The Wisdom of Crowds

I have read a fascinating article, in of all places People Management (September 2012) about predictive markets. Basically the article wasn't exactly well written but the concept was strong. The article may not have been well written because it was extracted from a book, Oracles: How Prediction Markets turn employees into Visionaries, by Donald Thompson (published by Harvard Business School Publishing).

The basic concept is that a few technology and finance companies have been running internal stock markets where any employee can use fictional dollars to invest in ideas. Anyone can post an idea which is good for a couple of reasons. Firstly, there is no hierarchy in ideas, it doesn't matter at what level in the organisation you are, you can post an idea and hopefully people will listen. Secondly, because the buying and selling is anonymous just because an idea is from a senior manager doesn't mean you have to support it, unlike in most meeting where if you want to get ahead you need to support the boss (however dumb their ideas are - after all your next promotion might depend on them).

Essentially good ideas are valued commodities and bad ideas are junk stock. This approach frees up innovation and allows companies to see what ideas might work best. There is also a fun element in that if you invest wisely you will become a market leader especially if your ideas work in practice. Another part of life that has now been gameified.

Anyway as is my was I thought about this and decided I could create one of those. So I have created my own model and will build a small website for people to play with. If the model is any good it may become the next big thing or as is more usual it will be become another vaguely interesting project on mycreativeboost.co.uk the repository for all my mini projects.

Experimental Predictive Market The Rules V1.0

• Each stock is a question i.e. "Workers in the UK should be given 1 extra bank holiday?".
• Each stock initially lists at a price of £10 with 1000 shares for sale (Numbers would change if it ever became really popular).
• If no one buys the stock, the price will drop at a rate of 0.04p per day (the stock and therefore idea is unpopular).
• If someone buys stock the price rises at a rate of: 'Number of shares bought * 0.04p'.
• If someone sells stock the price falls at a rate of: 'Number of shares sold * 0.04p'.
• Trading limit of 100 shares per transaction.
• If price above £10.00 stock rises at a rate of 0.04p per day (Idea is popular and will keep rising until investors tempted to sell - Price will hopefully stabilise at the value of the idea)

I will admit the above rules are a bit rough and ready and may need refining over time. Think of it as a bit of a starter for ten.

Of course I accept no responsibility if I never finish this project, I have a habit of getting distracted by real life sometimes.

Gone in 90 Seconds (New Scientist)

In searching around for something to write an article about I return to an old favourite of "the end of the world". This is one that keeps popping up every so often and is about how susceptible our electricity transmission grid is to solar storms. Its not just the electricity network either, its satellites and communication systems.

Of course there is a bit of movie fake realism to the start of the article, you can imagine movie voice over man coming on and saying:

"It was a time when our best friend became our worst enemy... it was a time when the life giving light became the plague of darkness...mankind at its darkness hour... a future in which people fear the dawn... Solar Storm 2012 coming soon to a screen near you. Certificate 15 with mild violence and on screen nudity."

Any way ... returning to reality and the new scientist article they have a much more sensible scene setter:

"It is midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south and their fascination is short - lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs (note from zephyrist: is that as opposed to gas bulbs?) dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment (Another note from zephyrist: or in one word "blow"). Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds the entire eastern half of the US is without power."

Just like in Hollywood the rest of the world doesn't seem to exist as usual the world ends in New York. Seriously can a UK director not come up with an end of the world film set in Bristol or something that isn't cheesy or just a comedy. Why is the British film industry based on period dramas or rom-coms with Hugh Grant or cheap comedies or gritty low budget crime thrillers. Where is the British block buster disaster movie?

Any way back to New Scientist again, rather than just a ramble through a myriad of thoughts about nothing much in particular.

