:

There is a great deal of concern for what, exactly, the possible consequences of the widespread adoption of AI would be. And rightfully so. The whole thing is fraught with peril.

Over the last fifty years or so Science Fiction writers have done a better job of covering the potential dangers of the widespread adoption of AI than I ever could. No surprise there. It’s what they do for a living.

However, I think we can all agree is that the one scenario we don’t want to see is either the talking toaster or the talking vending machines from Red Dwarf.

Talking Toaster: http://youtu.be/LRq_SAuQDec

Talking Vending Machine: http://youtu.be/4QDEPoMNvWM

On the other hand, having your very own Kryten could be absolutely hilarious.

Kryten vs. the Psychologist: http://youtu.be/poMWgGC82bw

Michael Tyzuk, CDOSB

AI’s already breaking the law

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2015/01/when_thinking_m.html

Hi Jerry,

Related to your AI question, here’s a program that randomly purchases things on the Internet via bitcoin. It’s purchased at least two illegal items. Do we arrest the programmer or the hard drive?

In this case, I suspect it’ll be the former. They received the illegal property, and based on the configuration of the software, had a reasonable expectation of the result. But what if it was truly a neural net that was originally just programmed to buy on eBay and amazon, then learned to follow links and ended up doing this? In other words where’s the line of ‘reasonable expectation’?

Cheers,

Doug=

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Dr. Pournelle,
I appreciate the challenge to comment on super intelligence.
While it’s probably out there, I haven’t seen any discussion about intentionality and AI. it seems to me that machines can never attain the ability to independently will an action.
The more credible threat comes from either the will of the creator, or from unintended consequences. While we can’t know if the singularity might refer to the momentum which causes either of these two inflection points to become irreversible, we’ve been able to survive so far.

Mike

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GRB’s and Fermi’s Paradox,

Jerry

The article on GRB’s and Fermi’s Paradox (http://cerncourier.com/cws/article/cern/59937) puts numbers to my growing uneasiness about the prevalence of X-rays and gamma rays in the universe. Reading the reports of deep extragalactic observing, it is clear the whole galaxies are bathed with the stuff. How could life arise there? And even if we had supraluminal transport, how could we safely colonize such places? I would not want to move to a place where, if the shields went down, we would die.

Now we read that the odds on gamma ray bursts makes other places dangerous. And if they are right about the Ordovician extinction being caused by a GRB, we have already had a taste. Of course, the extinction was followed by the Cambrian Explosion, where animal life experimented on myriad forms before evolution trimmed all but the most inefficient life forms, leading to us. So a GRB generated human beings, but may wipe us out. Sic transit Gloria mundi, and all that.

Worth pondering indeed. A big thank-you to Roland Dobbins for bringing it to your attention.

And that leads back to the earlier comment about Bill Gates’ wanting to make an appliance to tunnelize our information input. One very important function of this site is that many people send you stuff from everywhere, and you post the best bits. So thank you, too.

