Category Archives: Uncategorized

I have to say I was a little disappointed in Stephen Colbert’s monologue on The Late Show last night when he made fun of what might have been the one reasonable part of President Trump’s speech at the United Nations yesterday, namely suggesting that countries from which immigration is originating should be given help to “make them great again” or some such phrase.

Look, I have no illusions that Trump actually believes this, or, if he were to discover that American actions were at fault, that he’d try to correct them. And I certainly wouldn’t wish to work with him on such a project.

But the sentiment is, I believe, appropriate.

Perfidy:

1. : the quality or state of being faithless or disloyal : TREACHERY
2. : an act or an instance of disloyalty [Merriam-Webster]

Used by my Arts Editor in conversation recently.

I find the uproar over the Kavanaugh nomination to SCOTUS to be emotionally tiring. Not because I’m a liberal or a conservative, but because, not being a member of either of the aforementioned tribes, I don’t have the luxury of chanting in unison with my fellow ideological travelers. I am stuck with the non-trivial task of trying to evaluate the situation with my brain, rather than shaking my goofy little spear at my enemies while gibbering wildly.

And notice I didn’t say ‘nomination,’ but ‘situation.’ By this I mean the many facets of this ridiculous clusterfuck:

1. The removal of the requirement of 60+ yea notes in the Senate to confirm, an idea advanced by former Senator Harry Reid (D-NV), and implemented and utilized by current Senate leader (a term to be used loosely, if not with derision) Mitch McConnell (R-KY – notice how both major American parties are complicit in this screw up).
2. The attempts by the GOP to ram this nomination through so quickly it’ll leave flaming wreckage in its wake.
3. The last-hour appearance of an accusation of sexual assault against Kavanaugh in the person of Professor Ford. Why didn’t this show up earlier in the process? See: Looming mid-terms.
4. The refusal to release relevant material by the Administration under the rubric of Executive privilege relating to Kavanaugh’s job duties in previous Administrations. This is apparently unprecedented, particularly since we’re not talking about release to the public, but only to the Senate. The job of the Senate is to evaluate a nominee, and that evaluation must range from job qualifications to possible vulnerabilities which would permit a national adversary to influence decisions he may make as a member of the highest Court in the land. The Trump Administration’s secrecy should automatically disqualify Kavanaugh. However, the cancer of team politics has forced his nomination forward.
5. The last half-hour appearance of an accusation of sexual impropriety against Kavanaugh in the person of Debra Ramirez. Again, etc. etc.
6. The kow-towing to an external partisan organization in selecting Kavanaugh as the nominee with little inspection by the Administration itself. That’s an embarrassment all in itself.
7. The aggressive assertions from the Democrats that the various claims of sexual improprieties are credible and should result in the immediate withdrawal of the nomination. Really? All I hear are various assertions, no one is under oath, yet, and, really, I’d rather see corroborating evidence, thanks.
8. Nominee Kavanaugh claims he has calendars proving he didn’t go to any such party as Professor Ford claims. Wait. Just who keeps such calendars and puts such faith in their veracity as to raise such a claim? Does he think we are all half-wits here?
9. Attorney Michael Avenatti, already involved through his representation of porn star Stormy Daniels in the matter of an attempt to buy her silence with regard to her tryst with the current President, now claims to represent an unnamed woman who also has accusations of a sexual nature against Kavanaugh.
10. The various hints that nominee Kavanaugh might, or might not, have lied to the Senate during other hearings. Are they fabrications by the tribe on the left, or is the tribe on the right so committed to this nominee that they’ll ignore evidence that he lies on official matters in order to get him seated?
11. The composition of “explanations” for the incident, involving “mistaken identity,” which damages someone else’s reputation. At least in this instance, the perpetrator, long time Republican strategist Ed Whelan, has apologized, withdrawn the statements, and claims he’ll be withdrawing from public discourse for a while. I do hope he was sincere in stating that he’ll be searching for reasons for his mistakes. I suggest mistaken zeal and being a team player as a substantial first step. Try imagining the opposite of what you keep saying about the opposition, hey?
12. And lots more.

Old football fans would describe this as “student body right”, wherein all the offensive players try to move the ball by forming one tight formation, daring the defense to find a way to stop them.

Notice the lack of reference to concepts like truth, reality, compromise, and civilized discourse. The Republicans have their prize bull to put in the corral, and the Democrats are massed to stop them, if they can, with neither side considering what this entire mess means for the future of the Country as a whole. Scream, scream, scream.

Andrew Sullivan addresses the tribal problem in his excellent latest column:

And it’s this reflexive, reptilian sorting of in-group and out-group that has now been supercharged by social media, by Trump’s hideous identity politics, and by campus and corporate culture. There seem to be just two inalterable categories: the oppressors or the oppressed; elite globalists or decent “normal” people. You are in one camp or the other, and, as time passes, those of us who don’t fit into this rubric will become irrelevant to the discourse, if we haven’t already got there.

After a while, the crudest trigger points of tribalism — your race, your religion (or lack of it), your gender, your sexual orientation — dominate the public space. As Claire Lehmann, the founding editor of the refreshingly heterodox new website Quillette has put it, “the Woke Left has a moral hierarchy with white men at the bottom. The Alt-Right has a moral hierarchy that puts white men at the top.” The looming midterms will not be about health care or executive power or constitutional norms (although all these things will be at stake). They will primarily be about which tribe you are in, and these tribes are increasingly sorted racially and by gender. The parties are currently doing all they can to maximize these tribal conflicts as a way to seek power. This isn’t liberal democracy.