The article goes on to mention 3 big hits about the days and years after the solar storm when the electricity network fails in the US:

4-10 years for the US to recover
72 hours of healthcare remaining
30 days of coal left (although if no power grid why would you need coal for power stations)

A Solar storm will spew out plasma balls from the surface of the sun which will hurtle towards earth and create a massive interference with the earth's magnetic field which in turn induce currents in wires of the electricity grid. Which will in effect overload the system blowing virtually every transformer in the system. With few spares and every transformer needing to be replaced it could take up to 12 months to manufacture and replace them. In the mean time how would we survive without a fully functioning grid network. Every aspect of our lives from fuel, transport, food, healthcare, water and heat depend on the electricity grid. It would be the end of the world as we know it.

Such events have happened before all be it before technology was so embedded in life. In 1859 the Carrrington event disrupted telegraph networks across the globe. In 1989 six million people went without electricity for 9 hours in Quebec during a minor storm.

Solar storms follow a cycle and the next maximum after this current period of calm is expected in 2012 and the question that new scientist asks is are we prepared?

We do have NASA's Advanced Composition Explorer(ACE) which can give us up to 15 minutes of warning before a solar storm hits, just enough time to minimise the effects of a solar storm on an electricity grid. However, ACE is coming to the end of its life, it becomes less reliable as time goes on and eventually it will fail. With no imminent replacement on the cards our early warning system would be gone and we might loose our last chance to avoid planetary disaster and the end of the first technological age of mankind.

Until then lets face the moonlight and dance...

2010 switch-on for wave project (BBC)

Cornwall may not be the centre of the universe but it is now going to be the centre for wave energy projects at least from 2010. A great big adapter is being laid on the sea bed so wave projects can just plug into the grid. Over 30 projects can be plugged into the socket.

The £28 million projects is currently in the planning stage but is expected to go live in 2010. It will be used as a test bed to see if ideas work. The benefit is there will no need to be create some expensive grid connection for a project that may not even work as the infrastructure will already be in place.

So good news for the environment, renewable energy, the UK and Cornwall.

The Folly of Growth (New Scientist)

What I love about New Scientist is that they are not just a pure science magazine. With the recent credit crunch they ran a special issue on "The Folly of Growth - How to stop the economy killing the earth".

You see Capitalism is based on a false premise, that we must have continuous growth. The problem with that is with finite resources you cant have continuous growth as at some point resources run out, prices rise and you get shrinkage. This is the fundamental nature of boom and boost, the credit crunch and everything else that is wrong with the economy at the moment.

It means Gordon Brown is wrong, without infinite resources we cant beat the boom and bust cycle. All because of this one simple premise, which everyone can quite clearly see is wrong but no one wants to admit it because to do so would be to admit that capitalism which has worked for 200 years no longer works. A modern tale of the emperors new clothes.

It would suggest that Capitalism is just as flawed as Communism, in fact you could argue that it is more flawed than Communism as to solve the current credit crisis the governments had to move towards communism by part nationalising the banks and increasing government control of the banking system.

Of course with finite resources the logical economic system would be one that is based on efficient use of resources or more precisely sustainable development. So why do we not have a sustainable or steady-state economy already?

Well,such an economy would mean we would have to live within our own means, no more large debts, greatly reduced oil based travel, less hours worked, the redistribution of wealth from the poor, no benefits to saving and investing, and finally greater control over all aspects of our lives.

The transition period would be much harder as well, just think if tomorrow you were told you could no longer own a car, you had restrictions on the electronics you could buy and only 200 air miles for the year for your holidays. Ouch!

Of course there would be an upside, the end of consumerism, the end of boom and bust, less work, less stress, less inequality, living in harmony with nature rather than against it, better public transport, less pollution, stable prices, no income tax (tax would be on inputs and outputs to the environment), less road congestion, the end of global warming, the end of inflation, no more credit crunch, no more tax havens for the rich, stable population and much much more.

So lets look to the sustainable future and lets hope for the better tomorrow becoming reality.

I have to say all the articles in the new scientist special edition were great and are well worth reading, I may even post some more articles about sustainable development soon.

