Blog Leaching

Empathy and agreement
I know what you want
My unguarded internal thought
Drink deeply casual reader
You voyeur of thoughts

Feelings un-spoken
Ranting and spew
Thoughts from the past
Plans for the new
Now a poem, just for you

Your eyes are mine
That’s your cost
My mems given freely
And no one has lost

Share with me my inner self
Exposed on this screen
It is all kind of creepy
Yes, Really

A quick poem about time in time

Time to waste
Line by line
Consuming time
Fingers tapping
Make a rhythm
Consuming bytes
Re-ordering mayhem
Reading time
Slipping past
Life is fast
Make it last
Now has past

Intelligent Design

All the arguments have been had and the jury returned the verdict – Not Science. And that just about sums it up. It is interesting to note that there still are a few schools teaching this as science. In my fair city there is one school who sneakily added it to their science class in the guise of an alternative view. The school is run by the local evangelicals so no real surprises there.

It is, however, shameful and immoral that they have done this. It might be appropriate in their religious instruction class but it is not science therefore it shouldn’t be part of a science class. Personal experience shows that people who say they follow the teachings of a religious organisation have no more morals than those that don’t but acting as a group you would think integrity would win out.

I believe that relativity and quantum mechanics are a poor approximation of reality and that the ultimate theory of everything will be based on information theory. I merely believe this, I haven’t got any proof. Using the arguments of that school my belief should be taught to the kiddies when they talk about physics to give them an alternative view. What crap. I have no proof, I just feel it is right. Maybe one day some one will work it through and show that it is better description of the universe. At that time it becomes a scientific theory. Not a conjecture like ID.

Why would a school deliberately lie to young people and give them a false impression of what science is? Surely, as educated adults, the people responsible for doing this know that it is a faith thing and has no place being a part of a science class. It is shameful. If they are ignorant of what science is then they should have no part in setting a science curriculum. If this is the case then it is just irresponsible.


End of rant.

Setting Sail for Singapore

This weekend we are heading to Singapore few days R&R. My darling has been there once but this will be a first for my son. I have been there quite a few time but not for five or so years and never on holiday.

Singapore, it almost sounds exotic and, for much of my young life I guess it was. One very clear memory of my childhood is of talking to the patriarch of the family that lived next door. He was a merchant seaman of the old school, before crews came from the Philippines and when ships moved a lot slower. For long months at a time he would sail around the world aboard cargo ships stopping at exotic ports. Back in those days much of the cargo was handled by deck cranes and manual grunt so the crew got to go ashore to explore the various port towns they found themselves in.

One time, when I was about 12, and he was full of brandy, he looked me in the eye with a knowledgeable look and said “You can find anything you want in Singapore, and a few things you don’t”. Sage advice. I was thinking about exotic goods and criminals. I guess he was talking about something altogether different. But that was Singapore of the past, a place where you could get shanghaied, hard drugs or sexual favours in any flavour very cheap, long time, no problem.

The Singapore that I visited (and will visit in an few days time) is very different. Clean, modern and morally upright. You just fell safe there. Everyone goes about there busy business on the shiny clean streets. I can only remember one occasion where I saw a group of youths hanging around in a plaza. On my menace scale they rated about a four (bikie gang with weapons 10, group of girl scouts 1). While I watched a police man moved them along. They have strict laws and enforce them strongly. There is even a fine for not flushing a public toilet after use.

There are three dominant cultures in that small city state and a dozen minority ethnicities. It is diverse but with an apparent unity of purpose – get rich. They all get on and do their stuff. In business dealings Singapore rates lower than many ‘western’ countries in terms of corruption. Don’t get me wrong it can be a pain getting things done there. There is a culture of procrastinating that is painfull.

I am sure if you scrape the surface or travel across the causeway to Malaysia you could find some of the old city but it is well hidden from the casual visitor. That's the attraction for me, slightly exotice but totaly safe (being over 40 is just so boring). Any how I will see the sites, eat some interesting stuff, swim in the hotel pool, do a bit of shopping (I need a new battery for my MP3 player) and relax a bit.

I am sure I’ll find everything I want.

Dream on

One part of my job that I love is thinking. I love complex problems with lots of solutions. When I have to think deeply on some problem I sort of zen out into the possibilities, arrive at a conclusion and then spend the next few months doing boring stuff (implementation).

I also like investigating problems for fairly much the same reasons. Collecting data, playing with it and then convincing other to act on it. Then the tedious bit - implementing the outcome.

I never seem to be able to get a job where I get the idea, work it to release of funds then lay it of on some one and move on. I always end up running the job to its bitter end.

I like writing as well. Either just rambling (like now) or pointed, considered and dry technical stuff complete with pages of calculations – you should read some of the crap I have written – oh, wait you have…

Anyhow, the bottom line is that most of the work I do is painful for me. Yes I am very lucky, good wage, short hours (relative), get to stay in this town, bla bla bla. But if I could find a job where I can kick back and dream up stuff all day I would be happy (for a while at least).