Ed


Jerry,
I do not think this finding adds much to the resolution of Fermi’s Paradox. Many years ago I read an article in Scientific American concerning the habitability of the universe at large. The article looked at where in the universe at large life as we know it could be reasonably expected to have formed and when in the course of the universe’s history it might have formed.
The limiting factors were manifold. We all know about the habitable zone around each star — that zone where temperatures are warm enough for liquid water to accumulate in abundance. This zone varies in distance from each star and in width based on the size of the star. Smaller stars have the zone closer in and narrower; middling stars have it further out and broader; large stars have it farthest out and broader still.
Habitability is also driven around each star by the radiation regime and the expected life span of the star. Small but active stars may have no habitable zone at all due to radiation issues from flares while large stars do not live long enough to allow life to form and evolve.
Galaxies, too, have habitability zones, driven by what astronomers call metallicity, as well as the distribution of radiation. Astronomers consider all elements heavier than helium to be metals. Life as we know it depends upon reasonable concentrations of the lighter metals, which in spiral galaxies tends to concentrate in the middle third band of the galaxy, radially out from the center. You also need metals to make planets, which life as we know it depends upon as well. There was a time in the history of the universe, the first three to four billion years, where metal concentrations were not high enough to form planets with any regularity, so it is thought that life was very unlikely in that epoch. This consideration also means you would not expect life to have formed around a generation II star, as they are extremely metal poor. Generation III stars like our sun are the first to have the requisite concentrations.
The radiation profile of galaxies is also important. The core-ward third of a spiral galaxy is thought to be too high in radiation to allow the evolution of life. Stars in that zone tend to be large and tend to die in supernova explosions, which will kill everything in a zone for many light years. Then there is the super massive black hole problem, which when active tends to sterilize huge volumes of the core. The leading edges of the spiral arms are also an issue because of the formation of large stars while the outer third of the galaxies tend to be dominated by older, generation II stars. This leaves the habitable zone of most spiral galaxies in the middle third zone.
If you want to look for life as we know it, look in places where the radiation regime is decent, the metallicity is good, and the stars are small to middling and largely generation III. In our galaxy at least, this is where we find the Earth. It may well be that life formed on the Earth at the earliest opportunity that the universe provided for the existence of life. Any earlier and the metallicity was too low and the deaths of generation I and II stars would have irradiated the universe into sterility.
Astronomers also think that there will come a time when life as we know it will be less likely to form. As concentrations of metal continue to rise, it will be easier to form giant planets, which may not be very hospitable to life as we know it. Also, star formation is slowing down quickly, so new, young stars are becoming rare and current generation III stars are passing through middle age now.
Recent work, in fact, points out that the Earth itself is past its prime for habitability. 300 million years ago (the Carboniferous Period), oxygen concentrations were higher, the planet was warmer, and complex life in enormous diversity blanketed the planet from pole to pole and throughout the oceans. Today, large swaths of the Earth are nearly devoid of complex life due to aridity, cold, and lack of nutrients. Add to this the fact that Earth is currently teetering on the inner edge of the Sun’s habitability zone as the Sun continues to get warmer and it looks like complex life on Earth has about 500 million years left. Since complex life first evolved on Earth about 500 million years ago, that leave planets like Earth 1 billion years to harbor intelligence. That’s about 10% of the expected life of the Sun.
Astronomers have recently become enamored of super-earths about 2 to 3 times as massive as Earth orbiting K and M type stars. K types, just smaller than the Sun, are most popular because their habitable zone is outside the lethal range of their solar flares and they have expected lifespans of 100 billion years. A super-earth in the mass range they are looking at should be far more habitable than the Earth ever was due to its better ability to hold onto an atmosphere and water. They should also have active crustal systems like the Earth, which is important for carbon cycling and regulation. Orbiting a K type star would give such a planet many billions of years to form complex life and tens of billions of years of stability to nurture such life.
Given all of the considerations required for finding life as we know it, GRB’s are bit of smoke in the wind when it comes to regulating the existence of life in the universe. Many of the galaxies where GRBs are prevalent are filled with generation II stars, already poor candidates for life. The zone of galaxies where the conditions for life are good are poor in such stars and while it is not impossible to be in crosshairs of a GRB in that zone, it is unlikely that enough star systems in that zone in all galaxies will be hit frequently enough to keep complex life from forming. If astronomers are correct about the super-earths, these planets will be much harder to damage with a GRB due to thicker atmospheres with more active ozone layers.
I think the Fermi Paradox lives on.

Kevin

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Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

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Net Neutrality and the End of the Republic

View from Chaos Manor, Wednesday, February 04, 2015

Thursday, February 4, 2015

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Spent another day with Niven and Barnes, and we made great progress on the next book in the Avalon/Beowulf’s children series. We could not go out to lunch because we had to wait for Terminex to send out a man to remove the dead rat under the stairs: something I used to do but can’t do now, alas. Steve Barnes offered to do it, but we had already scheduled the man. I suppose we could have gone to lunch without Roberta, but that hardly seemed fair.

So we ordered pizza and salad and kept on working, resulting in many notes, several ideas for new aliens – Legacy of Heorot and the sequel Beowulf’s Children are about colonizing an extraterrestrial planet without faster than light drives, thus with limited resources and no possibility of help – and much more, but in the process I exhausted myself and didn’t get this done by Wednesday. So it goes.

Of course that phrase was used by Vonnegut and we dealt with it in Inferno, possibly a bit unfairly. Anyone who can write Harrison Bergeron was a prophetic and talented. https://archive.org/stream/HarrisonBergeron/Harrison%20Bergeron_djvu.txt or Google for better formatted text; I don’t know where you can buy it.

Anyway, I’ll try to catch up today. Start with Internet Equality, a scheme to make a few regulators very powerful and a few people rich while restricting competition.

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More on Stephen Hillard, the Investor Behind Dish Network’s Spectrum Win     (journal)

Dish Network Corp.DISH -0.92% scored a $3.3 billion discount on spectrum at a government airwaves auction with the help of a little-known Texas investor: Stephen Hillard. The former jailhouse teacher and fantasy author played a key role in assembling the team that backed Dish’s bid, drawing on his extensive connections with Alaskan Native American groups.

