The Bewilderness

Transformers: a Hamas wet dream

The Transformers is one of the odder films populating the blockbusters this summer. No doubt the demographic marries the fanboys (big Robots, big bombs, etc. etc.) with a generation that imbibe secularised red state values. How else can you describe a film that pits martial virtues versus civilian deceit and portrays the President as a morally vacuous absence whose representative must be literally kicked out of the plane before good can triumph over evil. The certainty of fighting bad guys is preferred over the foreign policy realism that embraces all options and diplomatic appeasement, horsetrading lives for peace.

Real life complexity can be stopped with guns. Also noteworthy was the higlighted role of the United Kingdom, as an ally of the US, reinforcing this successful conservative film.

But not too conservative..the final battle takes place in Egypt and aid is provided by the Jordanians, not the nearest US ally, Israel. Not an intentional anti-semitic move, but a narrative tool enforced by Arab consumption, yet the effect is to airbrush Israel out of reality. Commercial considerations wed the martial values of the Deep south with a Hamas wet dream: the cultural contradictions of the 21st century.

A market for wierd?

There are always limits but one of the odder ones is the wall around wierd. Ripley's Believe It or Not, believe it or not, has strict standards on the oddities that can be displayed: in a brand protection exercise.

Mr. Meyer spends much of his time pining for objects like Mr. Weaver's toothpick sculpture. These are what in Ripley's parlance are called "A exhibits" -- those odd, one-of-a-kind, often interactive items that can anchor the rest of a museum collection...

Over the past four years, Ripley's Believe It or Not!, a unit of Jim Pattison Group's Ripley Entertainment Inc., has been on an expansion binge. It opened big new museums in New York, London, San Antonio and Bangalore, India. Four more are to open by mid-2010, in Veracruz, Mexico; Bahrain; Jeju, South Korea; and Surfer's Paradise, Australia.

As a result, the company says, it is for the first time in its history facing a shortage of A-list oddities on par with the portrait of Barack Obama made of 12,000 gum balls in New York, the three shrunken heads on display in London and the vampire-killing kit from the mid-1800s at the Tennessee museum.

"We have 10% of what we had just two years ago" because the company's stockpile has been nearly emptied to fill the new museums, says Tim O'Brien, vice president of communications at Ripley Entertainment. "We are in search for at least 200 A exhibits to replenish our supply and meet our current needs," he says.

This is a self-imposed market, in a sense, as the company sets the bar and then explores the globe attempting to find objects that fit the requirement. After all the price of shrunken heads is rising as they are no longer 'manufactured' by Amazonian tribes. Would it not also be cheating if the company started to make odd rather than purchasing what is emergent on this small market? And if the company has expanded so far, will people now make oddness such to sell to Ripleys?

Expansion and a monopoly buyer (apart from some fringe activity) set this up as one of the stranger markets around. Are there people who 'spot' for Ripley, buying up to sell on to the monopoly? Or manufacturing oddities to the grade required? Shortages bring opportunities.

Cash without questions, position without honour

It is beginning to appear as if expenses without receipts is an addictive disease, since the continued contempt for the hand that feeds them can only be interpreted as a psychological disorder. When the old subsistence claim was scrapped, the Commons Estimates Committee passed a new benefit that was even more egregious than the old one. This does not fit with the rhetoric of a 'clean up'. But, knowing that this might be unpopular, they sneaked it out:

But the members estimate committee – including Harriet Harman, the Leader of the House, – had drawn up rules that allowed MPs to claim £25 for each night spent away from their designated main home, without needing to prove where they were or what food they bought. The wording of the Green Book makes clear: “No receipts are necessary for this claim to be made.” Politicians were allowed to start claiming the new subsistence allowance from the start of the financial year in April. ...

But the members estimate committee chose not to change the subsistence arrangements and they were confirmed in a revised edition of the Green Book slipped out quietly on July 13. Sir Christopher is likely to propose scrapping the £25-a-night flat rate for subsistence when he reports in October, or at least demand that receipts are produced for every single cup of coffee or sandwich.


The expense will now be scrapped or brought in line with the demand for audited receipts. The last gasp of the incumbents, clawing for cash, is an unedifying sight, and the role of Harriet Harman at sleaze central, does Brown's administration no favours. How ironic that the Tories were downed with cash for questions and Labour are being done down by cash without question. Different avenue, same problem .

Unmanned...an abbreviated future

Another new acronym (to me!) has begun to creep into the lexicon: the unmanned ground vehicle or UGV. The variants are either tele-operated or truely autonomous and examples of both types exist.