And in this fevered, fetid atmosphere, where the stakes are always sky-high, there are no constraints. Dox, harass, troll, lie, smear, mock, distort, harangue, and preferably ruin: those are the tools of the alt-right just as much as they are the tools of the woke left. In such a civil war, the idea that the Supreme Court could ever perform the role it was designed to — interpret the law in a non-tribal way — is laughable. Indeed, the notion of a filibuster becomes moot, because it requires some sort of common ground between senators, and this is regarded by both sides as complicity in evil. Even a private, confidential hearing for accuser and accused is now, according to Senator Gillibrand, equivalent to silencing the accuser. I lean toward believing Christine Blasey Ford, as I believed Anita Hill and Juanita Broaddrick and Paula Jones, but I cannot know about something that happened 36 years ago. So I favor an FBI investigation and see no reason to rush a confirmation vote. But offering someone a chance to provide testimony in a private session wherever she chooses is not “silencing” her. Senator Hirono has gone further and told half the citizenry to “shut up” solely because they are male.

Andrew is fearful for the upcoming generations:

They have been told, in Haidt’s and Lukianoff’s view, that safety is far more important than exposure to the unknown, that they should always trust their feelings, and that life is a struggle between good people and evil people. This infantilizes them, emotionalizes them, and tribalizes them. These kids have been denied freedom, have little experience of confronting danger and overcoming it themselves, have been kept monitored to all times. They tend to have older parents and fewer siblings. There is a reason the safest generation in history is also the most anxious, the most depressed, and the most suicidal. It is not that it’s all in their heads — prejudice and discrimination exist — but that they do not have the skills to put any of this in perspective. And so rather than rebel against their authorities, as students used to do, they cling to them like safety blankets, begging them to protect them just as their parents did.

In other words, they’re being taught to stick with System 1 thinking, rather than System 2. In fact, this is discussed in Garvey’s The Persuaders, which I reviewed a while back. Here’s part of my review:

Garvey also introduces us to the idea that we have two thinking systems. The first is the fast one, and is the one that is employed when, on a camping trip, the bushes rustle and you take off running. There’s no active, rational thinking, but rather the instinctive consideration that a mountain lion is about to leap upon you. What should one do? Run for your life. The second is the much slower, rational system, where we try to apply logic and reasoning to a situation. The goal of the Persuaders? To activate and manipulate the first system, leaving the second quiescent, through the use of keywords.

Which is all very interesting in view of an opinion piece in NewScientist (15 September 2018, paywall) concerning populism by Simon Oxenham:

Many are now wondering if this [the right wing populism pervading Europe and the United States] is the new normal. In 2015, Manuel Funke, then at the Free University of Berlin, and his colleagues turned to data analysis for an answer. They found that over the past 140 years, every major financial crisis has been followed by a surge in support for far-right movements. The good news for liberalism is that this faded after 10 years. If this pattern holds once more, we should be on schedule to see the surge in populism petering out.

Funke and his colleagues wrote: “After a crisis, voters seem to be particularly attracted to the political rhetoric of the extreme right, which often attributes blame to minorities or foreigners… Votes for far-right parties increase strongly, government majorities shrink, fractionalization of parliaments rises and the overall number of parties represented in parliament jumps.” Although some political after-effects are measurable for a decade, the political upheaval is mostly temporary, they add.

Funke’s work is rooted in data analysis, finding evidence for the apparent link between political trends and financial crises, but not for deeper behavioural reasons behind that link.

However, other studies already suggest reasons why, in times of turmoil, support rises for protectionist policies favoured by far-right and populist movements, be they on immigration, “unfair” trade or security. The studies point to negativity bias, a common trait in which people subconsciously respond more and pay more attention to negative than to positive events.

After taking into account socio-economic factors, those who are more biologically responsive to and devote more attention to negative events tend to favour “protective” policies.

It reads as a classic “let’s try that path, oh that hurt, let’s not do that path after all” situation, doesn’t it? The task for the right-wing extremists, then, is to convince the voters that venture on that path that any other path – the liberals – are evil incarnate. We’ve seen this in the abortion debate, where Evangelicals have basically slept with the devil in order to get judges friendly to their one and only cause of abortion seated, and the recent immigration debate, where the extremists magnify whatever crimes immigrants, illegal or not, may be committing, removing the all-important context. Context-free may be great when parsing computer languages, but it’s the worst way to think when it comes to social issues and, generally, real-life.

Simon notes there are uncertainties and dissidents to this study:

Not all political scientists agree that these cycles will apply now. Justin Murphy at the University of Southampton, UK, expects the pendulum to continue to swing further in the opposite direction this time. To him, the root cause of the contemporary rise of the populist right may be linked to a backlash against social liberals overstating the extent to which freedom of thought or behaviour has been restricted – despite declines in racism and sexism in the US and UK in recent decades.

There is clearly a case to be made that at least some overzealous elements among the left are harming their own cause and may be sparking a backlash at the ballot box. This was demonstrated in an incident earlier this year when renowned liberal psychologist Steven Pinker outlined his thoughts on how to deconstruct and fight back against false and illogical racist and sexist claims made by alt-right activists.

A point Andrew has also made.

Sometimes it helps to take a step back and consider the larger situation, and if it wasn’t for the fact that this particularly sordid episode involves a life-long appointment of someone with a religious viewpoint at odds with most of the United States, and probably devilishly hard to remove, I’d just sit back and laugh at it.

But that’s not so easily done here. Best to hope more and more partisans become conscious of this ludicrous situation and come together to figure out what can be done about the current bands of resolute zealots in both camps.

Don’t confuse water-bears with teddy-bears.

Ant-Man And The Wasp (2018) is a light and fluffy movie in which just about all the primary actions take place because one physicist was way too arrogant for all the other physicists, resulting in the latter going it alone and having various things go wrong. Does the arrogant physicist get his come-uppance? Nope.