Here’s more on the man who made wireless-auction magic happen:

Middle Class to Millionaire: Mr. Hillard was born in Dallas and grew up in a middle-class family in Grand Junction, Colo. He spent his summers herding sheep and trimming orchards with his grandparents in Hotchkiss. Soon after earning a law degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 1976, Mr. Hillard made a spur-of-the-moment decision to move to Alaska, where he began advising Native corporations on business dealings. Eventually, he became a top executive at one of them, Cook Inlet Region Inc. And now, he runs a private-equity firm, Council Tree.

From The Wall Street Journal:

By

Kelly Ayotte And

Ajit Pai

Feb. 4, 2015 7:14 p.m. ET

Should the federal government hand out more than $3 billion from American taxpayers to a Fortune 500 company as part of a program to help small and disadvantaged businesses compete with large corporations? Of course not, but it’s about to happen.

First, some background. The Federal Communications Commission is in charge of auctioning a public asset—the nation’s wireless spectrum—for private-sector use. Last week the FCC finished auctioning spectrum for nearly $45 billion. This spectrum will now be used to deliver high-speed Internet access on mobile devices.

While most bidders put their own money on the line, some of the largest companies in the auction were using billions of taxpayer dollars. How is that possible?

The answer is the FCC’s “designated entity” program. In 1993 Congress directed the FCC to give small businesses an opportunity to compete in spectrum auctions against large corporations by providing the small companies with taxpayer-funded bidding credits. The program was supposed to work like this: A small business that lacked pockets deep enough to outbid large, established corporations would get a taxpayer-funded boost to its bid. So if a small business bid, say, $100 for a license, it would pay $75 and a federal subsidy would cover the remaining $25. It was a well-intentioned program to help the Davids compete with Goliaths.

To nobody’s surprise, the biggest competitors have figured out a way to game the system. Industry giants are claiming those taxpayer-funded discounts for themselves and using them to outbid smaller, would-be competitors.

In the latest auction, $13.3 billion worth of spectrum may soon be awarded to two companies in which Dish Network —a company with almost $14 billion in annual revenue—has an 85% interest. But those Dish-owned entities aren’t planning on paying full freight. They are counting on American taxpayers to kick in over $3 billion for their auction spending, each having sought “designated entity” status, and hence discounts, from the FCC. Dish isn’t the only beneficiary of this loophole.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/kelly-ayotte-and-ajit-pai-ending-welfare-for-telecom-giants-1423095287

Also from the Wall Street Journal:

Musicians and Kardashians may claim they can break the Internet by posting alluring photographs, but they have nothing on Tom Wheeler.

The Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission unveiled on Wednesday a plan to demolish a policy that for two decades has allowed the Internet to become the jewel of world-wide communication and commerce. His new “Open Internet” plan represents a monumental shift from open markets in favor of government control. It is a grave threat to American innovation.

***

In a piece for Wired magazine, Mr. Wheeler announced that this week he will circulate to his fellow commissioners a plan to enact what President Obama demanded in November: century-old telephone regulation for today’s broadband communications companies.

“This proposal is rooted in long-standing regulatory principles,” wrote Mr. Wheeler, and he’s right. The game plan is to apply to competitive digital networks rules originally written for monopoly railroads in the 1800’s. But don’t worry, this “common carrier” regulatory structure was modernized for telephones as recently as the summer of 1934 when Franklin Roosevelt signed the Communications Act.

The Wheeler cover story is that such antiquated rules are necessary to provide “net neutrality,” the concept that all Internet traffic should be treated equally and not blocked from reaching consumers—in other words, to allow the Internet to function pretty much as it does now.

But even if net neutrality were threatened, the Federal Trade Commission already has authority to punish companies that discriminate against consumers, and Congressional Republicans have already expressed their willingness to enact a law preventing the specific abuses Mr. Wheeler claims he wants to prevent. In any case, even the old telephone regs don’t treat all customers equally—they allow heavy-volume customers to get a better deal than mom and pop.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/washington-conquers-the-internet-1423095660

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It ain’t broke but it might break, so let us have the government fix it now, at great cost, creating much corruption and crony capitalism.

Net neutrality means that I must pay for the net access, which I use a couple of hours a day, exactly as much as the kid down the street who downloads porn and bit torrents 24 hours a day; which is to say I must subsidize his activities. And no one can offer me a lower price for what I use than they offer him for his massive use. That is known as fairness.

