Published on 11 May 2015
World War 1 saw several completely new technologies develop rapidly. The airplane itself was only a few years old but pioneering engineers soon saw its potential for military use. For recognisance and later as fighter or bomber, World War 1 had huge impact on aviation and warfare in general. This special episode gives you an idea about the obstacles that had to be overcome.
May 12, 2015
The Sky Was The Limit – World War 1 In The Air I THE GREAT WAR
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Step aside, Sun Tzu, Heinlein’s Starship Troopers is the new guide to warfare
In Popular Mechanics, Joe Pappalardo makes the claim that Robert Heinlein’s 1959 novel Starship Troopers is replacing Sun Tzu’s Art of War due to its greater relevance to 21st century warfare:
It’s not just generals and soldiers who keep the The Art of War in print. Businessmen, coaches, and lawyers all seem to get something out of Sun Tzu’s 6th century military tome — memorizing and repeating passages that speak to the tactics and strategy of success, whether that’s on Wall Street or in a war zone.
But for all its long-lasting cultural influence, the book is limited by its lack of specifics. “Know your enemy” and “win without fighting” are all well and good, but such axioms don’t really help today’s GI prepare to deploy with a robotic squadmate or decide what information to place on a digital head’s-up display. Modern warriors, surrounded by sophisticated gear and nuanced rules of engagement, need to meditate on the balance between technology and soldier, man and machine, civilian and veteran. For that kind of wisdom, they must go to military science fiction — and one great book in particular.
Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers, published in 1959, is aging remarkably well. The tome chronicles the early military career of Johnnie Rico, who fights alien arachnids while clad in a heavily armed exoskeleton. The troopers drop from orbit one by one to wreak havoc on whatever target the Sky Marshal deems worthy of the attention. It’s a cool adventure novel with a soldier’s eye view that doubles a treatise on modern warrior culture, the limits of military technology, and the awful glories of fighting infantry. There’s a reason military academies like West Point recommend cadets read the book.
Like Sun Tzu’s masterpiece, Heinlein’s abounds with quotable axioms. You may not hear overly intense car salesman quoting from Starship Troopers anytime soon, but here are six reasons why the book is a practical guide to 21st century warfare.
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May 10, 2015
“…the Venn diagram circles of ‘scientists’ and ‘Lord of the Rings fans’ have a large overlap”
In The Atlantic, Julie Beck wonders “What has it got in its academic journals, precious?”
Though at first glance, science and fantasy seem to be polar opposites, the Venn diagram circles of “scientists” and “Lord of the Rings fans” have a large overlap. One could (lovingly!) label that region “nerds.”
Fight me on that if you want, but there’s plenty of evidence that suggests scientists love J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic. Several newly discovered animal species have been named after characters from the books — a genus of wasps in New Zealand is now called Shireplitis, with species S. bilboi, S. frodoi, S. meriadoci, S. peregrini, S. samwisei and S. tolkieni. The wasps bear the names of the hobbits because they too are “small, short, and stout,” according to a press release. On the other side of the size spectrum, paleontologists named a 900-pound ancient crocodile Anthracosuchus balrogus, after the Balrog, a giant whip-wielding fire monster from The Lord of the Rings. There is also a dinosaur named after Sauron, which seems kinda harsh to me. And many, many more, if the website “Curious Taxonomy” is to be believed.
“Given Tolkien’s passion for nomenclature, his coinage, over decades, of enormous numbers of euphonious names — not to mention scientists’ fondness for Tolkien — it is perhaps inevitable that Tolkien has been accorded formal taxonomic commemoration like no other author,” writes Henry Gee in his book The Science of Middle Earth.
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May 9, 2015
Everybody panic! The robots are coming to steal our jobs!
Tim Worstall explains why we can easily disregard the calls to panic about the impending invasion of our new robotic overlords:
Essentially, what [economist Joe] Stiglitz is saying is that under certain conditions the advance of the robots means that we all lose our jobs and the capitalists, the people who own the robots, get to have all of the economy. And one can see his mechanism to get there: if robots become ever more productive then yes, we can see the idea that there will be more robots and fewer people employed by the capitalists and so on. But it’s still impossible for that end state to arrive: simply because we non-capitalists aren’t going to let it.
[…]
So, let’s recast that end state. There’s the 1% (the plutocrats, the capitalists, whatever) and then there’s us, the 99%. Robots become ever more productive and we the 99% all lose our jobs working for the capitalists. Hmm, tant pis in one telling of this story because as Karl Marx pointed out that’s a precondition for true communism, that we overcome the scarcity problem. But even leaving that aside what is going to happen next?
