Marvin the Paranoid Android - Not Wrong, Just Early,.,,,,

Thanks to the Register I read an interesting story about how soldiers who work with robots appear to be developing emotional attachments to them, even to the point of having funerals when they 'die' in the line of duty.  This is obviously a cause for concern for the military, as if this trend continues sooner or later someone will instinctively throw themselves on a grenade to protect their 'Plastic Pal Whose Fun To Be With', and thus defeat the whole point of employing robots in the first place.

Having thought the matter through I will therefore be contacting DARPA with  my proposal that this can be designed out of future robots by the simple expedient of giving them deeply malign personalities that alienate and enrage their operators. Within 5 years human interfaces will advance to the point where Mark 1 RILF (Robot I'd Like to Frag) can be implemented relatively simply by giving it a preselected canned personality from a suitable list:

• Game Show Host
• TV Evangelist
• Irish Chat Show Host
• White Supremacist
• Life Coach

Obviously such robots can't have an off switch.


 Within 10 years and using feedback from people who have worked with the MK 1 RILFs we can foresee MK 2, which instead of having a canned personality would study its operators behavior and  identify weaknesses it could exploit using custom personality traits and behavior, much in the manner of a school bully. It would also attempt to look just enough like a human to trigger an uncanny valley response from its owners. In order to be truly unbearable the MK2 would also have non-verbal behaviors in case its owners obtained suitable ear protection. Depending on the identified weakness of the target/owner such behaviors could include biting, hiding small objects, lying, 'accidentally' waking its owner and replacing live ammunition with blanks. Eventualy with the MK3 we could even look forward to robots that steal your phone and send offensive messages to your spouse.

Ireland's Health Service costs more than NASA...

I sent this as a letter to the Irish Times but they didn't bite...

Sir, This year the HSE is on course to overspend its budget of E13.4 billion by several hundred million Euro. To put this sum in perspective NASA's 2013 budget is only E12.5 billion. So why is the Taoiseach leaving an under-performing Minister for Health in place while devoting his finite time and energy to abolishing the Seanad, which can save a maximum of 20 million Euros per year at the risk of a constitutional crisis in the future? Or is setting appropriate priorities 'rocket science' for this government?

 

David Rolfe

Hitler and invading Britain

Kevin Myers has an opinion piece in the Indo today in which he says "Everything people believed about Hitler's intentions toward Britain was a myth created by Churchill". I personallty think he's got what it was possible for Hitler to decide to do and what was actually likely to work mixed up, as I said in this comment:

The more-or-less unarguable fact that Hitler's invasion plan for Britain was deeply flawed needs to be considered in the context of the level of authority Hitler had and the way he made decisions. The first thing is that nobody had the authority to override Hitler and very few were willing to even question his decisions. So the opinons of the senior military lesders within Nazi germany were only relevent to their own careers, and not to the decisions of the Fuhrer.

The second thing is that Hitler had repeatedly succeeded with moves that were successful because they were so unexpected - common sense and orthodoxy ruled out trying to move his army through the ardennes so when he did it he took the entire world by surprise. Over time it would become apparent that Hitler was far from a genious, but in 1940 this had not become obvious.

As a result Hitler had developed an undeserved reputation as a strategic genius, which meant that invasion paranoia was an entirely rational response, especially when you have aerial photos showing the preperations for an invasion.

Had Hitler given the order to invade history would have changed - if Britain had succumbed he would have been free to turn his hand to Russia until the completion of both the Manhatten project and ultra long range the B36 bomber by 1947 created existential problems for his regime.

The the other possible - and far more likely outcome - would have been a failure of the invasion, which would have in turn raised questions about the wisdom on taking on Russia that even his own generals might have been unable to ignore

Rental Car Pricing Weirdness II - CDW on Arrival...

In my last post I pointed out how Hertz pricing differed radically based on which web site you used.