In other words, this movie is thematically inert.

Spiced with good-hearted humor and some lovely tardigrades, it certainly entertains, as it’s well-acted and the fight sequences are nicely thought out, but in the end it’s little more than a meringue which has not been properly tanned. Don’t spend a lot of money to see this one.

In fact, if you wait for it to hit broadcast television, you won’t miss much. Except maybe the Easter Egg at the end. But, really, the producers should have just dumpsterized this script.

From womb to plate…

From a Motley Fool analysis mailing:

The news is all around: The S&P 500 keeps hitting all-time highs and is closing in on 3,000 for the first time.

But in reality, the S&P 500 passed 3,000 a few years ago, by a measure that’s much more reflective of the stock market’s true performance. I’m talking about the S&P 500 total return index, which topped 3,000 in 2013 and now sits around 5,700.

The quote for the S&P 500 that you most often see on financial websites and hear about on the news is just the price return of the stocks in the index. It doesn’t factor in dividends — and so it ignores a crucial component of what you can earn by investing in stocks.

How important are dividends? Over the past decade, the S&P 500 returned 133% on a price-only basis. But looking at the index’s total return, its performance jumps to 189%. … [Robert Brokamp, Rule Your Retirement, The Motley Fool]

For an investment professional, this is a part of the financial landscape, something worth discovering as if it were a natural feature.

But how about the rest of us? We can consider it a signal concerning the behavior of the American economic system, although I’m somewhat hesitant to extend it to the international financial system. A dividend is primarily, but not exclusively, considered a proof of the profitability of a business, because it’s money sent by the business to its shareholders. In most cases, the money is derived from the profits generated by the revenue it receives for the services it provides to its customer base.

So, if they’re going up, that means higher profits. For any individual company, that’s probably good, especially if the customer is receiving an excellent value for its money and the profits derive from efficiencies ethically created.

But Brokamp is talking about the market as a whole, so the fact that this aggregate entity is setting new records doesn’t necessarily mean great things. Depending on who you are, it may mean the ratio of price to cost for the generic service/product has gotten too high, i.e., the companies are finding it too easy to raise prices without serious blowback from competitors.

In other words, this may indicate we’re entering a monopoly situation. I’ve talked a little bit about this before, but not much. And, unfortunately, monopoly breakup is not currently part of our political culture, partly due to the influence of the libertarians, who steadfastly believe in the apparent logic that prices that are too high will naturally attract competitors that can supply better products at similar prices or similar products at lower prices. They acknowledge the moat problem^[1], but sometimes I wonder if they recognize how important moats can be. I also find their model of humanity to be simplistic in view of our history of corporate collusion, aka price fixing. They presume that only competition will occur, which turns out to be highly unlikely, given the common businessman lust for easy profit.

Back to the topic, the increase in dividends may also continue due to the irresponsible tax reform of 2017, which appears to not be sparking any kind of business renaissance, but instead is resulting in share buybacks and increased dividends.

In the end, what is the ethical course for an investment advisor such as Brokamp in situations such as these? Are they responsible for looking at the big, big picture that says we may burn down the economy by not responsibly managing the behaviors of corporations, and call for taxes to be returned to a level in which we can hope, through prudent budgeting, to return the annual Federal deficit to manageable levels (it’s too much to hope to return to 2000, when a couple of years of no deficit incited the Republicans into a drunken orgy of spending), or should the financial advisor keep his eye close to the landscape and simply advise his readers to buy dividend stocks and ignore the bigger picture?

To me, the dangers of ignoring the bigger picture could be considered a violation of the ethical duties of a financial advisor, because the dangers to one’s investments due to poor management of government may grow larger, and warning of that is one of the responsibilities of a financial advisor.

So I have to wonder about the ethics behind that analysis.

¹ The moat of a business is the cost of standing up a competing business, including physical facilities, human resources, intellectual properties (either secret or protected by law), and other things that escape my attention at the moment.

When I read about proposed alternative energy systems, they often seem to neglect the fact that removing energy from a system is still a perturbation of an energy system, just as much as adding or, in the case of climate change gases, retaining energy in the same system. So I was pleased to read about these concerns being addressed in this NewScientist (15 September 2018, paywall) article on carpeting the Sahara desert in solar panels:

COVERING the Sahara desert in solar panels and wind farms wouldn’t only help power the world, it would also improve the local climate. Rainfall there would more than double and there would be a modest increase in vegetation cover.

“There would be a slight greening of the Sahara,” says Fred Kucharski of the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Italy. This wouldn’t be enough to return the Sahara to the much greener state it was in just 6000 years ago, but the overall impact would be beneficial. And the greening effect could be amplified by other measures, such as tree planting.

Its plentiful sun and wind, sparse population and closeness to Europe make the Sahara desert prime real estate for solar and wind farms. Morocco is already building large solar plants. But any changes made to land surfaces – from cutting down forests to covering deserts in solar panels – affect climate.

According to a climate model used by a team including Kucharski, covering the entire desert in either solar or wind farms would lead to more air rising up above the Sahara and thus to more rainfall there. Building both would have an even greater effect.

It sets my mind somewhat at ease that at least we’re trying to understand all the effects of proposed changes to our natural environments, not just the anticipated positive effects.

Naif:

noun

• a naive or inexperienced person

adjective

• naive. [Dictionary.com]

Noted in “I helped write a speech defending a vote for Clarence Thomas. I regret it still,” Stephen Rodrick, WaPo:

I wasn’t a complete naif; I’d been farmed out to work on the promising congressional campaign of Mel Reynolds, a former Rhodes scholar, who lost a close race in Illinois’ 2nd District in 1990. I was briefly crushed. Then I watched Reynolds get elected two years later; not long afterward, he was convicted of multiple felonies including statutory rape and embezzlement.

