Monthly Archives: June 2015

Chaos Manor View, Tuesday, June 02, 2015

I have an appointment with the podiatrist in a few minutes, and tomorrow Niven and Barnes and I will Skype with Dr. Jack Cohen about or new interstellar colony novel. (Sequel to the best-selling Legacy of Heorot http://www.amazon.com/The-Legacy-Heorot-Book/dp/1470835541.) Which means this will have to be short

Back from me Kaiser visit, looking forward to Skype with Dr. Jack tomorrow.  My Kindle was dead at Kaiser, and when I came home and charged it, it was still dead. Fussed for about an hour with no success, went on line and Amazon basically told me to do what I had already done, to wit hold the power button down a long time and then try to start. Nope. Dead. Got on line with Raj at Amazon HELP (find contact us and choose chat – at least I did since I don’t hear well on the phone. Raj told me to hold the power button down for a long time. I’d already done that but I did it again.  Told him it was still dead.  He sent for help and I got Rahib, who told me to hold the power button down for a long time.  Did that and told him.

He decided the Kindle was dead, and outside the one year warranty – but he could offer me a discount on a new one.  One of the offers was foe a larger newer model at some discount. Also had larger memory. It will come Friday with a box prepaid to ship the old one back.

So my old Kindle Fire lasted about 2 years. Worked just fine, died suddenly – was working perfectly and then just wouldn’t turn on.  The button seemed sluggish so after I did all the other attempts I sprayed in zero-residue contact cleaner. Seemed the button was looser but that may have been me, but it still wouldn’t turn on. And I was horrified at the thought of not having a Kindle. Well, it won’t be more than a couple of days.

Went by the UPS Store box and was horrified to learn that I hadn’t paid the bill or visited the place in a while. I’ve paid and I am recording some subscriptions that lay there far too long: apologies. While there I practiced putting the walker in the car, and when we got home I got it out again and came in by myself.  Triumph.  Next thing is to drive my own car.

Tomorrow I Skype and conference.  I have much mail asking for advice on what the heck is going on in the country and I’m trying to work on that, but the situation is complex.  The trigger happy crowd uses proof by repeated assassination as their debate tactic; say anything disturbing to them and they scream and leap.  Rational debate becomes impossible, which is why I no longer appear in many places I used to visit; just to many scream and leap young people who learned it from their teachers.  It’s depressing.

And the crime rate goes up as “Broken window” policing is abandoned by cops who just want to retire;  places that respect police get policed, while Baltimore murder rates, generally of blacks killed by blacks, soars. It was all predicted, but it’s depressing all the same.

Isis and Iraq 

Dear Dr. Pournelle, 
There are a couple of articles on the subject I believe you will find of interest. 
The first is an article on the role of western intelligence — especially, Turkey — in fostering ISIS
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/secret-pentagon-report-reveals-west-saw-isis-as-strategic-asset-b99ad7a29092
The second is a discussion of the failures of the Iraqi army
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/05/31/key-rebels-ready-to-quit-u-s-fight-vs-isis.html
So, from these things I draw a few conclusions:
1) No one in Iraq is willing to fight for the central government; that is how 150 fighters can route 5000 men armed and supplied by the US. The Peshmerga will fight for Kurdistan, the Shiites will fight for their neighborhoods, the Sunnis will fight for themselves. They’re all fighting each other, but no one’s interested in the central government. 
2) Our own ability to pick and choose winners in these struggles is extremely limited; many of the “moderates” we pick turn out to be extremists, and the real moderates are badly handicapped by US policies.  
Unfortunately, we can’t simply leave this mess alone; leaving them alone won’t stop them from, say, hijacking airplanes and flying in the buildings. That’s the problem with peace — the other side has to be willing to let you surrender and leave the field. That can’t happen. Like it or not, Saudi Arabia et al are part of the world economy, all that oil makes that part of the world important, and Israel is still there just waiting to eat a hydrogen bomb from the first non-Jewish people able to develop one and crazy enough to use it. 
So we can’t simply walk away from this.  
Nor do we, as a country, have the will to send in the troops and occupy Iraq and Syria long-term.  It’s what the Romans would have done, but we won’t.
So what’s left? The only thing I can think of is hope from some Bonapartish military dictator who wants to rule the whole mess , and allow him to conquer the territory, imposing his rule on the restive minorities by brute force.  Saddam II, in other words.  And then HE will be a security threat as well. 
Another alternative: Instead of trying to construct a healthy Iraq, deliberately destabilize the situation further, so that the entire region tears itself apart. If they’re busy killing each other they won’t have time to plot terrorist actions against Israel or the US.   The downside of that is , eventually, all civil wars end, often with the most extreme and virulent group triumphant.  
I’m leaning towards a Saddam II, if we can find one.  Seems a pity we killed the last one.
Creating a western democracy in Iraq, a la West Germany or Japan, would have been ideal. However, for roughly the same time we occupied Japan and Germany, we failed utterly to recreate those conditions. Why?  Do we have the will to try again?
Somehow I doubt it.
So in the absence of full-scale invasion and occupation, we are reduced to a hunt for proxies who won’t do what we want but will be marginally less bad than the alternatives.
What do you think?
Respectfully,

