Filed under: Constitution, Gene Roddenberry, Government, NPR, Politics, Press, Society, tech, Wired, YouTube
If you haven’t really been following the latest on the Telecom Immunity/Domestic Spying efforts by the Bush Administration, or even if you just were busy yesterday, you might want to check out what former AT&T technician and wiretapping whistle-blower Mark Klein has had to say on the matter. In particular, Senator Dodd has posted a 2 minute YouTube summary from Klein that’ll give some idea of the scope of the surveillance. And in a discussion on NPR’s All Things Considered yesterday, Klein goes into some detail about why he claims that AT&T was basically spying on each and every one of us who uses the internet to surf, post, or send email…before 9/11. It was, as he says in the YouTube summation, “Massively Unconstitutional”.
Yes, your government has been spying on you. Not just “looking for patterns in the data” or “monitoring overseas communication.” Spying. On. You.
Personally, this comes as no surprise to me. Not really. I sort of assumed that Bush and his cronies would be up to this sort of thing, given how much they have sought to emulate the Unitary Executive theories promulgated by the Nixon Administration. But it is damned depressing to see the Congress working so hard to cover it all up.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Artificial Intelligence, DARPA, Expert systems, Failure, Government, Guns, movies, Paleo-Future, Predictions, Science Fiction, Society, tech, Wired
You think you get frustrated when your computer acts up? How do you think the guys who were on the receiving end of 500 rounds of 35mm explosive anti-aircraft fire feel? From Wired’s Danger Room blog:
We’re not used to thinking of them this way. But many advanced military weapons are essentially robotic — picking targets out automatically, slewing into position, and waiting only for a human to pull the trigger. Most of the time. Once in a while, though, these machines start firing mysteriously on their own. The South African National Defence Force “is probing whether a software glitch led to an antiaircraft cannon malfunction that killed nine soldiers and seriously injured 14 others during a shooting exercise on Friday.”
Wasn’t something like this part of the paleo-future Skynet from the Terminator? You think maybe we should pass along to the boys at DARPA the suggestion that they should watch that movie as a cautionary tale rather than an instruction manual?
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Failure, General Musings, Government, ISS, NASA, NYT, Predictions, Science, Space, tech
Here’s a prediction: more people are going to die in space.
Not exactly newsworthy, is it? When you engage in the sort of dangerous enterprise like spacetravel (or even just getting there), the learning curve is steep and marked with blood. I can’t see any other way around it – as carefully designed and tested as every component is, there are still going to be failures, and some of those failures are going to mean that good men and women die. I know it. You know it. The astronauts certainly know it.
But just as today’s cars and aircraft are *thousands* of times safer than early cars and airplanes were, so will spacecraft become safer through use and experimentation. Via today’s NYT, the opening paragraphs of this article by James Oberg seems to understand how this learning process works:
4 October 2007—Aboard the International Space Station, the three Russian computers that control the station’s orientation have been happily humming away now for several weeks. And that’s proof that the crisis in June that crippled the ISS and bloodied the U.S.-Russian partnership that supports it, has been solved.
But the technological—and diplomatic—lessons of that crisis need to be fully understood and appreciated. Because if the failure had occurred on the way to Mars, say, it probably would have been fatal, and it will likely be the same international partnership that builds the hardware for a future Mars mission.
The critical computer systems, it turned out, had been designed, built, and operated incorrectly—and the failure was inevitable. Only being so relatively close to Earth, in range of resupply and support missions, saved the spacecraft from catastrophe.
Oberg gives a nice, complete explanation of what happened and how it was overcome. But the concluding paragraph may come as a bit of a surprise:
It is dismaying that after decades of experience with manned space stations, Russian space engineers still couldn’t keep unwanted condensation at bay. But what’s worse is that they designed circuitry that would allow one spot of corrosion to fell a supposedly triply redundant control computer complex. Another cause for dismay is that when trouble did develop, the Russians’ first instinct was to blame their American partners. Such deficiencies need to be worked out in the years ahead, on the space station, before both the technology and the diplomacy can be thought reliable enough for far-ranging missions that replacement shipments wouldn’t be able to reach.
Why is he so harsh? Because, as his wiki entry explains:
During the 1990s, he was involved in NASA studies of the Soviet space program, with particular emphasis on safety aspects; these had often been covered up or downplayed, and with the advent of the ISS and the Shuttle-Mir programs, NASA was keen to study them as much as possible.