Ilya Somin analyzes an unfortunate legal situation at great length on The Volokh Conspiracy:

In debates over issues such as undocumented immigration, the War on Drugs, and others, we often hear the claim that the government should “just enforce the law.” If anyone breaks the law, the state is obligated to enforce it against them if it finds out about the violation, and the perpetrators have no right to complain, because they deserve whatever punishment they get.

Perhaps so. But this story about a woman who may be subject to charges for sheltering pets during Hurricane Florence highlights the flaws in that way of thinking:

And Somin then finds a number of problems with the blind application of law – but none are my immediate reaction. Don’t doubt it, I agree with Somin that this lady, Tammie Hedges, who runs Crazy’s Claws n Paws, a non-profit group, should be excused for having broken the law, but Somin doesn’t touch on my reasoning.

Ideal legal systems are designed to enforce laws during periods of normalcy, and the laws they contain are promulgated in order to continue that normalcy. We adjust them to change what we see as normalcy to be more congruent with a system of justice, because we believe that a normalcy more congruent with justice is more conducive to a society that is peaceful, prosperous (due to a lack of internal tension / dissension; external pressures are a different matter, often unaddressable through a legal system concerned with internal matters).

But when that baseline of normalcy is shattered, whether through an act of Nature or the malice of humanity, the applicability of certain laws may become questionable. Let me offer a limited example: a confrontation between a two people, one an aggressor. He (statistically the most likely gender) aggressively offers violence against the other, who replies in kind and kills the first. We have laws against taking the life of another, but normalcy has been shattered in this case by the first man offering deadly violence against the second, and when the second kills the first, we excuse it, after a proper investigation and possible judicial hearing, as self-defense.

Hurricane Florence certainly qualifies as a natural disaster. Ms Hedges found herself in a situation where she, and she alone, could offer shelter to a collection of pets who would otherwise be forced to fend for themselves in a situation in which many of them would perish. If we accept that pets have become limited family members, and many Americans, such as myself, have done so, then her choice to offer her physical facility as a temporary shelter is not an abrogation of law, but a sacrifice on her part ethically acceptable and quite admirable, even if she views it as simply the right thing to do.

Certainly, my position, assumed without caution, could lead to abuses, and I am not a lawyer, but rather a software engineer (which may explain my abstract approach to the theoretical framework of the law), so beyond special hearings and recognition that legal systems have limited applicability in time of emergency, I’m not sure how to proceed in a manner that is just, safe, and respectable, but then that’s why we train lawyers in the first place.

Ms Hedges should be freed of all concerns in this matter.

Concerning the recent story in The New York Times that Deputy US Attorney General and supervisor to the special counsel investigation of President Trump Rod Rosenstein had verbally considered invoking the 25th Amendment in order to remove President Trump, on Lawfare Jack Goldsmith presents an analysis of the fallout of the article. These points particularly caught my eye:

This story gives President Trump plenty of legitimate reasons to fire Rosenstein, including: (1) Rosenstein’s suggestion of recording Trump; (2) Rosenstein’s floating of the idea to decapitate Trump under the 25th Amendment; (3) Rosenstein’s plan to consult Comey about who should be appointed special counsel just days after Trump fired Comey; and (4) Rosenstein’s related acts of insubordination and disrespect. Trump now has cover should he wish to fire Rosenstein for his appointment and supervision of Robert Mueller. It will be interesting to see how Trump reacts. He could fire Rosenstein immediately. Or he could not fire him and instead use the story to continue to attack Rosenstein’s supervision of Mueller. (The current fight over the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court might significantly affect the President’s calculus.) …

Regardless of the legal issue of Rosenstein’s conflict of interest, this story will lend enormous credibility to the president’s claim that the Mueller investigation is hopelessly compromised. The president can now tell a story about how Rosenstein acted with anger and resentment in appointing Mueller; that the Mueller appointment was part of Rosenstein’s larger plan to decapitate the president; and that Rosenstein’s 18-month supervision of the Mueller investigation, and the investigation itself, is therefore compromised. I don’t think these revelations affect the legality of the Mueller appointment and investigation. But they will surely affect the atmospheric lens through which it is judged.

Which leaves me to wonder if the reporters involved were taken in by a false story, deliberately planted by President Trump and/or his allies. While Trump is not politically adept, some of his allies have political skills and better judgment than he has, outside of pleasing his base of supporters.

It’ll be interesting to see if Rosenstein survives in his position much longer. It’s possible that if the Republicans suffer a devastating mid-term election result, he’ll be left in his position rather than going through the trouble of shepherding a new Deputy AG through a hostile Senate; if the Republican control of the Senate continues, on the other hand, he may be handed his walking papers quite quickly.

Euphonious:

1. pleasant in sound; agreeable to the ear; characterized by euphony:
   a sweet, euphonious voice. [Dictionary.com]

Noted in “Iran’s rich, influential religious singers eclipse clerics,” Rohollah Faghihi, AL Monitor:

Other singers have joined in, criticizing the eulogists’ new style. Abdul-Hossein Mokhtabad, an acclaimed folk singer, told IRNA news agency Sept. 18, “The eulogists aren’t euphonious anymore. Their voices are mostly harsh and angry.” He added, “The content of their songs is violent and even [full of] superstition and insult.”