Brian P.

I tried to warn them before Bush I invaded. And we have neither the will nor the means to govern Iraq; never did. We could have created a puppet regime, but we could not use the US Army to govern it; governing by Marines might have worked, but we didn’t try it. Nor did we learn, to Kaddafi’s sorrow.

As to what to do now, give as much ISIS territory as possible to the Kurds so we have at least one friend there – and stop involvement in territorial affairs of Middle East,  Have to go

Jerry

“Thought vectors” as the Door Into Summer:

http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/206521-thought-vectors-could-revolutionize-artificial-intelligence

Ed

‘Thought vectors’ could revolutionize artificial intelligence

• By Aaron Krumins on May 27, 2015 at 8:39 am

Despite all the recent hullabaloo concerning artificial intelligence, in part fueled by dire predictions made by the likes of Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk, there have been few breakthroughs in the field to warrant such fanfare. The artificial neural networks that have caused so much controversy are a product of the 1950s and 60s, and remain relatively unchanged since then. The strides forward made in areas like speech recognition owe as much to improved datasets (think big data) and faster hardware than to actual changes in AI methodology. The thornier problems, like teaching computers to do natural language processing and leaps of logic remain nearly as  intractable now as they were a decade ago.

This may all be about to change. Last week, the British high priest of artificial intelligence Professor Geoffrey Hinton, who was snapped up by Google two years back during its massive acquisition of AI experts, revealed that his employer may have found a means of breaking the AI deadlock that has persisted in areas like natural language processing.

The hope comes in the form of a concept called “thought vectors.”  If you have never heard of a thought vector, you’re in good company.  The concept is both new and controversial. The underlying idea is that by ascribing every word a set of numbers (or vector), a computer can be trained to understand the actual meaning of these words.

The rest of the article is worth summoning to red, but it isn’t as enlightening as it might be. Neither is http://www.quora.com/What-are-thought-vectors but it makes the attempt. I would guess that “thought vectors” might be “lists” in LISP, lists of word and concepts that a word brings to mind, but that is not much like a vector in mathematics. What would be the “curl” of a thought vector?

I ask out of ignorance; there has been so much use of mathematical concepts in the Voodoo Sciences that I am preternaturally suspicious that this is more of same, wanting to sound scientific; but of course I am most probably wrong. Each word carries with it a whole host of concepts which could conveniently be placed in a list. I would have thought a matrix would be more likely. The trick would be to find an algorithm for placing the concept: higher or lower, closer or farther away? I know that in my novel Starswarm (audio http://www.amazon.com/Starswarm-Jerry-Pournelle/dp/1441785086 )(Kindle http://www.amazon.com/Starswarm-Jerry-Pournelle-ebook/dp/B006O1XF6U for some strange reason put in with children’s books) I had the AL program tell her ward that she was governed by a “table” of preferences she was not allowed to change; I thought of having her say matrix which in my concept of AI would be more appropriate, but Gwen is talking to an 11 year old boy who would not yet understand matrices; but as I explain in The Voodoo Sciences (http://www.jerrypournelle.com/science/voodoo.html) novelists only have to be plausible; I didn’t really have much of a theory of AI technology in the sense that I had done much work on it.