Britain was a pioneer in tele-operated robot vehicles with early iterations used for bomb disposal, exploring environments before the bomb disposal squad was sent in. So, as robotics integrates with the defence marketplace, we can expect a flourish of new acronyms:

Unmanned maritime vehicles (UMVs)

Unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs)

Autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs)

Unmanned surface vehicles (USVs)

Unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs)

Small unmanned ground vehicles (SUGVs)

Unmanned ground combat vehicles (UGCVs)

Remotely-operated vehicles (ROVs)

In practical terms, companies are beginning to integrate the platforms into a seamless interoperable whole:

BAE Systems this week has unveiled a new version of its Talisman UUV, while a new company funded UGV development programme is being planned by BAE Systems Australia.

Generic autonomous systems capabilities developed for the UAV segment have resulted in the creation of multiple technology cores that can be applied across different environments says Andy Tonge, Talisman project manager at BAE Systems Underwater Systems

"This is part of an overall strategy across BAE Systems to build up an integrated approach to unmanned vehicles and autonomous systems, leading to the development of Intelligent Autonomy, which can be applied across land, sea and air."

No doubt we will see new vehicles and new shorthand in years to come.

A slow burn radicalisation

Although we have had one of the most savage downturns since the 1930s, an analysis of the crisis would conclude that we have still not met its full political or social effects. Indeed, the whole experience has been dampened by fiscal stimulus and an air of artificial normality. Economists still call for green shoots and implore the broken totem of consumer spending and house prices to merge, giving a new impetus to the economy. Salient voices say that the model is broken, but 'debt and spend' is only postponing the inevitable.

Riots that have broken out were concentrated on particular countries where the elected authorities were particularly mendacious or incompetent: Iceland, Latvia etc...but they have tended to peter out. Action has been displaced by apathy, indifference and a mood of anti-politics as social democracy has withered on the vine. Disagree with much of the Left's analysis, but they can smell the rot as the European elections attested:

What we are seeing in Britain and throughout Europe is the last death throes of historical social democracy that emerged from the split in the world workers movement after the Russian revolution. This does not of course mean that we shall see the early demise of the parties that originated in social democracy, but the project – in the early phase socialism via successive reforms and then pro-working class reforms within the framework of capitalism – is all but dead, and in any case nowhere the majority or the leadership of parties like the French SP or the SPD in Germany.

The social democratic Left may no longer have the institutions to mobilise disaffected voters and workers. Their most recent travails are based upon the migration of the disaffected to marginal parties more in tune with their attitudes and goals: euroscepticism in Britain, radical right in the Low countries or Austria, hard left and poujadiste in France.

What is left out of the equation is that the social, cultural and political reaction to a depression can take two years or more to surface in a slow burn radicalisation. Political crisis did not start to hit till 1931 with the sovereignty crises. Are we in the early stages of a new migration to the extremes; awaiting that tipping point?

UK, UAV, UGV and embedding

For UAV activity within the United Kingdom, it is now reported that the Royal Navy will conduct a review to examine what potential such vehicles have within their activities. This does appear rather behind the curve in regards to the potential of UAVs, though maybe we should be thankful that the programs are cheap enough, it would take real genius to commission an expensive, unworkable alternative.....

Companies are also building unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) linked to UAVs as reconnaissance platforms for countering the IED threat. Cheaper and capable of greater coverage than the manned alternative: it's like robots on Mars...many eyes for the same $$$$

This capability would be achieved by operating the 600 mm diameter Embler from a specially adapted Northrop Grumman Remotec Wheelbarrow Mk8 Plus II UGV. The idea behind the joint UAV/UGV system is that the UGV would transport the Embler into an area where there is thought to be an extant IED threat. Once in the general vicinity, the Embler will be launched to pinpoint the exact location of any such device without the need to expose personnel to danger.

Propriety and principle cast out a mote in history's eye

Currently wending my way through Adam Smith's "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" (edition from Prometheus Books, presumably sixth edition), one comes across that jarring discontinuity which denotes a gap in expectations between thought now and then. To be taken aback is always a pleasure in reading, though enjoyment is better gained through innovation than historical incommensurability.