Image Credit: Inhabitat

In case you’ve heard of the hydrogen-powered trains entering service in Germany and are wondering if we’ll be seeing them any time soon, Lloyd Alter on Treehugger has been busily collecting the cold water they presumably spew and is ready to dump it all over you:

All the blogs seem really excited about this, even though rail electrification with overhead wires has been going on in Europe for decades and, though expensive, is the tried and true method. But hey, hydrogen is clean and green, right? I must admit that I have always been a skeptic of the hydrogen economy, but is it time to admit I was wrong? Perhaps things have changed. After all, as Daniel Cooper writes in Engadget,

Hydrogen’s strong energy density and relative ease of generation and transportation makes it ideal for heavy loads. And while it’s currently not a clean material, the hope is that companies can push towards creating H2 with 100 percent renewables in the future.

I read that and thought, no, I am not wrong. This is classic hydrogen hype. Let’s deconstruct it.

Just one of his critiques:

Energy Density: It’s true, hydrogen has the highest energy density per mass of any fuel; the trouble is it is the lightest fuel and has a very low energy per unit volume; a gallon of diesel has many times more energy than a gallon of hydrogen. So, according to the Department of Energy, “its low ambient temperature density results in a low energy per unit volume, therefore requiring the development of advanced storage methods that have potential for higher energy density.”

So energy density is a head fake. And then there’s the creation of hydrogen, which apparently is mostly fossil-fuel based.

I remember reading, oh so many years ago, that Mazda engineers had modified rotary engines to burn hydrogen (rotary engines were used in Mazda RX-7s and RX-8s, of which I own an example of the former and a cousin in Georgia owns an example of the latter). It appears it still doesn’t mean much.

Here’s a promotional video:

Gotta admit a quieter rail engine has its attractions for both humans and other creatures.

My Arts Editor recently had some fun with some ginger.

A still-life sort of thing.

In reference to The Super Inframan (1975), I’ll supply some quotes from my Arts Editor.

“It looks like the set for a porn movie.”

“If it were made by junior high kids, it might be acceptable!”

“They used a terrible cheese when they made this movie!”

“We need a really good adjective for this movie. How about execrable?”

“Bleah!”

And no more ink shall be wasted on this review. Send a copy of this movie to your most loathed enemy, and they’ll hate you all the more.

I guess I lost track of this science mission, but Spaceweather has not:

ROBOTS LAND ON ASTEROID RYUGU: Today, Japan made history by landing two rovers onto the surface of an asteroid. The two rovers (named Rover-1A and 1B) fell from their mothership, Hayabusa2, less than 100 meters above diamond-shaped asteroid Ryugu. Now they are hopping across the rocky landscape in an unprecedented feat of exploration. This picture was taken by Rover-1A in mid-hop:

I’ll not borrow his pic, go click on the link if you want to see it. It’s a great achievement by the Japanese space agency, JAXA. And makes for lovely visuals.

Still a fan of the Mars rovers, such as Curiosity? The recent issue of The Planetary Report featured an article on Curiosity’s visual data acquisition system (aka, its camera and controlling software), and while searching for the article online, I found a similar blog post by Raymond Francis and Tara Estlin.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

Since 2016, NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover has had the ability to choose its own science targets using an onboard intelligent targeting system called AEGIS (for Automated Exploration for Gathering Increased Science). The AEGIS software can analyze images from on-board cameras, identify geological features of interest, prioritize and select among them, then immediately point the ChemCam instrument at selected targets to make scientific measurements.

Autonomous targeted science without Earth in the loop is a new way to operate a scientific mission. It has become a routine part of the MSL Science Team’s strategy for exploring the ancient sedimentary rocks of Gale Crater.

AEGIS is an example of what we call ‘science autonomy’, where the spacecraft (the rover in this case) can make certain decisions on its own about scientific measurements and data – choosing which measurements to make, or having made them, which to transmit to Earth. This is distinct from autonomy in navigation, or in managing onboard systems – both of which Curiosity can also do. In a solar system that’s tens to hundreds of light-minutes across, science autonomy allows us to make measurements that can’t be made with humans in the loop, or to make use of periods where our robotic explorers would be waiting for instructions from Earth.

Efficiency. I recall reading somewhere that it was considered a big step forward when chess playing computers started using the time spent by the opponent, human or computer, in deciding on their move, to compute future alternative strategies, rather than idling away.

The AEGIS autonomous targeting process begins with taking a ‘source image’ – a photo with an onboard camera (either the NavCam or the RMI). AEGIS’ computer vision algorithms then analyze the image to find suitable targets for follow-up observations. On MER and MSL, AEGIS uses an algorithm called Rockster, which attempts to identify discrete objects by a combination of edge-detection, edge-segment grouping and morphological operatio

ns – in short, it finds sharp edges in the images, and attempts to group them into closed contours. Built originally to find float rocks on a sandy or gravelly background, Rockster has proved remarkably versatile at finding a variety of geological target types.

Cool stuff. I wish I could say I had some sort of involvement. It’s the sort of thing that’ll probably end up having all sorts of applications in other areas.

It’s the Carnyx, which Discover Magazine helpfully talked about a few months ago:

The carnyx was a terrifying instrument. Brandished in battle against Roman invaders, the Celtic horn was taller than a horse, resembled the head of a boar and produced “a harsh sound which suits the tumult of war,” in the words of one ancient historian. But Scottish archaeologists studying one of the most complete surviving examples — excavated from a bog in 1816 — wanted to actually hear it. So they commissioned metalsmith John Creed to craft a replica in bronze and brass. Four hundred hours of meticulous work, using Iron Age techniques, resulted in an instrument that would do a Celt proud.

And here it is:

Peeper, our stripey cat, hated it. Mayhem doesn’t seem to mind it so much. Here’s another sample by the same artist:

Rohollah Faghihi discusses the mutation of an Iranian cultural tradition in AL Monitor:

During Muharram [the name of a particular month in the Iranian calendar], there are ceremonies in each neighborhood, funded by the local communities. These ceremonies include eulogists who sing about the Battle of Karbala [October 10, 680 AD]. The songs are vivid descriptions of the suffering and martyrdom of Imam Hussein and his companions that bring audiences to tears.

