9/11 Truthers

It is now the 8th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Well a group of people who believe it was all an inside job are parading outside the BBC just now. I have no idea what causes people to believe in a conspiracies. Sometimes there is good evidence for horrible actions taken by people in positions of responsibility for political gain (such as the reichstag fire). However, it is the tendency to believe in malice in the face of all evidence that amazes me. A rough transcript of what was said is here.

Them: We just want to know what REALLY happened
Me: Bullshit - you want to blame someone, who do you think did it
Them: we dont know Bush! Inside job!
Me: So you think that every security official and the world's media are all in one giant conspiracy so that they can do...what?
Them: Invade Iraq
Me: what evidence do you have that it was an inside job
Them: what evidence DO YOU have that it wasn't
Me:
Them: there are 800 architects and engineers that say it
couldn't have happened that way
Me: so if the official story is true 800 architects and engineers should find another job
Me: if the conspiracy is true than 100s of thousands if not millions of security personel and eye witnesses are lying to everyone and keeping it absolutely quiet
Me: now apply Occham's razor

I believe they were filming me as well

The problem with this position is that the more you deny it could have happened the more convinced they are that they have uncovered the truth. The more people that disagree with them, the more they think that you are simply entrapped in the conspiracy. My main problem, I told them, is that it assumes far too much intelligence on behalf of the Bush administration. Anyone intelligent enough to pull off that kind of inside job would be able to find a better way to do it.
Or, Hanlon's razor - "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity."

I agree with them the 9/11 has been abused for political gain, and I agree that Iraq should never have happened, but why do they need to believe in "a plan". There is plenty of reason why the hijackers would want to launch an attack on the US. Reasons to which I don't think we have paid enough attention. Whereas what purpose is served by killing thousands of your own people? Why do they insist on barking up the wrong tree. Isn't there enough credible evidence to be angry about torture, weapons inspections, Haliburton, Blackwater, climate change, Katrina, wildlife parks, Bush v. Gore, politicisation of the justice department, etc.

This last point seemed to do the most to get one of the truthers to pause and think. Basically, I was asking her what she hopes to gain from this. The Bush Administration is gone. The people responsible are out of power. I agree some of them should go to jail, but for reasons for which there is a lot of credible and acceptable evidence.

Braving Beslan

It has been five years since the terrorist incident at Beslan school in Russia. There is an excellant piece on the BBC following the children who survived the incident in which 334 hostages were killed, 186 of which were children, hundreds more were wounded. Beslan is in the North Oseetia-Alania region, relevant now to the brief war with Georgia earlier.

What I find most remarkable is how each child had become so much older so quickly. Watching death ended their childhood. 12 year olds were discussing what death, terrorism, the government and mortality mean to them now in a way that would be difficult to many adults unaccostumed to violence. Some of them could even understand why the terrorists had done what they had done, although not excuse it. Knowing that the Russian army had killed many Chechen children suggested that the anger they felt must be reciprocated by the terrorists who had committed the act.

Five years on and only one man has been convicted, and despite numerous botched intelligence warnings and a widely critized use of military force and crisis handling, no government official has faced any consequences. However, the children have largely absorbed all of this better than the adults. They remain as ambitious about life as ever. One small boy said point blank that he would fix this as President, it was not a matter of if but when.

Laws of the World

This is just a collection of social Laws that I find quite amusing.

Amara's law — "We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run"

Brooks' law — Adding manpower to a late software project makes it later. Named after Fred Brooks, author of the well known book on Project Management, The Mythical Man-Month.

Clarke's three laws — Formulated by Arthur C. Clarke. Several corollaries to these laws have also been proposed.
First law: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
Second law: The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Third law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Conway's Law — Any piece of software reflects the organizational structure that produced it. Named for Melvin Conway.

Dilbert Principle — Coined by Scott Adams as a variation of the Peter Principle of employee advancement. Named after Adams' Dilbert comic strip, it proposes that the most ineffective workers are systematically moved to the place where they can do the least damage: management.

Finagle's law — Generalized version of Murphy's law, fully named Finagle's Law of Dynamic Negatives and usually rendered "anything that can go wrong, will or "If something can go wrong, it will go wrong, and at the worst possible moment."

Godwin's law — An adage in Internet culture that states "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." Coined by Mike Godwin in 1990.

Goodhart's law — When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.

Hanlon's razor - "Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." or "Do not invoke conspiracy as explanation when ignorance and incompetence will suffice, as conspiracy implies intelligence."

Hofstadter's law — "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law." It was created by Douglas Hofstadter in his book Gödel, Escher, Bach.

Littlewood's law — States that individuals can expect miracles to happen to them, at the rate of about one per month. Coined by Professor J E Littlewood, (1885–1977)

Moynihan's law — "The amount of violations of human rights in a country is always an inverse function of the amount of complaints about human rights violations heard from there. The greater the number of complaints being aired, the better protected are human rights in that country." Coined by Daniel Patrick Moynihan (1927–2003).
-----> I particularily agree with this one

Muphry's law — "if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written", first described by Australian editor John Bangsund in 1992. Name derived from Murphy's law.

Murphy's law — Ascribed to Edward A. Murphy, Jr. who stated "If there's more than one way to do a job, and one of those ways will end in disaster, then someone will do it that way."

Occam's razor — States that explanations should never multiply causes without necessity. When two explanations are offered for a phenomenon, the simplest full explanation is preferable. Named after William of Ockham (ca.1285–1349)

Okrent's Law – The pursuit of balance can create imbalance because sometimes something is true. Stated by Daniel Okrent, first Public Editor for The New York Times
-------------> very prevalent today

Parkinson's law — "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion." Coined by C. Northcote Parkinson(1909–1993), who also coined its corollary, "Expenditure rises to meet income." In computers - Programs expand to fill all available memory.