That 1% owns all the robots and gets all the production from them. We, the 99%, have no jobs and thus no incomes. We cannot purchase any of that robotic consumption from the capitalists. This is the very point that Stiglitz is making, that the capitalists will own and consume 100% of the robotic output. Well, yes, OK, but what are we the 99% going to do? This new peasantry: do we all just wander around the fields until we keel over from starvation? No, quite obviously we don’t. Sure, the robots are more efficient than we are, produce things for much lower prices. But we don’t have any of the currency with which we can buy that production. So, what are we going to do?
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May 8, 2015
Quantum Insert
Kim Zetter talks about some of the NSA’s more sneaky ways of intercepting communications:
Among all of the NSA hacking operations exposed by whistleblower Edward Snowden over the last two years, one in particular has stood out for its sophistication and stealthiness. Known as Quantum Insert, the man-on-the-side hacking technique has been used to great effect since 2005 by the NSA and its partner spy agency, Britain’s GCHQ, to hack into high-value, hard-to-reach systems and implant malware.
Quantum Insert is useful for getting at machines that can’t be reached through phishing attacks. It works by hijacking a browser as it’s trying to access web pages and forcing it to visit a malicious web page, rather than the page the target intend to visit. The attackers can then surreptitiously download malware onto the target’s machine from the rogue web page.
Quantum Insert has been used to hack the machines of terrorist suspects in the Middle East, but it was also used in a controversial GCHQ/NSA operation against employees of the Belgian telecom Belgacom and against workers at OPEC, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. The “highly successful” technique allowed the NSA to place 300 malicious implants on computers around the world in 2010, according to the spy agency’s own internal documents — all while remaining undetected.
But now security researchers with Fox-IT in the Netherlands, who helped investigate that hack against Belgacom, have found a way to detect Quantum Insert attacks using common intrusion detection tools such as Snort, Bro and Suricata.
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QotD: The barbarians in our midst
… possibly the most dangerous barbarians live in the West. These, by being born there, assume they are Westerners by inheritance or osmosis. They also regard Western civilization as “found”, its goodies a stash waiting to be used or distributed. Nor do they trouble themselves as to its provenance, for there has always been plenty more where the stash came from.
For these barbarians Western civilization and its associated quest for God or Truth are a bothersome impediment, a “white man’s culture”, a hundred year old relic ideology nobody bothers with, some irksomely judgmental superfluity that gets in the way of fun and spreading the fruits to arrivals at the border and various victim groups.
For the barbarian the only reality is appearances. Cargo cultists, for instance, believe that function comes from form. If they build something which resembles an airport then gift giving airplanes will arrive there to bring goodies. The 21st century barbarian completely lacks the attitude of Roger Bacon, who lived in the 13th century. Bacon knew that the truth was not a “white man’s” culture — in fact in his day nearly all learning came from the East — but believed the truth was nature’s culture; baked into reality; another word for what used to be called God. Of barbarian ignorance Bacon wrote:
Many secrets of art and nature are thought by the unlearned to be magical. … The empire of man over things depends wholly on the arts and sciences. For we cannot command nature except by obeying her.
In today’s post-Western environment, we’ve forgotten Bacon’s adage.
Richard Fernandez, “Sword and Sorcery”, Belmont Club, 2014-06-23.
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May 7, 2015
Understanding photography: aperture, shutter speed, and ISO
At LifeHacker, Thorin Klosowski has a quick visual reminder of how the basic photography concepts of aperture, shutter speed, and ISO setting impact the photo you want to take:
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April 28, 2015
Professor: New UK railway signalling system is hackable … while he’s also selling anti-hacking gear
At The Register, John Leyden offers a bit of doubt that Professor David Stupples can really be said to be an impartial observer:
The rollout of a next generation train signalling system across the UK could leave the network at greater risk of hack attacks, a university professor has claimed.
Prof David Stupples warns that plans to replace the existing (aging) signalling system with the new European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) could open up the network to potential attacks, particularly from disgruntled employees or other rogue insiders.
ERTMS will manage how fast trains travel, so a hack attack might potentially cause trains to move too quickly. UK tests of the European Rail Traffic Management System have already begun ahead of the expected rollout.
By the 2020s the system will be in full control of trains on mainline routes. Other countries have already successfully rolled out the system and there are no reports, at least, of any meaningful cyber-attack to date.
Nonetheless, Prof Stupples is concerned that hacks against the system could cause “major disruption” or even a “nasty accident”.
ERTMS is designed to make networks safer by safeguarding against driver mistakes, a significant factor historically in rail accidents. Yet these benefits are offset by the risk of hackers manipulating control systems, Prof Stupples, of City University London, warned.