In recent years, however, critics have been claiming that the cost of the tearjerkers has become just too expensive. The eulogists, an integral part of the ceremonies, now demand a price that equals that of pop stars. There are still eulogists who take no money, believing it is not right, but others, particularly well-known ones, have no qualms about demanding a high fee. Prices go as high as $2,500 for a single ceremony — only slightly lower than $3,000 that well-known pop stars demand, according to a 2017 report by Poolnews.

Shia Online reported in 2013 that a number of the singers have started working with agents, and the mourning ceremony organizers have to contact the eulogists through them.

More than the eulogists’ wages have increased: Some of the well-known singers have also become influential figures allied to hard-line politicians and factions.

During the presidency of hard-line Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013), eulogists were permitted to use the performances to speak against Reformists, indirectly comparing them with Imam Hussein’s enemies in remarks between songs.

Ironically, Ahmadinejad’s encouragement of eulogists taking on a political role so he could use them to crush his political enemies worked against him when the hard-line singers turned on him and his inner circle in the last two years of his presidency, when his power struggle with conservatives reached its climax.

It’s a fascinating look into the political churn of Iran, sparked as it is by religious fervor. I suppose these profit-making, politically-linked eulogists can be seen as feeding off of that fervor. I thought this was interesting, too:

I lack historical context on this article from CNN/Politics:

The Democrat challenging [Rep. Paul] Gosar in Arizona’s 4th District unveiled a new ad Friday that features Grace, David, Jennifer, Tim, Joan and Gaston lambasting Gosar over Social Security, health care, water policy and more.

“Paul’s absolutely not working for his district,” David says.

Then comes the big reveal: Gosar is their brother — but they endorse David Brill, the Democrat running against him. …

In Wisconsin, Democrat Randy Bryce’s brother is featured in an ad backing Republican Bryan Steil in the 1st District race for retiring House Speaker Paul Ryan’s seat.

And the parents of Republican Kevin Nicholson, who was a Senate candidate in Wisconsin before he lost the primary to state Sen. Leah Vukmir, gave the maximum contributions allowable under federal campaign finance law to the Democratic incumbent whom Nicholson hoped to challenge, Sen. Tammy Baldwin.

Is it normal that a few families of candidates seek to defeat him or her in every election year? Or is this new, and indicates just how far the GOP is drifting to the right? The extremist in the family is now the candidate of the Republicans? Much like all of these candidates.

On National Review, Jeremy Carl demonstrates how to keep the base in an uproar by mixing good advice with dubious claims. The principle characters in his little drama are Judge Kavanaugh, as the hapless victimized hero, Rep. Keith Ellison (R-MN), candidate for MN Attorney General and all around bad guy, and the Democratic Party as the morality-free mob:

[Karen] Monahan, an active Democrat, and her son seemingly have no motive to lie about Ellison’s behavior, and three friends of Monahan and her work supervisor also said she confided Ellison’s abuse to them at the time it is alleged to have happened. She has provided medical records showing that she discussed the alleged abuse (and her fear of retribution from Ellison, who is named in the medical record) with her physician and her work supervisor.

The unstated problem with his contentions? None of these were brought to the attention of law enforcement. Worse yet, he’s either naive or glossing over the point that Monahan’s base motive may have easily been revenge, as I’ve discussed here. Later, he references an earlier complaint by Amy Alexander, but a judge did not find her credible. And, finally, some of the information he references is only available from conservative web sites such as The Daily Caller; I could not find information from real news sources such as the local StarTribune, which would be far more motivated to find the real news and report it. The fact that I didn’t find it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist or didn’t happen, but those references are a strong blow to his credibility.

But nuance and strength of source doesn’t do in a myth-reinforcing screed such as Carl’s, as we’ll see later.

The real problem with his big ol’ bucket of mud, though, is this:

Despite knowing of the allegations, the Minnesota Democrats endorsed Ellison for the office of attorney general, giving him over 82 percent at their recent convention. As attorney general, he’d be responsible for enforcing domestic-violence and rape laws.

Now, I’m not a Democrat, but even so, you would think such allegations would have come to my attention, since Ellison is a prominent politician and represents part of the Twin Cities, where I live, albeit not my district. But, until the Monahan allegations, and its highly suspicious timing, broke, I hadn’t heard of them. To accuse the members of the Democratic Party of voting for Ellison despite the knowledge of the allegations is dubious, at best. An allegation of 13 years ago that was dismissed, and then Monahan’s refusal to produce the tape that would prove her allegation. These are credible? Not yet. Not yet.

Perhaps those Democrats aware of the allegations are simply tired of anti-Muslim bigotry (such as this) and chose to vote for the guy who attracts what appears to be baseless allegations. Sure, he might be guilty. If Monahan really wants to protect the public and the Republic from the depredations of a domestic abuser, then she should produce that tape, take it to the police, and get him locked up. She’d be worthy of applause, now wouldn’t she? I’d certainly think so.

But, given the timing of her claim, and her refusal to cough that tape up, she’s hard to take seriously. Given the importance of her claim to Carl’s essay, and his attempt to gloss it over into some sinful knowledge on the part of the Democrats, it all falls apart for him when these facts are considered.

And it’s all a bit of a shame, because in the midst of this waterfall of stirring up the faithful, he quotes a fine point from Michelle Malkin:

But Michelle Malkin had it right: “Rape is a devastating crime. So is lying about it. It’s not victim blaming to get to the bottom of the truth. It’s liar-shaming. Don’t believe a gender. Believe evidence.”

That is something I can get behind. In fact, I’ll recommend it to Mr. Carl to think about. Where’s your evidence when it comes to Ellison? You threw a lot of shit at the wall, but hardly any stuck.

