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Progress in climate science

It's amazing what a few months can do. I've been watching the activity on the net since Climategate quite closely. Before that, I held the view that the earth was warming and that CO2 was probably a major contributor, but I was already sceptical that CO2 was the whole story because there were other plausible theories based on solar activity that affects cloud formation and they seemed to have a good foundation in historical evidence going back millennia. But like everyone else, I had no real idea how the climate worked. So, Climategate came for me in the middle of a learning period, where I decided that climate would figure much more in futures work, so needed to get a handle on it. I've now been studying climate science for about 9 months, so I still only qualify as a novice, and won't be giving up my day job any time soon.

But Climategate was an eye-opener. I hadn't realised just how flimsy the evidence for AGW (human-induced global warming) was until then, or how biased some of the climate scientists were, how they had done some bad science themselves, and then managed to block alternative theories, by withholding data, bullying journals into blocking publication, effectively seizing control of the IPCC and so on. I had assumed that the temperature data was sound, but it isn't. I had assumed that the climate models took full account of solar activity, but they don't. I assumed they looked at cloud formation mechanism in great detail, but they don't. I assumed they looked at the data impartially instead of having a predetermined outcome and steering the models in that direction, but it turns out the models were designed to show warming and the inputs and equations selected and distorted to achieve that goal. Since many other researchers based their theories on that same data, their outputs were similarly corrupted. So it turns out that much of climate science has been corrupted and is badly in need of repair. Given that some of the data has been destroyed or altered, there is a lot of mess and damage to be cleared up.

But all is not lost. There is a lot of good science out there, and before climate science was politicised in the early 90s, some of the thinking and analysis was quite good quality. There have been several key studies recently that provide valuable insights, and several more well on the way. I have no doubt that science will recover slowly and we will end up with a good understanding how the Earth's climate actually works, and will be able to figure out where it is going, and even some ideas how we might control it in some degree.

To give some idea how complex the field is, here are some of the things we know about the climate, and some that we know we don't know.

There is historically a very strong correlation between cosmic radiation levels and climate. The galactic cosmic radiation (GCR) entering the solar system varies significantly, and the variations correlate well with temperature. The total amount of radiation we get from the sun varies only a small amount, and even the spectrum only varies by a little, but sunspot activity has a big effect on climate. It appears to do so via the enormous magnetic storms associated with sunspots, and the result is that cosmic rays are deflected and fewer enter the earth's atmosphere. Thanks to some excellent work by Jasper Kirby and his colleagues at CERN, we know that cosmic rays entering the atmosphere produce a shower of other particles, and these can act as nucleation centres for water droplets to form from water vapour present in the atmosphere. These droplets can form clouds, and clouds can change reflect radiation back into space, and can also act as insulation. The exact mechanisms are not yet understood, but CERN is studying them now and expect to report in the next couple of years. As they do, we can start to include cloud formation related to sunspot activity and GCR variation into climate models.

Other studies by NASA on cloud formation will also help. Atmospheric behaviour is very complex, but the more we understand it, the better we can model it. In particular, NASA Goddard Space Research Centre has recently shown that aerosols in the atmosphere have a big effect on temperature. In particular, they discovered that black carbon from diesel exhausts has a huge effect on radiation absorption, and could account for much (50% or more) of the glacier melting that has been observed. Of course, it would be much easier to reduce black carbon than CO2. Other studies at the University of Waterloo suggest mechanism by which CFCs, released in the past by aerosol sprays and refrigerants, but now banned in many countries and phasing out in others, can interact with cosmic rays to break down ozone. Ozone absorbs solar radiation in the higher atmosphere, so reducing ozone results in more radiation being absorbed in the lower atmosphere, so increases warming. CFCs are a powerful greenhouse gas in their own right too. The reduction of CFCs in the atmosphere since 2000 correlates well with the levelling off of temperature, just as the rise over the previous decades correlates with the rise in temperature. As the ozone hole closes, temperature would tend to cool. Deforestation and change of land use is also very important. As trees are burnt, and as land turns to desert, or as fields are ploughed, dust enters the atmosphere. Small particles can stay there for days and affect cloud formation. And we may find that air travel contributes more to warming via contrails than by the CO2 emitted by the engines. Air traffic in most of the world flies too low to be so significant, but across the poles, the same altitude reaches a different region of the atmosphere where different reactions apply. The lower temperature at the poles results in a lower stratosphere, and some flights emit water vapour there. In a nutshell, it hangs around longer and causes more warming via cloud formation interactions with the lower atmosphere. This may be one of the major factors why the north pole is melting far faster than expected, while the south isn't, having much less air traffic of course. But we need the science to be done, then we can model it properly.

So, with black carbon, dust, CFCs, ozone depletion, galactic cosmic ray flux variation, and a variable shield from solar magnetic activity, it already looks like CO2 is just one of a series of contributors to global warming. The CFCs may well turn out to be the bigger human influence. But as yet, these factors cannot all be properly compared, because we don't understand the science behind the various interactions well enough. But we will be much better placed to do so in the next couple of years.

Scientists also know that oceans are responsible for much of the climatic variation. Oceans act as a huge thermal store as well as acting as a store of various gases. Movement of water between the depths and surface layers is a very slow process, so acts as both a long term damper and delay. Surface currents that transport heat around the world are also highly significant. And yet our understanding of the many factors is still in its infancy. El nino and la nina are still fairly new terms to most of us, and they still cannot be predicted well. Huge server farms are required just to model behaviour of small areas of ocean, so computer power is still one of the major bottlenecks. Getting good input data is another. It will be several years at least before we can accurately model ocean currents and properly predict their contributions to climate.

One of the most worrying factors is that the historical record indicated that we are in a period similar to the midieval warm period as far as solar activity and galactic radiation are concerned. The MWP was followed by a mini ice age, and there is informed speculation that we may well now be heading into another. It is overdue, and the patterns of warming and levelling off are just right. But the other factors of CFCs, CO2, desert dust, air travel and so on make it a very complex situation indeed.

The danger we are in as a result is that the climate could arguable go either way now. If it turns out that CO2 really is as bad as is made out, then temperature will increase and we are in danger of crossing some critical points where methane clathrates start to vapourise, giving runaway greenhouse warming. If on the other hand, and which is looking more likely by the day, CO2 is only a small player and the bigger effects are either natural or related to CFCs and black carbon, then we will see a few more years of turbulent weather followed by decades of cooling. Technology progress will reduce fossil fuel use anyway, so there will be less CO2 in the atmosphere to offset cooling. If we try to reduce CO2 in such a case, and also clear up other pollutants such as CFCs and black carbon, then we will suffer even more.

So we are like a guy standing on the edge of a cliff, wearing a blindfold. Lots of people are screaming at us, telling us to do something because we are in grave danger. But if we move before we can see the direction of the drop, we are as likely to die as to survive. By far the best course of action is to remove the blindfold before we do anything else.

So, we should spend much less money on wind farms, and put a lot more into research, making sure it goes to people who are more interested in doing good science than in proselytising a particular viewpoint.

Top pay for top people, but not for most CXOs

The BBC chief says they need the best people, therefore have to pay the best too. This line of argument is seriously flawed but is cited in every boardroom remuneration battle. It too often results in highly excessive reward for mediocre performance.

I meet a great many CXOs in my line of work, and with a few exceptions who really are worth their pay, I have noticed very little correlation between overall capability or quality of judgement and rank. So why should they be paid much better? I have given some thought to the issue and it seems actually quite straightforward. Only vested interests maintain the ubiquity and longevity of this flawed reasoning that top executives have to be paid very richly within a company. There are a few stars who ought to be rewarded, but most senior posts can be filled just as well at much lower cost.

In the vast majority of situations, and at every stage of promotion, a number of candidates apply for the job. With only a few exceptions, there is very little to choose between the top several candidates, and the job goes to the one who performed marginally better in the interview. What is then conveniently forgotten is that although the job has been filled, there are still several almost equally good people who could do it. If the winning candidate were to move on for higher pay elsewhere, one of the others could easily pick up the baton and do just as well. It is therefore nonsense that the pay for the job has to be a lot higher than the grade below. If it were just 5% bigger than the lower grade, it would still be filled by someone just as competent. People would still want the more senior job because it is more senior. Pay is actually one of the lesser incentives, power being a much greater one.

If each grade were paid 5% more than the grade below, wages would be much flatter. Typical blue chips have about 7 layers of management, and even this is open to question in terms of wisdom. That means that the top job only really needs to pay 40% more than the lowest grade. If an executive then performs far better than expected, they could be rewarded by bonuses, just like any other staff. If such a remuneration policy were implemented, it would save companies a great deal of money.

Of course, experience should be rewarded too and a wage scale within each grade is still useful to reward people who stay with a company as they become more useful. It would be reasonable to implement a bigger differential between the top and bottom of a scale than between scales. A higher grade might mean more responsibility or longer hours, but doesn't necessarily need significantly more talent, and usually the job could be done by any number of people at the layer below. Therefore, promotion should be rewarded less lucratively than progress up each pay scale according to experience and tenure, which does correlate very highly with being more useful. Too often, someone who is excellent at their job is promoted to one where they are much less excellent, and the company suffers (as does the person). Rewarding skill and experience within the job is usually a better idea than promoting someone.

Clearly, some people do deserve to be paid much more than their colleagues. In many fields - design, leadership, research, engineering, teaching, law, medicine and so on, there are always a few high fliers who are so good at their job that they produce many times the value of their more ordinary colleagues. A top engineer might invent many of the key products on which the company depends, whereas many others perform at levels where they are easily replaced or outsourced. A top designer might make the product so appealing that it sells far better than it would otherwise. Companies should try hard to keep such people since they generate a disproportionate amount of income. But even here, pay is only one of a range of incentives that appeal to people, so companies should spend more effort looking at the individual's goals and desires and target them more accurately. Bonuses and pay can be used of course if that is appropriate. In this case, there is no good reason why a top designer should not be paid more than the CEO.

So, the problem is not that some people should not be paid more, it is that it isn't always necessary to pay more. Just beating a few other candidates at an interview does not in itself guarantee that a person is much more valuable than others who also applied. In most cases they aren't.

So, how to identify those that should be paid more? Simple. Top people stick out. If they don't stick out, they aren't top people. Top people don't get discovered at job interviews. If a product is hailed as having a wonderful design, find the people who were responsible and reward them. If a team performs well ahead of expectation, first reward them, and then ask them why they did so well. If they think that excellent leadership was a key factor, then reward the leader again too. Just don't always jump to conclusions and always reward the people who happen to be in charge at the time something goes right. It may well have happened anyway, or even in spite of their involvement.

One of the big problems that many companies are now discovering is that top people no longer want to work for them. Often those people have found that thanks to the net, they can work freelance on a contract by contract basis for the highest bidder. Some of them can't now be bought at any price as permanent employees, other will respond to higher offers. The result will be a small elite who are highly rewarded, and a large majority who are simply commodities and whose skills can be acquired at low cost either locally or from other countries.

So, what of the BBC and other companies paying high salaries for top people. Well, some of them deserve it. Having them on board can save a company or dramatically improve its performance. But the simple truth is that most of the so-called top people are not top at all, but only marginally better than the competition at a series of interviews. They deserve 40% more than the junior manager, and not a penny more. We need to spend a lot less on high blanket remuneration of all executives, and start spending a little effort on identifying the really top people and reward them instead. It doesn't take that much more effort, because as I said, the top people really stick out, and if they don't, they simply aren't top people.

redesigning democracy for the 21st Century

So, another election set in the dark ages. Three parties to pick from, all of them unattractive. I am 49 and this is the first election where I don't want to vote for any of the parties. I am very dissatisfied with the current state of democracy, especially in the UK, where we have all the means to make it better but choose not to because of vested interests.

Now that we have a good internet, we can and should redesign the democratic system to make it, well, more democratic.  But let's not throw the baby out with the nappy. There are a few things right with the current system so let's make sure we keep those.

The most important thing about the UK system is that it is a representational democracy. This is a good idea, whereas letting everyone vote directly on every issue isn't. Remember all the stupid decisions that get made in student unions, where any idiotic proposal can be put forward and because only a few people will bother to vote on it, most of whom are its instigators, it gets passed. Our representatives also save us lots of effort by making most of the decisions for us, acting supposedly in our best interests (I'll address this bit later).

Secondly, having a party-based system saves a lot of effort and confusion. In general, one party is likely to represent your allegiances on a wide range of issues much more closely than any of the others. It would be nice to have some say in the areas where you differ and which matter to you, and again, more later.

But already, we have a conflict. Today, you can vote for a party or for a specific candidate, but only some of the time will those goals coincide. You may hate the local candidate put forward by your favourite party. You may hate the party that your favourite candidate belongs to, but still want that individual to represent your local interests.

Another big problem is that party allegiances are spread very differently around the country. With a system that allows only one winner per constituency, we end up with a very distorted representation of the electorate. Parties with concentrations of loyal voters will get far more seats than those whose voters are spread more evenly. Although those who benefit from this will naturally support such a system, it could hardly be considered fair that some voters end up with far more representation than others.

So we could really do with a system that allows you to do blend both support for a particular candidate and support for a party. It would then be very nice if, even after the election, you could also make sure that your preferences on specific issues are also taken into account.

Simple. At an election, why not allow people to vote for the party of their choice and also for the local candidate of their choice. So you tick two boxes, not much extra effort. In parallel to the four-yearly vote, we could also have a database where voters can maintain a tick list on every policy preference. To save effort, their chosen party or candidate would fill in all the boxes according to their default, so people would only want to tweak a few decisions here and there. They could then modify this any time they like. At any point in time, politicians could consult the voter preference database to see what the electorate wants right now on every issue, and would be able to take this into account in their debates.

The advantage of the party and candidate voting system would come into its own in levelling the parliamentary playing field to eradicate the unfairness of unequal voter distribution. Voters would have a local representative who looks after their local interests. But when votes are taken on nationwide issues, each MP would have a vote scaled according to the national support of that party. So, if a party with a large national support ends up with too few seats, they would be given a bigger vote. Those with too many seats would get less than one vote each. With modern computing, it would not be difficult managing such a system. This system would be very beneficial to parties such as the liberal democrats, who always end up with far fewer seats than their proportion of the national vote would indicate fair.

In this way, each constituency gets the MP it wants, and each party gets the same representation in parliament that it got in the national vote. Such a system avoids the worst consequences of traditional proportional representation, which often results in the MPs being the least hated rather than the most loved, and also removes a great deal of the value of local representation.

This system could be dynamically applied in other ways too. Scottish MPs may be permitted a smaller (or zero) vote on English matters, and vice versa. Women MPs would get a higher vote on gender-related issues if they have too few MPs to be otherwise representative. The same could be applied to any racial, religious, geographic or demographic issues. The say that each MP gets would be proportional to the voter population that they represent in that domain. And of course, this could take full account of the voter preference database.

So, with a little application of basic IT in the democartic system, we could have much more dynamic say in the running of our country. It would be more representative of what we all actually want. Our local needs would be protected by our locally elected MP, and the say they have in each parliamentary vote on national issues would be scaled according to the national subscription to their party. And the voter preference database would act as a third voting component, ensuring that our MPs are seen to take account of our wishes on every issue.

All we need now is a bunch of MPs who care more about the principles of democracy than in protecting their own short term interests. Don't hold your breath.

Open letter to the next PM

The UK has suffered from more than two decades of bad leadership, and the UK needs to change if it is to survive as one of the world's top countries. As things look at the start of 2010, we will be replacing a very bad government with a bad one, and that will not do.

Conservatives say they want to invest in high speed rail, protect the NHS, hold public pay for a year, and be green. Oh dear.

Rail travel in the UK is still based on 19th century technology and it is long overdue for replacement by a 21st century system. All round the world, there are trials of rapid transit systems based on small pods, driven automatically on light rail. Such a system can deliver extremely responsive transport, with each pod holding only a few people, going to their specified destination almost as soon as they want to leave. Performance engineering says that such a system can use rail at up to 80% occupancy. That would be several times as good as even London Underground's Central Line at rush hour, and 200 times the level achieved by regional railways. Regional rail is plagued by signalling problems and broken down trains, but a pod-based light rail system would use inter-pod signalling and pods would be able to push other along, solving both of these problems at a fraction of the price of yesterday's poorly designed signalling systems. We don't need a high speed rail network using antique trains. We need a proper 21st century rail network that is more energy efficient, faster, more reliable with lower congestion, and more responsive to individuals' needs.

The NHS is similarly afflicted by yesterday's solutions. In an age where a PC can outperform a GP in diagnosis, and a robot can outperform the highest skilled surgeon in operating, we are paying our doctors the highest wages in the world for some of the lowest performance. Wards are filthy, and mistakes and negligence needlessly kill tens of thousands of people every year. Misguided centralisation and micromanagement policy has wrecked the potential of IT to deliver enormous savings, while out-dated outsourcing contracts have resulted in cleaning companies leaving wards dangerously dirty because profit motivation has replaced dedication to the patient. Management in the NHS manages to remain village class in spite of world class funding. The NHS should not be protected. It is long overdue for a roots-up replacement by a properly designed health care system based on the needs of the population and delivered by proper use of both people and technology where they are best suited. This would cost a fraction of today's NHS and be far more effective.

Public service wages shouldn't be held for a year, they should be greatly reduced and many public sector workers laid off. In almost all areas, public service wages are far too high compared to wages for equivalent work in the private sector. High pensions based on the last few years of salary have encouraged departments to promote people to high levels just before they retire, so that as many people as possible benefit from the scheme. The result is that taxpayers are paying almost as much in pensions as wages for many public sector workers. In spite of higher wages and much higher pensions, public sector workers are often poorly skilled compared to their private sector equivalents, work fewer hours, and take more sick leave. They are generally also much better protected from consequences of poor performance. The public sector includes a large number of jobs that could be cut. There are too many quangos doing work that is unnecessary or executed so poorly that it is useless. These should also go.
So what is needed throughout the public sector is a wholesale reappraisal of terms and conditions, with wages aligned continuously and automatically with the 40th percentile of private sector equivalents, both in wages and pensions. All jobs throughout the public sector should be re-appraised in terms of need, with proper checks for duplication of roles. Any jobs that are found to be unnecessary should be eliminated. Panels mad up of taxpayer representatives other than public sector workers should have a veto on the creation of any new jobs. This would cause enormous resistance but needs to be done and would result in a much better public service all round.

