Mr Deity returns

As one or two of the two or three regular readers know, I’m impressed by the Mr. Deity shorts. Well, after a delay following the second season, the third season is available. I recommend it.

Imagine LA without TV

LA Times

Of course, I hope that the Mt. Wilson structures do not burn in the “Station Fire,” but it is a fantastic irony that the LA basin might loose it’s access to air-based television if they do. This fire reminds me of one that burned some of the same area when I was 11 and had just moved to the LA basin. There was a big fire in the La Cañada neighborhood and embers from it fell on the playground at Marengo School in South Pasadena (fewer than 10 air miles away). Some of the burned out embers that had been carried aloft by the convection were nearly the size of small limbs.

Robots running amok?

In “Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man,” John Markoff reports on concerns about whether machines might overrun their human creators. It’s the stuff of science fiction, no? Reminds me of the endgame in Sim Earth.

A robot that can open doors and find electrical outlets to recharge itself. Computer viruses that no one can stop. Predator drones, which, though still controlled remotely by humans, come close to a machine that can kill autonomously.

Impressed and alarmed by advances in artificial intelligence, a group of computer scientists is debating whether there should be limits on research that might lead to loss of human control over computer-based systems that carry a growing share of society’s workload, from waging war to chatting with customers on the phone.

Although I pretty much dismiss this concern out of hand (who would build a machine that’s out of control?), I did have a what-if moment.

• If machines ran the world, would they wage wars?
• If machines ran the world, would they immediately take steps to resolve global heating?
• If machines ran the world, would there be capital punishment?
• If machines ran the world, would they behave differently toward each other based on the color of their paint?
• If machines ran the world, would they prevent each other from saying or writing things?
• If machines ran the world, would they worship humans?

Link to Mr. Markoff’s article from the New York Times.

D. Attenborough natural history pieces

The BBC has an audio feature entitled David Attenborough’s Life Stories in which David Attenborough reports about sundry natural history topics. I heard one on local radio about Komodo Dragons and found another on the Web about Archaeopteryx. As usual, Mr. Attenborough’s writing and speaking command attention. Fascinating stuff.

It appears that the BBC site only makes them avialable for a limited time. The page for the Archaeopteryx segment says “Available since Friday with 5 days left.” It’s not clear to which Friday the text refers, especially because it gives a date in late August. I couldn’t find one about the Komodo Dragon, though; he starts with references to a 16th-century author cataloging the types of dragons, not including the Komodo Dragon, and then proceeds to provide a many-minute long account of Komodo behavior (e.g., feeding) and biology (parthenogenesis).

Because it appears to me that the shows are not archived, I recommend repeated trips to the site to check on what’s available there. I need to construct an agent that will go download them for me periodically. Meanwhile, perhaps I shall create a calendar entry that reminds me to check.

George’s Big Necessity

In The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Wast and Why it Matters, Rose George reports about excrement and the importance of addressing how we treat it. The topic is obviously a critical one for humankind, as it involves something that’s common (we all excrete) and poses a substantial threat to our own and our environment’s health.

With a reporter’s skill, Ms. George shows the way through sewers, robotic toilets, cess pools, long-drop latrines, fields, and many other places where excrement goes. She brings wit and detail to the descriptions. She starts with some terrible stories:

A gram of feces can contain 10 million viruses, 1 million bacteria, 1,000 parasite cysts, and 100 worm eggs…. One sanitation specialist has estimated that people who live in areas with inadequate sanitation ingest 10 grams of fecal matter a day…. Diarrhea—nearly 90 percent of which is caused by fecally contaminated food or water—kills a child every fifteen seconds. (p. 2)

Throughout, she makes clear the tremendous importance of having the world come to grips with ways of managing sanitation. In many areas of the world, regardless of borders, people have adequate sanitation, but in other areas people simply defecate in fields designated for such. Even in the places where sanitation is better, the capacity of systems is often strained and poses an enormous threat to public health and safety; imagine what terror could be wrecked on a city if a few carefully placed explosives caused sewage to run in the streets.

The more people there are, the more substantial is the problem. So, it’s no surprise that Ms. George devotes chapters to China and India, two countries where conditions range from sanitary to shitty. In those places, as well as others, there are methods for improving sanitation that are championed messianically by some. They appear to have relatively local effects. But there are still people in this region of the galaxy who eke out livings carrying excrement away from others’ houses, and there are still millions of people practicing open defecation.

Of course, the task of dealing with waste is not just about excrement. There are all the other things that humans put into the waste stream, including the hand lotion that we wash off our hands when, as Ms. George notes, our hands grow dry because we wash our hands after we use the toilet. Substances from hand lotions, motors, and kitchens form solidified FOG (fat, oil, and grease). FOG blocks flow, and flow is necessary to keep excrement moving.

So, what’s to done? Well, that’s where Ms. George’s book seems to stop short. She examines some ideas and shows why they are untenable. But, her extensive study does not lead her to propose policies that will address the threats posed by our regular eliminations. I’m hoping for another book that presents systematic plans for sanitation.

George, R. (2008). The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why it Matters. New York: Metropolitan.

Marvin Gaye’s anthem

For the 1983 all-star game of the National Basketball Association, Marvin Gaye sang the US national anthem, the “Star Spangled Banner.” At that time, the anthem had rarely been sung in any way but quite straightly, one exception being the rendition by Jose Feliciano. Mr. Gaye, an artist with a repretoire that included songs about peace, brotherhood, ecology, as well as love and loss, put his spin on the performance. I suspect many readers will agree with me about that it’s an inspirational performance.

Ritter’s Earth on line

Professor Michael Ritter publishes a host of resources that help visitors understand earth sciences (e.g., physical geography). The materials illustrate the use of technology in teaching about geography. They are pretty nifty.

• The Physical Environment: an Introduction to Physical Geography (course Web site).
• The Physical Environment (blog for a class).
• Earth Online: An Internet Guide for Earth Science (“book”).
• Earth Online (blog).
• Earth Online Media (blog, too).

Kon-Tiki, Columbus, or Chinese?

With apologies to Ozomatli, “Who discovered America?” There are many explorations worthy of mention. Not just “discovering” the lands of the Western Hemisphere. Lot’s of possibilities.

But, as I understand it, there’s work on colonization of Earth’s moon. That’s a bit different. What a concept!

See the story as told by the Los Angeles Times.