I have dreamt of doing some brain dead job but eventually I come to then same conclusion. I would hate it. Sure I could day dream all day but the pay would be shit, and I would be resentful of my boss.

I am not political enough (bullshitability factor 0) to climb the corporate ladder. And in I don’t like greasing people.

I don’t think I’ll ever know what I want to be when I grow up.

The only thing that sort of fits is to be super rich thus having enough time to indulge my hobbies and interests. The only problem is the entry barrier to such a position is beyond my capability. Damn. I guess I am stuck being an engineer for the foreseeable future.

It is the only job for me, really. I just wish there was more of the dreaming/scheming part in the job description…..

Asimov

Somewhere in this Blog I previously mentioned that I read a fair bit. Not as much as some but in the 30 minutes or so before I sleep, when I am on a plane or just between projects at home I read. Mostly sci-fi novels but I mix in Engineering journals, science magazines, and offcourse a selection of blogs.

Early on in my reading obsession I read a lot of Asimov. I have read a good chunk of his work (although he was very prolific). My favourite Asimov stories occurred in the Robots/Foundation series, I think Susan Calvin is in pre-school at the moment. I have kept most of these books which I vowed I would re-read in his suggested order.

I rarely re-read a book. It just seems a wrong when there is just so much out there to absorb. I will admit to re-reading I Robot and Hitchhikers guide but they are about it.

I am reading Benfords contribution to the series at the moment and it is reminding me of how much I enjoyed that universe. (Benford and select others have been given permission by the Asimov estate to ad to this series).

I have found the revised suggested reading order for the series on Wikipedia. So, now reminded by one of the books on the list, I will put it down and start the series.

I know it will be different reading this stuff again, pre-knowledge and years change ones appreciation. I hope I get some of that magic of being transported to an alternate reality.

Maybe I will update my progress from time to time..

As a foot note here is the listing:

I, Robot (1950), Robot.
The Complete Robot (1982), Collection of Asimov stories written between 1940 and
The Positronic Man (1992), A novel based on Asimov's short story The Bicentennial Man, co-written by Robert Silverberg

The Robot novels
The Caves of Steel (1954)
The Naked Sun (1957)
The Robots of Dawn (1983)
Robots and Empire (1985)

The Caliban trilogy
Isaac Asimov's Caliban (1993) by Roger MacBride Allen
Isaac Asimov's Inferno (1994) by Roger MacBride Allen
Isaac Asimov's Utopia (1996) by Roger MacBride Allen

The Empire series
The Stars, Like Dust (1951)
The Currents of Space (1952)
Pebble in the Sky (1950)

The Foundation novels
Prelude to Foundation (1988)
Forward the Foundation (1993)

The Second Foundation Trilogy
Foundation's Fear (1997) by Gregory Benford
Foundation and Chaos (1998) by Greg Bear
Foundation's Triumph (1999) by David Brin

The Foundation Trilogy
Foundation (1951)
Foundation and Empire (1952)
Second Foundation (1953)
Foundation's Edge (1982)
Foundation and Earth (1986)

Warm Salty Water.

Where I live the water is cold. Even in the middle of summer when the air temperature is hot the water is cold. In winter it’s just freezing. I look across the ocean to the horizon knowing that the water is cold. I go swimming and surfing and just put up with it. You do get used to it. It is OK once your are in, seriously.

So after 40 years living in this town and swimming in cold water you are conditioned to the fact that it will be cold when you go in the ocean.

Now, I am fairly well travelled but never really had occasion to go swimming anywhere but on the stretch of coast within a few hundred km of home. There was one occasion in the Red Sea, but you would expect that to be warm wouldn’t you so it doesn’t count.

Any how on my recent holiday to the East coast of Australia I had a dip in the ocean at a place called Caloundra. The water was WARM. It was a shock. Going into the ocean and the water being pleasantly warm. I had my jaw clenched for the inevitable shock of the cold water but it never came. It seemed almost un-natural. The Ocean is cold! It’s not supposed to be like floating in some infinite womb of embryonic fluid.

I mean what is the fun of splashing water at the person who refuses to get in if the water is warm? Would the people of Caloundra even know what the phrase “it’s ok once your in” means? They would probably think you are being crude! I always thought the pictures of smiling beach babes splashing in the waves without pouting nipples were faked. Now I know the truth. They all live in Queensland…..

Freestylin

Sometimes I can let my mind drift, floating through the flotsam of my experiences of my life. It can be quite dull but, occasionally, I find a forgotten gem, a phrase spoken with paternal love (or advice), some realization of maybe just random junk. Some times I think of my Dad.

Measure thrice and cut once – you can always make it shorter (my paternal ancestors were blacksmiths for quite a few generations). It’s a hard life -. I understand my Dad a little more each year.


