UK Report Says Robots Will Have Rights
December 20th, 2006Will the robots get orange jumpsuits, too?
Via: Financial Times:
Far from being extracts from the extreme end of science fiction, the idea that we may one day give sentient machines the kind of rights traditionally reserved for humans is raised in a British government-commissioned report which claims to be an extensive look into the future.
Visions of the status of robots around 2056 have emerged from one of 270 forward-looking papers sponsored by Sir David King, the UK government’s chief scientist. The paper covering robots’ rights was written by a UK partnership of Outsights, the management consultancy, and Ipsos Mori, the opinion research organisation.
“If we make conscious robots they would want to have rights and they probably should,†said Henrik Christensen, director of the Centre of Robotics and Intelligent Machines at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
The idea will not surprise science fiction aficionados. It was widely explored by Dr Isaac Asimov, one of the foremost science fiction writers of the 20th century. He wrote of a society where robots were fully integrated and essential in day-to-day life.
In his system, the ‘three laws of robotics’ governed machine life. They decreed that robots could not injure humans, must obey orders and protect their own existence – in that order.
Robots and machines are now classed as inanimate objects without rights or duties but if artificial intelligence becomes ubiquitous, the report argues, there may be calls for humans’ rights to be extended to them.
U.S. Inflation Gaps Up by Largest Amount in 32 Years
December 19th, 2006Via USA Today:
Inflation at the wholesale level surged by the largest amount in more than 30 years in November, reflecting higher prices for gasoline and a host of other items.
The producer price index, which measures inflation pressures before they reach the consumer, was up 2% last month, biggest advance since a similar increase in November 1974, the Labor Department reported Tuesday.
Economists had been expecting a rebound in wholesale prices following two months of big declines. However, the 2% jump was four times bigger than the 0.5% increase they had forecast. Even excluding volatile energy and food prices, core inflation posted a 1.3% advance, biggest jump in 26 years.
Cryptogon Readers Contribute $20 and $25
December 19th, 2006Frequent contributor, MW, sent another $20 and RG sent $25. Thank you both very much!
Becky and I are wondering if we can get a non-industrial sized container of Natural Calf Rennet powder from Renco… Mmmm. Cheese. Might have to call them tomorrow!
If anyone knows of a place that sells cheese making supplies in New Zealand, please send me an email or leave a comment.
Thanks!
Is Peak Oil a Faith Based Collapse Theory?
December 19th, 2006Stories like the one below, from the BBC, reinforce the nagging fear I have that Peak Oil just isn’t going to be the kill shot that many of us think it’s going to be. Don’t get me wrong, Peak Oil seems real to me (if engineered to happen), and, in preparation, my wife and I are using hand tools to accomplish as much of the work that we do as possible on our farm. But, more and more, it’s going to be clean, green fascism, with the alternative energy buildouts taking on maco scale proportions, “sustainable” Walmarts and industrial-organic pHood. And we won’t even have to put microchips in our chickens, for now! Ahh, freedom!
Oh yes, if the band plays on, it will be a weird, organic hemp hacky sack, zero emission SUV and fair-trade espresso tinged tune. The “environmentalists” will be making free love with the diabolical, earth murdering criminals at Shell Oil – Renewables Division. The jittery savants at Google will marvel at their solar powered propeller beanies; proof of their Earth-friendly credentials. Can you feel the love? Hillary 2008, man!
Meet the clean, green fascists. Same as the old, polluting fascists.
There will be viable alternative power, as long as it’s centralized and benefits the usual suspects.
If you think this is a bunch of crap about a few barefoot hippies with some solar panels and all the dope they can smoke somewhere in Northern California, friend, think again.
How does a wind farm, capable of powering one million British households, grab ya?
Where will all the disposable diapers, plastic tampon applicators, and mostly empty insect poison canisters go, from these clean, green powered homes? Who knows? Dump it all into the sea, around the wind farm, maybe…
Collapse via Peak Oil?
Maybe. Maybe not.
This wind development will supply only 1% of total electricity used in the UK, but it demonstrates the type (and scale) of things the Megamachine can do to survive. AND it’s not even really against the wall yet. AND they’re only using decades old technology so far. This is the problem with all the Peak Oil theories about how “renewables” will never be able to make much a difference to the energy situation. I’d ask the people pushing those theories to consider the stuff in the secret government crypts and quasi covert, corporate labs—with connections to the Pentagon—that are just starting to unfurl…
Is Peak Oil just another faith-based collapse theory?
Look, there’s no shortage of energy. Even assuming no decades-old, taxpayer-funded .mil innovations, energy generation is a no brainer. Take your pick. Individuals are building their own wave power generators for Christ’s sake. That thing scales to megawatt class systems and is based on nothing more complicated than permanent magnets and copper coils. (And it’s a continuous power source, unlike wind and solar, which are intermittent sources.) While there’s plenty of energy available from ocean/tidal, solar and wind sources, what we don’t have is a way of storing the energy in any form that approaches the energy density of hydrocarbon based fuels. Technologies like that eeStor thing, however, have the potential to change the whole damn show.
Even assuming an energy storage solution, Peak Oil fundamentalists will smile (smugly) and say, “Plastics, my son. What about plastics?”
First of all, how much plastic can you keep choking the oceans with if the Hummers started running on super capacitors? A lot. I don’t know how many decades worth. Besides, if you have the energy, which is clearly available from the braindead simple approach of bobbing those magnets up and down through induction coils, for example, just about anything can be turned into oil (for plastics or anything else) with a process called thermal depolymerization.
So, is Peak Oil going to be a crisis? Only if They want it to be.
Via: BBC:
The green light has been given for two offshore wind farms in the Thames Estuary, one of which will be the world’s biggest when it is completed.