The welfare and employment system needs to be redesigned. It should be just and fair throughout. No-one should ever be so poor that they can't afford basic essentials of life, nor should anyone over be better off on benefits that by taking any job on offer to them. Minimum wages should be realigned so that full time work enables a basic standard of living above that possible by living purely on benefits. Taxpayers should not have to support inefficient or greedy businesses nor low prices for products that only some people want to buy. Today's market includes a great many products that have effectively been produced at taxpayer subsidy, but products that can't make it in the market without exploitation of workers or taxpayers shouldn't make it at all. Once minimum wages are set, welfare will be needed by far fewer people. Recipients of incapacity benefit should be re-assessed properly and if they are capable of any kind of work, even part time, they should be transferred to job-seeker's allowance, which should also be set at a level that supports only a very basic standard of living, delivering an incentive always to take any work on offer. When people start work, their pay should be subjected to a gradually rising tax rate, and their entitlements to benefits reduced gradually as their wages increase, so that everyone will always be better off working. Other benefits should be appraised and the same principles of fairness and incentive applied throughout. Welfare should never be an alternative lifestyle, but should instead be a robust safety net.

Other laws should also be changed so that people who are prudent and save should be rewarded, not punished.

Being green is another of the Conservatives' claims to power. Of course government should educate people and incentivise care of the environment. But that doesn't mean throwing money at every passing green cause without proper analysis. A good many green policy errors have already made the environment worse. The environment cares nothing about politics, and it is imperative that government relies on proper scientific studies for its inputs. Payment of research grants should not depend on the meaning of the data produced, but on its accuracy and on the quality of scientific research on which it is based. Scientists should be free to do science, and politicians should use the inputs wisely to produce policy, testing it on an ongoing basis via the scientific method. Before major investments, government should properly consider the alternatives, including those likely to arrive over the appropriate time-frame. So for energy policy for example, we should evaluate the costs of solar farms in the Sahara desert using 2020 solar technology and include those in comparison with other solution sin the same time-frame, rather than necessarily going with those that are cheaper today. This and other related technologies in transport and industry should also be factored in to environmental models as far as energy consumption and the associated emissions are concerned. Since the future is different from today on many factors, models should not assume that the future is the same as today, but take into account likely changes as far as possible.

The justice system needs to be redesigned. Today, penalties bear little relation to the magnitude of the crime, so that leaving a bin lid open can result in a higher penalty than shoplifting or mugging. A complete re-apprasial of crime and punishment is needed, with punishments set on a sliding scale that reflects the impact of the crime more sensibly. Fines that can be levied by non-court authorities should be severely limited in size and scope. Punishments should automatically rise on second and subsequent offences so that career criminality is deterred. Criminals should void other rights while they are committing their crimes. Prisons should be very basic in terms of accommodation and lifestyle, again making them places to avoid. Any right to early release should depend on exceptionally good behaviour, rather than being the norm.

If all the above recommendations were to be implemented, the UK would have a cheaper and better public service, better health, better transport, better justice, and be a safe and pleasant land, where living responsibly would be very rewarding and pleasant. If the new government avoids tackling these issues, our country will continue to slide, becoming an unfair, unjust and unpleasant place to live, with a poor standard of living for all.

cancer care and computer diagnosis

A new NHS computer system will use a simple questionnaire to predict the probability of a patient having early cancer symptoms, allowing doctors to send them for screening and hopefully early detection. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/dec/29/cancer-diagnosis-computer-programme is interesting, and the system promises to save up to 10,000 lives a year in the UK. Great, roll it on, but let's be careful we don't throw the baby away when we change the nappy.

The risk in using computer systems for diagnosis is that the computer generally only gives a likelihood, but because the result came from the computer, people trust it more, and because of poor education, many people equate high probability with certainty. But a probability is just that. 90% certain is not certain, it is just very likely. If a technician interprets a negative as a no, then we have a problem. I have first hand experience of this problem in action. I picked up a DVT on a transatlantic flight a few years back. At the hospital, a nurse asked me a fixed list of lifestyle-based questions to determine whether I was in a high risk group. I wasn't, therefore as far as she was concerned, I couldn't have a DVT. Never mind that I had all the classic symptoms of a DVT, the computer said there was only a 7% probability I would get one, so I couldn't have. End of story, go home and die. I went home, a few days later the pain in my leg disappeared very suddenly, followed a short while later by symptoms that I know indicated an embolism - I've had one before. That confirmed it to me, that there must have been a clot. As far as I'm concerned, I definitely had a DVT, and should have had treatment for it, but the hospital wouldn't treat me because my lifestyle suggested I wasn't in a group likely to get one. I could easily have died for no reason other than being one of the 7% rather than the 93%. If  even get one again, it is unlikely to be any better, because of course my health record says I didn't have one, just because some doctors and nurses are crap at maths.

If computers are used properly, they can greatly improve health care, and this new system will certainly save many lives. But I would bet that the other side of that same story is that some other people will die because of it who would otherwise have lived, because some doctors will equate being in a low-risk group to not having the disease.

Apple - beyond the i-Slate?

There seems to be a lot of talk about Apple's new tablet computer. It is certainly very long overdue - I've been writing and talking for almost two decades about magazine tablets sitting on our coffee tables or propped up as a smart recipe tablet against a bag of flour in the kitchen or being read in the bath or stuck with magnets on the fridge door. We need lightweight touch-sensitive, flexible, wipe clean displays all over the house. They really need to cost less than $100 each to reach their potential, preferably less than $50. That price point with reasonable performance is entirely achievable for a perfect tablet, but not for the i-Slate. I rather suspect that this being Apple, and having used Apple computers every day since 1981, the i-Slate will be underpowered, under-equipped and overpriced, crash frequently, but be very pretty and do useful things in fairly intuitive ways, so will sell well. I like Apple, even though I find them very frustrating.

But there is already loads of analysis on the i-Slate out there. What will Apple bring out next? Well...

We need a proper solution to augmented reality. That means lightweight semi-transparent video visors. We are half way there, but today's video visors aren't semi-transparent, and the resolution isn't great either. But with the right market guaranteeing sales, as augmented reality would, we will surely see excellent visors coming to the market, that people will wear in the high street, overlaying anything from cyberspace onto their field of view according to context. Apple will be a big player in augmented reality where they can leverage their skills in intuitive interfacing to complex systems such as everyday life in ways far beyond the capability of Microsoft or even Google. The iPhone is an OK platform to start with but it is far too small and isn't always in front of your eyes, so they can't stop there. A bluetooth eyepiece will be a useful stopgap, but there is really no substitute for a full 3D immersive overlay. Visors that use lasers to raster-scan an image onto your retina will work very well. In a decade, this can be shrunk down to a contact lens. Crude prototypes already exist, but use a primitive solution of one led per pixel as per my original 1991 idea. It will be far more sensible to use my later 1995 solution of 3 lasers and a micro-mirror to do the job.

Next, we need a proper 3D physical interface to interact with it. Microsoft are working on gesture recognition and finger-tracking, which is fine to a point. It will enhance the x-box, but I suspect, like the eye-toy on the PS2, it won't be precise enough to be really useful. In 1992 I had an insight into the perfect 3D interface. I called it the stick, and later the wand. It has some stuff in common with Nintendo's Wii-mote, but theirs is big and clumsy and needs your whole hand to use it, and is expensive and still not precise enough. Mine was basically a pencil with a marble on each end. It would cost 5c to make, and be precise enough to write or draw with fine detail. But its main feature was that it uses 2 million years of human evolution where we learned to use tools, and almost any tool can be approximated to some sort of stick. A few tools need a third point, so the deluxe stick would have an extra marble in the middle. As Nintendo has discovered, a stick can be converted into a bat for playing tennis, golf, baseball etc, or a gun, or a steering wheel. It can also be a paint brush or a pencil or a chisel, or scalpel. Or it can move to the office and be any precision design tool needed. Apple doesn't have a stick yet, but they will soon need one, so it will be on their priority design and build list for the next few years.

The final item on Apple's priority development list should be the ego badge. This is a piece of jewellery that acts as a personal wireless web server. Any sort of jewellery will do, even an ear-stud. With electronics already at 30nm and falling, an ear-stud can hold millions of transistors, so could hold your entire website or Facebook account. As you walk past other people or buildings, it exchanges information about you. It is this that will enable context to develop fully, and context is a basic ingredient of a useful augmented reality platform. When you look at someone, you may see them as they are, or as their avatar, selected according your profile. The same with buildings, we will have personalised virtual architectural overlays on everything. And your ego-badge enables a digital bubble that shields you from the flood of data being broadcast at you from every direction, and lets through a tiny trickle of really useful data. That will enable social networking sites to do their job on the move, introducing you to other people, or not, as your profile and context dictates (and theirs of course).

These bits of digital jewellery will evolve quickly, adding video cameras to lapel pins, stereo sound recording to the ear studs, and an obvious body-based reference frame for tracking your fingertips, stick, or even your eyeballs, hence your contact lenses.

Together, all these simple  and tiny devices add up to a highly intuitive mixture that enables the full convergence of the real and virtual worlds to be achieved.

These will be the priority items if Apple knows what it is doing. Further down the list we might see other items such as cyber-compasses, active make-up and active skin, but those are other stories and you can check them out on www.futurizon.com

And of course there is still room for surprises. Us futurologists predict the bits of the future we have surveyed or even pre-invented, but Apple has some smart people who invent their own ideas too, and I won't have spotted some of their best ideas.

Copenhagen's failure is a win for the Earth and the people on it

I love nature, but I also love humans, and when push comes to shove, I support poor people trying to make a living more than I support the tree - though I will always prefer a solution that can allow them both to survive in harmony. I support some environment organisations, but I do so from a pragmatic viewpoint rather than to feel holy and I don't always agree with their actions when I think they are misinformed, or when they give too little attention to the needs of poor people. I think it is safe to say that some environmental organisations seem to prioritise protecting nature to lifting poor people out of poverty, and some of the policies debated in Copenhagen would have seen poor people suffer greatly to protect the environment for us rich people. That isn't fair.

I want to protect the environment but also want to protect the poor, which I think and hope puts me in the vast majority of people on the planet. But unlike most other people, I am also an engineer and a futurologist. I spend all my time studying the myriads of factors that affect the future. Then I use logical, clear thinking, engineering and business know-how and common sense to figure out where it is going next, how it will change our lives, and how those changes will affect each other and so on. Recently, the environment has been a major topic of debate, and so has also become one of the major drivers of the future, so it occupies a lot of my time. No big punishment since I like to think about the environment anyway.

The best way to protect the environment is to formulate a set of policies based on the best science we can get, not just to jump at the first solution that comes along. Science is just a formalised, proven way of gathering knowledge, constantly resting and retesting it, and gradually accumulating it over time. Science and the technologies based on science enable billions of people to live well on a planet that used to be capable of supporting only 60M hunter-gatherers. Science is not an enemy of the environment, it never has been and never will be, in spite of what some environmental extremists would have you believe. Science will enable billions more to live even better in the future, in  a world with a much healthier ecosystem.

Before we can act sensibly, we have to understand how the climate works. And the rest of the environmental and human system too, because it all interacts in complex ways. If we don't, we are acting blind, and even with the best of intentions may do as much damage as good, as we have many times in the past. Most people don't know much science, and many don't even want to. No problem, only a few people need to - the ones making or advising on the decisions. But scientists are still just starting to understand the environment and the climate. No-one knows all the answers yet. It is a myth that climate science is in a position yet to accurately predict the future. It can't. Not by a long shot. There are still lots of gaps and holes in climate science, the climate models are far from complete, and a lot of the data we have is still of poor quality. It doesn't help if some of the scientists entrusted with the work are motivated by agendas other than the pursuit of scientific truth. Copenhagen happened because scientists alerted the world to a major problem, but now it turns out that a lot of that science wasn't real science at all. Data was fabricated and deleted, debate stifled, good science blocked, bad science promoted, models used biased equations and altered data. Bad science and its bad results then polluted much of the rest of climate science, and the lasting damage is such that not only do we not know the truth, but we don't even know how much we know. But science is very robust. Scientific bodies have learned at least some lessons, and the failure of Copenhagen under the glare of public scrutiny of the science on which the debate was based, will force new science to be done properly, or at least better. Gradually truth will emerge. Bad theories will be proven wrong and good theories will be proven correct. Science will eventually know how the environment works, and will be able to predict both default paths for the future and the likely impacts of any actions we take.

As well as understanding the science of the physical and natural environment, we also have to work out the likely future of human activity, bearing in mind ongoing population change, demographic change, cultural change, socio-economic change, everyday technological and socio-political development, and also potential responses to threats such as climate change. No easy task for sure, and we can't be as precise here of course, but that's what we have to do if we want to understand the nature of any real threats. As far as I can tell, the Stern Review failed spectacularly at this, because it used the worst possible scenarios from the IPCC, took little account of any future technology development, but assumed that all the worst practices would continue or get worse. Coming from an economist, it also totally missed the obvious responses of countries to availability of new financial sources such as carbon trading and biofuels. Consequently, a great deal of damage has been done as rainforests have been cleared and peat bogs drained to make space to grow palm oil for biofuels, or to replant the trees to sell carbon offsets. Bad futurology leads to bad advice and bad policies.

Even before Climategate blew any lingering pretence of the science having being done properly out of the water, I haven't been a great supporter of Copenhagen, which has been driven by a whole range of bad economics, poor science, and an extremely poor understanding of the progress of future technology. But it wasn't needed anyway. Even without any drive from politicians, we are already heading for a world dominated by electric transport and a combination of nuclear, solar and wind power. No subsidies were ever required for any of this, because ultimately it is cheaper as well as cleaner to produce energy in those ways. Only the next 15 years or so will use lots of oil or coal or gas, and then it will rapidly switch over to clean methods. By 2030, oil will only cost about $30 a barrel in today's money, not because we have found lots of it or it is cheaper to get it out of the ground, but because it will only cost the equivalent $30 per barrel to use solar cells in the Sahara to make the same 6 Gigajoules of energy that each barrel of oil contains. Electricity is much easier to use of course, so no-one will use oil for energy once we cross that threshhold.

Of course, the fact that we are moving quickly towards clean, CO2-free energy anyway, means that the long term projections of doom that were based on ever more use of fossil fuels were always misinformed. Many of the doom-mongers turn out to have had financial or career incentives for the doom-mongering so we can at least understand their motivation and guard against being fooled again.

The main remaining danger is that we may be close to crossing one of nature's key tipping points before then, such as methane clathrates vapourising and causing runaway warming. That looks unlikely, but the science needs to be fixed before we can be certain, and the possibility is still worrying enough to take some precautionary action such as reducing waste and improving insulation. Such obviously sensible actions also help avoid the likely problems of our lights going out because of inadequate power station provision, and of course help improve efficiency and make industry more competitive and economically sustainable. We should do that anyway, regardless of climate change.

Given this automatic change to clean energy, Copenhagen was actually rather pointless. Developing countries will not use fossil fuels when it is cheaper to use electricity from solar or nuclear generation. Those in sunny areas will also gain heavily by sales of their solar energy.  It looks like we are not very close yet to tipping points, and we have plenty of time to act to fix warming if it does turn out to be driven mostly by CO2 after all. Meanwhile, even the next few years will make a huge difference. Already, CERN is doing research into how cloud formation is affected by cosmic radiation, which itself is affected by sunspot activity. That will tell us how and by how much solar activity affects climate, something mostly ignored in climate models, but which may be extremely important. NASA have done recent work on the effects of aerosols and black carbon, which already goes some of the way to explaining the melting of glaciers in the Himalayas. Many scientists are already investigating the mechanism of cloud formation and warming in polar regions, understanding better why the North pole is suffering much worse than the South. Other are looking at aircraft condensation trails, trying to understand the highly complex interactions between stratospheric water vapour, cosmic radiation, solar activity, jet cruising heights, cloud formation and consequent radiative forcing, all interwoven with oceanic activity. It is all extremely complex, far beyond the comprehension of any individual, but the science community as a whole, armed to the teeth with huge computers, will figure it all out eventually. Even over the next two or three years, we will have lots more verified data on what has actually been happening historically and today, and corrupted data will be filtered out of the system.

So I for one think it is good that Copenhagen failed. The science was corrupted, and we were in danger not just of wasting lots of money on the wrong projects, but also of making things worse by implementing polices that affected the environment in unforeseen ways. The level of impending doom was exaggerated. And the policies being pursued would have condemned billions to poverty and starvation.

Now that Copenhagen has failed, we have a time for debate and for examination of the science. We have time and motivation to get the science fixed, and then we will know both whether we need to act or not, and when, but also know how to act in ways that will actually work based on scientific fact rather than dogma. It will be much cheaper and much more effective. The environment will end up in much better shape, and with less effort and less pain. The poor will benefit enormously from the failure of Copenhagen, and so will the Earth. Don't mourn the death of Copenhagen, celebrate it. Everyone wins.

The new renaissance

I have often written about the care economy, where advanced AI takes away the economic value of intelligence and forces people to focus more on their human side, and more recently on the rise of the polymath. The care economy derives from the contrast between the value placed on human and machine involvement. We take it for granted that one coke can or a plastic cup is identical to another, and is actually a very high precision artefact in spite of its low cost. By contrast, hand made items command a high premium even though by comparison to mass produced machine-made items they could be considered shoddy workmanship. Essentially, we often value human involvement far more than any physical measure of quality.

It seems reasonable to assume that intellectually superior AIs will eventually be able to invent, create art, and design stuff better than humans. But even if they meet our ergonomic and aesthetic requirements perfectly, we will still place far more value on the works of other humans. This does not take anything away from the value of AI though. When AI is used to assist humans to create art works, it increases their effective skill level. Craftsmen have always used tools, and such AI may be considered just as a sophisticated creative tool, even though in one sense AI might do almost all the work. With ordinary people enabled to create great works by using great tools, and with more time and money available for self expression, we will see the arts flourishing as an important part of the care economy. As a core part of the self actualisation layer, arts are one of the pillars of human nature. As AI progresses, we will see a new renaissance in human artistic expression.

