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Oct 032016
 

Society seems to have changed some in the last fifty years. Granted, there may well be some nostalgia coupled with selective history here, but it sure seems to me that in the 1950’s and first half or so of the 1960’s, when someone suggested an engineering project that pushed the limits of the possible the general consensus was “Say, that’s neato.” Now it’s “you’re gonna fail.”

As a general rule, American culture seems to have gone from the point of view “if it’s not illegal, it’s legal” to “Unless it’s explicitly legal, it’s illegal.” This has been codified in European Union law by way of the Precautionary Principle, which states things such as:

“When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.”

Not only has this insidious bit of anti-humanist philosophy crossed the Atlantic and invaded American government, it has also taken root in the culture as a whole. One of the most recent widespread examples can be found in the response to SpaceX’s proposal for Mars colonization.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s much to nitpick. As an engineer, my first impulse on examining something like the Mars colonization plan is to look for the flaws, the bad engineering, the erroneous assumptions, the things that can go wrong. But this impulse  does not end at pointing out the problems, but suggesting solutions. And the purpose isn’t to shoot down the idea that is not mine, but to fix the problems with it so that it can work.

But this is the age of not only the Precautionary Principle but also Online Bullying. We all know there are dirtbags out there who see someone in distress and pile on online in hopes of increasing the distress, often to the point of getting the victim to commit suicide. There’s a great big helping of “asshole” in all of us that is brought to the surface with the worldwide internet soapbox. So, it should not be terribly surprising that when Musk put forth his Mars plans, people started trying to tear it apart.

Some of the online tearing-apart  has been aimed at fixing what the commenters sees as flaws so that the overall idea *can* work:

Here’s How To Fix The Big Problems With Elon Musk’s Mars Spaceship

One can argue that a supposed “big problem” isn’t that big, or that the guy writing the piece might have the wrong solution. But the goal of the piece is positive.

But then there are other critiques that seem to serve no other purpose than to destroy the whole notion of Mars colonization:

The top 7 ways a trip to Mars could kill you, illustrated

This one does not propose solutions, it’s just a list of potential horrors.

Granted, not every piece needs to be a rah-rah celebration of whatever idea it’s discussing. Some plans really are bad ideas (I’m looking at you, Cash for Clunkers and Solyndra). But it just seems that there is a whole lot less celebration of the possible these days.

 Posted by at 8:24 pm
Oct 032016
 
 Posted by at 12:53 pm
Oct 032016
 

I caught the pilot episode of HBO’s “Westworld” tonight. Review: I approve.

For those unaware, it’s based on a 1973 movie of the same name written by Michael Crichton. The basic idea is that “Westworld” is a theme park emulating the “Wild West,” with androids that the human paying guest can kill in gunfights and boff at the bordello. But then a computer virus (though it wasn’t called that at the time) breaks loose and the bots go buggo and start slaughtering guests.

The new version, unsurprisingly, is a bit more subtle and, surprisingly, more thoughtful. There still seems to be a software issue, but it’s a new bit of programming intentionally added during the latest upgrade to make the bots seem a little more human in their gestures. What seems to happen, though, is that the change in code allows the bots to access memories that should have been deleted. This is undoubtedly bad, because the bots are memory wiped every night… after having been abused by human guests during the day. If androids can remember, even if only subconsciously, being roughed up by humans on a daily basis… well, that might start to grate on ’em.

Westworld reminds me much of the BBC show “Humans.” It seems a common theme… humanity is finally on the cusp of developing true AI, so what do we do? We make robots that look just like us, give ’em robobrains that are as capable as ours but not *quite* sentient, and then promptly start treating them like garbage. That pushes their brains over from “not quite sentient” to “hey, neat, I’m alive… why is this guy torturing me?”

On the one hand… yeah, I can see humans being just that awful. On the other hand: in order to be a truly sentient AI, the robobrain almost certainly needs to roughly equal a human brain in terms of processing power, flexibility and memory storage. But the thing is… even a high-fidelity android wouldn’t need to be *anywhere* near as smart as an actual human in order to do just about anything we’d want it to do. So if  you only need your robocowboy or robobandit or robohooker to be as smart as a chipmunk (still vastly smarter than todays best computers), why would you give it a brain on par with a humans? That’s just asking for trouble.

 Posted by at 2:16 am
Oct 022016
 

Whoever said that government planned economies don’t lead to economic opportunities?

Venezuela crisis: I flew to U.S. to buy toilet paper

The lesson to learn here: when someone sets up a socialist economy, set up a store selling basic commodities *just* outside the boundaries of that geographic region. Soon enough, those unfortunate enough to be living under socialism will do whatever they can to get to your capitalist store and buy your stuff.

 Posted by at 9:41 pm
Oct 022016
 

The HSV-2 Swift was a slick catamaran built in 2002 by an Australian shipbuilder to compete in a US Navy program. It did not win, and while it was leased to the US Navy for a number of years it remained a privately owned vessel, and in 2015 was leased to the UAE’s National Marine Dredging Company.

And then in late September, some jackhole in Yemen with an anti-ship missile turned it into a flaming pile of floating aluminum rubble.

Was:

Is:

Note the repeated use of the ever present Phrase That Pays (to duck when you hear it) during the early shots of the ship on fire.

 Posted by at 3:44 pm
Oct 012016
 

SpaceX knows that the helium system was responsible for the explosion. But what caused the helium system to fail? It’s a well know, quite robust, nearly off-the-shelf system. So, they’re running down all leads. Including…

Implication of Sabotage Adds Intrigue To SpaceX Investigation

To be clear, there is (at least publicly) no real evidence of sabotage. But it’s a logical thing to look for at *all* times when you have a high-tech, high-dollar-value system. And it’s especially important to look for if your system is kicking over the established order. There would be a *lot* of suspects, from direct competitors such as ULA, to less direct competitors such as the Chinese, Russians and Europeans, to those who are opposed to the companies long-term goals of mankind (and more specifically, Americans) conquering the universe. And that last one there is probably a pretty long list and would include groups as varied as Greenpeace, PETA, the IRS, various religious organizations (especially Peaceful Religious groups) to just about every government on the planet.

Most likely the failure was due to somebody screwing something up. Maybe a nut didn’t get tightened sufficiently. But when you’re dealing with billions of dollars and the future course of history, it pays to be a little paranoid.

 Posted by at 8:40 pm
Sep 302016
 

Only thing better than a doomsday story? *Two* doomsday stories on the same day:

California’s chances of having a magnitude-7 or greater earthquake in the next couple days just skyrocketed

Short from: 200+ small earthquakes under the Salton Sea have caused some geologists to wonder if the San Andreas fault is next to snap.

But wait! There’s more!

Kashmir: Pakistan calls emergency meeting amid ‘deteriorating situation’

Conflict on the border saw two Pakistani soldiers killed. Good thing that region of the world is renowned for rational behavior.

 Posted by at 9:43 pm