You see I car pooled with my dad for the first four years of my working life. My dad, amongst other things was a craftsman. He would relate stories of conquests against intractable mechanical problems with machines from an age where the intelligence was in built into the shape of steel. Cogs, pullies and cams executed their fabricated algorithm. Each piece had to work in synchronicity. Alignment and timing solved four dimensional problems of pick and place as the mechanism changed raw to finished. From engines to looms to weapons of war my Dad had played with it all.

He was born in between the wars and worked in Belfast at a time when it was the Mill and ship building powerhouse of the British empire. As a young man he was apprenticed as a fitter, I think it was in one of the mills where linen was spun and fabric loomed. From there he worked in a number of places learning his trade and honing his skills. During the second world war he worked on armaments, he told me stories of how to align aircraft machine guns, or pack a belt (tracers, armour piercing then incendiary).

Through time he progressed to be an inspector of machines and a foreman of trades. He had a little punch with his initials on it so he could pop his approval on a finished piece.

When he was around the age I am now he plucked up the family and moved half way round the world to this town (I was 3 and ½ at the time). He got a job as a fitter, on shift, at local mineral processing refinery.

I don’t think he was very happy at that time of his life but I was to young to know of such things. I do know that he worked every hour of overtime to provide for six kids. I didn’t get to see my dad much. Later I learnt how frustrated he was working on the primitive pumps and valves that made up the refinery. His skills were meant for building and repairing precision machinery. An unused talent will cause sadness.

He was also skilled at organising things and had a talent for analysis. He became a foreman once more, but still on shift, and still working too many hours. He felt obligation strongly.

I can’t remember exactly how old he was when he started suffering the effects of the smoking, a fatty diet and irregular sleep that would eventually kill him. His arteries accumulated the debris of this abuse and angina set in. So in his mid 50s he had multiple bypass surgery. After that he got a sideways promotion as foreman of the refineries mechanical workshop.

Around that time I was fooling around and had dropped out of school. I had a dream job as a DJ in a local roller skating rink and life was great. My dad convinced me to get a real job and so I applied and became an apprentice at the same refinery. So I car pooled with him. I miss that.

Damn

Sometime in the distant past life was much better than now. Just ask anyone. My problem is that I know things are pretty good now, especially, if you live in a western democracy. I guess that things are also looking up for a large percentage people living in other regimes. The obvious disclaimer is that a lot of people live in fairly crap conditions. This story is not about them. If you are hooked into a broad band internet connection at the moment the chances are that you have never had it so good.

So why are we feeling so bad about the current situation? Sure personal freedom is a bit more restricted but we have so many more things. Spare time is less abundant but the car is newer and the TV is wider. Interest groups run our governments but that hasn’t changed at all and, as always, our future is being directed by the anonymous “THEM”.

Threats to our future have changed from fascists to communists to nuclear holocaust to ozone depletion and currently with the current threat of global climate change. So what? (Terrorism is just a tool use for crowd control so doesn’t count as a threat, unless those wielding the politics of fear stay in power for to long).

The real fear for me is living through the peak of our society, whatever it’s cause. I don’t know what the end will be but I don’t want to be there. History shows that each civilisation reaches some peaked and falls by the way side (that’s why they are in the past). Our present society started its run some time in the 16th century. I guess the birth of Galileo would be a good place to mark the starting line of our technologically driven society. Each decade some improvement occurred. There were some real losers along the way but, on average, the alliance of technology and greed has improved the lot of us westerners.

My problem is that I have a good imagination and so I can see a dozen causes for such a peak.

Now please think about what the peak of our society means. Things run down, shortages appear and anarchy increases. It’s not a pleasant roll down of the way things are now. It will not be some nice bell curve ride of prosperity that will take years to have any impact on you. When it happens you will not get much notice and things will turn to crap very quickly. Imagine the great depression of the 1930’s but without recovery. The difference will be that it will be a global thing where all the players with power have an arsenal of nasty stuff.

So the peak will come and it wont be nice. The question each of us must ask is what can we do to delay it (at least until its not our problem)? The answer is quite simple. Look for the cause and avoid it. Global climate is obvious, just stop our excess production of CO2. Peak oil – simple refer to climate change, slow down in technological progress, see point one.

The hard one and, one that is scary, is habitat loss. I’m not talking about nature reserves I mean the destruction the means of food production – the human habitat. With our burgeoning population and many farming areas becoming uneconomic this is a serious threat. Fisheries are also collapsing at a frightening rate. Clean water is also becoming a constraint in many places. The obvious solution is to keep the earths population at a sustainable level.

I read an estimate somewhere that stated the earth could sustainable support about 200M people in first world conditions at current levels of consumption. The same report also said that 6B people can live on this planet if we all became vegetarians and stopped burning fossil fuel.

So the ultimate conclusion is we are screwed.

Progenitor

“When the last tree is cut down, when the last field is paved over, when the last river is dammed and when the last fish is caught only then will humanity realize that it can't eat money”. There are many variations to this quote and I couldn’t track down the originator but it did start me thinking. Damn.