Calendarising the important component technologies, the age of the arts is likely to arise about half way through the care economy, in the mid 2020s.

Rise of the polymath

As the material cost of living falls, more and more of our expenditure goes on what Maslow called self-actualisation. We seem determined to do more with our lives than our ancestors and this self-imposed activity is the source of much of our extra stress and increased pace of life. But self actualisation is a key factor in our self image and gives us a purpose in life that is worth all the stress it causes, so we are not going to stop any time soon.

IT is helping people to do far more in self actualisation terms. For example, although I am a rubbish musician, I am just about to buy my 7^th keyboard. It will have far more capability than its predecessor and hugely more than my first one in 1983. With it, and some basic software on my computer, even I can compose and play music, store it, edit and mess about with it, and make something that I can be proud of. And I still can’t even read music! Other people are using computers to learn new languages, learn to play chess and other activities.

But the really big advance is that people from all walks of life are discovering that the software available off the shelf today, coupled to numerous web sites, allows them to run home businesses or become social entrepreneurs. People who never thought they had any business acumen at all are now enabled. All they need is an idea, or even just something to sell on ebay, and suddenly they are doing a second job. Hobbies are being upgraded to professional standard by this extra IT. The network puts people in touch with others that they need to fill in the gaps in their own expertise, so that collectively, people can link into virtual enterprises and take on some of the market that was once only addressed by big business.

As artificial intelligence progresses over the coming years, we will see an increasing level of entrepreneurship open to everyday people. AI can essentially do the job that was once done by the company, so that people can concentrate on the bits they want to do and leave the rest to the machine. By starting with hobbies, and bringing them up to professional standard by adding AI capability, we will enable the rise of the polymath. Many people will become highly competent across a range of skills. They may still have a ‘day job’, but also operate on a number of other platforms too.

The consequences of this will be that the economy will develop, and so will society. People will start more business, business turbulence will increase and poor quality businesses will be wiped out. Society will benefit because many people will use exactly the same skills to develop activities helping society. We are already seeing a significant increase in social entrepreneurialism across the UK.

One piece of good news in the recession is that it is sharpening people's skills and survival instincts. Many companies that were slowly dying anyway have died earlier, and the economy has therefore benefited a little by getting rid of some dead wood. The companies that are still alive will emerge better, and the companies being formed will be formed on a better footing. But on a personal level, everyone is becoming more adept at more things, and that is good news for all of us.

sorting out climate debt

Americans and Chinese are currently arguing at Copenhagen about who should pay for fixing climate change. The assumption is that CO2 is to blame, and the USA makes more than most, so should pay more. Countries should take responsibility for their actions and pay the price if they have taken more than their fair share of resources. But what should we use as a starting point?

We could go back to before the industrial revolution when resource use started rocketing upwards, but since we stand on the shoulders of our ancestors in terms of technological development, that would grossly overcharge those countries that did all the early development when efficiency was low and so was the means to control pollution. How about another date? It turns out there is a nice one to go for.

The world first became officially worried about the environment back in 1968 when the Club of Rome issued its report The Limits to Growth. This report has since been proven too pessimistic of course. (It has a lot in common with the environmentally catastrophic predictions of today's Copenhagen conference. Both largely ignore the positive impacts of progress, while assuming that all the bad things will continue or get worse. But that's another topic.) Anyway, let's take 1968 as a starting point where the world was warned forcefully about population growth and limited resources. That would make as good a point as any at which to start asserting shared responsibility for our world. The fact that it was just before the moon landing adds some weight too, since the moon programme also helped a lot in making us all realise we were all part of the same world and would all share the same fate if we messed it up.

So 1968 could be a good baseline date when we consider the amount of resources used, the pollution made, population loads etc on which to divide up future indebtedness.

Population is easy to deal with. Back in 1968, the US population was 200M and the Chinese population was 774M (the UK was at 55M). The populations have all increased since of course, but all countries were well aware then of the population problem, so own their own responsibility for their growth and its impact. As of course do those countries that have allowed their standards of living to increase without due regard for impacts elsewhere.

Of course we should also consider both good and bad behaviours and contributions, not just abuses. So as well as looking at quantities of pollution, we should also factor in the relative contributions in technological improvement made by the various countries that allow all countries to emit less now. Again, we could use 1968 as the baseline and create a retrospective 'development credit' trading scheme where countries that are able to buy more sophisticated technology now should offset the costs to those countries that contributed to its development. It would not be fair to penalise them for their entire CO2 contributions, when part of them were generated in companies developing advanced technology for everyone.

We also need to define an endpoint before we can start doing the calculations. CO2 allegedly stays in the atmosphere and contributes to warming for hundreds of years, so we must also take into account the emissions from the predicted future populations of each country too for that duration. Here again, a notional development trading scheme will allow countries that emit a lot to offset against that their contributions in kind via advanced technology. Some of this technology such as development of electric vehicles or efficient solar energy might be key to saving the environment from catastrophe, and it is reasonable that its development should be rewarded in increased allowances elsewhere.

But then we have a final factor in the equation for which it is much harder to determine a fair baseline. People are distributed all over the world. Some live in deserts, others in cold regions, some in low-lying coastal regions. People in deserts may be affected severely if rainfall drops even further, people in coastal regions affected if sea level rises. But people in cold regions have much higher costs for heating, so need to use a lot of energy to stay comfortable. People don't choose where they are born, nor are they free to move to anywhere they choose. Some are born in wealthy countries, others in poor ones, some in warm areas, others in cold ones. Valuable resources are spread unevenly too. Life is unfair from the moment of conception. But there has been no agreement or consent yet to make it fair. Hopefully one day we will assign a universal right to standard of living to which everyone on the planet can claim entitlement, but it is still a long way off. But we have to pick a baseline somewhere. So maybe this a good place to start.

If people can't choose where to live, they cannot be held responsible for the environmental costs of living there, but we still need to pick a baseline that anyone should be able to aspire to, and basic comfort is a good one. We can't insist on luxury when others are having to pay the price, but we can insist that it is every person's right to have shelter, warmth, food and water. If they have to chop a tree down and burn its wood to keep warm, we can hardly complain. The same applies to clearing a bit of forest to grow food. If they were born into a situation that needs them to do so to live with reasonable comfort, then fine. If we want them to do differently, then we have to ensure that we help them with the resources required. I think this is a good baseline. Everyone should be entitled to basic comfort, then we can distribute the rights to luxuries on top of that as the earth and technology permits.

So at this point we could start writing out an equation, though agreeing the values of some of the factors will still be tough. Each country should be entitled to a share of the world's resources and pollution capacity according to:

(their 1968 population) x (the local environmental carbon cost of living in reasonable comfort) x 200 + (their country's contribution to technology that allows people everywhere to achieve that standard at lower environmental cost, integrated over the period from 1968 to 2210)

With such an equation, because it was possible to pick a baseline date for the beginning of environmental responsibility, it is not necessary to factor in population growth, even though much bigger future populations will obviously make much bigger environmental impacts.

I will make no attempt here to compare the likely results for the different countries, but I would bet it will have little in common with the more politicised negotiations at Copenhagen. The USA will still come off badly because of their expensive lifestyles, but once technology contributions are factored in, it might not look so bad. Environmentalists often overlook that bit, but it is important to give credit where it is due.

ultra-smart computing, TGIF

So, let's think... quantum computer uses circuits that occupy all possible states simulatenously. Mmmm... So, if I partially design a quantum computer and start building it while I'm still figuring out the remaining circuity... maybe it will occupy all possible designs, and one of those will be so smart it can design another one far better than me... so all I need to do is connect a partially built, partially designed quantum computer to an assembler, and it will do the rest of the work for me, and solve all the questions I could possibly have asked it. Inclduing how to connect to all other possible computers via quantum entanglement chains. And then I can take over the world. Hahahahaha! Hahahahahahah! They'll all be sorry. Hahahahahaha!

I will call it ORAC, optical router and controller, since that is the most likely structure on which to base it.

Population growth and ethnic mix, and Star trek

When I was born in the UK in 1960, the world population was almost exactly 3Bn, 50M of whom had been born in the UK. Today, the world holds 6.7Bn people, 55M of whom were born in the UK (figures from World Bank and UK Office of National Statistics). So the number of people born in the UK has gone from 1.67% of the world to 0.8% today. That means the UK accounts for less than half the proportion of the world's population than when I was born. This pattern is followed throughout western Europe and indeed the rest of the developed world, because people have fewer kids as they get richer.
The other side of these same statistics is that as people get richer, their descendants account for a lower share of tomorrow's human population. Misquoting Jesus a bit, 'the poor will inherit the earth'.  The poor have more kids, who also have lots of kids, until at some point, they start getting richer. While poor people's descendants remain poor, they will continue to increase their representation in the human gene pool.

On today's trend, a wealthy UK family would see their offspring reduce to half of their original number in 5 generations, while a Nigerian family (average 6 kids today) would see their increase to 240 times as many, so will be 480 times better represented in the gene pool. So in strict evolutionary terms, being poor is a huge advantage. No-one expects that Africa will actually experience this level of growth in the future - average family size is already falling rapidly (down from 8 to 6 in two decades in Nigeria). But there is still a huge difference between African and European countries. This asymmetry in fertility rates means that the ethnic mix of tomorrow's world will be very different from today's.

While low reproduction rates mean that predominantly white Europeans are heading towards possible extinction over the next two or three centuries, Africans will increase greatly in number. So will South Americans, while Indians and Chinese will account for much the same proportion of the future world's population as today. So, as a Star Trek fan, it seems that the crew is all wrong. Almost all of Kirk's crew are white Americans, with a token russian, african, asian, and an alien. Later casts aren't much different apart from having a few more aliens and an android. In reality, the 2030 enterprise will be staffed almost entirely by AIs and robots, the human crew will almost all be people of Asian, African and South American descent, and there will hardly be a white face in sight. As Spock would say, fascinating.

Copenhagen, an engineer's view.

I have tried for several years to get to grips with climate science but still only understand a tiny bit now. The environment is an amazingly complex system, and it will take many more years of research before we understand it well. We have made many mistakes in the past when we have interfered with nature without enough understanding. I am worried now because with Copenhagen coming up, it does seem to me that we are again rushing into action before we understand the problem well enough to know what to do about it. The trouble is, as is now obvious to all, that there are too many vested interests on both sides of the debate, and what good science there is out there is diluted by a large measure of nonsense and propaganda, from both sides. And as we've just learned, some science has even been blocked from journals because it disagrees with the views of more powerful scientists. I personally am appalled by the corruption exposed in the UEA's CRU. Claims that the data has not been cherry-picked and distorted and the models fixed to produce the desired results run completely against the words in the culprits own emails. But as has been pointed out often since, the UEA is not the only lab saying we are seeing significant climate change. Some other labs may have been influenced and some may be fixing their results too, but we don't know, and I doubt if they all are.

But I have been an engineer for the 28 years since I got my physics and maths degree, have a decent grounding in the scientific method, and have a good understanding of computer modelling, having been in that field for over a decade. I was also a judge a few years back on the Computerworld awards for contributions to mankind by various computer systems and models in the environmental science field, so I have a fair idea of what they can do, and what they can't. So I think my environmental bullshit detector is reasonably well tuned by now, and I look at the announcements from environmentalists and the opposition and make my own choices of what sounds credible and what doesn't. I'm neither a 'climate change denier' nor a 'true believer', but like many people, somewhere in the middle, trying to filter the truth from the crap. So, here is what I believe:

The earth is experiencing climate change, but I don't know yet how much of it is natural and how much is man made. I am happy to accept that some of it is man-made, but don't have any idea what the right figure is.

Europe has experienced warm periods before, and these seem to have been one of the targets of the cover-up by the UEA CRU as well as the decline over the last decade.

The average temperature was increasing up to 1998 but has since declined slightly. This might mean it is all over, and warming is finished, or it might just be a temporary lapse in a longer term warming trend that will soon resume.

A number of effects in nature seem to have a tipping point, and we are quite close to the point where ocean based methane clathrates (aka methane hydrates, abundant in deposits on the sea floor) and melting pemafrost will start releasing very large quantities of methane into the atmosphere, potentially causing runaway warming.

We don't understand nature fully, by a long way. We see in the evidence that CO2 correlates well with temperature change, but according to some scientists, it appears to lag warming by hundreds of years. If so, something else must be causing the warming, and increasing CO2 only significantly contributes to it later.

However, the dangers are independent of whether any warming is natural or man-made, so even if they are natural, we will still have to try to avoid catastrophes that might result.

We know that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, along with methane, water vapour and several other gases. The bulk of the attention is on CO2 but that might well be inappropriate. Some scientists say it would be much more cost effective to concentrate on methane in the short term. Or perhaps we should look more at cloud formation and see if we can mitigate that better.

The sun has been going through an unusually 'interesting' period, with an unusually prolonged sunspot cycle after a long period of high activity. There does appear to be a strong correlation between solar activity and climate, going back millions of years. Sunspot levels affect the quantity and make-up of the radiation hitting the earth, not so much from the sun directly, which only varies a little, but by affecting the flux of incoming cosmic radiation, which also correlates well with climate as the earth passes through different regions of the galaxy. Cosmic radiation can probably assist in cloud formation, and the possible mechanisms are being investigated by CERN now. Because the physics mechanisms are not understood, it is being ignored by climate models and climate scientists seem keen to play down its impact, though I am far from clear why.

Mars has also experienced warming, so at least some of the effect is variation in solar activity. NASA Goddard claims it is about 25% of what we've measured, and that may well be true, but I think we need more study on that. The Earth has lots of water in its atmosphere of course, and Mars doesn't. If as CERN believes, cosmic radiation causes ionisation, and helps in both initial formation of water droplets and their growth, i.e. clouds, then this is an important factor. These clouds then affect both reflection of incoming solar radiation, and the amount of heat that can escape from the earth into space, so are obviously critical to warming effects. Monitoring the press over the last few years, it looks to me that climate scientists appear to  dismiss its effects too lightly, so avoid giving this mechanism the weight of research I think it deserves.

In particular, some recent science suggests that condensation trails from aircraft might be much more important than previously thought. Emissions in the stratosphere can lead via very complex interactions to much more persistent cloud and heat retention than at lower levels. Increased solar activity may of course contribute to such a cloud formation mechanism. In the Arctic, aircraft sometimes fly in the stratosphere, which is lower down. The apparent fact that the antarctic is cooling while the arctic is warming gives extra weight to this theory, since there are very few flights over the antarctic, but many over the arctic. On the other hand, antarctic cooling could be partially explained by the ozone hole, so this needs more study. We should look carefully at the increase in air traffic over the last few decades, and the solar activity over that time, to see if that can explain a significant proportion of the apparent increase in arctic ice melting. If it does, we should factor in such mechanisms over the whole planet, especially with regard to policies on aircraft routing, flying height etc. It may be for example that aircraft should fly lower in the arctic, emitting more CO2 but contributing less overall to warming because the water vapour is emitted lower in the atmosphere.

The ozone hole over the antarctic will close around 2050. This is expected by some to increase warming there. The ozone hole was created in large part by the emissions of CFS, now banned. So banning CFCs has helped fix the ozone hole at the expense of worsening warming.

It is obvious here that the environment is very complex, and fixing one problem can worsen another. A related problem that is becoming apparent now is that China is building lots of coal powered stations, but the coal is dirty and produces pollutants such as sulphur dioxide, one of the causes of acid rain. In order to prevent acidification of oceans and damaged forests, there will be pressure to clean up the outputs from these power stations. However, sulphur dioxide is a coolant and its presence almost completely offsets the warming effect of the CO2 emitted by the stations according to the NASA Goddard research centre. So in China's case, perhaps we should delay the cleaning up until anti-warming measure are further developed. Perhaps as a short term measure, we should also reconsider the merits of low sulphur petrol and sulphur removal from other power stations.

CO2 levels affect plant growth, which obviously must feed water vapour into the atmosphere. As the atmosphere warms, it can hold more water vapour.  Water vapour is a greenhouse gas of course. Most of this is already accounted for in models as a factor in the warming efficacy of CO2, but I remain unconvinced that the impacts on CO2 and water vapour from deforestation, biofuel production and farming practices are fully accounted for. In particular, I think we need more study of the relative benefits of the use of residual plant material for biofuel versus ploughing it into the ground. Ditto waste such as plastic - recycling v other uses that end up as carbon sinks.

Sea level rise comes from melting of land-ice (not sea ice) and thermal expansion of the water itself, but the latter is most important so far. Land would also rise slightly as ice melts, having a small reducing effect on the rise. Melting ice also affects salinity which has other effects on the ocean ecosystem that will then also feed into climate.

Current environmental models are very far from complete. Large supercomputers can just about cope with modelling ocean currents in a small region. There is no such thing yet as a whole earth simulator that looks at all environmental effects and interactions.

Computer models are highly simplified, they have to be to run at a reasonable speed. Many effects are left out, many very crudely approximated, and accurate input data is sparse and only covers recent periods. And of course, we don't yet know all the basic science that feeds them.

Policies already implemented such as use of biofuels and carbon trading appear to have encouraged significant deforestation and peat bog drainage in Indonesia, contributing significantly to CO2 output and destruction of forest ecosystems. The socio-economic reasons for this seem obvious but they were apparently not anticipated by those who recommended the policies.

To summarise, even with the recent climategate, there is a lot of environmental science out there that looks reasonable to me as an engineer, but I still see lots of holes remaining in the science, and lots of areas that need more study before we can be reasonably sure about what is happening and what if anything we can do about it. In the absence of this knowledge, we risk implementing policies that might make problems worse.

So what do we do? It does look like we are quite close to a tipping point on methane emissions, just a couple of degrees away. Whether warming is natural or man-made, we still need to work out solutions to that, and we need much better monitoring of the environment to keep an eye on it. We must not reach that tipping point. It seems to me that we need more science, better science, and more accurate data.

If we have been barking up the wrong tree to some degree, as is very possible, then it is possible that efforts to reduce warming by limiting CO2 will fail and we may pass the tipping point. It is therefore dangerous to pursue CO2 as the only factor. We may be ignoring environmental interactions that are actually more important than just CO2. It is imperative that we improve the science quickly.