The halt came at Chapter VI of "On Duty" where Smith discusses duty, principle and propriety, with two examples for edification. The first cites St. Bartholomew's massacre where French Huguenots were slaughtered by Catholics. A bigoted Catholic saves Protestants rather than murdering them and "would not seem to be entitled to that high applause which we should have bestowed upon him, had he exerted the same generosity with complete self-approbation". His humanity is "admired" but he is also regarded with "pity", as his actions are inconsistent with "perfect virtue". The second example is that of a Quaker, who strikes out rather than turn the other cheek. Principle is overturned but spectators would "laugh, and be diverted with his spirit and rather like him the better for it".

Our difference resides in our approach to principle and, perhaps, our unwillingness to accept the possibility of perfect virtue as a lodestar for the acceptance or rejection of behaviour. For the Catholic who saves his enemies, valueing individual lives above the precepts of his religion and the possible punishment that his actions entail, we now privilege as an act of courage and our pity is reserved for those who feel similarly but who do not have the courage to act thus. The Quakers are now admired for the maintenance of principle and their stance has led reserved clear public space for the observance of the conscientious objector. Admiration does not equal agreement, of course.

This clearly does not feed into the philosophical arguments that tread heavily across the tensions between Smith's concept of duty and his plotting of propriety. Rather, the examples cited and the conclusions elucidated, draw upon the sense of naturalistic universals that run through the entire text. And lets us know of a world where principle was valued less than propriety: an interesting teaser more subtle than the usual clashes. It does raise the question whether philosophically inclined readers contextualise as they dice Smith within their discourse.

While time has elapsed,passing philosophy into history, such tension between universal sentiments and chosen principles mirrors and, perhaps informs the contemporary relationship between evolved predispositions and intentional action.
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Quote of the day

And that child would slowly ascend towards full awareness in a world whose sky was violence and whose horizons were fear. And however resourceful he was, however patient and fortunate in the events of his life that followed, he was like a creature in a nest of imprisoning boxes who could never really break free. That was his world and any attempt to persuade him that it was merely a 'subjective' or 'individual' experience would never convince him.

Sebastian Faulks, Engleby

Singularity zombies commit computer cannibalism with your brain

i09 identifies a trend in science fiction away from the Singularity optimism that has influenced some of the genre since the 90s, though not as widespread as the article would have us believe. Citing zombies, steampunk and alternatives such as Neal Stephenson's Anathem, the article simplifies and reduces these explorations to a genre war.

Whilst books, short stories and the visual in the genre may have been influenced by the debates over the Singularity, it is a massive step to describe any reaction as a literary equavalent to Jovian relinquishment. Of course, if an article is wrong, or a brave and bracing stab at a picture, easily undone, what is the alternative? Is there a cultural fatigue for shiny optimism or, more likely, are we struggling to set up frameworks for realising how we get from here to there (William Gibson, Charlie Stross, Ken Macleod, Bruce Sterling and newer variants like Moxyland). Pumping iron on the near future is tremendously difficult: fantastic alternatives in a market where fantasy is popular gains traction.

Even the convenors of the Singularity Summit avoid the readings of inevitability and shininess that can convert concept to creed and screed:

If, however, futurists are able to restrain themselves from unbridled techno-optimism (as well as from cynical techno-pessimism), if they can maintain a healthy skepticism toward unsubstantiated claims, if they can promote and demonstrate reliance on scientific rationality, if they will assiduously resist the siren call of technocracy, if they understand and emphasize the differences between their own work and the fantasies of religious rapturists, if they strive for humility and an honest recognition of their own human limitations, and most of all, if they will recognize that nothing is certain and that working to relieve suffering today is every bit as important as chasing the promises of future technological potential, then discussion of a Singularity and its pros and cons is a worthwhile effort.

And this is what fiction has already been exploring: leaving behind crude technological determinism for science fiction experiments on discontinuity. For profit, they may need to throw in Singularity zombies, the dead raised and ravenous for our brains, so they can massively increase their computing power.... 

Common sense libel judgement

For once, a common sense conclusion to a libel suit, though any other judgement would have rendered Britain a pariah. Still, appearing ridiculous is not a good reason to reach conclusions in libel cases. Reform is necessary to enable freedom of the mind:

Metropolitan International Schools sued Google for publicizing the claims through its search results, although the Web forums did not belong to Google. In its defense, Google argued it should not be held responsible for the content of the 39 billion Web pages available on the Internet.

Justice Eady noted that Google is merely a conduit to the information and not a publisher in its own right. He ruled that Google's Internet search engine is not considered a publisher under defamation law, and therefore is not responsible for the content of the short descriptions of Web sites that appear in Google searches. He also ruled that there is "no reasonable prospect of success" and dismissed the suit.