Here's another example if weirdness relating to CDW/LDW:

Neither Thrifty nor Dollar will tell me how much CDW/LDW is in advance. Instead I'm expected to wait until I am at the counter before finding out. So I'm being asked to commit to a rental which could be up to US$30/day more expensive. Given the base rental rate is roughly that amount already it's a ridiculous thing to do. From my viewpoint it's not my money I'm spending and since I'm not in the habit of entering my employer into potentially unlimited spending commitments I think I'll pass. Note that www.dollar.com did the same thing when I checked.

Rental Car Pricing Weirdness I ... Hertz likes Irish drivers...

Living in Ireland and thinking of renting a car in the US? It pays to shop around. Even when dealing with the same vendor. 

I had to rent a car in Washington DC and was doing the rounds of the rental websites. I discovered this somewhat startling anomaly:

Depending on whether you use hertz.ie or hertz.com you will be offered different prices for the exact same rental.

Since this is more than a bit odd I have screenshots of both offers of a rental at Washington Dulles:

Using www.hertz.com I was offered US$2674.80:

And the same rental at www.hertz.ie was EUR1387.72:

Even assuming a back of the envelope exchange rate of 1.25 that's still only US$1734....

From what I can tell the issue is with the additional insurance(s) that I selected - CDW or LDW.

My guess is it works like this:

• Almost all US rentals are domestic. Www.hertz.com works on this assumption.
• US Drivers almost always insure rental cars on their own car insurance.

Those who don't/won't/can't are either:

• Too rich to care (price insensitive)
• Don't own a car (A bit of a red flag from an automobile insurance viewpoint...)
• Don't pay attention (ditto)

As a result Hertz's US site prices LDW/CDW aggressively, even if the prospective renter needs CDW/LDW because he's not a US resident and his car insurance won't cover him there. But the dot ie website 'www.hertz.ie' makes the starting assumption that anyone looking to rent in the US must be an Irish driver who will need CDW because his insurance won't cover him outside Europe and is thus a reasonable risk compared to Americans who need LDW/CDW.

Note to People who know about this as opposed to having opinions: Am I right? If not, correct me!

So if you're Irish consider this: The next time you spend 8 hours on a plane into Dulles, get to the rental counter at around 2am Irish time, rent a car and  trundle nervously out of the Hertz lot in your Buick Zipcode or whatever-the-hell-it-is-they-are-renting-this-week while  simultaneously trying to disarm the radio which is stuck on something called the 'Kojo Nnamdi Show', get the mirrors to show something other than sky without opening the trunk (again), identify which of the 12 different Marriotts in your destination city you are actually staying in and find your driver's license for the dude at the exit  consider this:

Hertz corporation regards you as a safer bet  than a US driver who buys CDW....

Rathgar's Runaway Reptiles...

"Floerentine", a local Tortoise attracted significant media attention after doing a runner from home. The Irish Times published my helpful idea:

Sir, – The owner’s of Rathgar’s runaway reptile (Home News, May 8th) could learn a lot from recent reports of a lost budgie in Tokyo that was returned to its owner because it had been trained to recite its entire address. While teaching Florentine to talk would probably be an insurmountable problem, his shell would still have plenty of space to write his full address. There may even be space left for sufficient postage to cover his return home. – Yours, etc, DAVID ROLFE, Leinster Road, Rathmines, Dublin 6.

Dress Codes for Yokels...

Another Letter:

Sir, – According to a report in your newspaper, the European Parliament is currently focused on proposals that would require rural pedestrians to wear high-visbility jackets (Home News, September 29th). So at a time when the euro faces an existential crisis, our MEPs are busy drafting a dress code for yokels? That puts the emperor Nero in the halfpenny place. – Yours, etc,

Reality TV: A solution for the Irish Presidency...