Targeting CO2 might help reduce warming, but in the short term, targeting methane should be the priority - it is simply the 'low hanging fruit' of warming.

We should reduce waste in any case. Whether or not energy production produces CO2, waste reduction still has benefits. There are no obvious negative environmental mechanisms from waste reduction so it is safe to do so.

Other than that, we should stop panicking. We will see very different technology being used in a decade or two even without environmental campaigns. Energy is likely to use solar and nuclear. Transport is likely to become electric. IT will become much more energy efficient. Insulation and building practices will be more energy efficient. So whatever happens, the future will see far less CO2 being produced. If it is the problem, then it will diminish as time goes on. If it isn't then we have to look elsewhere and do more science to find the real problem anyway. So either way, panicking and making polices based on immature science is the wrong thing to do.

The right answer: for at least a few years till we understand it better, spend far more on science and far less on solutions.

Swiss vote against minarets but they should be allowed in augmented reality

Part of my family is Swiss, so I followed the recent referendum on minarets with more interest than I normally would. They have voted to ban construction of minarets on mosques. But the debate seems to have missed a key point. The world is no longer limited to physical appearance. We now have augmented reality, albeit just the very first instances. In a few years time, augmented reality will be well developed and will feature heavily in everyday life. Today we use mobile phone displays but soon many of us will use some sort of head-up display, and we will see all manner of computer generated information and images superimposed on our real world field of view. Social, political, religious and business groups will use augmented reality to produce customised overlays that include their particular symbols. So for muslims, this could be used to produce the image of a minaret, for anyone interested in seeing it. Muslims can have virtual minarets, and as many as they want, without interfering with the physical reality of a mosque. French Muslims can have virtual burqas too if they like. And everyone else can choose whether they want to see them or not.

Virtuality is an excellent vehicle for allowing different tribes of all kinds to live peacefully side by side. They can agree what common ground they have an make laws on physical architecture, dress codes or whatever that apply to everyone. And then they can use augmented reality to customise it and personalise it, at tribal or individual level.

Ban on minarets? No problem any more. just build them in virtual space and everyone can be happy.

revolution is coming, in 2012

Refusal to deal properly with MPs' Expenses, encouraging massive immigration just to annoy the Tories, helping in the eradication of democracy in Europe by refusing 65 million people any say in their future, ignoring scientific fraud in climate research provided it opens up new tax and wealth re-distribution platforms, incompetence dealing with the banking collapse and subsequent worsening of double or multiple dip recession, getting us bogged down in far away conflicts, imposing a Big Brother surveillance state, associating the UK with the eradication of free speech via libel laws, making the UK the divorce capital of the world, engaging in illegal wars overseas while providing a safe haven for terrorist groups here, upending the justice system so that over-filling a bin is punished more severely than mugging or shoplifting and presiding over the dismantling of common sense in favour of political correctness, dismantling society, etc, etc.

Private sector pension schemes are being closed and watered down, while public sector workers seem to live in a protected world at private sector expense. People are getting older so the pensions won't be able to cope, and taxes will have to rise. Too much of the population already lives on handouts from the rest. Young people watch older people getting more rights, more funding and living in expensive houses, while they foot the bill via higher and higher taxes, or can't get jobs at all, and many can't afford homes of their own. Intergenerational conflict is just around the corner. Meanwhile, second and third generation immigrants are leaving to go back to their ancestors' homelands to get a higher quality of life for their kids. Today we read that the number of people leaving the UK is the highest ever, while over half a million newcomers have arrived this year. Most of them will go home later because they've either made the money they wanted or discovered that the grass isn't as green as they thought from the other side of the fence. This re-migration will replace immigration and a brain drain will leave the UK with far too few people with the right skills to sustain a viable economy.

This is all stuff we read about daily in every newspaper and hear on every TV channel. I've probably left out a lot of gripes, there are just too many to list from memory. People in the UK are pissed off big time and see little evidence that their gripes are being listened to. It is the stuff revolution is made of. But it hasn't reached critical mass yet, and the right spark hasn't been struck. My calculations over the last several years have led me to believe that we will see a revolution in 2012, based on nothing more than watching the speed of increase and volume of protest. I could be out either way by a year. If I'm out by 2, it could be next year, but I really don't think so.

Question 1: When will it reach critical mass? When will enough people become angry enough to sustain a revolution? As I said, my best guess is still 2012.

Question 2 is: what will be the spark that ignites it? I think it will be an severe increase in taxation - various tax increases to pay for the bankers' mistakes, and lots of new environmental levies, coupled with an increase in surveillance to police it all, coupled finally with a mature social web that will enable people to build and wield political power on the web effectively.

Questions 3: what will the revolution look like?
It will start peacefully as an on-line protest, and will gather speed quickly. Some charismatic people will capture the mood and rise quickly to the top and act as spokespeople. Then it will quickly disintegrate into violent protests, coordinated electronically using a variety of interwoven platforms. It will spread to multiple agendas, in much the same way as the anti-capitalist protests did, and acquire a large number of hangers-on more interested in demonstrating than the causes themselves. Violence will start to increase, and will spread to other countries that share some of the same grievances. Police will do their best to control it, but will be out-manoeuvred and outnumbered.

Question 4: what will the result be?
Anyone's guess

Is environmental science now beyond repair?

First, I really like George Monbiot's blog today, but he doesn't say it all so I'm just adding my own comments. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/nov/25/monbiot-climate-leak-crisis-response

Like many other people right now (including Monbiot), I am very angry that some so-called scientists in climate research are getting in the way of protecting the environment. Some seem far too concerned about winning research funding, furthering their careers, indulging their egos, polishing their halos, and being seen on moral pedestals to make proper contributions to science. Although they make a lot of noise about their efforts to protect the environment, they have corrupted and obstructed the scientific method, distorted and destroyed data, and consequently their own results are worse than worthless, and their output has badly polluted the field of environmental science. And like Monbiot, I am also just as concerned that other environmentalists seem to be in denial and using technicalities to justify the behaviour rather than jumping instead to defend the scientific integrity that we will need if there really is a major climate problem to be dealt with. I feel very sorry for the many excellent scientists out there working hard to protect the planet, almost certainly the vast majority. All of them will now find that their work will be harder and their outputs less respected until the problems are dealt with.

The recent scandal is extremely worrying, because if the stolen emails are indeed real, and Phil Jones has already admitted that at least some of them are, then it suggests that some of the science we thought was true is actually false, some might not be true, and some of the holes have been papered over. It has been created with contempt for the scientific method and pushed using marketing tools and bullying in place of reasoned argument. Having read a selection of the emails at random, and some of the other documents hacked from the site, I was deeply shocked. Anyone should expect a little inevitable distortion in the field because of the height of emotion felt by researchers, but I really never though it was so bad as it is. I am disgusted that Jones hasn't already been suspended by the university pending a full investigation, which says a lot about the UEA's regard for integrity and proper scientific principles. I certainly won't be recommending anyone to study there from now on. The UEA's reputation has been trashed already, whatever the truth of the emails' validity, and if the emails do indeed turn out to be genuine, many of the supposedly top climate scientists have been shown not to be real scientists at all by their obvious contempt for the scientific method.

This is just a small group of researchers of course, but they were highly regarded in climate science and hence highly influential, and their theories have been widely proliferated and accepted in the field. Their methodology of trying to obstruct access to data, and hiding data that doesn't conform to the dogma also now seems to be quite common. Again, if the emails are real, then some journals and boards have been corrupted by excluding those who don't agree with the dogmatic line. And the damage has permeated the media, much of which has polarised along dogmatic lines. The whole field does seem to have become more like a religion than a scientific discipline. Even at recruitment stage, it seems to be prone to strong emotional and political bias, something that doesn't affect other branches of science. I think the credibility of the existing structure of climate science is beyond repair. We have to throw it away and start again, salvaging whatever bits match up to proper scientific standards. And at the moment, we really have no idea how much of it that is. It will cost a lot, but the costs of doing the wrong things based on bad science might be much worse. But science works, and good scientists give their allegiance to the scientific method, not to their emotions, so with effort it can be done. Eventually, professionalism will win.

The proper scientific method needs to be fully enforced in the field, starting now, and a major review of all the existing work undertaken, by every research centre. Research centres must share all of their data freely with anyone who requests it. Journals should dismiss and re-appoint their editorial boards with due diligence, making sure that reviewers and editors are selected purely on technical competence and professionalism, and purge any bias towards any particular view. Bodies such as the IPCC should be similarly re-staffed from the ground up. Any grants for future research must be on condition of proper due diligence with regard to scientific integrity.

I've said many times that environmental groups should be applauded for encouraging people to care about the environment and protect it, but once they've done their work, they should get out of the way and let scientists figure out how the environment works and the nature and extent of any problems, so that engineers can develop proper working policies that will actually help keep it in good shape. The we can all live in a better world. But making policies based on emotions and bad science will get us nowhere.

If climate scientists are lying, how can the rest of us know the truth?

Science is a proven mechanism for gathering and accumulating knowledge about how the universe works. Some clever bunny comes up with a theory and someone carefully tests it, doing real life experiments to get some real data that is evidence for or against it. They publish that data, along with details of the experiment (or their computer models), so that other scientists can check it and try to replicate the experimental data, to make sure there isn't just some error in the experimental process or the analysis. If verified data doesn't fully fit the initial theory, the theory is modified, and the process starts over. Over time, theories are well tested and either verified or disproved, and the whole field of scientific knowledge progresses, with new knowledge gradually added to what we already knew. This process has worked well for hundreds of years, and is the basis for almost all of our technological progress. Science is just verified knowledge.

Sadly, climate science has been perverted by politics and emotion as well as grant competition and some appears to have scant regard for the scientific process. There is fierce argument between those who say our climate will change dramatically because of human activity and those who say it won't, and further argument about the potential mechanisms for dealing with any change. People on both sides seem fond of cherry picking or distorting data to support their theory and discarding, ignoring or disguising data that doesn't. There is also evidence that some scientists are not sharing their data or methods as they should, or publishing their computer models.

There must be a great deal of excellent science out there, but if it is mixed up with bad science, how are those of us outside to know the difference? People need to be able to trust that the basic science is correct, and the consequent policies justified. If they can't, if some scientists have been caught distorting or hiding the truth for their own ends, then getting public support for actions will be much more difficult. If we are indeed facing the enormous consequences suggested by some in the field, then we need to act accordingly. If we're not, then we need to know that too before we waste many billions that could have been spent better elsewhere.For the benefit of the environment, bad  or corrupt scientists need to be exposed and ejected from the climate science field before they can do any more harm. Any data that they had should be inspected very carefully by other more reputable scientists and any analysis that has used any falsified data or conclusions needs to be redone.

People who deliberately distort data to make climate change look worse than the data really suggests may think they are helping to protect the environment, but are actually among the biggest dangers the environment faces. They are getting in the way of the proper science that we need to understand what is really happening and how to deal with it, and undermining support for any actions that are needed.

The need for scientific integrity obviously applies to both sides of the argument. We need to know the truth so that we can take the right actions. That means openly sharing details of models and experiments and all of the gathered data, whether it supports a particular theory or not, so that other scientists can check it all and build on it. Never before has it been so important that the scientific process is upheld. Our lives depend on it, and our environment is too important to be sacrificed to further the ego or ideology of any group.

Cheating and social tunnelling

Inventions succeed or fail in the market depending on how many people want them, and are prepared to pay the price. Reasons for wanting them vary enormously, but one of the guarantees of success is if the idea allows us to do stuff we always wanted to, but couldn't. And one of the biggest and most common reasons why we can't do something is that it is not socially acceptable.

So, if we can avoid society knowing what we are up to, and avoid otherwise negative impacts on our social status and reputation, or if we can directly bypass an otherwise strong social barrier, then an invention that taps into a basic desire can be successful. There are numerous inventions that fall into this list. VHS and SMS are good examples from the last decades. In the 80s, VHS allowed people to watch porn in private instead of being seen at a cinema. In the 90s, the web allowed them to avoid even the embarassment of buying a video or magazine. But it isn't just porn that encourages us to bypass social norms. Most SMS messages are connected in some way with flirting. Much of the attractiveness in SMS is that by avoiding face to face contact with the target, fears of rejection are lowered, and so people will flirt with more people, and do so with less inhibition. Even the text phrase LOL is ambiguous, meaning both 'lots of love' and 'laughs out loud', so can be safely used in texts to test the water before someone is sure that their feelings are reciprocated.

All of this amounts to a sort of cyberspace 'social tunnelling'. We use these tools to get to a goal without directly confronting a social barrier. We tunnel through it. In more recent years, sites like 2nd Life, dating sites, and many others, have capitalised well on the value of such tunnelling. But while these sites are used in many cases to innocently bypass distance or fears of rejection, the more dangerous side is that they are also often quite deliberately used to bypass other social norms. If I make an advance on another man's wife in front of him, I might expect him to become hostile. But if I send secret texts to his partner, or interact with her in internet chat rooms, he may remain totally unaware of the illicit relationship. The desire of people to play with other people's partners has always been part of human society, but it is only these recent inventions that have enabled easy access to social tunnels.

But the technology hasn't stopped developing, and new kinds of tunnels will appear from time to time, some of which will be even more compelling. I often joke that using the active contact lens displays that may be commonplace in a decade or so, I could be in bed playing with my wife but using computer overlays (aka augmented reality) actually see the next door neighbour's wife, or some supermodel. Thankfully my wife knows I am only joking, but the capability will nevertheless be real. Using active skin to record and replay sensations, it will even be possible to time-shift illicit play.

Such technological capability will have some positive uses of course,  but it will still represent a strong threat to social bonds. People will be less able to trust each other if it is easier and more fun to cheat. But will this lead to social collapse? Of course not.

Actually, I suspect that the real problem is a short to mid term one. When everyone is well aware of the potential for cheating, then we will adapt and learn to live with it. And of course, new tools are constantly being developed to enable partners to check on each other. As new tunnels are built, other older ones collapse. The real problems occur where one party uses their superior techno-literacy to outwit and cheat on the other, and before surveillance tools become widespread. Ultimately, the same solid foundations of human nature will come to bear again. We are more likely to be open and honest when we know we can be caught. Sad, but true.

Govt creates new database to let women harm their ex

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/20/domestic_violence_database/ discusses a recent ACPO/Home Office proposal that looks at how domestic violence affects women and children, and specifically excludes men. If this is true, it is very disturbing. Violence against women is of course completely unacceptable, but many men are subjected to domestic violence too, which can be just as harmful to them, so it seems rather odd to deliberately exclude them, especially when our government makes so much noise about the need for equality. But leaving discrimination aside, the most worrying thing here is that a database is to be set up that specifically includes claims from women that would not be able to stand up to court standards. That means that any unsubstantiated rumours or malicious claims can be included in the database, possibly trashing a man's reputation, and potentially affecting his ability to forge new relationships (potential partners, or any woman claiming that they are interested in becoming a partner, would be able to ask police for any data). I find it very disturbing that the mere word of a woman should be taken as proof of the guilt of a man. It is not unheard of for women to tell lies. If a relationship fails, it is common for a woman to feel upset, and this system gives her an easy route to cause real and lasting harm her ex with no cost or risk to herself. It is even possible that men who are the victims of violence could then find themselves becoming victim to false accusations of violence against the women who attacked them.

How is it possible to have a healthy society where one gender is presumed in law to be always innocent and incapable of lying, while the other must accept the consequences, however damaging, however malicious? We all know people who would enthusiastically abuse such a system. Creating it gives a powerful new weapon to abusers. Creating a state-backed system to assist partner abuse cannot possibly help when partner abuse is the problem itself.

Nurses and degrees - big mistake

Several years ago I gave a presentation to the Royal College of Nursing. One of the main points of my talk was that the main role of nurses was caring for the patient and helping them get better, and that that by sticking to this, nurses would be guaranteed to keep a valued place in society, whereas if they pursued degrees in a misguided attempt to become somehow more 'professional', and effectively cheap doctors, they would both lose the esteem in which the public held them, and also jeopardise their future in a world where AI could already outperform average doctors in diagnosis, and where robots were already starting to do the highest precision surgery.

The years since have proved me totally right. Many nurses have pursued degrees and the media's attitudes to nurses has deteriorated badly. We often read now how uncaring nurses can be, how lazy they can be, how incompetent and so on. They always made mistakes, but we used to overlook them because they cared. Now the media says they are too posh to care, we don't like them any more. The same people still apply for jobs as nurses, and education has never equated to intelligence, so many of the basic errors still happen. Whereas once a nurse learned on the job and had their mental ability focused on the actual requirements of the job, they now have a more generic medical education that is more academic and less practical, and therefore much more suited to a doctor rather than a nurse.

Medical treatments require that we understand the basic science, can design good equipment and drugs, know how to use them effectively, and can do so in practice, but it is a dangerous fallacy that this knowledge is needed by practitioners at every stage of the care delivery chain. We already have specialist scientists, pharmacists, consultants, registrars and junior doctors. What we also need is someone to make sure that at the point of delivery, the human needs of the patient are taken care of fully, both physically and emotionally. Science shows clearly that people get better faster when they are properly cared for, and the emotional support once offered by nurses was a demonstrably important part of that. Happy patients get better quicker.

So we need the traditional nursing function, because it is an important and cost effective part of the treatment process. If, as seems to be the trend, nurses are becoming too posh to care, then we will need to reinvent a new job that fills that role. Nurses are being converted into cheap assistant deputy junior doctors, but will compete for a useful role with cheap PCs and robots. Let's get them out of the way and let some carers take over. We need them, and R2D2 can do the other bits cheaper and better anyway.

social trust, sense of humour

I am one of very many people wondering what all the fuss is about with Frankie Boyle's joke at Rebecca Adlington's expense. To me it isn't even remotely in the same league offence-wise as the one by Ross and Brand a year ago. He basically joked about her looks and sexual prowess. Of course it was poor taste, but most jokes are.