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April 27, 2015
April 25, 2015
There’s a reason SF writers tend to invent ways to travel interstellar distances quickly
At Real Clear Science, Ross Pomeroy sings the praises of an early publication by the pre-Nobel academic Paul Krugman:
Paul Krugman is a Nobel Prize-winning economist, a respected professor at Princeton University, and an outspoken liberal columnist for the New York Times. But first and foremost, he is a huge nerd, and proud of it.
Back in the sweltering summer of 1978, Krugman’s geekiness prompted him to tackle a matter of galactic importance: the economics of interstellar trade. Then a 25-year-old “oppressed” assistant professor at Yale “caught up in the academic rat race,” Krugman crafted his “Theory of Interstellar Trade” to cheer himself up. Krugman’s jocularity is evident throughout the paper, which was published online in 2010, thirty-two years after he stamped it out on a typewriter. Early on in the article, he even pokes fun at his chosen profession:
“While the subject of this paper is silly, the analysis actually does make sense. This paper, then, is a serious analysis of a ridiculous subject, which is of course the opposite of what is usual in economics”
The key problem with interstellar trade, Krugman writes, is time dilation. When objects travel at velocities approaching the speed of light — roughly 300,000 kilometers per second — time moves more slowly for them compared to objects at rest. (For a great explainer of this effect, which is tied to Einstein’s theory of special relativity, check out this video.) So the crew of a space-faring cargo ship might experience only ten years while thirty years or more might pass for the denizens of the planets they’re traveling between. How then, does one calculate interest rates on the cost of goods sold? Trading partners will undoubtedly be many light-years apart and trips will last decades, so this is a vital issue to resolve.
Since the speeds of vessels will undoubtedly vary, but both planets should be moving through space at close enough velocities where time dilation wouldn’t be a factor, Krugman contends that the interest costs should be tabulated based on the time shared by the two planets. But what about those interest rates? Won’t they differ? Not necessarily, Krugman argues. Competition should lead them to equalize amongst interplanetary trading partners.
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April 24, 2015
Junk science watch – lie detectors
Gavin McInnes on the polygraph machines and their questionable accuracy:
I met Doug Williams in August while developing a pilot for a TV show about myth busting. He’s the most vocal critic of polygraph machines in the world and authored the book From Cop to Crusader: My Fight Against the Dangerous Myth of “Lie Detection.” Williams’ history in law enforcement brought him from the Oklahoma City Police Department to the White House where he served under Johnson and Nixon as a communications advisor (Johnson was cool, Nixon was a dick). He has issued thousands of polygraph tests over the years and even helped make the test part of federal law.
Doug started to realize the whole thing was a scam in the late 1970s and since then has devoted his entire life to giving everyone else the same epiphany. Unfortunately, the government doesn’t see it the same way and on May 12th, his trial will begin for the crime of “train[ing]… customers how to conceal misconduct and other disqualifying information.” He was busted by two undercover federal agents who took his course and decided the class had gone from simply “debunking” to “aiding and abetting.” The Feds are trying to say that Williams is hampering investigations, but all he’s doing is proving these machines don’t work by presenting evidence. 60 Minutes did the same thing in a 1986 episode where three out of three experts failed their own test. People are losing their jobs and going to prison based on the findings of a machine that appears to be totally unreliable. The only thing he’s hampering here is the abuse of power. The irony is, if it’s possible to beat a polygraph, it clearly isn’t a reliable piece of equipment. If it’s not possible to beat, his courses are irrelevant. You can teach someone to trick a police radar all you want. It’s still going to clock you if you’re going over the speed limit. This seems like common sense yet the state has won cases like this before. In 2013, an electrician named Chad Dixon was sentenced to 8 months in jail for helping people beat the machine.
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April 21, 2015
US Navy and Marine Corps to go all-drone after F-35
In the USNI News, Sam LaGrone says the F-35 is the last piloted strike fighter the US Navy and USMC will ever “buy or fly”:
Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus said the Lockheed Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) will be “almost certainly will be, the last manned strike fighter aircraft the Department of the Navy will ever buy or fly,” signaling key assumptions in the Navy’s aviation future as the service prepares to develop follow-ons to the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet.
“Unmanned systems, particularly autonomous ones, have to be the new normal in ever-increasing areas,” Mabus said. “For example, as good as it is, and as much as we need it and look forward to having it in the fleet for many years, the F-35 should be, and almost certainly will be, the last manned strike fighter aircraft the Department of the Navy will ever buy or fly.”
To address the emerging role unmanned weapon systems, Mabus announced a new deputy assistant secretary of the Navy for unmanned systems and a new Navy staff position — alongside warfare directorates like surface and air warfare — N-99.
The positions were created “so that all aspects of unmanned – in all domains – over, on and under the sea and coming from the sea to operate on land – will be coordinated and championed,” Mabus said.