I can cheer thought vectors on, but from the little I have seen of them, it is mostly hope, not science.

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

Chaos Manor View, Monday, June 01, 2015

The Nebula Awards are in Chicago at the end of this week – not last week as I mistakenly said – so I had breakfast with Larry Niven Sunday, and he won’t get his Grand Master award for a couple of days. And I am typing worse than ever.

NSA spying

I fully expect a comment on your blog about Rand Paul’s efforts on this matter.

B-

This is one of several emails I have on this subject. The question is complex, and complicated by actions we have taken in the last two decades. It’s made more complicated because while I am recovering from the stroke, my typing is still very slow and I have many corrections to make in each sentence. I think that will improve when I get an actual office chair in here rather than this wheel chair which is the wrong height. Or I think so. I will do an essay on liberty and security, but I fear it may take a few days.

The Patriot Act needs some revisions, and the effect of all this (http://time.com/3902801/rand-paul-nsa-phone-patriot-act/ ) will be more on the Republican nomination than long term on NSA. Just what records do we keep, and should the government keep them? Phone records have long been kept by the phone companies. It is all part of the liberty vs. security question in the new technological age.

Ian Bremmer says America is no longer ‘indispensable’, and that’s bad news for Britain – Telegraph

Jerry:

This interview and the book might interest you.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/11640302/Exclusive-interview-Ian-Bremmer-says-America-is-no-longer-indispensible-and-thats-bad-news-for-Britain.html

I present this to you in context of our ongoing debate over destroying ISIS.

My emerging, militant neo-isolationism is in part motivated by a recognition of the new realities that Mr. Bremmer articulates far better than I can. I think your lingering anger at Bush and his neo-con advisers blinds you to the profound incompetency, perhaps intentional, of the Obama administration and how severe the damage has been.

The fact that Bush made some blunders during the invasion of Iraq is indisputable. However; given what we now know about the corruption in the Iraq oil for food program and the ongoing surrender to Iran’s nuclear ambitions to appease Russia, China and our European “allies,” there is no plausible scenario that would not have resulted in: Saddam or a Baathist successor remaining in power, the sanctions being lifted, and Iraq reconstituting it’s nuclear weapons program. Bush corrected his mistakes by allying the US with Sunni moderates and implementing the surge. When Bush left office, Iraq was on a path of stable evolution towards some semblance of a secular democracy provided that the US was willing to maintain a stabilizing long term military presence just as we did in Europe after WW-2.

Obama betrayed the Sunnis as well as the Kurds by refusing to negotiate a status of forces agreement that would have kept Iraq stable. Obama then betrayed Mubarak who had been a US ally for three decades by inciting the Arab Spring uprising. General Sissi has restored a semblance of sanity to Egypt and has allied with Israel, but he will never trust the US again. Obama also betrayed Daffy Gadaffy had surrendered his WMD to Bush and Condi Rice by supporting pro to-ISIS rebels against him. The video of Gadaffy being sodomized with a bayonet will ensure that no dictator will ever trust the US to negotiate a departure from power or surrender their WMD. Assad might make a deal with Israel, but he will never do so with America.

My point here is that Obama has inflicted so much damage to US power and credibility that even if a competent campaign could be waged against ISIS (not possible while the poverty pimp from Chicago remains in the oval office), the result will be only a short term gain. Given Obama’s fecklessness, the Kurds would be no more likely to trust the US or support US policy than ISIS. With ISIS defeated, most of Iraq will inevitably become a province of the emerging, nuclear armed, Persian empire.