Complaining about jokes just makes people look worse. Being joked about hurts a little bit at the time, and it causes a very small and very brief drop in others' regard for us, but we quickly get over it, and other people's attitudes to us quickly recover, whereas demonstrating a lack of sense of humour by moaning creates a permanent, much more serious drop in regard. from now on, any time I see Adlington in the media in connection with her achievements, I will recall that she has demonstrated little sense of humour. If there had been no complaint, I wouldn't even have know about the joke since I didn't see the programme and would still have held her in high regard. So while she won't care about my views as an individual, similar attitudes in many other people will mean that her total social value has probably dropped significantly.

I've been made fun of a couple of times by various comedians, but I haven't and won't complain. I've never liked Jonathan Ross much, but it is his job to make fun of people and I was once or twice the butt of his jokes. So what? It was hardly in the same category as the Sachs prank. Griff Rhees Jones also made fun of my work, but I still enjoyed the programme in which he did so, and he is still one of my favourite comedians. It would never have occurred to me to complain about either occasion.

I think that the difference between most jokes and the one at Sachs' expense is the intent to hurt deeply, and that puts it in the same gutter entertainment level as 'happy slapping'. It's the difference between a poke in the ribs and beating someone up.

People's sense of humour varies enormously and there have always been some people who can't take a joke. But now, in today's victim culture, people who take offence at jokes that are much more minor are becoming a problem, trying to sterilise communication, entertainment and socialising. If we give in to pressure to remove all possible offence, regardless of triviality, we risk great social damage, reducing quality of life for everyone.

When people interact, they need to have a basic level of trust to make that transaction successful. The state can only provide a very limited level of trust, via certification and legislation, and since it is often obvious that this can easily be circumvented by those who want to, so such state provision is of little value. If we implement measures that prevent the establishment of trust by normal social means, then we will be in real trouble, and society will not be able to function properly. Everyday banter and joking oil interactions between people and help society to function well. They are a very important part of the tool-kit for establishing social trust. People who share a joke trust each other more. Introducing constraints and rules into the occasion reduces its emotional value and thereby the social trust value.

Many studies have shown that social trust is one of the most important ingredients of personal happiness. It is one of the reasons that we often see high happiness levels even in poor areas, and low happiness in rich areas. Humans are social animals and we need lots of high quality human contact to be happy. Needing to follow a strict rule book and constantly self censoring makes such contact more strenuous and more threatening. We treat others with suspicion, and have to be on our guard in case of being caught in breach of a rule. In other words, rules introduce stress into what should be fun. Censoring humour excessively directly undermines fun. Life is difficult enough already, without deliberately introducing rules that can only make it worse.

So let's stop this trend of taking offence at every opportunity. Whatever the short term gain for an individual might be, in the end it will make us all less happy.

The pursuit of silence

I'm listening to some music right now. Far too loud - even my daughter complained! It's stuff I used to listen to 30 years ago. And by dragging me back 30 years to when life was simpler, well, mine was anyway, it's made me realise something I never understood before. Silence isn't really about sound. Listening to Horlsips blasting out The Man Who Built America at 95dB, my mind is quieter than it has been for a long time. And this kind of silence is wonderful. Maybe this is what all those millions of people who meditate are after. Silence is golden. Hardly news to the world as a whole, but it is to me on a personal experiential level. I always thought it meant absence of sound, but it doesn't, it's about mental silence, inner peace, something I'm not used to. And I like it.

So now I want a new piece of technology that I never thought I'd ever want. I want to be able to switch off part of my mind sometimes. I still want to be able to increase my mental stimulation level on call just as I've always sought to do, using music, games, documentaries or whatever - I'm sure that will always be the way I am, terrified of being bored. But sometimes I want to be able to hide in an inner cave and pull down some internal mental shutters. I don't need to switch off the externals, they aren't the problem, just the endless internal thought traffic. To switch off the monitor circuits, the inner shells of consciousness.

Technology should be able to deliver on this one in due course. Transcranial magnetic stimulation can already deactivate parts of the brain temporarily. What is needed is a little more focus and a little more understanding of the brain so that we can determine exactly what to deactivate, what fields are needed to do so safely to the right level, and the means to deliver the required fields. I guess this will mean electronic drugs in effect, doing in electronics what drugs do chemically. But I don't take drugs, never have (except alcohol), and don't want to start. And I do wnat to achieve mental silence. I want to switch off my monitor circuits and concentrate on pure thoughts, or on enjoying stimulation such as music, without the additional internal noise of all the other mental activities going on that corrupt he enjoyment of experience now.

I guess lots of people reading this will wonder what the hell the problem is, since maybe they do it all the time. But I can't. And I don't want to spend 50 years learning how to do meditation either.  But silence is golden, and I want to experience it again.

The future of zombies

Zombies are coming.They might arrive around 2075.

I like Zombies, or more accurately, I like killing them. I shoot hundreds of them every week on my xbox, in games like Half Life, Oblivion and Dead Space. There are a fair few zombie films around too, so we just love being terrified by zombies. I think perhaps the big attraction is that they are extremely scary (when done right) totally fictional, only a bit human-like, and of course dead anyway, so it doesn't come with any guilt. So, I got to thinking whether they will always be fictional, or whether there is some prospect of them arriving, and if so, what can we do about it? Will it be like the computer games and movies, or different? Here goes. Bear with me, since you need to look first at the basic foundations of the technology platform on which their arrival will depend.

Nanotechnology is feeding in to neuroscience by enabling finer probes that can assist scientists in reverse engineering it. Biotechnology and IT are slowly converging, with insights in AI helping brain science and vice versa, but also in that we can now make rudimentary connections between IT and our nervous systems. Synthetic biology is rapidly getting to grips with basic tools and techniques used by nature, and improving on some of them, replicating others, to make entirely synthetic components of future biological systems. We are already designing bacteria to do specific protein engineering tasks, break down waste, and provide sensory capability So, lots of interesting tech going on.

Listing a few of the important (from a Zombie perspective anyway) outcomes of such research, we can now connect IT to nerve tissue (and the connections are rapidly becoming finer thanks to nanotech). We can modify DNA and simulate and then assemble a wide range of proteins (although this is still very limited and very slow). We are starting to understand some of the basic principles of how to make smart and conscious machines and are already very good at distributed processing, self organisation, sensing and data storage and distribution. In the not too far future, we will be able to enhance human senses by linking various synthetic sensors to our brains. We will be able to link to peripheral nerves to pick up sensations and relay them across networks, stimulating equivalent nerves in other people to create the same or at least similar sensations in them. In IT, we have already progressed some way along the multi-core and distributed processing time-lines, and it is foreseeable that in the far future, computing my well be done by billions of tiny processors suspended in a gel, using optical interconnects. In fact, using progress in biotech and synthetic biology, it is equally foreseeable that this will be done by using bacteria to assemble the IT in their own cells, and using their own energy to power the circuits.

So, round about the time we figure out how the brain works well enough to connect properly to it, we will also be designing conscious machines and very probably using smart bacteria as the platform for them, creating and powering the electronic components in what is best described as smart yogurt. Looking at the basic physics and maths, it is clear that a smart yogurt could have as much raw processing power as all the human brains in Europe! Already scary, but let's not go all Terminatory just yet, Zombies are much more fun.

Smart yogurt is actually really scary stuff. It would look (and maybe even taste) just like today's. But each cell would contain electronic circuits, that can be connected to the circuits in other bacteria using optical signals (bioluminescence for example) to make very sophisticated circuits for all kinds of sensing, storage, comms and processing. And because they are still viable bacteria, they will be able to survive and flourish anywhere there is a decent food supply.

Being very smart collectively (each with a Euro-IQ), they will be able to genetically redesign their own offspring to capture and colonise other biological niches. They will be able to design offspring so that they can penetrate the human body and bypass the immune system, or to enter and remain in the brain (let's not even call these bacteria, since they are more likely to nothing like natural bacteria when they've finished, they may well be as small as viruses but with much more sophisticated capability). Inside the brain, they might connect to individual synapses and monitor and signal the electrical activity to their external allies. These allies might then create an electronic replica of that person's brain, thereby replicating their mind. They might map out the connections to work out the signals the person uses to move their limbs, to speak or do anything else.

This obviously provides the means to remote control the person's body, and to intercept or over-ride any thoughts they might have. Smart yogurt could take over your mind, over-ride your brain at will, and to control your body as easily as you can. Keeping a person's body alive is optional, but obviously comes with advantages of maintaining its capability. Keeping the brain alive is less advantageous, as the yogurt can take over and replace any and all of its functions. So we are likely to have a few varieties of zombies. Some will be brain-dead, but otherwise perfectly healthy. Others will be fully alive but with their minds under supervision and subject to over-ride. They might know what is happening to them but be powerless to resist. Others will have no awareness at all of the situation and think they are fine even though they have been enslaved. And finally, we may have some that are fully and properly dead, brought back to an animated state by the yogurt taking over all the main electrical functions while the brain itself is potentially even missing. We could even have headless zombies!

Killing these zombies would probably work much like it does in the games and movies. They all need a body to be in at least partial working order, and if they are going to get around, that means they need a circulatory and respiratory system, and legs (or a mobility scooter at least). So you could kill them by fire, chopping them up, or shooting them in the heart, or various other ways.

The headless and dead zombies sound quite disturbing, but they would be in small minority. The great majority of zombies would look much like normal people. More 'body-snatchers' than Dead-Space. How much they will worry us depends mainly on whether they are aggressive. Terry Pratchett wrote amusingly about a zombie being gainfully employed as a solicitor. If they use the technology suggested here, many zombies could be fully functioning, valuable members of the community, even leaders and captains of industry. For a while anyway. But some might be violent. We might try to use zombies extensively in the army or police, for obvious reasons. But if they are as smart or smarter than people, they will soon have their own culture and inevitably come into conflict with regular people. They might rise against us in a war against humans. Trouble is, if they have superior senses and faster brains and more intelligence and can communicate directly across the net, they will be pretty good competition. We will probably lose.

So, zombies are possible, plausible, even likely, given what we already can deduce about the future of technology. And the time-frame for this possibility is sooner than you would hope. Depending on our reactions and adaptations, they could become a threat to human existence. I'm going back on Dead Space to improve my aim!!

The one possibly good thing is that as a way of wiping out life on earth, zombies are only one of 150 alternatives that are feasible this century. We might not last long enough to be killed by zombies. Is that good or bad??

thought transmission over internet

Yesterday's Times ran an article on an experiment by the University of Southampton that claimed to demonstrate brain to brain communications. The claim was that 'they have created a system that allows brain to brain communication, sending messages formed by one person's brain signals through an internet connection to another person's brain many miles away. Let's get right to the point here. By typing this blog entry, I am creating thoughts in your brain many miles away via the internet, so that bit at least is not new. So the only possible significance of this experiment is if it were somehow to demonstrate being able to put thoughts into someone else's brain directly without using sensory input, e.g. vision. But as far as I can tell, it doesn't. It uses a flashing LED instead of letters on a screen, but that seems to be the main difference, except that the input uses simple thought recognition instead of typing, also well established now, though sadly still primitive. I explained this to the journalist, and was rather surprised to see he still ran the story. When he first contacted me, it sounded like someone had managed to create specific thoughts in a brain without using sensory inputs, which would have been very exciting.

I was quoted in the article saying that  'in 30 years time you'll think of a message and it will appear on your wife's mobile phone'. Sadly, the other comments I presented to the journalist didn't appear, so for the sake of completeness, and so that I am not misrepresented in any commentary as supporting the claims of the Southampton scientists, here is the text I sent:

"This is not what it pretends to be at all. It is merely using the pattern or intensity of signals from one person's brain to light an LED somewhere else, (trivially easy since about 1995 when it was released as a games device by a company called 'the other 90%'). The second person sees the LED flashing as the imput, it isn't direct brain stimulation at all, and the computer picks up signals from his brain which originate during the visual process, so no conscious interpretation would have been needed. Again, no big deal at all, brain imaging has been doing that for decades. The experiment is equivalent to you triggering activity in my brain by putting visual shapes in front of me, i.e. letters in an email, except that an LED fashes instead of a letter appearing. The message sent across the net was created using simple thought detection using readily available equipment. So this experiment shows nothing new, and is actually quite a poor illustration of misdirection. Some of the viewers' comments (on youtube) show clearly that people are happy to take it as described, yet it is no such thing. But at least one of them saw right through it thankfully."

I would have thought that this was pretty clear and the journalist should really have checked whether or not I was correct before still going ahead with it, reporting the claims as if they were correct. It wasn't actually a story worth running.

To his credit, Dr James (the scientist) admitted it was only a small step forwards towards telepathy and the innovation was 'the transmission of the signals to another person across the internet. However, the freely available Emotiv Epoc headset was designed for using thought recognition for playing computer games, and of course these days we take it for granted that games are often played across networks, so I'm afraid that even that small claim has long since been made elsewhere.

I am looking forward to thought transmission into someone else's brain. Output is already feasible, but brain stimulation so far cannot match up to the task of creating specific thoughts in a brain without going via the sensory route, not even (as far as I am aware) via deep implants or probes. When someone does that, I will be among the first back on my blog writing with excitement.

should content be free

Libby Purves has an article in today's Times arguing that people should expect to pay for content and not expect it for free. She makes one good point: 'until food, clothes, housing and transport are doled out free, content-makers need to be paid'. I would only edit that slightly into 'content-makers need to make a living' but that apparently small difference is key to the debate. I agree that content makers need to survive, so we need money, but I disagree that the payment has to be direct. It isn't necessary that the paper pays, nor that content consumers will necessarily have to pay.

Libby also says quite reasonably that over-reliance on advertising revenue is dodgy ground, since we are all getting better at avoiding or ignoring ads, and she is probably right there too. Advertising can't pay for everything, and certainly, and I have yet to make any money from the ads on my blogs (the main reason I have them there is that adsense produces stats on the hits that I find useful).

She goes on to argue that people will not produce good quality material unless they are paid for it. She says 'blogs are fun, with a pinch of salt'. But like many other bloggers, I put the same intellectual effort into my blogs as I do into my paid writing, and I've received plenty of awards over the years. This blog may be free to the reader, but I think the quality of analysis in my blogs stacks up well against her paid columns, and although some of the blogs out there are frivolous or low quality, there are lots that are very high quality indeed, many that put mine to shame.

Like Libby, I've also written for the Times, Sunday Times, most of the other quality nationals and a great many newspapers and magazines all over the world. Sometimes I get paid, sometimes I don't. I've also appeared a good many times on various Sky programmes, another part of the Murdoch empire that is pushing the case for paid-for content, and again, sometimes they have paid me, sometimes not. I write most of my stuff for free, and I only get paid occasionally, for some of my work, by a tiny minority of my audience. But that is enough, and my family stays comfortable thanks to that tiny minority. And to date, there has been no correlation at all between the effort and quality of my input and whether I have been paid, or indeed how much. So the fact is that the vast majority of my audience gets my content for free, and it is every bit as good as the stuff I get paid for. I know that applies to a great many creatives. Libby says 'some creatives give their work free, but that is their choice'. Indeed! I choose to do so, as do many others, and I would resist any suggestion that charging for my content somehow makes it better, or that I work better when I get paid. The other side of the issue of course is 'some creatives choose to charge for their work, and that is their choice'. So let the two live peacefully side by side, and let the consumer choose. The problem at the moment is the lack of adequate mechanisms for ensuring that people cannot steal content for which people want to charge.

The issue of whether content needs to be paid for boils down to that of whether the vast pool of high quality free content can satisfy people's demands. Adding in the related issues around content production, we should then ask how content makers can earn a living; and how to ensure that the makers of free content can exist alongside others who want to charge for their's, without unduly interfering with each other's interests. But I think it is unreasonable for paid-for content providers to assume, as so many seem to, that they should have the right to impose their payment assurance technologies on the market even though they might impede the ability of others to offer their content for free.

Some of the measures imposed by governments and device manufacturers as a result of pressure from paid-for content providers have significantly reduced quality of life. Even if I pay handsomely for a DVD, I will usually be forced to endure a long period of threats and copyright messages before I get to see the film I've paid for. In the past, levies on every cassette tape went to the content industry, whether or not it was used to steal music. If I wanted to give away my content, my customers would still have to pay the paid-for industry a levy. Since then, the pursuit of various forms of digital rights management has created a second class of music owner, where instead of lifetime access, the consumer has relatively restricted rights to use the music on restricted platforms for a shorter period of time, occasionally having to jump through hoops to retain access. At one point, content providers even tried (thankfully failing) to ensure that all files should be restricted by their anti-copying technology, regardless of ownership. As a producer of free content, where my business model is based on the content being spread as far and wide as possible, the behaviours of the paid-for industry directly undermine my interests. Let them charge if they want, but let me give my content away if I want too.

Creatives, as Libby calls us, generate content for all kinds of reasons. We may be paid, or sponsored, or we may be trying to gain commercial, religious or political influence, or it may be a loss-leader for other strands of a business, or it may be a form of advertising, to brag, or it may be for atruistic or malicious reasons, to win praise or to win an argument, for research, to leave a mark, or to become famous, to help gather one's thoughts or simply to record them, to fill in time, or just for fun. It is usually some combination of any of the above. Direct payment is only one of many motivations for content creation, and it should therefore not drive the regulation of content distribution alone. The other interests must be protected and given at least equal consideration. The consumer should be free and able to choose which content to consume.

But the fact remains that free content is not enough. It may be high quality or not, but content in its very nature is unique. If it is meant to be paid for, then no free content will act as an alternative. My commentary might or might not be as good as Libby's but it isn't the same, and though mine if free, I would not argue that hers should be free too unless she is happy for it to be. Reading my blog is not a substitute for reading Libby's piece. If you want that, then you need to buy a Times or get it from their website, which uses a different model. Listening to an excellent band playing their music just for applause will not satisfy your desire to listen to music from another band. It is not about quality in the end, it is about uniqueness. No amount of free content can ever be enough if it doesn't include the specific and unique content you are looking for. The big question is whether it is sufficiently unique and valuable to justify payment. That is the real issue she is addressing when she talks about the Evening Standard becoming a freebie.

There are a great number of business models by which creatives can earn a living. Many have a related 'day job', others get money from totally unrelated areas, others use content to drive other areas that they charge for (like me). The motivations for the content creation may be totally non-commercial. This assures a large and ongoing supply of free content, forever, that will often be as good or even better than paid-for content. But it won't be sufficient. Some of the stuff I want might not be free.