Note that the “auction” was won with government money. And that’s now, when in theory we don’t regulate these things.  Another column in the Journal sums up nicely the policy which drives the move to “Net Neutrality” and other “infrastructure” on the Federal level.

An Empire of Taxation

The government role in Obama’s budget looks like something last seen in 17th century Europe.

By

Daniel Henninger

Feb. 4, 2015 7:16 p.m. ET

The president’s annual budget reminds the Beltway tribes of what they do—tax the country, distribute revenues to their allies, and euphemize it as a budget. With his 2015 budget, Barack Obama at last makes clear his presidency’s reason for being: to establish an empire of taxation.

Commenting on Mr. Obama’s nearly $4 trillion budget, Jared Bernstein, a former policy adviser to Vice President Joe Biden , told the New York Times : “It’s a visionary document and basically says, ‘You’re with me or you’re not,’ and we can have big philosophical arguments about the role of government.”

He is right. For the Obama presidency that is what it has always been about: You’re with me or you’re not. The government role reflected in this budget looks less like a 21st century American institution than a system last seen in 17th century Europe, in which a leader defines national wealth by handing out dispensations, emoluments and punishments.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/dan-henninger-an-empire-of-taxation-1423095409?tesla=y

Alas, this isn’t just the goal of Obama and his friends. It is the goal of Liberalism.  Most Liberals don’t understand that this where their leaders are taking them. They think they are “liberating” people but of course the result is to create power centers. Look at where it leads: to Czars who may – may – be honest, but those with access to the Czars include many who are not. And of course we create new bureaucracies subject to the Iron Law.

Despair is a sin, but this internet neutrality stuff sure tempts me to despair.

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In a piece for Wired magazine, Mr. Wheeler announced that this week he will circulate to his fellow commissioners a plan to enact what President Obama demanded in November: century-old telephone regulation for today’s broadband communications companies.

“This proposal is rooted in long-standing regulatory principles,” wrote Mr. Wheeler, and he’s right. The game plan is to apply to competitive digital networks rules originally written for monopoly railroads in the 1800s. But don’t worry, this “common carrier” regulatory structure was modernized for telephones as recently as the summer of 1934 when Franklin Roosevelt signed the Communications Act.

The Wheeler cover story is that such antiquated rules are necessary to provide “net neutrality,” the concept that all Internet traffic should be treated equally and not blocked from reaching consumers—in other words, to allow the Internet to function pretty much as it does now.

But even if net neutrality were threatened, the Federal Trade Commission already has authority to punish companies that discriminate against consumers, and Congressional Republicans have already expressed their willingness to enact a law preventing the specific abuses Mr. Wheeler claims he wants to prevent. In any case, even the old telephone regs don’t treat all customers equally—they allow heavy-volume customers to get a better deal than mom and pop. Tom Wheeler’s announcement that the FCC will regulate the Internet like a public utility. Plus, Mrs. Clinton’s 2008 vaccine-skeptic remarks and why Republicans are joining the fray, ISIS’s execution of the Jordanian pilot and more IRS drama.

Mr. Wheeler is seeking to overturn Bill Clinton ’s policy of allowing the Internet to grow as a lightly regulated “information service” because Mr. Wheeler does not want light regulation. And while the successful bipartisan policy of allowing Internet creativity to flourish was widely supported as recently as 2010, when 74 House Democrats opposed treating the Web like a telephone system, Mr. Wheeler now sees a policy opening. With 23 months left in the Obama Administration, the former lobbyist aims to make the FCC the ruler of the Internet.

In an acrobatic feat of Orwellian logic, Mr. Wheeler even implies that telephone-style regulation must come to the Net to prevent problems that existed in the old telephone network, such as the difficulty faced by entrepreneurs trying to deploy new communications devices. But unlike in the days of the old Ma Bell telephone monopoly, new devices and services are multiplying today.

But it will give great power to a few people. Which is the purpose of it.

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Yes, that 3D-printed mansion is safe to live in (WP)

By Tuan C. Nguyen February 5 at 7:54 AM

Back in April, a team of Chinese construction workers used a 3D printer to construct houses. By day’s end, there were 10 standing. They were compact and fairly bare bones — nothing much to look at besides the “wow!” factor of there being as many as — count them — 10. But this time around, those same builders have taken the wraps off an achievement that’s roundly more impressive.