Ah. Got it – he’s professionally aggravated that the Russians *haven’t* been willing to learn the lessons of their mistakes. Because until you ‘fess up to the mistakes you make, you can’t learn from them . . . and more people will die, needlessly.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Bad Astronomy, Ballistics, Firefly, Government, Guns, Joss Whedon, movies, Phil Plait, RKBA, Science, Science Fiction, Serenity, Society, Space
So, a few weeks back, I mentioned that I was going to order in the whole series of Firefly, the brilliant but (therefore?) short-lived Science Fiction series created by Joss Whedon. Well, I did, and off and on since I’ve been thinking about writing something about the series, never getting around to it. Hey, a lot of other stuff has been on my mind, and besides, it’s not like there isn’t a ton of blogging and fandom out there about the series.
Suffice it to say that I watched it all the way through three or four times, then turned it over to a shooting buddy who has good taste in SF (well, obviously, since he really liked Communion). I knew that with his appreciation of good guns and fine Science Fiction, it would be a perfect match. The fact that the series actually ‘gets’ guns, does a good job with ballistics and physics, wouldn’t hurt matters.
Anyway, this morning an item over at Bad Astronomy caught my eye:
Another Firefly movie??
ZOMG.
There may may may be another Firefly movie.
ZOMG.
Ain’t It Cool is throwing some harshness on this. Still. Still.
BTW: Alan Tudyk: on my ManCrush list.
Phil Plait is just so cute sometimes. Not that I disagree with him about the prospect of another movie. Not at all.
Shiny!
Jim Downey
Filed under: Failure, Flu, Government, Health, Pandemic, Plague, Politics, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Terrorism
[This post contains spoiler information about Communion of Dreams.]
Twin news items to make you nervous:
Well, it makes me nervous, anyway. First we have a report on how with the increased accreditation of so-called high security labs has seen an increased incident rate for those labs. In the last 4 years, more than 100 incidents involving very dangerous biologic materials have occurred. From the first news article:
The mishaps include workers bitten or scratched by infected animals, skin cuts, needle sticks and more, according to a review by The Associated Press of confidential reports submitted to federal regulators. They describe accidents involving anthrax, bird flu virus, monkeypox and plague-causing bacteria at 44 labs in 24 states. More than two-dozen incidents were still under investigation.
The number of accidents has risen steadily. Through August, the most recent period covered in the reports obtained by the AP, labs reported 36 accidents and lost shipments during 2007 — nearly double the number reported during all of 2004.
And the second one involves cattle ranchers who are concerned about the DHS plans for a new animal disease research lab, and how the proximity of such a lab near livestock operations poses a threat. (Disclosure note: my hometown of Columbia was recently removed from a list of potential sites, in part thanks to efforts of friends of mine who opposed such a facility being placed here.) The threat is not theoretical – it is little known in this country, but recent outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in Britain have been tied to a similar research lab in that country. Yet this is what we hear from the government:
“No matter where we put it it’s going to be safe and secure,” said James Johnson, Homeland Security‘s director of national labs and the program manager for the planned lab.
I’m sure it will be, Jim. Just like all those other high-security labs around the country.
See, the problem is that people being people, mistakes happen. Under the best of conditions. And when you’re messing around with really dangerous shit, the potential harm of an error goes way up. And that is only being concerned with mistakes.
[Spoiler alert.]
Because what happens when some one or group decides to exploit the system in place to redirect something really nasty for their own purposes? This is what I use as the source of the original ‘Fire Flu’ for Communion, though that isn’t revealed until late in the book. Impossible? Oh? Remember the 2001 Anthrax attacks which killed five people and shut down the Senate’s postal facility? That whole episode is still unsolved.
I don’t know about you, but when the same people who let New Orleans die tell me that I should trust them to secure biologic agents which have the potential to wipe out our (overly concentrated) livestock, cause widespread crop failure, or even start a pandemic plague of some variety, I shudder.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Failure, General Musings, Government, Iraq, Nuclear weapons, Predictions, Society, Violence
So, three weeks ago I wrote about the initial reports that the Air Force had managed to lose track of some of its nukes, and accidentally transported them across the country.
Well, the story just keeps getting better. From the Washington Post this past Sunday:
Three weeks after word of the incident leaked to the public, new details obtained by The Washington Post point to security failures at multiple levels in North Dakota and Louisiana, according to interviews with current and former U.S. officials briefed on the initial results of an Air Force investigation of the incident.
The warheads were attached to the plane in Minot without special guard for more than 15 hours, and they remained on the plane in Louisiana for nearly nine hours more before being discovered. In total, the warheads slipped from the Air Force’s nuclear safety net for more than a day without anyone’s knowledge.