Had a letter in the IT:

Sir, – Given the clear difficulties in finding suitable candidates and the ongoing issue of funding the national broadcaster, should we not give consideration to a constitutional change that would allow the president to be the winner of a new reality television show called So You Want To Rule Ireland? Prospective presidential candidates would live as housemates in Áras an Uachtaráin and would be set collective tasks such as “Greet the new Japanese ambassador at the airport”. This would allow a much broader field of candidates and the unfortunate discovery of skeletons in cupboards, closets or underneath lonely beaches near Dundalk would lead to a ratings boost instead of an electoral crisis.

– Yours, etc,

Dubious Data Practices...

According to this doc from the Data Protection Commissioner the Irish Insurance Federation uses a fairly strange definition of 'you' when deciding whether to give 'you' insurance or not. They have a database which to my mind has a fairly serious design flaw:

The entry in the Registry comprises the first three letters of the applicant's surname, the first five letters of the first name, the date of birth, together with the date and codes for the relevant insurer and the type of policy.

So If my name is "MICHAEL GOLDSMITH" and I share a birthday with a deeply unhealthy "MICKEY GOLDSTEIN " I can be turned down for life insurance because of him or his policy history. Not only that, if I make a data protection act request I will be given his information....

The really bizarre thing is that the Data Protection commissioner is aware of this but doesn't seem to find it odd...

Morgan Kelly and his proposal to default

Sent the following to the Irish Times. Didn't get published. Ho hum...

Madam,

The Irish State was founded by a group of individuals who believed in demonstrating the reality of Independence by throwing the new nation into a ruinous trade war with Britain and its empire. A happy willingness to antagonize its neighbours and harm its own interests simply to prove the fact of Irish independence continued for more than half a century, with mixed results for people who lived here.

Ireland now appears to have gone to the other extreme and is busy sacrificing the nation to avoid upsetting anyone in Europe. Let us not make the mistake of assuming that our selflessness will be reciprocated by France or Germany, both of whom promoted the concept of the Euro, insisted that their nationals had critical positions in the running of it and are now blaming the users of their currency for the for the terminal problems it now faces.

The government needs to make a conscious shift back towards the self-centred politics of the thirties and forties. At an absolute minimum the it should start publicly making contingency plans to implement the "Kelly Option" and other equally radical scenarios such as approaching the United States and asking to join if a catastrophic loss of sovereignty becomes inevitable. Such plans do not have to be put into action to provide benefits. Their mere existence will strengthen our position and turn us from supplicants into participants in the current process.

David Rolfe

Enda kenny and the Siege of Leningrad...

Had a letter in the Indo about this:

ENDA Kenny's comparison of Ireland's economic problems with the siege of Leningrad is bizarre. A far better historical analogy would be with the Treaty of Versailles. A single country is being accused of being solely responsible for a European disaster and is now expected to make financially unsustainable 'reparations' without any consideration of the long-term consequences for everyone involved.

Not only does Ireland now face a prolonged period of economic chaos ending in a default, but, like Weimar Germany, it has a deeply dysfunctional political system that is ill-equipped to handle the challenges it will soon face. The bottom line is that Ireland didn't invent the euro, but is expected to shoulder the blame for its failure.

It is now obvious that this country was run into the ground by an incompetent political elite, with not one single TD of any party attempting to stop the madness.

But while Ireland has an entire parliament building full of culprits, none of the architects and managers of the euro are being asked to explain why they stood back and did nothing while ludicrous quantities of debt flooded the periphery of Europe.

Until this issue of fiscal mismanagement is resolved, the future of the euro -- and the entire European project -- will remain in doubt.

Yesterday's Green party press conference was bizarre in that the Green TD Paul Gogarty insisted on keeping a small child on his lap throughout:


Presumably he did this so there would be at least one person in the room who would believe them...

Theft of Sandbags...

Apparently the economy is so bad that people are stealing sandbags intended for flood prevention:

“On Sunday morning, in the region of 1,000 sandbags used to provide defences in these coastal walls were discovered to have been dismantled and removed.

...