Peter principle — "In a hierarchy, every employee tends to rise to his level of incompetence." Coined by Dr. Laurence J. Peter (1919–1990) in his book The Peter Principle. In his follow-up book, The Peter Prescription, he offered possible solutions to the problems his Principle could cause.

Poe's Law - "Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't mistake for the real thing."

Poe's Corrolary - "It is impossible for an act of Fundamentalism to be made that SOMEONE won't mistake for a parody."

Poe's Paradox - "In any fundamentalist group where Poe's Law applies, a paradox exists where any new idea (or person) sufficiently fundamentalist to be accepted by the group is likely to be so ridiculous that it risks being rejected as a parody (or parodist."

Reilly's law — of Retail Gravitation, people generally patronize the largest mall in the area.

Salem hypothesis — the conjecture that an education in the engineering disciplines forms a predisposition to Scientific Creationism

Segal's law — "A man with a watch knows what time it is. A man with two watches is never sure."

Shermer's Last Law — a corollary of Clarke's three laws, it states that "Any sufficiently advanced alien intelligence is indistinguishable from God." Originally posited in Shermer's "Skeptic" column in the Jan 2002 issue of Scientific American.

Skitt's law — a corollary of Muphry's law, variously expressed as "any post correcting an error in another post will contain at least one error itself" or "the likelihood of an error in a post is directly proportional to the embarrassment it will cause the poster."

Stigler's law — No scientific discovery is named after its original discoverer, named by statistician Stephen Stigler who attributes it to sociologist Robert K. Merton, making the law self-referential.

Any other ideas or suggestions to add to this list?

War...war never changes

The atomic bomb blast in Hiroshima, Japan, on 6 August 1945. Photograph: Peace Memorial Museum/EPA


Today is the 64th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and the funeral of Harry Patch, the last man to have fought in the trenches in WWI.

The significance of these two events is that they represent the passing into the mists of history profound moments of the last century. There is now no one alive who was physically present in the trenches of WWI. Soon enough there will be no one left who can remember Hiroshima or Nagasaki first hand.

Now we enter a new battle, the battle for how we choose to remember these events. In reality this battle started as soon as the events themselves happened. However, once we no longer have eye witnesses it becomes all the more important.

In the case of Hiroshima especially, footage of the actual carnage was suppressed for decades, lest the Americans find out what it was they actually did. That battle has largely succeeded. In a poll released earlier this week 2 thirds of Americans think that bombing Hirsohima and Nagasaki was the right thing to do. This obfuscation of history has only one intended affect, to allow us to do it again.

Interestingly, for all the attention paid to "our heroes" in the trenches. Harry Patch didn't want to be remembered as a soldier, but as the man of peace he was for the last 90 years of his life. In his own words "War isn't worth a single man's life".

The Quiet American

I was delighted last night to see the release of the journalists Euna Lee and Laura Ling. This was as close to a win-win situation that we could have hoped for. At least, their release was secured with no downside, other than to have graced North Korea with a visit by a high level official. It is not at all clear who initiated this negotiation (from what I am hearing it was the North Korean's idea), however it is clear that the preparation for this meeting has been going on for months.

Importantly though, they have been going on quietly.

This whole incident surprised the media, who it seems are still trying to get to terms with the sudden good news. The usual suspects are trying to tarnish the reputation of anything that this administration is responsible for. However, this situation was handled in much the same way as the American shipping captain taken hostage by the Somali pirates. Quiet, behind the scenes diplomacy, with an appropriate amount of force when necessary. It is too difficult at this point to say who deserves the most credit, but to a large extent it doesn't matter. It was handled brilliantly. I could get used to this quiet form of foreign policy.

Much better than just bombing people.

Breathing some air into Darwin's dilemma

There is a great article on the dawn of the animals in the July 2009 edition of the New Scientist discussing why it is that we don't see many fossils before the Cambrian explosion, but a staggering variety afterwords.

The main point is that between 2.5 billion to 900 million years ago oxygen was only available in the atmosphere or in the top few meters of the ocean. The majority of life consisted of anoxic (non-oxygen using) bacteria. These circumstances constricted eukaryotic life to soft-bodied, sponge-like forms since anything thicker would have trouble getting oxygen. Furthermore, because of the difference in oxygen levels between the air and the sea, oxidative weathering on land would pour sulphur into the oceans. Bacteria would then turn this sulphur into hydrogen sulphide, a deadly gas for eukaryotes. This all changed somewhere between 900 million to 500 million years ago when ice ages stopped the delivery of sulphur to the oceans, allowing eukaryotic life a chance to flourish.

This is all pre-amble to what I personally think is the most salient point. That these super ice ages, so critical to the establishment of eukaryotic (and multicellular life), was triggered by the very beginnings of that life in the first place. This article and a book (that I haven't read but am going to have to pick up) called Darwin's Lost World, suggest that these ice ages were triggered by carbon dioxide being sucked out of the atmosphere by nascent animal life.

If this is true, it casts a whole new light on how life impacts the earth and vice-versa. Early animals changed the entire chemical composition, as well as the atmosphere and climate of our planet in order to further their own proliferation. For most of recorded history, either through religion, folk-tales or superstitions we always assume we are at the mercy of the elements. If this is the case, then it is actually the elements that are at the mercy of life.

Sort of puts a whole new angle on the climate change debate...

A most humble beginning

This is just a rough draft so far. I have started this blog as a way to make my random musings into a more coherent collection of ideas, in addition to being a diary of sorts.

We shall see how this evolves...