“I have been in the nuclear business since 1966 and am not aware of any incident more disturbing,” retired Air Force Gen. Eugene Habiger, who served as U.S. Strategic Command chief from 1996 to 1998, said in an interview.
Yeah, that’s disturbing, all right. But why bring it back up? We knew already that the incident was a colossal fuck-up. What more is there to be said?
Go read the Washington Post follow-up, and you’ll get a sense of why this is a big deal. Here’s another excerpt:
Military officers, nuclear weapons analysts and lawmakers have expressed concern that it was not just a fluke, but a symptom of deeper problems in the handling of nuclear weapons now that Cold War anxieties have abated.
But could there be something else at work?
The Air Force’s inspector general in 2003 found that half of the “nuclear surety” inspections conducted that year resulted in failing grades — the worst performance since inspections of weapons-handling began. Minot’s 5th Bomb Wing was among the units that failed, and the Louisiana-based 2nd Bomb Wing at Barksdale garnered an unsatisfactory rating in 2005.
Both units passed subsequent nuclear inspections, and Minot was given high marks in a 2006 inspection. The 2003 report on the 5th Bomb Wing attributed its poor performance to the demands of supporting combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wartime stresses had “resulted in a lack of time to focus and practice nuclear operations,” the report stated.
Ah, there ya go. The stresses of the ongoing debacle in Iraq is now playing havoc with the security of our nuclear forces. That’s not a terribly comforting thought, is it? I mean, letting nukes sit unsecured out on an air force base for more than 24 hours means that any number of really bad things could have happened, up to and including the possible theft of one (or more) of the weapons. Gee, now think . . . who might want to have access to such a weapon? Even if you didn’t have the capability of using it as a nuclear bomb, you could still crack open the thing and get access to the highly toxic and extremely radioactive fissionable material. That’d make a swell terror weapon if used on American soil.
And, unfortunately, I am no longer willing to dismiss entirely the possibility that our own government (or parts thereof) might be willing to see such a thing happen for their own reasons. Yeah, I know, tin-foil beanie stuff. But can you honestly say that you would put the idea 100% out of mind?
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Apollo program, Astronomy, Buzz Aldrin, Constellation program, General Musings, Google, Government, NASA, Neil Armstrong, Peter Diamandis, Predictions, Press, Science, Society, Space, tech
As I mentioned the other day, news of the new Google Lunar X Prize organized by Peter Diamandis is getting a fair amount of attention, and appropriately so. It’s good to see Diamandis pursuing his dream, as I wrote about in this post about the Heinlein Centennial Gala:
And then Peter Diamandis‘ brilliant, inspiring presentation about how he considered Heinlein to have written not just visionary fiction, but had actually mapped out a functional business plan with The Man Who Sold the Moon. Diamandis said his dream, his goal, was to be there to welcome NASA back to the Moon when the Constellation Program vehicle arrives. This brought a standing ovation and cheers.
Indeed. And with the new Google Lunar X Prize, there’s a fair chance that could actually happen. If private space companies can land a remote-operated vehicle on the Moon under the prize guidelines by 2013 (most people are of the opinion that it’ll happen sooner), then I’d bet that scaling up the tech used to accomplish that to have people – perhaps even Diamandis himself – on the Moon before NASA’s target date of 2020 for Constellation is certainly possible. Remember, we went from having barely function sub-orbital craft to the Apollo 11 Moonshot in just 8 years.
One of the things I find particularly interesting is a bonus possible under the Google Lunar X Prize guidelines. Here it is:
• BONUSES: An additional $5 million in bonus prizes can be won by successfully completing additional mission tasks such as roving longer distances (> 5,000 meters), imaging man made artifacts (e.g. Apollo hardware), discovering water ice, and/or surviving through a frigid lunar night (approximately 14.5 Earth days).
That one bit right there in the middle that I bolded is what I’m talking about. It simultaneously nods to the accomplishments of NASA and also thumbs its nose at the agency. It perfectly sums up the mixed emotions many in the private sector feel about the government’s involvement in space exploration and development: respect for what was accomplished in the past, yet a burning desire to prove that the private players can do more, do it faster, and do it for less money.