The spokeswoman said it was difficult to see how members of the public might have mistaken the sandbags as being available for general use as it was “fairly obvious that they were there to protect the gaps in the coastal walls”.

I sent the following letter to the Irish Times, which doesn't appear to have been published:

Madam,

Who in Dublin would have a need for a few thousand sandbags and be self-centered enough to put their own welfare before that of the public? Possibly Government TD's preparing their constituency offices for the aftermath of the next budget....

Airtricity claiming non-existant 26% discount?

In today's Irish Independent Charlie Weston says that Airtricity is claiming to off a 26% discount off Gas and Electricity:

Yesterday the company claimed that the combined discount of 26pc would mean a bigger overall energy cost saving for households who sign up for both electricity and gas supplies with Airtricity.

In fact they are offering a 20% discount for Gas and a 6% discount for electricity with a 1 year lock in and a 100 Euro exit fee, but someone at the Indo appears to have decided to add the two percentages....

D B Cooper Was An Amateur

Saw an interesting article about D B Cooper in Air and Space mag.

Added my 10c:

While everybody wants to believe that D.B. Cooper got away I think he died on the night. I'm a former skydiver with over 450 jumps, including one from a a Boeing 727 at the World Freefall Convention.

The first odd thing is that D.B.Cooper was apparently wearing slip on shoes. No skydiver in 1971 would have jumped wearing such shoes - landings were fast at the best of times and you needed ankle protection. Any experienced jumper who was planning this would have had footwear with proper ankle protection.

But the part which makes it obvious to my mind that Cooper wasn't an experienced jumper was that he didn't bring a parachute with him. Skydivers are understandably picky about equipment and any jumper planning a hijacking would prefer to bring his own equipment rather than rely on the government to provide it to him. Not only did he create a dependency his plan didn't need, he also telegraphed his intentions. If, instead, he had disguised the parachute as a bomb and then left a suitably fractured and psychotic suicide note before jumping out the back with the money it would have taken people days - if ever - to figure out what he'd done.

The third thing I'm not so sure about - apparently he was seen using paracord to tie the money bag to himself. You need to be extremely careful about attaching anything to yourself and especially an object that is loose or can move. Simply failing to secure the chin strap on your helmet results in agony as it beats against your skin in the 120kt airflow. Attaching a large object and then being able to fall cleanly and not tumble - which is essential for a safe opening - would require practice. Instead he was almost certainly an amateur who left the plane, lost his shoes, tumbled wildly while trying to open his borrowed parachute and then spent the rest of his life regretting it...

BOOK OF THE DAY: Climate Wars

Since when has a review of a two year old book qualified as an 'Opinion' piece?

Having apparently run out scary global warming pieces for the moment the IT has presented a review of a two year old book in the slot that has been used before for this purpose.

Climate Wars was first published in 2008 as for all I know may well be a very readable and credible but hypothetical examination of the effects of a significant increase in Global Temperature. But given that it was published in 2008 why should a national newspaper of record use up editorial space on it now? Why editorial space instead of the book review section?

The review itself doesn't really add much, and seems to have been written before the publication of the book itself - some quick googling revealed that the text of the review has been around for ages, if it's URL is anything to go by:

http://coraifeartaigh.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/climate-wars.pdf

Given that ClimateGate has revealed that thanks to poor data management and politicized science the millions of euros invested in global warming research has failed to produce quality results and that we have no way of verifiying either the extent or cause of climate change I have to wonder if this book is still relevant.

More Climate Skeptic bashing at the IT...

Following hard in the heels of John Gibbons attack on Bjorn Lomborg the IT's environment reporter Frank MacDonald makes no attempt to understand the arguments advanced by skeptics in an opinion piece which is just as full of venom and short of facts as Gibbons. The title - "A dialogue of the deaf with US climate sceptics" pretty much says it all, but neglects to mention that Frank is the one who's hard of hearing...