But, again, the point here wasn’t to make a fine-tuned argument. It was his turn to reinforce the message to the GOP faithful that the Democrats are evil. I do not exaggerate, he’s telling the base that their fellow Americans are the spawn of the Devil. After all, he mentions Bill Clinton, supposed rapist, and Ted Kennedy, who surely must be guilty of something, since he had a car accident and hardly acted heroically afterwards, as heroes of the Democrats. Surely they must be evil, no?

It really makes you wonder if Carl understands that when we say we’re Americans, it means we have a basic level of trust in each other, that we all have ethical systems that are mostly shared, and that we all have the best interests of America at heart. Sometimes methods differ.

And if the Democrats did vote for a domestic abuser, they didn’t do so because they approve of that. They did because the evidence (reference Malkin above, hey) simply isn’t there. Again, Monahan provides it, then the game changes and maybe we put Ellison away, rather than in the AG’s seat. But she hasn’t done so, and we can’t really play into the game of maybe he did …

Similarly, Kavanaugh gets the same standard, as modified by the fact that he’s been nominated to a lifelong post, while Ellison is running for an elective, time-limited post. But what will Kavanaugh’s accuser, Professor Ford, bring in addition to a simple accusation? That, in an honest Congress, will determine his fate. In this Congress? Both sides are at full screech, and I misdoubt the motives of both. My inclination, minus any strong supporting evidence, is that her accusation will not be enough on its own.

But back to Carl. At the end of his essay, he gives away his game, and how little respect he has for Malkin, with this simple  passage:

They’re the party that screams about Haven Monahans who don’t exist while ignoring Karen Monahans who do. And for decades, continuing to this very day, they inveigh against the GOP’s alleged “war on women” while they cover for the own abusers in the highest places, at times inventing nonexistent rapists and fake sexual-assault statistics when it serves their political interests.

Does that make you absolutely furious?

Me Too.

Furious, as in so angry you’re red in the face – and the most important facet of a human being, the intellect, is turned off. Mr. Carl doesn’t want the reader to be thinking, to question his assertions, to find alternative, perhaps more reasonable interpretations. He wants their emotional reactions going on high speed, propelling his readers into that swirling fog of emotion so they accept every one of his assertions as if they’re gospel truth, which we already know in some cases are not, and sweep that conservative reader off their intellectual feet and into Carl’s great net of voters.

Because that’s all this really turns out to be. Give the reader no reason to feel a connection with the Democrats, to see that they share the same desires and thoughts as do their “political opponents.” Instead, make them build the walls that won’t let the hated invaders in, because that’s how they capture those voters and keep them safely locked in their vault.

And that’s the whole point of this essay. To be fatally divisive. So much for America, when it comes to the conservative vote.

Professor Marvin Minsky was one of the most prominent early researchers into artificial intelligence, and, if memory serves, was one of those who predicted the imminent development of real AI.

Still waiting on that. But I see Kevin Drum is busy channeling the good Professor:

When I talk to people about artificial intelligence, the most common pushback has to do with emotion and sociability. Sure, maybe robots will be better than us at driving cars or doing taxes, but they’ll never replace a conversation with friends or provide any kind of emotional support. A robot brain just can’t do this.

I couldn’t agree less. As far as I’m concerned, the human brain is a proof of concept that a human brain can exist. And if a human brain can exist on a substrate of CHON-based mush,¹ why can’t it exist on a substrate of silicon and trace metals? Do we really think that CHON-based mush is all that special?

Of course not. But that’s the easy part to knock down. The real criticism of our alleged robot future is that humans are just too smart, too evolved, too well developed. There’s no way that a computer algorithm can even simulate human emotions, let alone truly feel them. But I am a cynic: not only do I think algorithms can do this, I think they can do it pretty easily. The truth is that we humans aren’t really all that smart. We’re basically overclocked apes with a few extra cognitive tricks tossed in, and those tricks aren’t especially sophisticated. Not only are we easily fooled, we practically beg to be fooled. It’s why we get conned so easily, it’s why racism is so widespread, and it’s why we trust a pretty face more than an ugly one. We’re suckers for crude heuristics that probably served some useful purpose on the savannah but often do more harm than good in 21st century society.

So far, history is not on Kevin’s side – but what do I know? I took a course in AI back in the early ’80s, and I remain an interested audience, but that’s it. I think there’s a long ways to go before we have a functioning, self-aware, angst-ridden (or gods-worshipping) artificial intelligence.

But Kevin’s final paragraph, which he may have thought as a throwaway, is probably the most important part of this post:

And another ten years after that we’ll have human robots who can worm their way into our hearts and con us out of our life’s savings. Our robot future is looking better all the time, isn’t it?

Replace “human robots” with just “humans,” and what are we describing?

Psychopaths.

Look, the emotional reactions we exhibit in everyday situations are the signals by which others classify us. If^[1] a robot can be programmed to exhibit typical human emotional reactions that lead to a conclusion that the “entity” is trustworthy, and then the robot is programmed to rob us of our life savings, then it’s a psychopath. Let that happen a time or twenty, word gets out that “human robots” are not trustworthy, which is to say that we cannot make good judgments about them, and then only folks who are not paying attention will get ripped off. Or worse.

Hey, people get killed by sheep. It doesn’t mean that sheep are horribly dangerous or hunt people. It just means that some folks are unlucky, or not exercising good judgment.

Same with these psychopathic robots. A little experience and it becomes just another hazard on the landscape.

¹ “If” is merely rhetorical – certainly the robots can be programmed to be psychopaths. In fact, it may be harder to connect a believable emotional display with an ethical system than it will be to leave the two disconnected.