I haven’t begun work on it yet, but one of the ‘intervening’ novels of my future history series (between Communion of Dreams and the prequel I’ve started titled St. Cybi’s Well) would be set sometime in the 2030s at one of the Israeli colonies on the Moon. The main character would be an artist who is on sabbatical there, exploring how the space environment effects an aesthetic sensibility. And one of the scenes I’ve envisioned would have him visiting the site of the first Lunar Landing, which has been carefully secured to preserve it as it was left by Armstrong and Aldrin, in order to use the site as inspiration. I must admit, I sort of hate the thought that there would be additional rover tracks there in order that someone could claim a bonus for the X Prize.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Flu, Flu Wiki, Government, Health, Pandemic, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Society
Another post today – there’s a Flu Wiki which may be of interest to folks who read this blog. From the site:
The purpose of the Flu Wiki is to help local communities prepare for and perhaps cope with a possible influenza pandemic. This is a task previously ceded to local, state and national governmental public health agencies. Our goal is to be:
- a reliable source of information, as neutral as possible, about important facts useful for a public health approach to pandemic influenza
- a venue for anticipating the vast range of problems that may arise if a pandemic does occur
- a venue for thinking about implementable solutions to foreseeable problems
Looks like a great resource, and since someone on the related forum was kind enough to post a link to Communion of Dreams as a “SF novel about post-pandemic world”, I thought the least I could do is return the favor. Because sure as hell, we’re going to get hit by a pandemic flu one of these days, and the more resources people have available about how to cope, the better.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Government, Health, movies, Predictions, RFID, Science, Science Fiction, Society, tech, Wired, Writing stuff
[This post contains spoilers about the plot of Communion of Dreams. I’ll attempt to minimize how much I reveal in the course of discussing this topic, but you’ve been warned.]
RFID tagging is a popular plot device in a lot of movies and fiction, as well as a functional tool for commerce and security. But a lot of people have concerns about how suitable this tech is for the way it is being applied. Let’s put it this way: if you don’t already have a RFID-blocking wallet for your passport (and soon your credit cards), plan on getting one. The authorities claim that RFID passports and other devices are secure, since they can only be ‘read’ by machines at close encounter (just a couple of inches), but hackers have already established that such devices can be read at up to 10 yards.
Anyway, RFID tags are also popular for pet owners, who will ‘chip’ a pet with ID info in case it is lost. Likewise, the tech has been used for monitoring seniors who live alone and for anti-kidnapping devices.
But it seems that there may be medical concerns about implanting the chips into tissue. Concerns which were ignored by FDA. From an AP article the other day:
When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved implanting microchips in humans, the manufacturer said it would save lives, letting doctors scan the tiny transponders to access patients’ medical records almost instantly. The FDA found “reasonable assurance” the device was safe, and a sub-agency even called it one of 2005’s top “innovative technologies.”
But neither the company nor the regulators publicly mentioned this: A series of veterinary and toxicology studies, dating to the mid-1990s, stated that chip implants had “induced” malignant tumors in some lab mice and rats.
“The transponders were the cause of the tumors,” said Keith Johnson, a retired toxicologic pathologist, explaining in a phone interview the findings of a 1996 study he led at the Dow Chemical Co. in Midland, Mich.
What’s even better is that it seems as though the man who was the head of the agency which made the decision then went to work for one of the major corporations pushing the technology:
The FDA is overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services, which, at the time of VeriChip’s approval, was headed by Tommy Thompson. Two weeks after the device’s approval took effect on Jan. 10, 2005, Thompson left his Cabinet post, and within five months was a board member of VeriChip Corp. and Applied Digital Solutions. He was compensated in cash and stock options.
Compensated to the tune of options on a quarter-million shares of stock and some $80,000, according to Threat Level.
Pretty sweet, eh?
Anyway, this whole notion of integrating tech into our actual bodies is a mainstay of SF, and I do a lot with it in Communion, because I see it as likely that this is where we’re headed. That doesn’t mean that it is a good idea, though, as the example of the RFID chips being suspect shows.
And here’s where we get into the Spoilers:
For Communion, I suggest that there are two options for the human race: to continue down a path of integration with our technology, becoming increasingly ‘enhanced’ and wired and decreasingly human; or to embrace something of the sanctity of the human form – we can use technology, but not become merged with it. This happens via the connection with the alien artifact, which revitalizes aspects of our human ability which had long been suppressed. That the flu virus which had threatened human extinction turns out to have been an artifact of our own technology is just reinforcement of this metaphor.
Don’t mistake me – I am not a technophobe. If I need an artificial heart valve, or a pacemaker, or any similar tech bit installed in my body, then I’m fine with that. But I think the larger issue of integrating optional tech into our bodies will be fraught with dangers, and should not be embraced without real consideration – and I’m not talking about the kind of consideration that the RFID chips got from the FDA.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 