I understand that if ISIS is permitted to exist, ISIS is likely to wage a nuclear 9-11 against the US. However; even if ISIS is destroyed, one or more of the other emerging nuclear powers will launch a nuclear 9-11. While a nuclear 9-11 would be traumatic, it would be survivable. Continued US interventionism with someone as imbecilic as Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush or Lindsey Graham as President will not be survivable. We need to retreat, now!

James Crawford=

And we have this comment on an earlier post::

Caliphate

In response to Mr. Crawford, please direct him to the map of the Umayyid Caliphate: 

http://islamiccoins.ancients.info/umayyads/umayyadhistory.htm

ISIS has stated as much that they wish to expand beyond these previous conquests.  

s/f

Couv

David Couvillon
Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Retired.; 
Former Governor of Wasit Province, Iraq; 
Righter of Wrongs; Wrong most of the time; 
Distinguished Expert, TV remote control; 
Chef de Hot Dog Excellance;  Avoider of Yard Work

Can we avoid involvement in the territorial disputes of the Near East, and how do we restore the reputation of the United States? Mr. Crawford is correct: after the Libya disaster, it has become clear that giving up your nuclear weapons and knuckling under to the US will not save you. Idi Amin Dada managed to live in exile with the help of Khadafy, then Saudi Arabia; but that was before the destruction of Libya.

I do not lightly advocate another US involvement in Iraq, and soon the question will be moot: given enough time, the destruction of the Caliphate would require a war effort that the people of the US would never support.

A sitting US Senator proposes criminalizing dissent on ‘climate change’.

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-fossil-fuel-industrys-campaign-to-mislead-the-american-people/2015/05/29/04a2c448-0574-11e5-8bda-c7b4e9a8f7ac_story.html>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

Any discussion of liberty and freedom must take account of this: the temptation to win debates by silencing the opponent is near irresistible when you are a True Believer. The noblest of sentiments may be refuted if their bearer is beaten to death with a rubber truncheon, said Goering; and there are those who believe strongly that the Global Warming debate is more important than the Bill of Rights and rational debate.

There are many other topics which are so offensive to influential groups that they simply cannot be discussed: to bring up the topic in Injustice and must be suppressed.

You may find these worth looking at.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/story-tom-ligon?trk=hp-feed-article-title

http://www.tomligon.com/Writing/Sparkof1812.pdf

http://www.wsj.com/articles/notable-quotable-1431124660

John DeChancie sends this

My new Castle Perilous novel is out–THE PIRATES OF PERILOUS. It’s the ninth of the series, but it reads like the first, with a bit of backstory.

The Pirates of Perilous (Castle Perilous Series) (Volume 9)

The Pirates of Perilous (Castle Perilous Series) (Volume 9) The Pirates of Perilous (Castle Perilous Series) (Volume 9) [John DeChancie] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The long-awaited 9th book in the beloved CASTLE PERILOUS fantasy series. Castle Perilous is a dangerous place to live. But some of its Guests are dange…
View on www.amazon.com	Preview by Yahoo

There are fans waiting for this in paper. The Kindle version will be out later in the year.

jd

From a physicist friend; a list of sources on climate technology uncertainty.

Subject: Several articles of technical interest

https://www.google.com/#q=error+analysis+climate+modeling

https://www.google.com/#q=Uncertainty+analysis+in+climate

https://www.google.com/#q=uncertainty+analysis+in+climate+change+assessments

See particularly

http://www.stat.washington.edu/peter/statclim/fyfeetal.pdf

Overestimated global warming over the past 20 years

http://nldr.library.ucar.edu/repository/assets/osgc/OSGC-000-000-019-903.pdf

Uncertainty analysis in climate change assessments

(which appears to be the manuscript of the article shown at the end of the above pdf) and includes the following “box”:

BOX 1
Recommendations to improve uncertainty quantification
· Replace qualitative assessments of uncertainty with quantitative ones
· Reduce uncertainties in trend estimates for climate observations and
projections through use of modern statistical methods for spatio-temporal data
· Increase the accuracy with which the climate is monitored by combining
various sources of information using hierarchical statistical models
· Reduce uncertainties in climate change projections by applying experimental
design to make more efficient use of computational resources
· Quantify changes in the likelihood of extreme weather events in a manner
more useful to decision makers by using methods based on the statistical
theory of extreme values
· Include at least one author with expertise in uncertainty analysis on all
chapters of IPCC and U.S. national assessments

with Dr. Curry’s commentary

http://judithcurry.com/2013/08/30/inadequate-uncertainty-analysis-in-climate-change-assessments/

and the absurd (and contradictory of the above) contention

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150202114636.htm

Global warming slowdown: No systematic errors in climate models, comprehensive statistical analysis reveals

(abstract only; did not attack paywall when abstract so obviously nonsensical)

Plus this fundamental statistical paper

http://www.climateaccess.org/sites/default/files/Katz_Techniques%20for%20Estimating%20Uncertainty.pdf

I am trying to find fundamental papers on numerical solution which address the synergistic effects between data errors and computational errors, but those for some reason appear to be difficult to find.

Here are more technical papers . 

I do not claim that these are particularly readable.  I have done advanced studies in statistical theory, but I haven’t done this sort of work in decades. 

From the Washington Post

Microsoft’s all-new Windows 10 debuts on July 29 (WP)

By Hayley Tsukayama June 1 at 10:51 AM

Microsoft announced Monday that Windows 10 will be available for sale for July 29. Most people — especially Microsoft diehards — won’t have to buy a copy next month, however. The company’s offering free upgrades to most devices currently running Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone 8.1.

Qualifying Microsoft customers can register to get their free July upgrade right now; instructions are on Microsoft’s Web site.

Users will be upgraded to the corresponding version of Windows that they already have. For example, if you have Windows 7 Home Basic or Home Premium, you’ll be upgraded to Windows 10 Home. If you have Windows 7 Professional or Ultimate, you’ll be upgraded to Windows 10 Pro.

So what do you get from the new system? For one, you get Microsoft’s Cortana voice assistant, which is able to schedule your appointments, send your messages and will be able to interact with your Windows, Android or iOS phone. The company has also included features that will make it easier to pass information between a PC and a Windows Phone.

Microsoft also ditched its long-time, much-hated browser, Internet Explorer in the new system in favor of a browser called “Microsoft Edge.” The browser is faster from stem-to-stern, and also includes an annotation feature that lets you type or write on Web pages if you want to keep notes.

The company has also updated its music, video,  photos, mail, calendar and contact apps. It’s also added an Xbox app, which will let a user’s PC and Xbox game console communicate more closely; gamers will be able to stream games from their Xbox One to PCs in their homes. The upgrade also comes with new versions of OneNote and Outlook; upgraded versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint will be sold separately.

This will be a major launch for  Microsoft, which is looking to shed its image as a plodding giant in favor a friendlier, more nimble company that plays nice with gadgets and programs made by competitors such as Apple, Samsung and Google. It’s also focusing more on offering services rather than products, so Windows 10 will be constantly updated like mobile operating systems, or Apple’s OS X, rather the familiar release model of putting a finished product on a CD and meddling with it very little until the next major update.

That change may have enabled Microsoft to accelerate its timeline — new Windows updates have tended to come in the fall, as of late — but also means that some features won’t be a part of the initial Windows 10 release. For example, as Ars Technica reported, features such as extension support for the new Edge browser won’t be coming until a later update.

If you’re interested in upgrading your own computer, you can do so from your own Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 computer by clicking on the small Windows icon on the lower right-hand side of your toolbar, which takes you to the “Get Windows 10” app. (The app should show up automatically on qualifying machines to which you have administrative privileges.) The same app should give you confirmation that your reservation went through.

You can cancel your upgrade at any time before the system launches, and you will also be able  to get the upgrade even if you don’t reserve a copy ahead of time — but  Microsoft says this is “easiest way” to get Windows 10.

It’s sure got to be better than Windows 8

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