The government said the schemes would produce enough renewable electricity to power about one million households.
The larger London Array project covers 90 sq miles (232 sq km) between Margate in Kent and Clacton, Essex.
The second wind farm, called the Thanet scheme, will cover 13.5 sq miles (35 sq km) off the north Kent coast.
The £1.5bn London Array scheme will have 341 turbines rising from the sea about 12 miles (20km) off the Kent and Essex coasts, as well as five offshore substations and four meteorological masts.
The consortium behind it is made up of Shell WindEnergy Ltd, E.ON UK Renewables and Core Ltd.
Tucson Military Recruiters Ran Cocaine
December 18th, 2006Via: Arizona Daily Star:
A Midtown strip mall that should have housed the best of the best served as Corruption Central in Tucson.
Two military recruiting stations sit side-by-side there, one run by the Army, the other by the Marines. Between them, a total of seven recruiters were on the take, secretly accepting bribes to transport cocaine, even as most spent their days visiting local high schools.
They had help from several more recruiters at an Army National Guard office, where one recruiter was said to be selling cocaine from the trunk of his recruiting vehicle.
Together, these dozen or so recruiters formed the nucleus of one of the FBI’s biggest public corruption cases, the sting known as Operation Lively Green, which unfolded in Southern Arizona from 2002-2004 and was made public last year.
Many of the drug-running recruiters remained on the job, with continued access to local schools, for months — and often, years — after FBI agents secretly filmed them counting cash next to stacks of cocaine bricks, the Arizona Daily Star found in a months-long probe of court records and military employment data.
Some were still recruiting three years after they first were caught on camera running drugs in uniform. Most have pleaded guilty and are to be sentenced in March. Some honorably retired from the military.
Tax Leads Americans Abroad to Renounce U.S. Citizenship
December 18th, 2006And the wait to do it has increased, “from a few days to more than three and a half months.”
Via: New York Times:
She is a former marine, a native Californian and, now, an ex-American who prefers to remain discreet about abandoning her citizenship. After 10 years of warily considering options, she turned in her United States passport last month without ceremony, becoming an alien in the view of her homeland.
“It’s a really hard thing to do,†said the woman, a 16-year resident of Geneva who had tired of the cost and time of filing yearly United States tax returns on top of her Swiss taxes. “I just kept putting this off. But it’s my kids and the estate tax. I don’t care if I die with only one Swiss franc to my name, but the U.S. shouldn’t get money I earned here when I die.â€
Historically, small numbers of Americans have turned in their passports every year for political and economic reasons, with the numbers reaching a high of about 2,000 during the Vietnam War in the early 1970s.
But after Congress sharply raised taxes this year for many Americans living abroad, some international tax lawyers say they detect rising demand from citizens to renounce ties with the United States, the only developed country that taxes it citizens while they live overseas. Americans abroad are also taxed in the countries where they live.
“The administrative costs of being an American and living outside the U.S. have gone up dramatically,†said Marnin Michaels, a tax lawyer with Baker & McKenzie in Zurich.
Green Steam Engine
December 17th, 2006WOW! Everything old is new again…
Via: Green Steam Engine:
The properties of the patented crank mechanism (called a “flexible rod transmission”) invented by Robert Green, provides this engine with the advantage of eliminating the typical crankshaft and cam that requires lubrication and precision machining. It also provides the unique configuration whereby the cylinders are aligned in the same direction as the main shaft. The result is a compact, lightweight and slim engine that is extremely simple to construct and assemble.
The pistons and valves operate off a short piece of flexible shaft. Because the flexible shaft is fixed and cannot rotate, the piston rods and valve push rod are held in position while being reciprocated. The cylinders float, attached to a swivel ball fitting at their base. Much of the structure and weight of a typical steam engine has been eliminated.
Power Out Again
December 16th, 2006We’ve had a transformer on a power pole blow up just down the road. There’s a fire department crew milling about. They have no idea on how long this will take to fix. I’ve got about 15 minutes of battery power left. Ahhh, Northland New Zealand, where battery backup takes on a whole new meaning!
See ya again once our tenuous links to civilization are restored.
Motor Idea
December 16th, 2006Back in 2004, I wrote a post called Cryptogon Labs: Power Generator Based on Minato Engine. Lacking any engineering ability and the money necessary to risk on such a venture, I never even attempted to build the thing.
But that didn’t stop me from constantly following alternative energy developments (and drawing pictures).
The Harry Paul Sprain magnet motor is similar to the design I envisioned back in 2004, but I was thinking more generator than motor. I thought it would be better to avoid the extra step of hooking up a generator to the axle, and integrate the coils around the rotor of the device itself. In any event, Sprain did much more than just think about it. He actually built a working prototype and went on to patent (U.S. Patent 6954019) the device.
If this thing “works” the real beauty of it is how simple it is. Patent or no patent, anyone with basic mechanical skills, the desire to experiment and a few bucks should be able to build one of these for themselves.
How about a three or four arm version? While less power would be required to pulse the electromagnet, it would have to fire more times per revolution. Would more arms increase efficiency? I don’t know.
I’m not saying that this thing works or doesn’t work. I’m simply placing the idea out there for someone to try. Most people, even Cryptogon readers, will scoff at this, etc. That’s fine. My hope, though, is that someone out there will try this and report back with plans, good descriptions and photos. This one seems pretty tempting.
John McCain’s War On Blogs
December 15th, 2006It’s for the children!
Via: Think Progress:
John McCain has made clear that he doesn’t like the blogosphere.
Now he has introduced legislation that would treat blogs like Internet service providers and hold them responsible for all activity in the comments sections and user profiles.