So what we are left with is the certainty that some people will create content that they want to be paid for, and there will be people who want to consume it. The big problem is ensuring payment where it is required. And doing so without undermining the many other interests. At the moment, with technology induced turbulence, it is very difficult to reliably protect information from being copied and distributed, especially without disrupting other interests. Until such technology exists, paid-for content providers will suffer theft of their materials. It would be quite wrong to impose systems to guarantee payment if they undermine the free distribution of free content, and at the moment that would appear unavoidable.

So I think that the paid-for content industry must find alternative business models and adapt. Perhaps some companies can't adapt enough and they will die. It's a tough world, and we will probably lose some unique and valuable bits of the content creation. Some companies will vanish, some newspapers, even some writers will not be able to adapt. But content creation itself will certainly not die. Paid-for content is only a small part of the whole economy, and a reducing part of content overall. Companies that sell content should not be allowed to drive regulation. In the information world, price is a very poor measure of value, and protecting old business models at the expense of the new is unwise. Creatives are valuable people, we need them, we want them, and though the business models will change, and even though we might not want to pay them directly, they will still earn a good living - they are creative. One day, when the technology catches up, the models will change again, and we might once again see a system where payment can be demanded and assured without wrecking it for everyone else. Sometimes when it's really good, we might even be willing to pay for it.

Nobel peace prize for Tim Berners-Lee

Among a great many other people, I was rather surprised to see yet another politician, albeit a popular one in Barack Obama, getting a Nobel peace prize. He may have done great things, but at that level, he is more than adequately rewarded already - for a US president trying to cultivate world peace is, or at least should be, essentially part of the job.

I am very happy that tweetspace is buzzing with the idea that Tim Berners-Lee should get a Nobel. Let's look at the impact he has made on world peace, and let's also bear in mind that he didn't patent the idea of the World Wide Web. He perhaps could have done and if so could have become extremely rich, since the web has become probably the most useful tool for positive change in my lifetime.  (The hyperlink idea was actually already patented by Prestel, but the WWW brings that idea and links it to several others, so should be patentable too.)

The World Wide Web has been and will be an enormous force for human wellbeing generally, and more specifically I would argue that it is easily a more important contribution to world peace than the work of any politician to date, including Obama, though possibly excepting Gandhi.

Firstly, the web has enabled people to make links all over the world. People have friends now in every continent, and know on personal experience that people in another country can be just like them. And when you know a people is not so different, it is hard to get involved in a war against them. It becomes much harder for war-mongerers to raise support for their causes.

Secondly, it is much more difficult now to hide nasty regimes, because the web has allowed people to blog and tweet and get the message out, often in spite of great efforts by the authorities to prevent it. When people are oppressed, the whole world knows very quickly, and can apply pressure.

Thirdly, thanks to the world wide web, globalisation has accelerated greatly. With business, commerce and politics now increasingly globally interwoven, wars are now largely contained in the least connected parts of the world.

Fourthly, the world wide web also makes it much easier for people to become educated. A great deal of knowledge is available on the web for free, and the virtuous circles of technology development have helped make it available everywhere. Education makes people less likely to engage in warfare, since again they are more aware of the truth and less vulnerable to propaganda and prejudice.

Finally (there are probably lots of other factors I have forgotten here), the web has empowered people at grass roots level. It is easy to form large groups of people to pressurise leaders and companies in support of a cause, and so far at least it has mostly been good causes that have benefited from this power.

And on that point, I hope that my grass roots contribution will add a little weight to the many others that support rewarding Tim Berners-Lee with a Nobel Peace Prize. Failing that, by creating the platform that has so greatly accelerated so many other fields, he has earned the right to be considered for one in physics, chemistry, medicine and literature. He has made a huge contribution to human wellbeing and peace on earth, and unlike many with such ability, gave it away for the benefit of all instead of using it to become personally rich. He deserves a Nobel prize.

Suicide and Euthanasia. The long but compelling road to Logan's Run.

I doubt if I can add any great wisdom to this debate, but am blogging it anyway because it was the very first issue we did at school, in a religion class in 1974, when we looked at the future of euthanasia. It was the start of my futurology life.

Suicide is inextricably linked to the euthanasia debate, mainly because it is impossible to know for certain what is in someone's mind, and that is the basis of the well known slippery slope. The stages are reasonably clear, even without any invocation of religious morality. Was it a genuine suicide, originating from that person's free thoughts, based solely on their own interests? Or was it a personal decision influenced by the interests of others, real or imagined? Or was it a personal decision made after pressure from friends and relatives who want the person to die peacefully rather than suffer, with the best possible interests of the person in mind? In which case, who first raised the possibility of suicide as a potential way out? Or a personal decision made after pressure applied because relatives want rid of the person, perhaps over-eager to inherit or wanting to end their efforts to care for them? Guilt can be a powerful force and can be applied very subtly indeed over a period of time. Or if the person is losing their ability to communicate a little, perhaps a friend or relative may help interpret their wishes to a doctor. From here, it is a matter of degree of communication skill loss and gradual increase of the part relatives play in guiding the doctor's opinion of whether the person genuinely wants to die. Eventually, the person might not be directly consulted because their relatives can persuade a doctor that they really want to die but can't say so effectively? And not much further along the path until people make their minds up what is in the best interests of another person as far as living or dying goes. It is a smooth path between these many small steps from genuine suicide to euthanasia. And that all ignores all the impact of possible alternatives such as pain relief, welfare, special care etc.

Once the state starts to get involved in deciding cases, even by abdicating it to doctors, it is a long but easy road to Logan's run, where death is compulsory at a certain age, or a certain care cost, or you've used up your lifetime carbon credit allocation.

My concern is that the situation we are in now is at one extreme of this slope. There have been a few very clear cases where someone obviously able to make up their own mind has made a thoroughly thought-through decision to end their life because of ongoing pain, poor quality of life and no hope of any cure or recovery, the only prospect being worsening condition leading to an undignified death. Few people would argue with their decision to die, and I certainly think they should be permitted to do so, without any fear for their friends or relatives being prosecuted.

If it stops there, I would have no objections. But it won't. There are rarely razor-sharp lines between cases; situations always get blurred sometimes because of the complexity of individual lives, and because judges have their own personalities and differ slightly in their judgements. There is inevitably another case slightly further down the line that seems reasonable to a particular judge in the circumstances, and once that point is passed, and accepted by the courts, other cases with slightly less-defined circumstances will use it to help argue their's. This is the path by which most laws evolve. They start in parliament and then after implementation, case law and a gradually changing public mind-set gradually evolves them into something quite different.

So I think this is now the beginning of the end. The predictions we made in our religion class in 1974 will now come to pass as we thought. We will accept suicide, then facilitate it, then it will evolve into euthanasia by a million small but apparently reasonable steps, and one day we will have Logan's Run.

Judge Dredd, here we come

The papers reported the UK's new rules on assisted suicide this morning. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article6845582.ece

I will blog the issue of assisted suicide separately since it is an important futures issue in its own right. I think one of the most disturbing things here is that this hasn't been passed through the democratic process via parliament, but rolled out by the DPP. If it was unique in that respect, I wouldn't worry too much, but it isn't. Baroness Deech has just raised attention to the fact that current divorce rules didn't get decided by parliament but by the judiciary too. It was judges, not our elected representatives, who came up with the current notion that wealth should be shared equally when a marriage fails, regardless of contribution or how much each party brought to the party. It is judges who interpret the EU's human rights laws in the UK and resulted in the ridiculous imbalance we have now between the rights of culprit and victim. Other countries don't seem to have the same problem. The local interpretation of EU law for the UK should be done in parliament, preferably by reference to politicians who were part of the original process and party to the spirit of the law when it was first debated.

Important laws should be made by parliament. It is its main purpose.We elect people to represent us, and they debate amongst each other what is the best way forwards. Then, once our representatives have decided what our laws should be, the judiciary is there as part of the implementation process. It should not be the other way round. In the suicide case, poor wording made the law very unclear, and people couldn't know whether assisting in a suicide by accompanying a relative to Switzerland would result in prosecution or not. Laws should always be clear, and say precisely what was intended when the politicians have finished their debate. It is parliament's job to make sure they get the law written up correctly, but if they don't, and an ambiguity becomes clear, then it is certainly their job to clarify the intent as needed to make sure the wishes of the people are properly implemented in law. It is not the role of the judiciary to do so, and should never be. Their job is clear, to  decide whether or not people are following or breaking it.

By following the current path, we are heading towards a state where judges make the law by themselves, where we end up with the Judge Dredd scenario, where a guy with a big gun says 'I am the law'. We must not let democracy evaporate by allowing our elected representatives to neglect their jobs, letting judges do it for them so that they can make someone else take the blame. Once this process becomes too regular, politicians will allow it more and more, trying to stay in power by abdicating the tough and potentially unpopular decisions. Then the most important things in life will be decided by Judge Dredd, instead of the people we elected to do the job.

Police, justice and DNA records

I do not want the police or any other authority to have a copy of my DNA because quite simply, I do not trust them, or the criminal justice system.

Firstly, juries are made up of ordinary people, with no requirement that they should be educated, intelligent people. Told that the DNA found matches only 1 in 10 million of the population, a jury with a poor grasp of statistics could easily be persuaded that the evidence of guilt is overwhelming. But with a match to 1 in 10 million people's DNA profiles, that means that in the UK alone, there are likely to be 6 or 7 matches. If the defendant is only one of 7 possible DNA macthes, the evidence looks much less convincing. Which argument the jury is led towards depends too much on the skill of the barristers.

Secondly, hair and skin samples are pretty easy to come by, so there is excellent scope for misdirection by planting DNA. Police could do it themselves of course, and criminality and corruption are just as high in the police as in the rest of the population. If financial or career incentives are there, and they are, then some police are likely to fall victim to the temptation. But of course, there will also be a black market in stolen DNA if it is used regularly. Anyone who works in a hotel, gym, train, cinema, restaurant or any other public place will easily be able to get hold of any number of hairs and skin flakes. So could beauticians, doctors, hairdressers, and many other people who offer personal services. And of course any colleague at work can find hairs on your chair while you are out. DNA can often easily be linked easily to specific named persons, and by working with others who steal electronic identity data, it will become easier and easier to construct decoy evidence and frame a totally innocent person. Over-reliance on DNA will makes the threat worse.

If I want to escape conviction, I would make some serious effort to limit the amount of DNA I leave at the scene, while planting DNA belonging to a realistic suspect. I would do my research in advance to decide who would be the best decoy and do a good job of framing them by planting a range of ID based pointers to them, and making sure I leave DNA traces in the form of their hair and skin flakes, and maybe even a fingerprint or two for good measure. Faced with a naive legal system and a dumb jury, the wrong person would most likely be convicted while I walk free.

DNA listings can be marketed just like any other kind of personal record. Aside from criminal justice, DNA gives clues about many of my other attributes. A corrupt police officer might sell my listing to a variety of buyers, used for all kinds of personal, blackmail, insurance, advertising or legal purposes. No thanks!

In the far future, if I ever become rich and famous, someone might even use my listing to create a child, by assembling the appropriate genes off the shelf. Not so far away as you might think.

I will not feel confident about staying free in a future where too much weight is placed on DNA evidence, or even if the police have my DNA at all. It is only a matter of time before someone with a partial match commits a crime somewhere, and then my freedom is partially down to the competence of PC Plod, in which I don't have a lot of confidence. On the other hand, I travel a lot and my DNA is out there in many places, and I do have a lot of confidence in the collective skill and marketing of the hacking and criminal classes. Finally, I would not want to rely on the intelligence of a jury or the competence of a barrister to keep me out of prison once misplaced or misinterpreted DNA evidence is out there.

If the police and the justice system were perfect, I wouldn't have so much objection to them having my DNA, but they are a very long way from perfect, and I simply don't trust them to hold and use my records properly. I do not want the police to get hold of my DNA under any circumstances, as long as I can legally avoid it.

Why the future will never be perfect thanks to upgrades

That's it, the final straw for me. I am sick of 'upgrades'. In the age of spin, the very word has been re-defined to mean change. Often 'upgrades' are actually significant downgrades. We are bombarded daily by spinners telling us how their company has wrecked a perfectly good system to give 'an improved customer service', or 'for our safety and security'. This morning's assault on our household is that we have finally been subjected to Sky TV's rollout of their terrible new 'upgrade' to their electronic programme guide (EPG). The old one was bad and a poor effort compared to what should reasonably have been expected given the importance of EPGs. I'd only have given it 1 out of 10 at best. However, the new one is much worse, and since they control the software on my box, I was never given a choice and can't go back to the old one (until enough of us complain I guess). The blurb highlights 'exciting new features', a  new search facility and a 'mini-TV'. I am certain that I will never want to use either of them. The improvements I really want is for it to take less time to lock on to each channel as I channel hop, or that I could adjust the speed at which the channels hop by to my own speed reading pace (too slow on my old box, too fast on the new one).  Or a major breakthrough for Sky: let me choose a full range of EPG options like any other company would have done in their first edition. But missing these real upgrades and adding useless ones is bad. They have no vision, but that's true of lots of companies. What is really bad is that they have actually removed one of the most important features. If you have dozens of programmes recorded (as I have), when you enter the guide, you could just hit the up arrow and it would take you straight to the last thing you recorded, which is what you want to watch probably about 90% of the time. Now you have to cursor very slowly through the entire list to get to it. That is not my idea of an upgrade. I imagine that every customer who ever records anything will be highly irritated by this loss, far more than they will be excited by any of the new features.

But Sky isn't the only company out there with some teenager on job experience deciding what is cool and trendy and another deciding that all the customers must be forced to use it without bothering to try it out first on real customers.

This trend is all too pervasive. Ipswich railway station used to be a friendly place, where you could walk onto the platform to say goodbye or greet your friends. Now, 'to improve customer service', they have made it impossible by introducing ticket barriers. You can no longer buy a coffee while waiting, and have to say goodbye in the station lobby. They used to have several staff to buy tickets from, now they only have one or two and a range of hard-to-use machines with a variety of 'not working' notices on them.

Just like Sky's disregard for what people really want to do, it's not a major deal I guess, but still a significant drop in quality of another small component of what makes up quality of life.

I could go on and on, the list is endless. The thoroughly incompetent re-design of Stansted car park, the regeneration of Ipswich docks that missed the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to fix the awful one-way system, and thereby locks in congestion for decades instead of solving it. The numerous Microsoft 'upgrades' that throw away important features or bury them deep in unintuitive menus, replacing them with ones you never wanted and will never use. The ones that make billing 'simpler' that actually make it incomprehensible.

Each time an 'upgrade' is imposed on us that is more difficult or unpleasant to use than the old one, or forces us to learn a new way of doing things for no good reason, our quality of life takes a small step backwards. Some of the gains made by genuine progress are wiped out.

I really believe that this a major flaw in the development cycle. Whatever new technology brings us in genuine life improvements, there will always be an idiot somewhere in the team with the loudest mouth and the smallest brain who totally misunderstands the customer. And worse, thinks that it is more important to show off to his peers about how up to date he is than to give the customer a truly great product. Because of these people and their poorly justified egos, we will never have a utopia, however good the technology becomes. Whatever it allows, someone somewhere will always decide that what we must have is a redesigned version that forces us to do things their way, however stupid it might be. The one thing we really need an upgrade to is the design of the upgrade cycle itself.

On-line dangers to children, parents shouldn't use IT ignorance as excuse

There has been a lot of debate the last few days since the police told parents off for not policing their kids access to social sites, that are regularly infiltrated by paedophiles intent on grooming their kids. I don't often agree with the police, I think they are usually far too politically correct and take the wrong side too often. On this occasion though, they are right. Parents should do more to alert their kids to the dangers. One line of argument that has been cited too often and too loudly is that parents can't possibly keep up with IT, which their kids can obviously manage to do much more easily. I am amazed that such an argument gets any support.

Do people really believe that kids are smarter than grown-ups. Of course they aren't. There is almost no difference in intelligence level as people grow up, and only when we get very old do our brains decay significantly compared to our youth. The kids use technology more, so they become more familiar with it. It's as simple as that. If adults use technology, they too become familiar with it. If adults use chat rooms and social networking sites, they understand perfectly well how they work and how to use them. All parents should become familiar with the kinds of stuff their kids use. To opt out and blame an age difference for inability is just laziness and neglect.

I introduced by daughter to chat rooms when she was 5. It was greatly amusing seeing how people responded to her, mainly not believing she was 5. I introduced her to Bebo, to Second life, to her email, her first web site, to chat and instant messaging, to Spotify, and Facebook. At each stage I pointed out the dangers, what to do and not do, what sort of information not to share. I don't need to spy on her usage because I know she knows what she is doing and is careful, and after that what she gets up to is her affair. My parental duty is to introduce her to stuff as she becomes old enough to handle it and use it safely, and to make her aware of any dangers. The same goes for other parents. It is just the same as showing them how to cross a street, it opens new doors for them but keep them safe. And they grow to become competent fully fledged adults. It's really not difficult to use any on-line stuff. It normally only takes a few minutes on a new kind of platform to understand the basics, and mostly that's all you need to know. You don't need to be an expert at manipulating fonts or page templates, but you do need to understand the capabilities in terms of what sorts of things you can do with other people, and hence what other people can do with your kids. You need to understand whether sites are moderated or not, or whether there are policed aged restrictions. But all of this is simple stuff to learn, and there really is no proper excuse for not doing so.

Having said all that, it's a pity that only the parents that are already following the advice are able to read this :(

Brain replica in 10 years?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090904071908.htm

The logic in this article is reasonable. If we can replicate it, and run the replica faster than the original, then we can improve greatly on human intelligence. We could presumably run lots of linked versions with slightly different 'minds' running on each one, to solve problems faster and without the drawbacks associated with a single mind doing it, in terms of bias and personal agenda. Fun eh?

Brain-computer link, electronic immortality

I get asked every other day by students how the brain might be connected to the machine world for purposes such as mind backup, and how we can live forever electronically in principle. So here for my own convenience at least is a quick summary of the concept as technology stands today. Note that I don't develop the technology, I just follow and predict it and figure out some of the implications and occasionally invent potential solutions to obvious bottlenecks.