Congress is not entirely irresponsible. WaPo notes they’re trying to handle the impending government funding shortfall with a minimum of fuss:

The Senate on Tuesday passed a short-term spending bill that would keep the government running through Dec. 7, aiming to avert a government shutdown and put off a fight over funding for President Trump’s border wall until after the midterm elections.

The short-term bill came attached to a massive budget package containing full-year 2019 funding for the Pentagon as well as for the Labor, Education and Health and Human Services departments. GOP leaders designed the package to combine key Republican and Democratic priorities in an attempt to garner overwhelming bipartisan support. The package also aims to satisfy Trump’s desire for more military spending.

The 93-to-7 vote came less than two weeks ahead of a Sept. 30 deadline when government funding will expire unless Congress and Trump intervene. …

The House is expected to take up the bill next week, but it remains uncertain whether Trump would sign the measure.

The fact that the Republicans voted for it, unless that was a strategic “make us look good” vote, suggests that, if push comes to shove, the Senate Republicans will vote to override a veto.

So let’s suppose the House votes in a similar fashion for this bill. How will President Trump react? He’s already stuck his neck out wth this tweet:

[tweet https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1042740913968164864]

He wants his Wall, and he wants it now. He has two audiences, his base, and the independents who still waffle over him.

If he signs the bill, his base will potentially see him as weak and that may put a crack in that all-important base. His base is important not only because of the political power it gives him, but also the emotional validation they give him. However, the all-important independents will see this as a positive and pragmatic move on the President’s part.

If he vetoes the bill, he looks strong to his base – unless Congress overrides his veto. The independents, whose attitudes towards the wall are all over the place, will, to a large degree, dislike him even more.

But there’s one more factor to consider: the President is a former Reality TV star. Drama plays into his view of life and his ego. Shutting down the government may strike him as being a dramatic, powerful move.

My conservative guess is that he’ll sign the bill, all the while trying to play it up as a powerful move by himself. Done properly, his base will suck the pablum down and believe it.

My adventurous guess is that his love of drama will entice him into the veto, and he’ll b overridden by a Republican Party terrified of getting even more mud on their brand. If they don’t, the Democrats would have one more shell to put in their artillery.

When it comes to robots replacing human workers, the World Economic Forum thinks that, with a little re-education, we’re going to be OK:

A net positive outlook for jobs: However this finding is tempered by optimistic estimates around emerging tasks and growing jobs which are expected to offset declining jobs. Across all industries, by 2022, growth in emerging professions is set to increase their share of employment from 16% to 27% (11% growth) of the total employee base of company respondents, whereas the employment share of declining roles is set to decrease from currently 31% to 21% (10% decline). About half of today’s core jobs—making up the bulk of employment across industries—will remain stable in the period up to 2022. Within the set of companies surveyed, representing over 15 million workers in total, current estimates would suggest a decline of 0.98 million jobs and a gain of 1.74 million jobs. Extrapolating these trends across those employed by large firms in the global (nonagricultural) workforce, we generate a range of estimates for job churn in the period up to 2022. One set of estimates indicates that 75 million jobs may be displaced by a shift in the division of labour between humans and machines, while 133 million new roles may emerge that are more adapted to the new division of labour between humans, machines and algorithms. While these estimates and the assumptions behind them should be treated with caution, not least because they represent a subset of employment globally, they are useful in highlighting the types of adaptation strategies that must be put in place to facilitate the transition of the workforce to the new world of work. They represent two parallel and interconnected fronts of change in workforce transformations: 1) large-scale decline in some roles as tasks within these roles become automated or redundant, and 2) large-scale growth in new products and services—and associated new tasks and jobs—generated by the adoption of new technologies and other socio-economic developments such as the rise of middle classes in emerging economies and demographic shifts.

This is contra several pundits. The trick is to find those new tasks, not within the reach of robots and/or AI systems, that humans can do. I look forward to reading about them.

Or about how they never materialized. Here’s a few new roles WEC is anticipating:

… Data Analysts and Scientists, Software and Applications Developers, and Ecommerce and Social Media Specialists …

Would you want to be a Social Media Specialist? Not I. It sounds too much like a paid manipulator.

Time to visit the ear doc, Godzy my boy.

Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000) features the Japanese in a guise which desires not to be victims, but exterminators of the great lizard. They’ve concocted a weapon which spits black holes, but after its first test run, ancient flying creatures named Meganula appear (think 10 ft long dragonflies), plucking up juicy morsels to eat and eventually flooding Tokyo, probably because their molted skins clogged a sewer drain.

Meanwhile, Godzilla is on his way towards Tokyo, for reasons unknown – which give the Japanese a chance to eliminate him. But their attempt fails, and while waiting for the weapon to recharge, the Meganula arrive. The Japanese haven’t been able to do much with them, but Godzilla’s advanced halitosis weapon proves effective, and the battered Meganula survivors return to flooded Tokyo, where they fire up their mother / father / avenging god, Megaguirus. Yep, a giant dragonfly.

While the humans flit about ineffectively, Godzilla and Megaguirus have a traditional monster grudge match, and after a setback or three, Godzilla manages to burn Megaguirus to a crisp. At this point, the satellite housing the black hole gun is caught in a decaying orbit, and they only just manage to fire it at Godzilla, who then disappears. Some big wig goes to jail for concealing a banned plasma energy research facility in Tokyo, which is what attracted Godzilla to same.

And, speaking of, is he really gone?

Packed full of the usual ineffectual Japanese characters, the high point of this film is Godzilla himself, who looks suitably crabby about the entire thing. Megaguirus, on the other hand, is just a boring plastic model, and the Meganula aren’t much better.

Yeah, don’t bother, unless you’re a completist. Then do it with a case of beer.