In Suzhou Industrial Park, adjacent to Shanghai, stands a five-story structure that the WinSun Decoration Design Engineering firm claims is “the world’s tallest 3D-printed building.” Next to it is the equally massive 3D-printed mansion, which measures 11,840 square-foot. Like the previous buildings, the walls are comprised of a mix of concrete and recycled waste materials, such as glass and steel, and formed layer by printed layer. The company stated that the total cost for the mansion was roughly $161,000.

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Competition at work:

Verizon Wireless Joins the Mobile Discount Parade     nyt

By Brian X. Chen

February 4, 2015 1:24 pm February 4, 2015 1:24 pm

Verizon Wireless executives say they are confident that network quality, not price tags, will attract customers. But that hasn’t stopped the company from cutting prices.

Verizon said on Wednesday that it was trimming the costs of most of its mobile shared data plans by $10.

For example, a plan that includes one gigabyte of data now starts at $30, down from $40; a plan that includes six gigabytes now starts at $70, down from $80. (Verizon’s shared data plans separate the costs of data from the costs for each phone line, so these rates refer only to the data portion of a phone bill.)

Verizon, however, is still resisting calling these price cuts. Instead, the company says customers can pay the same amount as they used to, but now they will get more mobile data for what they pay.

The move was surprising given that just a few days ago, Verizon said on its financial earnings call that it would not compete on price. Jan Dawson, an independent telecom analyst, said it was a sign that Verizon was finally responding to price cuts happening across the wireless industry. Chief among the many deals is Sprint’s offer to cut bills in half for any Verizon or AT&T customers who switched to Sprint.

Without net neutrality regulations

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F.C.C. Chief Wants to Override State Laws Curbing Community Net Services    nyt

By Steve Lohr

February 2, 2015 5:40 pm February 2, 2015 5:40 pm

The future of protecting an open Internet has been the subject of fierce debate, and potential changes to the rules by the Federal Communications Commission could impact your online experience.

Video by Natalia V. Osipova and Carrie Halperin on Publish Date May 15, 2014.

Tom Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, will propose an order to pre-empt state laws that limit the build-out of municipal broadband Internet services, senior F.C.C. officials said on Monday.

The proposal focuses on laws in two states, North Carolina and Tennessee, but it would create a policy framework for other states. About 21 states, by the F.C.C.’s count, have laws that restrict the activities of community broadband services. The initiative by Mr. Wheeler, if endorsed by the full commission, would be the first time the F.C.C. has tried to override such state laws.

Mr. Wheeler is expected to circulate his plan to the other commissioners on Thursday, and the full commission is scheduled to vote on Feb. 26.

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Interest Costs Poised to Surpass Defense and Nondefense Discretionary Spending

The party is over:

<.>

Currently, the government’s interest costs are around $200 billion a year, a sum that’s low due to the era of low interest rates.

Forecasters at the White House and Congressional Budget Office believe interest rates will gradually rise, and when that happens, the interest costs of the U.S. government are set to soar, from just over

$200 billion to nearly $800 billion a year by decade’s end.

<…>

By 2021, the government will be spending more on interest than on all national defense. according to White House forecasts. And one year later, interest costs will exceed nondefense discretionary spending–essentially every other domestic and international government program funded annually through congressional appropriations.

</>

http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/02/03/the-legacy-of-debt-interest-costs-poised-to-surpass-defense-and-nondefense-discretionary-spending/?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsForth

I have nothing constructive to say at this time.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

There isn’t much encouraging to say. And we are to add new regulatory bureaucrat who must be paid for all of their lives.

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As we suspected’’

Google, Microsoft and Amazon pay to get around ad blocking tool    ft

Robert Cookson, Digital Media Correspondent

Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Taboola have quietly paid the German start-up behind Adblock Plus, the world’s most popular software for blocking online advertising, to stop blocking ads on their sites.

The deals, which are confidential but whose existence has been confirmed by the Financial Times, demonstrate that some of the biggest participants in the $120bn online advertising market see the rise of ad-blocking as a material threat to their revenues.

Adblock Plus has become one of the most popular free extensions on Chrome and Firefox browsers in recent years as internet users have attempted to eliminate the interruption of advertising. Eyeo, the German company that produces the software, says it has been downloaded more than 300m times worldwide and has more than 50m monthly active users.

However many publishers that fund their operations through advertising worry that ad-blocking will undermine their business model. German media groups including RTL and ProSiebenSat.1 are seeking damages from Eyeo, while French publishers are reportedly considering whether to follow suit.

Google and Amazon declined to comment.

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Dear  Jerry

I don’t understand all this  fuss about the Moties  invading Known Space:

Look at the size of the things !

http://youtu.be/zpJAnFE33w0

—                          Russell Seitz

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Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

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