Direct brain links already exist. Millions of people have cochlea implants, a few people have retinal implants, and a few more (severely disabled people) have chips on the brain surface to allow their thoughts to be picked up to control apparatus such as wheelchairs. Other direct links to nerves allow chips to relay signals to other nerves to bypass nerve damage, or to control prosthetics. Of course, technology progress will mean that these kinds of links will get better and even become commonplace. But I don't think much progress will happen without much more miniaturisation, which probably means lots of nanotech. Signals can be picked up from the brain by various techniques today, but apart from direct probes into individual synapses, there isn't much hope of doing a full link. And we can't do that yet, well, maybe a single synapse so far. But the limits of miniaturisation are still a way off, and we can make devices down to 10 nanometres easily by 2025. The other obvious problem here is that opening the skull and dissecting the brain to connect all the probes would seem a bit extreme, and I don't think many people would volunteer. But if a suspension of electronic particles could be injected into the blood, and each particle connects to a single synapse, them we can see how it might become feasible. Sure, you'd probably have to use coatings on the particles to avoid problems with the immune system and might even have to make mechnical or chemical hooks to allow attachment and detachment, and of course a radio or optical system to relay signals. The power supply could be the body's own energy, so at least that might not be a barrier.

If, and it is a far away if, but hopefully more of a when, we can do all this, and my guess is about 2035-2040, then it will be possible to make an electronic copy of the brain externally. Synapse for synapse, neuron for neuron. And of course, while all this development has been happening, neuroscientists will have progressed enormously, underdtanding in some detail how the various brain processes happen at microscopic scales. Materials scientists will have developed the coatings and materials needed. Computers will have progressed in speed, storage, and most of all, in scope. They will not be purely digital, but will harness coprocessors that use analog and quantum computing as needed. (Analog is due for a big comeback soon, but that's another blog some other time). Memristors might help solve a lot of the implementation problems too, as it is now thought that some synaptic processes work in a similar way. So with all the progress in nano, biotech, IT and cognitive science that we should expect as normal progress in the next few decades, it seems quite reasonable to me to expect that we should be able to make a full link between the brain, with each component relaying data bidirectionally to external replicas. So at that point, with an electronic replica of your brain, and (unless you believe the mind is something supernatural) ergo, a copy of the mind, we have digital immortality. Well, almost. The first decade after the technology is potentially there will be used up in R&D to establish the technology, so we won't really have a full working full direct brain link till 2045 at least. And it will be extremely expensive at first, so only the rich or powerful will have access to immortality in the first wave. But as always, costs will fall, and by 2075, I think that pretty much everyone will have access to electronic immortality in principle. Laws might prevent or delay it, but the technology will be possible in that time-frame.

There is an alternative, more likely route, which uses similar tech, but happens on a more gradual and feasible evolution path. Even without replicating the entire brain, we should expect a lot of brain augmentation. Electronic technologies to help cure or at least help with Parkinsons or Alzheimers are being researched and developed. Memory might be enhanced, and processing or sensory activities, here and there in the brain, as we learn how to do it. Gradually, more and more of the mind will 'exist' in the electronics. Over time, maybe only a small fraction of the mind still runs on the original grey matter. One day, when the body dies, most of the mind will keep running. The person invests in an android body, uploads, or simply links to it, and carries on. They attend their funeral, make a nice speech, and go back to some sort of normal life. Death is no longer inevitable. It might be only partial, more of a phase change than an end to existence. Death will no longer be a career problem.

We are told all the time that death and taxes are inevitable. I don't believe that. High tech will increase global wealth until taxes are no longer needed. High tech will also mean that by 2075, everyone could have electronic immortality. Putting that in perspective, with ongoing health tech improvements, we should expect most people to be living to 100 by then, so anyone born after 1975 has a very good chance of not dying, and some born before that.

It irritates me immensely that I will be the last generation of my family with no choice but to die. I am too old, and already have a poor health record, so won't make it. Damn! But my daughter will, unless she is daft or unfortunate enough to die early.

I'll write another entry shortly on some of the obvious implications of this technology, many of which are fun to debate.

age and sex discrimination in the BBC

The customer is in conflict with the regulator, simple as that.

The government quite rightly wants discrimination against women and older people to stop. They don't care about discrimination against men, but that's another story. In the BBC, women occupy a great many senior posts (even to the point that men are complaining that they are now under-represented), but the discrimination hasn't stopped now that women are in charge. Now, we have numerous older women complaining that the best jpbs are going to pretty young things instead of wiser maturer women.

In the search for ratings, pretty women have an obvious advantage in pursuing customer facing roles, such as newsreading or presenting. Less attractive or older women have little chance. If the BBC does what customers appear to want, and put the most attractive women on the screen, then the customer is happy, and the regulator isn't. If they behave in a non-discriminatory fashion and represent average people and older people in the proportions that they figure in wider society, then viewers can simply switch over to another channel that is easier on the eye. So they can't win, unless everyone plays fair, and then the customer has no choice but to watch less attractive people.

It isn't just on TV that such discrimination occurs, but throughout industry. In male dominated areas, with mostly men at the top, attractive women will be favoured at interview time, and will then tend to dominate senior posts, so that women quotas can be filled but men get to choose which women fill them. In airlines, it is hard not to notice if you fly frequently, that the most attractive stewardesses end up in first and business class, with the less attractive and older ones serving the economy cabin. And on a front reception desk, bar, sales jobs, and PR, attractive women have an obvious advantage too.

It isn't just women who are treated such. Taller men earn more than shorter ones on average, and tend to get promoted higher and faster, and tend to get elected to government more often.

I wonder if we are fighting human nature too hard to try to regulate such tendencies away. People can always easily pretend that they promoted someone on merit rather than looks, or it is entirely coincidence that this particular role has a more attractive woman in it. And it is obvious never likely to be feasible to regulate people's viewing habits, or which pub they choose to go to, so while marketers know that people will always prefer attractive people to ugly ones, attractive people will always tend to win.

Life isn't fair, but trying to regulate against human nature or against customers in a free market will never work.

Sustainability and climate change

http://futurizon.com/articles/Sustainability.pdf is a new Powerpoint presentation on sustainability and climate change, covering many aspects of sustainability including climate and physical resourecs, but also social aspects, and the impacts of IT. I wrote it for the World Futures Society conference where I will present it on 19th July.

future world without men?

Yesterday G2 (a section of The Guardian) carried a fun article by Tanya Gold about a world without men, now that scientists can apparently make sperm from embryonic stem cells. There have been numerous articles in the past few years on how women no longer need men. Actually, we won't need women either when we can make artificial wombs, but let's avoid that avenue for now. Let's also ignore the fact that the scientists who have made this possible are mostly men. But let's still have some fun with this debate.

Tanya slagged off us mere men for causing most of the problems in the world such as war, religion, bad leadership and so on. The article was good fun so I'll put up with the rather biased selections she made, and add my own shorter list in response, with a similar amount of over-generalising and selection just to be fair.

Women and men are very different. Women like to live in peace and accept things rather than to change everything, whereas men tend to be much more focused on doing things, changing things, making toys and so on. Consequently that vast majority of scientists and engineers are men. If women had led the world for the last few thousand years, we would be living in dark but prettily decorated caves, eating berries and vegetables, with a maximum world population of about 60 million, all that can be supported by pre-technology nature. No-one would have bothered to invent the wheel yet, let alone agriculture. Living in peace and harmony with our very few neighbours would be easy, since it would simply be too difficult to have fights with them due to travel difficulty.

No, that's a little unfair - to men. Let's go back even further to a basic fact of nature. Males produce sperm and females produce eggs. The mutation rate in sperm is about 7 times higher than in ova, so it is reasonable to assert that about seven eighths of evolution is driven by mutations in the male rather than the female. Since sexual reproduction has been around for about 1200 million years, females can claim responsibility responsible for about 150 million years of this and males for the rest. So if females had somehow managed to make males redundant from day one, we would have so far evolved only as far as very small and very simple multi-cellular organisms that would make slime look ultra-futuristic.

Just as well we had males then!

future of UK railways

I am just home from Switzerland. I often use trains there and they almost always run on time - I was 15 minutes late once when there was over a metre of snow but otherwise have always arrived within a minute of schedule. And they are cheap, especially for locals who buy a 'half tax' card that gives them 50% off for a year, for about £70. The inappropriately named Gatwick Express, which is painfully slow and ludicrously expensive was a quick reminder that I was back in Britain.

The problem:

In Ipswich, I always book two trains earlier than the one I really ought to need, because I expect trains to be late. Usually they are, except by standards that accept anything less than 10 minutes late as 'on time'. Often they are 30 minutes or more late, sometimes even 45 minutes. I need to arrive at events on time, so I have to book assuming a 45 minute delay. I also assume that the Circle line will either not be running, or that I will have to wait 20 minutes for a train (on friday I waited 24 minutes at Victoria for one to arrive). So for many London trips, even though the train used to take just 57 minutes, since it now takes 1 hour 20 minutes plus delays, I have to allow 2hours 5 mins to get to London and another 55 minutes to get to a Circle line destination.

Three hours to get 80 miles into central london from Ipswich on a train where there are far too few seats! And it costs £36 for a single to London and another £4 for the underground (unless you have bought discount cards such as railcards or Oyster), and then the taxpayer adds another £15 subsidy to allow operators to make a profit. Given the efficiency of state subsidies, every pound reaching a point of expenditure requires two in tax paid, so actually the state subsidy costs £30 for each taxpayer. Almost £1 per mile, roughly the same as a taxi fare.

Rail enthusiasts (and I can't understand how anyone can be enthusiastic about something so truly awful) claim that this is due to lack of investment, but how can that be true if the fares and subsidies are so high? The obvious answer is bad management, or more precisely, appalling management. This bad management is distributed across a number of bodies. Since privatisation, rail frachises have to liaise with rail operators, and all have to liaise with various government bodies. With numerous companies using the same pieces of track, and most poorly maintaining their rolling stock and thereby causing frequent breakdowns, it is impossible to stick to a timetable. Buck-passing is all too easy, but collectively, it is a recipe for ineffectiveness and inefficiency. The customer forks out, but the service is just not there.

The Solutions:

First, to greatly increase the number of seats, First Class could be abolished. Few private individuals can afford First Class fares anyway, and almost all of the private sector insists that staff travel standard class. The majority of first class travellers now are civil servants, retaining employment privileges now unavailable to the rest of society. It makes no sense for servants to travel in higher style than their masters. The very few other people who travel first class should simply have to accept that they cannot travel in luxury if doing so requires that other people have to travel in misery, forced to stand for long periods to make space available for first class passengers.

Secondly, trains could be longer. Making them double decked would also be nice, but would cost too much because of the lack of foresight when building rail bridges and electric cabling. Only main stations need to extended, provided it is possible to walk between carriages while on the move. It would even be possible to have trains stop twice at each station, so that people can get on and off each section, allowing very long trains indeed.

Thirdly, there should be many more trains. I cannot understand why there are so few Circle Line trains in London, when the demand is so high. Several District line trains go past in between them. On main lines, occupancy is far worse, with most pieces of track on regional railways only actually being used by a train every 10 minutes, giving an occupancy rate of 0.4%. If an asset is only used for 0.4% of the time, then it will obviously be extremely expensive by comparison to one that is used most of the time, as most assets in industry are. A plane has to be in the sky most of the time, and many airport runways are being used for takeoff or landing most of the time too.

To get more trains on the track for more of the time, signalling systems need to be brought up to date. Each train can easily find its location using GPS, and soon Galileo. It can easily talk to other trains using radio, whether mobile phone, satellite phone, or directly. With a suitable protocol and scheduling algorithms, linked to agreed timetables, there would be no need at all for any other signalling system, such as the extremely expensive variant in use on british railway today. If compliance with the protocols is policed effectively, with appropriately large penalties for non-compliance, then an extremely efficient system can be built. Train operators would buy and stick to timetabled slots and other operators would have to stick to theirs.

Fourthly, tickets should be abolished and replaced by electronic ticketing. Oyster cards work well for payment on the London Underground, while mobile phones, debit and credit cards provide excellent alternative means of payment. There should be no need in 2009 to have paper tickets that can be easily lost, and which need to be checked by guards or machines, often both.

Fifthly, customers should be automatically and fully compensated directly for poor standards, whether lateness (payments scaled according to the magnitude of delay, with a full refund after 10 minutes). At the moment, customers have to fill in lengthy forms to get back small compensation payments. With electronic payment, refunds due to delays or overcrowding could and should be automatically applied to every passenger without any need to apply.

Sixthly, trains should be able to push each other along when there is a breakdown. Too many delays are caused by traisn blocking tracks when they are faulty. They should simply be shunted out of the way by the next train with any costs incurred accepted as a consequence of managerial failure.

Finally most importantly of all, we need better competition. Rail should be opened to any users that are able to meet the necessary operational requirements. At the moment we have a poor half way house as far as privatisation goes. We have lost the advantages of a national railway company, but missed the performance advantages associated with effective competition by giving operating companies local monopolies. If we implement electronic ticketing, together with rigorous signalling, traffic protocols and rigid schedules, then rail occupancy could be greatly increased, with many more trains of various sizes using the same rail. Trains would only be permitted when certified mechanically railworthy, minimising delays, with heavy penalties for any delays caused by breakdowns or failure to meet speed requirements.

Opening rail up to any comers would start a rapid switch towards electronically drived 'pods', linked together into virtual trains, that mostly look like conventional trains to the signalling systems, but which are just loose couples of pods that can split up at any node, with different pods heading off in different directions. Railways would begin to operate more like roads, where cars form naturally into long groups at points of congestion and then spread where load lightens.

With electronic drive, there would be no need to have (expensive and highly trained) drivers. With no tickets, no guards are needed. With no infrastructural signalling systems, there would be very low signalling costs. With much higher occupancy, the cost of looking after the rail itself would be divided among many more vehicles and passengers. With more and shorter vehicles, which would also be much lighter and cheaper, wear and tear on the railways would reduce, environmental impact would reduce, costs would fall sharply, delays would shorten, and profits would become more abundant to any company able to effectively manage a fleet of rail vehicles. That pretty much excludes almost every company and government agency associated with today's UK rail travel, all of whom have conculsively demonstrated extreme unsuitability to be considered part of a truly 21st century rail system.

This is the age of the train, but today we can't get access to it because history is standing in the way. Get todays rail operators out of the way and let a much better future arrive.

climate change panic

http://www.speakerscorner.co.uk/file/b087b84d6935209f2b718cb5d441b07f/bjorn-lomborg-believes-we-are-sending-wrong-messages-about-climate-change-to-our-children.html

Worth a thought! I've heard Lomborg lecture, and I couldn't understand why some people were so critical of him, since almost everything he said seemed to make good sense to me. I still think so. He isn't a 'climate change denier', a term that seemes to have been created by the sort of lunatic fringe environmentalists who won't be happy until we've wiped mankind off the planet or wiped out all traces of modern life and gone back to hunting and gathering. He accepts the good science that has been done in the field, but like me, thinks we ought to concentrate on good science and come up with sensible solutions based on good science, instead of the knee-jerk reactions resulting from the sheer panic we so often seem to be immersed in today.

In the post, he warns that creating panic, under the excuse that we need to create awareness, is causing big problems. In that he is certainly correct. The New Scientist today (27 june issue) gives a quote that 1 in 3 american kids aged 6 to 11 are afraid the earth will cease to exist before they grow up because of global warming and other problems. We should certainly want everyone to be aware of the potential dangers if we do nothing about global warming, but creating this kind of fear in our kids is totally counter-productive. It surely must affect their health, and for teens facing a multitude of other emotional difficulties, it must also have a direct impact on suicide rates or other stress-related ilnesses such as eating disorders. we should be more responsible and more balanced, if only for our kids' sakes.

In adults, panic is dangerous too. As Lomborg has often pointed out, we are now spending huge amounts of money to avert relatively minor potential problems at the expense of solving actual current problems. It is far more important to address short term climate change than long term, because long term changes are more open to solution by future technologies at much lower cost than today. Lomborg has previously pointed out that protecting polar bears by reducing future climate change is rather more expensive and ineffective than protecting them by simply stopping shooting them, and in any case, they are multiplying, not becoming rarer.

We can reduce CO2 emissions in the long term by developing desert-based solar farms in the next few decades, and if we delay the investment in these until the technology is mature and low-price, the overall long term climate impacts per dollar will be far greater than if we invest in immature, expensive technologies today. However, this is not how policy makers are behaving. They are wasting huge amounts of money today to achieve much smaller long term results, leaving no money left to address shorter term issues of equal or greater importance. In the far future, we will also have a wide range of technologies to remove CO2 from the atmosphere, so even the existing build-up will probably one day be economically reversible. So we should worry far less about CO2's impacts in the far future, because it will simply be much less of a problem thanks to future technology.

The targets are sometimes wrong too. As Kirk Smith points out in the New Scientist, it would be much more sensible today to tackle methane than CO2, and the reasons CO2 is being tackled instead are based on old and innacurate assumptions about the relative effects on warming of methane and CO2. It is also easier to deal with methane. Another important gas is water vapour, especially in the higher atmosphere, but it too is largely ignored in favour of CO2.

Problems that are further away are of lesser importance today. That is often ignored, and people often become sanctimonious about the impacts our lives today might have on future generations. However, technology has not stopped developing - indeed we have a very long way to go before technology change even stops accelerating. Problems far away might look big, but to the vastly superior technologuies that will also be around when they arrive, they might actually be fairly trivial. So we should discount the magnitude of far away problems according to the expected development in technology in the same timeframe. That is never done, and indeed many climate change pronouncements seem to ignore future technology progress completely. But it makes absolute nonsense to predict a world where our behaviours continue as today, where consumption accelerates, where we carry on using resources the same way as we have in the past, or where we use the same technology to provide for the many needs in our everyday lives. There will even be far more wealth to deal with the problems in the future, thanks to worldwide economic growth. Our kids won't have to spend as much to fix it, and they will have far more money anyway. Unless, that is, we waste it all by building up vast debts today to avert the problems by overspending on premature and ineffective solutions.