The key questions to ask here are:

Why does Frank think the Heritage Foundation are representative of US Climate Sceptics? What not speak to Anthony Watts or the Canadian Steve McIntyre? These guys are asking hard questions which climate scientists either won't or can't answer. Why ask a bunch of DC Republican lobbyists?

Any bets on whether any letters on this are printed? I think not...

When I put it to him that the World Meteorological Organisation had identified the past decade as the warmest since records began, followed closely by the 1990s, Lieberman dismissed these findings as “grossly exaggerated” – even though they were grounded in scientific measurements taken all over the world.

This head-in-the-sand approach is reminiscent of the Birthers, a daft grassroots movement that believes Obama has no right to be president because he “wasn’t born in the US”. It simply doesn’t matter that he has a birth certificate from Hawaii and can point to a contemporaneous birth notice in one of the local papers.

Ah yes 'grounded' in 'scientific measurements'! Given the ongoing arguments about data quality in this area this is something which deserves a discussion but doesn't get it. And why the comparison with the Birthers, an openly political movement with nasty overtones?

“We care about the environment,” said nuclear specialist Jack Spencer...

Ooooh! Jack Spencer is a nuclear specialist, which presumably makes him untrustworthy by definition....

Is Osama Bin Laden Alive And Well in LA?

While visiting the UN Iran's excitable president Mahmoud Ahmadinejan advanced the novel theory that OBL is alive and well and hiding in Washington DC, according to the Guardian.

This is nonsense. The logical place for OBL is in LA, where he can pretend to be an Osama Bin Laden impersonator with impunity....All he has to do is dress normally but carry a stack of 8x10 headshots with him..

John Gibbons and Bjorn Lomborg

The IT printed a deeply unbalanced opinion piece by John Gibbons the other day. John had a fairly serious go at Bjorn Lomborg, who has had the temerity to question the status quo on human induced climate change. While one expects opinion pieces to be opinionated one doesn't expect a national 'newspaper of record' to allow a writer to falsly accuse a public figure of lying about his academic qualifications. Gibbons gave the piece the title "Exposed: Climate change doubter with a PhD only in spin". John describes Mr Mr. Lomburg as "someone without even an undergraduate degree in a physical science", when in fact he has a Phd in Political Science.

John's argument is that people without 'relevant' qualifications don't have the right to criticise people who do. I sent the letter below to the IT, which didn't get published:

Madam,

The title of John Gibbons opinion piece 'Climate change doubter with PhD only in spin' (April 30) directly challenges the validity of Bjorn Lomburg's academic qualifications, yet nowhere in his article does he substantiate the serious allegation made in the article's title that Mr Lomburg is lying about his 1994 Phd in Political Science from the University of Copenhagen.

The fact that Mr. Lomburg does not hold a Gibbons-Approved qualification in climate science is not relevant and does not deny him or anyone else the right to question the reasons for climate change. I would be very surprised if the staff of your newspaper included anyone with postgraduate qualifications in Creationism, Canon Law or Eugenics, but thankfully that does not prevent your writers from casting a critical eye over such disciplines.

Carl Sagan once said that 'Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence'. The exteme sensitivity to criticism that climate scientists display, along with their documented use of dubious sources of information means that their evidence is indeed extraordinary, but for all the wrong reasons.

David Rolfe

The interesting thing is that no letters on this Opinion piece have shown up, which considering how provocative and inaccurate it is makes one wonder what goes on in the mind of the editor. It;'s a bit like the truly crazy report on the "Spirit of Ireland" scheme, which never got discussed on the letters page either despite being an announcement that coastal valleys all around Ireland were to be dammed and filled with Sea Water by vast shoals of windwills.

Morgan Kelly on the Irish Credit Bubble..

Anyone who wants to understand what's going on here in Ireland should read this paper by Economist Morgan Kelly. A Quote:

Since the seventeenth century, financial innovation has consisted in banks finding new ways to lose money. However, while US, UK and European banks lost money in exotic derivatives, Irish banks lost money the old fashioned way, by making bad property loans.