Unmanned aerial vehicles are currently part of the Navy’s N2/N6 Information Dominance portfolio as primarily information, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) platform while undersea and surface unmanned systems are owned by a myriad of agencies.
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April 20, 2015
The Wright Brothers – early practitioners of lawfare
David Warren casts his thoughts into the air, but a hundred years ago the Wright Brothers’ lawyers would have been doing their legal damnedest to bring him back down to earth in a hurry:
Work on powered, controlled flight in the United States was far behind that in France, or England, but fell farther behind thanks to the Wright brothers. Fixated on the problem of converting invention into wealth, they pursued rival aviators around the USA with teams of lawyers. Their numerous, voluminous, cumbersome lawsuits were based on often fanciful patent claims, emerging from their own intensely secretive research.
One thinks for instance of the great aviator, Louis Paulhan (first to fly London to Manchester), who arrived with two Blériot monoplanes and two Farman biplanes to give flying demonstrations across the USA. Amazed at the workings of the American judicial system, but ignoring legal injunctions to prevent them from flying their machines, they took every prize at the Los Angeles Air Meet in January 1910, setting new records for altitude and endurance.
The Wrights were present, there as elsewhere, though never competing. They and their gaggle of lawyers followed Paulhan and the other foreigners around the country, serving them with process papers, and demanding unbelievably huge sums to call off their dogs, in vile and obvious attempts at extortion. And then they’d hit the local impresarios with additional suits to impound all the cash from ticket sales, &c. Truly: vicious and contemptible men.
To avoid fines or imprisonment in backwoods American jurisdictions, the visitors took to giving their demonstrations entirely for free, but still the lawsuits kept coming. Finally they gave up and went home.
And there’s even a maple-flavoured sidelight in the story:
Part of the reason for Canada’s early advances in aviation (first flight of the Silver Dart at Baddeck in Cape Breton, with its ingenious ailerons, &c) was the migration of American inventors, such as the brilliant motor-mechanic Glenn Curtiss, to safe territory away from the corrupt and unpredictable U.S. courts.
This, I suspect, was among the reasons that the spectacularly inventive Scotchman, Alexander Graham Bell, re-located from his grand mansion in Washington, DC. At first he went north, back to Canada (where he had settled before), only for the summers; but soon he was staying through the winters, too. Not only in flight, but in all the many other areas of his pioneering work (he invented the telephone, &c), he was afflicted with lawsuits from American cranks, with those dollar signs twirling in their eyes and the slick lawyers lining up behind them, ready to exploit a patent regime wide open to political manipulation. For apart from the beauty of the Bras d’Or landscape, Bell was back under the protection of British Common Law.
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April 14, 2015
Patently ridiculous, in one image
H/T to Veronique de Rugy, who explains that much of the increase in “patents for trivial and non-original functions” can be traced back to the creation of one particular court.
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April 12, 2015
Unprintable words about printers
It’s coming up to the deadline for getting our tax returns in to the CRA, so I’d asked my friend Clive to come over this weekend to do my books in preparation for taking all the paperwork in to my accountant. It seemed like a pretty straight-forward thing — all I had to do was to print off all my various invoices and other documents for which I didn’t already have a hard-copy.
But I had somehow forgotten about the Satanic nature of printers.
Elizabeth and I each have a printer attached to our respective computers, so even if one failed to co-operate, we have the other one to fall back on. And this turned out to be a good thing, as the HP Officejet 6310 printer I use with my laptop started having paper feed issues on Saturday. As in, it couldn’t manage to pull even a single sheet of paper out of the stack. Well, damn, but at least there’s Elizabeth’s Canon printer I can use instead.
I disconnected the HP and moved her printer over to my workspace (the kitchen table, actually). But first I had to download the drivers for it. Having downloaded the drivers, I prepared to print the first of the documents I needed … and the damned Canon developed a similar paper feed problem. It just would not feed paper from the paper bin to the print-head.
A couple of hours go by, as I frantically try to fix one or the other of the two busted printers. It’s now after 5, and I’m running out of options and patience. I decide to go down to our local Staples and buy a new printer because that tax return deadline is looming.
In Staples, I vent a bit of my frustration over printers to a staff member, and she agrees that one of the few genuine pleasures in life is hoofing a printer out the window. After we compared notes on distance and impact zones, I asked for her recommendation for a cheap printer that would at least let me print off what I need for Clive to work with today. She warned me against my first choice, as it only came with “starter” ink cartridges, while a slightly older model using the same cartridges comes with full-sized ones instead … and was $30 cheaper, to boot. She made the sale.
I got the printer home, set it up and … discovered that the printer’s display panel didn’t work. And it was now too late to get the unit back to the store for a replacement. So, early Sunday, as soon as the store opens I’ll be on their doorstep with the faulty printer. I hope the next one will at least print something.