We need good science if we are to understand and fix the problems ahead. We also need policies that are sensible, and based on good science, good economics, up to date, and focused on the biggest bang per buck, with appropriate discounting for problems further in the future. Then perhaps we can begin a sensible dialogue based on facts instead of doom-mongering.

Emergence

An interview with Tim Berners-Lee recently highlighted his belief that the web needs to be studied scientifically as a source of potential emergent behaviours. Emergence is usually considered a threat, where a complex system can exhibit behaviour that was unpexted, because of unexpected complex interactions among system components. In nature, 50 year waves happen because of the rare(every 50 years at a particular place) interaction of waves coming from different directions, and they can sink ships. On the web, waves of information can bring down servers and even large sections of the net. But it isn't just waves that can casue problems. The internet is a very multidimensional entity, and indeed, even the world wide web is only one of the services running on it, albeit arguably the most important one.

Studying emergence will be a valuable activity, but it is hard to see how it can really work. The 10^11 web pages are important, and to some degree, human interaction with them could be predicted using psychological theory. However, the behaviour of the human is influenced not just by the immediate web page, but by their entire personality, and every experience, every interaction on and off the net. How can that ever be modelled and studied? I might look at a web site and the most important result of the interaction might be an idea it initiates in my mind, rather than anything immediately to do with the site. A dotcom might result once in a while, for some people anyway, even if not for me.

I think there are several different areas of emergence that will need to be studied, ir they can. Firstly, there is the area of information flow, connected to PC and server activity too. It might be possible for example to use the net to generate information waves that could crash telecom networks by setting up physical resonances and correlated traffic peaks. These could be a more dangerous part of cyber-warfare than the viruses and worms of today.

Secondly, we need to think about the human emergence. Occasionally, wonderful new ideas happen as a result of human interactions, and the web creates a superb platform on which to initiate and carry these interactions. But harmful ideas can also emerge. A person with ill-intent may be exposed to new ideas or technology via the web that leads them to a new type of crime, or a new security threat. Similarly, exposing people en-masse to global ideas, religions, ideologies and so on, will inevitably cause problems as well as solutions.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, we need to look hard at the potential of the net to act as a platform for machine-initiated threats, such as machine consciousness. Much is made of the equivalence of net-based processing or connections and that in the human brain. Actually, the might of all the networked PCs greatly exceeds a single human brain now, and of course it increases exponentially. Eventually, people (I think students probably) will be tempted to use the net for experiments in producing machine consciousness, perhaps by hijacking networks of games consoles (on which security seems to be a lesser consideration than on PCs). With the new termainator film in the cinemas, it is hard not to think in Terminator Scenario terms once the true prospect of machine intelligence comes over the horizon.

Perrsonally, I don't believe digital processors of any design can become conscious, but that is more an act of faith than science. However, the net can also link analog processors together. Adaptive analog neurons can certainly be used to achieve concsciousness. They are the basis of the brain. As neuroscience progresses exponentially quickly in conjunction with nanotechnology, synthetic biology, and AI, engineers will get closer and closer to realising such a dream. Net based emergence offers a potentially magnifying effect, allowing interactions to achieve effects by accident well ahead of the science being well enough advanced to do so deliberately. That is the basis of the Terminator films, and is unfortunately just as valid in the real world.

So, not for the first time, Tim Berners Lee has hit the nail on the head. We need web science, we need it now, and we need to do it as well as we can.

Spotify

Right now, I'm listening to Bruce Springsteen on Spotify. It is a track I bought 25 years ago, but only have it on vinyl, and I no longer have a working record player. My spotify track list so far is almost all comprised of tracks that I already own on vinyl, many dating back to the 70s when i was a teenager, so it is very much a tool for reliving memories for me. I wonder how many other users are treating it as an easy way to rescue tracks they already own, rather than for getting access to new stuff. I suspect the estimates of how much money is being lost must overstate the value. I've often thought I would like to be able to drag my vinyl collection to a recycling centre, receiving the tracks back on MP3 instead. Hopefully for free, or for nominal costs, since I've already paid my dues for them. But even though I can't, not here anyway, Spotify has filled that need, almost. A few of my records aren't on Spotify, so I can't get them that way. After the goldrush, by Prelude for example (though there are variants by lesser artists), or any track by Slik. It has lots of errors too. It lists 'the last time' by Nena, as 'After the goldrush'. but not bad for a new enterprise. It also has crashed a few times, and even de-installed once in the few weeks I've had it. But not bad as a first effort.

Spotify of course is a music industry venture, rather then the usual pirate affair. If it is a sign of repentance, and an industry newly responsive to customer needs rather than being intent on exploitation, then it will survive and flourish.

space, space elevator, space tourism

New Scientist 6 june carries an interesting article about inflatable towers that could be used to reach the first 20km into space, (based on a 15km tower on top of a mountain). At 20km height, visibility can reach 600km, and it is as dark as space. So it would have potentially large tourism revenue prospects that would help offset costs for space launches. Given that most of the fuel in a rocket is used in the first part of the trip, just carrying the fuel to the next part, it would greatly reduce space flight costs.

The structure would be based on Kevlar-polyethylene composite tubes inflated with helium. Gyros and active stabilisation systems would keep the structure standing.

It is envisaged as an early alternative to the space elevator, and it would certainly help reduce the costs of the space elevator construction too.

Uses in communications are also envisaged. If two towers are erected, they would be able to see each other from 1000km, so multiple free-space optical links could be established as a rapid low cost alternative to putting in fibre.

Sports could also use such structures. Imagine being able to launch gliders, balloons, or even to space-dive from such an altitude. Perhaps even more far-fetched, imagine running an arial-glide cable from it! Or perhaps it is no more far-fetched than expecting people to pay millions to live on a space station for a few days, whihc of course is already history.

Who knows what unexpected benefits such technology might yield. Bring it on!

human nature, technology and evolution

Schadenfreude, why isn't there an English word for it, when it is so clearly part of all of us? Are we Brits just too pretentious to admit it could be? Anyway...

The New Scientist article on spite argues that "niceness needs nastiness". Excellent deduction. I wish I'd thought of it. But I'm happy to run with it. I wonder if all the seven deadly sins are there to ensure the survival and prominence in character of the other more positive attributes. I can't believe it is just spite that is there for a good reason. (Is spite one of the seven, can't remember?)

Envy, spitefulness and schadenfeude seem closely linked and motivations blurred across the boundary. Then another blurred boundary leads into sadism. I don't think most of us go that far though, implying that for each of us, the balance is different, explaining why some people find it harder to accept justification for warfare than others, for example. But it is also fascinating to explore, because it seems that many instances of UK government policy are driven by these same forces. In a party whose supporters start off generally as highly idealistic. Is it perhaps that focusing on positivity until you convince yourself that you are 'good' makes you less guarded against negativity later encroaching into your judgment and character? I think so.

All of this matters, because until now, human nature has been the one fixed reference point in a rapidly evolving technologically driven future. But technology will catch up with human nature in the next few decades, and we will be able to re-design it. We will analyse the brain, the mind, genetics and protemoics, we will develop artificial intelligence, strong AI, cybernetic implants, thought recognition and so on, until we are in a position around 2045 to start messing about with the fundamantal human nature of future generations. If we get it wrong, it might not be recoverable, we can't ensure there is a route to undo the damage. So we need to think a lot more about these issue so that we can make wiser decisions when the time comes. And to make sure future generations of policy-makers don't think it is as simple as erasing negative emotions. It plainly isn't. We need them as much as positive ones, or we won't work properly.

spite as key to future wars

Nice article in New Scientist 16 May about spitefulness, which is deeply ingrained in human nature. It seems to have evolved as a way of ensuring cooperation by punishing those that abuse trust and cooperation. Looking at wider human problems, I wonder if it isn't the underlying cause of wars, along with selfishness. People want peace, but those that are peaceful are often taken advantage of by those who are selfish and want to further their own interests at others' expense. If you don't defend yourself, you will eventually get attacked and your stuff taken from you. So we are forced to invest valuable resources in defence to make sure others leave us alone, which leaves everyone worse off.

Spite goes much further than mere self defense though, and amplifies the response into punishment. We are prepared to suffer in order to cause more suffering to the party that abused the system. Although this makes it worthwhile to stick to the common rules, when combined with powerful defence systems, it makes a dangerous trait. We don't just prevent attacks from succeeding with minimum force, we try to do much greater damage to the other party. Then spite forces further amplificied retailiation and so on until both parties are fully at war, whihc often ends only when one side is vanquished.

But of course, if we simply avoid spitefulness ourselves, we are then at the mercy of others who are willing to take full advantage of lack of punishment. If they would only be met with the minimum force required to restrain them, they would proceed.

So we're stuck. We want to be civilised, but human nature says that unless we can eradicate selfishness and spitefulness in every human being, the whole world is forced to endure repetition of conflicts. And as technology amplifies the potential damage that can be inflicted, and especially as it amplifies assymetry between risk and the ability to inflict damage on the other side, wars will get more and more damaging. We fool ourselves frequently that we have risen above warfare in Europe, but we have only done so because no-one has yet caused sufficient offence. Give it time.

Teenage culture reset

Excellent piece in yesreday's Times by Sue Palmer, from her book 21st Century boys. She argues that the natural behaviour of teenage boys is being blocked, with no acceptable outlet thanks to impacts of feminism and marketing. I would add liberalism to her list. Western society is now one where only feminine behaviour is accepted without question, and almost every aspect of masculinity is condemned. Teenage boys are essentially blocked by social attitudes from contact with adult men and have no means of learning by example from good male role models.

It is hard to disagree with her argument, whihc seems true in my experience. However, going further, teenagers are suffering as a whole, and I wonder if current teen culture is imploding. Teens seem much more unhappy than previously, and are more at odds with adults than previously. Vaccuums are hard to maintain, and at some point this one will collapse with a re-discovery by a new generation of teens of a lost land where they could be both happy and part of society. I am not brave enough to speculate what this reinvented teen culture will look like, but I am certain that the time is right, and a phase change in teen culture will happen soon.

TV Future

Lots of stuff recently about the demise of TV, with half the commentary saying TV will suffer because of new sets with internet access, thereby offering global channel choice with no subscription, and the other half saying how Murdoch and co will start to charge for news sites, and make it much harder to get content for free.

I think Murdoch overestimates his influence on today's market. He certainly knows how to earn money from traditional markets, and is no dinosaur, but was very slow indeed to capitalise on the net, and I really don't think he understands it. His venture into social networking was poorly implemented for example. His papers offer free sites, and the loss of sales of his papers cause him to think he should now charge for his sites. He can try, but people will not pay. I won't pay. I buy some of his papers most days, but I will not pay for his web content. If I stop reading his papers and get everything on-line, I still won't pay for it. There is simply far too much competition online, far too many of us willing to give stuff for free, and much of the free stuff compares well with professional stuff. The analysts have blogs, and I'll go direct.

However, many news-pros are very good, and they will stay good. The business model might have to change, but I won't pay directly for on-line content. Advertising revenue is supposedly limited, but there are lots of ways to skin a cat, and empires can crumble as fast as they can be built, so I expect some re-organisation and re-distribution of net-based wealth. Re-invention of business models will happen, and there will be winners and losers. I think Murdoch and the rest of the current content industry moguls will lose out, and new players will take a lot of the money available.

But it is not as simple as some analysts seem to think. Youtube and other amateur content sites can't offer the same quality as professionally manufactured material. No-one wants to watch or listen only to amateur content. We need professional content manufacture, both for music and video, much more so for video I think. There are loads of good bands out there that can produce music in styles I want, and will be content to do so for free as a loss leader, expecting ticket and merchandise sales at their concerts to provide income. So maybe the music industry can go largely in that direction. For video, even though cameras are cheap and powerful, and editing software is getting better every month, there is far more to making a compelling programme than owning a camera. Professional quality material is hard to make, and I think it will stay professional. I don't know what the business models will be, but at least most of us will still pay for video, even if lots of people get it for free. Video distribution can be controlled, and there is less potential for substitution than with other media. 

I suspect that advertising will pay a lot of the costs. Product placement, interactivity, embedded marketing, convergence with games and shopping, virtuality and overlaying, all these can be used to extract full potential. As to how much of each and the details, I'll leave that to entrepreneurs to find out, not my field.

I also think there is still a healthy market for braodcast TV. At the end of a busy day, many of us just want to veg out on the sofa with a beer and relax. I don't want to spend all evening thinking about what I want to watch, I am happy to pay to outsource that to a bunch of broadcast channel editors. This is further evidence that Murdoch doesn't really get it. I pay for Sky, but I value it far less overall than the four original channels, because they do the channel editing well, and Sky doesn't. Simple as that. All the hundreds of satellite channels provide less than half my viewing time. So I don't mind paying a license fee and fast forwarding over the ITV ads, it is still better and cheaper than Sky.

So, winners and losers? Broadcast TV will survive, but I think Sky will be affected much more by global choice via the internet, because it doesn't have the quality anchorage of the original four UK channels. I think the big music companies will suffer because bands can go to customer direct, but the bands will still stay in business. The music industry will thrive, but many of the existing big players will die.

solar power

It seems almost weekly now that some significant advance happens in the solar power field. One of the traditional problems with panels is the nasty chemicals used in their production. Now it seems that single layer cells can do the same job as multilayer cells, thanks to layers of quantum dots deposited into channels in the surface, that allow much more light to be absorbed and converted into electrical energy. With each such advance, the potential for solar power to provide the bulk of our energy needs comes closer. Deserts could make far more power than mankind needs, without all the problems associated with technologies such as nuclear, wind or 'clean' coal. I just wish we could steer far more of the climate change dollars becoming available into this field to expedite it. It is becoming ever more clear of the potential advantages of solar compared to other forms of clean energy. Wind and wave are second hand solar energy solutions, much less reliable, and their manufacturing and running costs won't benefit from Moore's law, which will work well in solar. Solar needs no moving parts, and that advantage more than any pretty much guarantees that it will ultimately win in the energy market. It has lots of problems today, but all of those look soluble to imaginative engineering, and one by one they are all being solved. The future of energy looks very sunny.

ipods and washing machines

IT stuff is getting smaller all the time, which is generally a good thing, but of course that means that gadgets will end up in the washing machine increasingly often. Engineers have used this as an obvious failure scenario for ages, and the problem has been a stimulus for innovations such as fabric based electronics. However, I was still genuinely and pleasantly surprised when my daughter's iPod was thoroughly washed this week and survived, apparently none the worse for the ordeal. Well done Apple! Modern kit should be designed to cope with events like this, but it is still a refeshing change to see gadgets that can actually cope with a 1600 rpm spin after a 90 mins wash when so much emphasis seems to be on making things cheap and disposable. I for one can't wait till we can take such robustness for granted, but I don't think I will have to wait too long.

civil service

As weak signals go, recent press about the differential conditions in the public and private sectors is as good as they get. People in the private sector see their conditions worsen year on year, with pensions being hit hard over the last few years, and now the threat of widespread redundancies in every sector, bonuses slashed and real terms pay cuts. In stark constrast, the public sector has grown enormously, and with the populations in some consituencies heavily dependent on public sector jobs, government has treated them very well to maintain popularity. Doctors and nurses have seen their salaries increase enormously, as have many other roles, and many new nonsense jobs have been created to indulge political correctness of all flavours, especially in local government. People in the civil service receive an average of 4% more pay than their equivalents in the private sector, but that is on top of far better pension provision, far greater job security, far less stress,lower workloads, more tolerance of sick leave, early retirement, and virtually guaranteed career progression.

Such disparity of terms and conditioons between public and private sectors is clearly not sustainable. Government has realised this for years, and has made some feeble efforts to confront the situation, only to immediately retreat in the face of possible industrial action by civil servants wanting to keep their privileges. 

The next year will see the showdown. Oridinary people struggling hard in the face of recession will not tolerate their public service counterparts carrying on as if nothing has happened. The nature of the confrontation remains to be seen. Government might take on the unions and force through changes, but they are unlikely to do so voluntarily, so people are likely to take to the streets and demonstrate, along with media campaigns, until government is forced to act. But some sort of action to fix the disparity is inevitable, and it is hard to believe that it won't begin next year.

NHS deaths

I am very reluctant to get any medical treatment that involves going to hospital. I don't mind needles, the smell of antiseptic, and don't mind looking at the sight of blood, even my own, I've even watched a few minor operations being performed on me before. What worries me now is that there is such a high chance of catching a potentially fatal hospital-induced infection from a filthy ward, or having a doctor or nurse kill me through negligence or incompetence. I know they are taught not to build emotional bonds with their patients in case they kill them (or they die for other reasons) so they mightn't even feel any more guilty than I will if I make a typo while writing this. So I would only go to hospital for stuff that is in itself life threatening. Doctors bury their errors, and many nurses have become lazy and arrogant on the back of misplaced public worship.

The Times today quotes a figure of 40,000 deaths a year attributable to mistakes by doctors. I've seen previous figures of up to 70,000 so it sounds reasonable to me. Additionally, between 5,000 and 10,000 more deaths are reputed to arise from hospital acquired infections due to inadequate hygiene. My personal experience of filthy hospital wards, doctor errors, and nurse negligence makes me perfectly happy to accept such figures, or worse.

So why are we spending so much on trying to reduce road deaths from already the lowest in the world, when the best that could ever be achieved that way is a few lives saved per year? Or better still, why waste billions on health and safety outside hospitals when it would save far more problems if spent improving the NHS. Surely, it would be far better to spend the same amount cleaning wards, or encouraging doctors and nurses to be a little more professional, or even to train them better? Given that public funds are limited, it would be better to spend them where they can achieve the best result. It is normally difficult to compare expenditure, e.g. health with social security, but where the motive is a straightforward one of reducing deaths, then it shoul,d be a very simple decision indeed. A 5-10% drop in deaths caused by the NHS would more than make up for all UK road deaths, numerically speaking at least (though of course not necessarily on an individual basis). 

And the future? Well, if we can't spend money sensibly now, even where evidence is abundant, we can only expect more waste, more unnecessary deaths, more incompetence and negligence, and more targetting of any area that can distract people from the real problems. Not much to look forward to, but any real change will need major changes at government level first.