Channel 4 - A crusade against science (the guardian)

This is an interesting article from the Guardian with three interesting points. Firstly, that a major TV channel can appear biased in its documentary output towards global warming. Secondly, that there is a fine line between a documentary considering all arguments and a rant pursuing only one version as fact. Thirdly, that there is almost no regulation or punishment for a media outlet misleading the public or misrepresenting the facts.

The background of all this is that Ofcom has ruled following complaints on a programme broadcast last year called "The Great Global Warming Swindle". Ofcom found that the programme treated two scientists and the IPCC unfairly. Channel 4 have had to give a prime-time apology for the content of the programme. This is the second time Channel 4 have had to apologise for an environmental programme against global warning.

Channel 4 bias on the environment

George Monbiot (Another environmental documentary maker who has worked with Channel 4 in the past) who writes the article identifies a history of bias going back to at least 1990. George identifies a previous documentary called "The Greenhouse Conspiracy" ,which was similar to the global warming swindle programme, as a turning point in the channels output. From then on the output of environmental programmes decreased until 2006. Channel 4 themselves state that since 1990 there have been 5 and a half hours of output supporting the view that global warming is not man made. This says George should be considered against the IPCC stating that there is now a 90% certainty that global warming is caused by man and only 10% uncertainty that it might not be. George states that there is no percentage certainty that it is not caused by man, in fact that there is no reliable evidence showing that man made global warming is not taking place.

I would note that this confidence in the science was not so complete in 1990 but was in 2007. So you may consider that channel 4 may have been justified with the documentary in 1990 provided certain safeguards were in place to suggest that it was not fact and that it was questioning the established view as devils advocate. However in 2007 I would suggest they were seriously misleading the public in their programming. Compare with the change in status of smoking between the middle of last century and now.

Most telling is some of the anecdotes or quotes provided by George Monbiot on the Channel 4 response to such accusations.

"I don't know what's important any more."

- Tim Garden, Director of programmes Channel 4, when asked
why the channel seemed so hostile to the environment.

If the quote is accurate it suggests that Channel 4 has no clear understanding of the issues and what they are broadcasting. Channel 4 has no coherent policy on standards or a peer reviewed authority process to determine the accuracy and reliability of the evidence presented.

The differences between a documentary or rant

There are certain conventions for a documentary and a personal opinion show. A documentary generally has a voice over presenting the facts with views from experts and other clips of supporting evidence. A programme representing a personal opinion generally has the person presenting usually interviewing relevant people again with other relevant clips. A documentary is supposed to present both views before reaching a conclusion, a personal opinion programme would push one view and support that with evidence, it would generally not consider alternative views unless they can be disproved.

This is not a written rule but could be said to be a commonly accepted convention. Therefore creating a personal opinion programme in the style of a documentary could be misleading. This is what Channel 4 allowed from the programme makers for "The Great Global Warming Swindle".

In several programmes over the last 17 years George Monbiot suggests that Channel 4 have made the same mistakes in misrepresenting facts in a claimed environmental documentary.

1. Use of a anonymous and authoritative voice over in the documentary style.
2. Contributors commercial interests not disclosed.
3. Opposing view rarely represented to balance view in areas of uncertain science.
4. Authoritative scientists were edited to appear like cranks where as maverick scientists were edited to strengthen their views and opinion (George states that some authoritative scientists were not even told about the overall tone or stance of the programme).

The examples behind this list are in the article and are well worth reading. The usual suspects are there such as the environmental campaigners funded by oil companies or researchers with inflated positions and qualifications. There are also some unusual claims as well such as the definition of current dates on graphs, in one programme the current date varied from 1970 to 2007.

One of the interesting facts in this case is that the judgment was not based on one page opinion complaints on content. Scientists submitted the first 176 page, peer reviewed submission to Ofcom outlining the main errors and faults of the programme which bear in mind was for a 90 minute programme with adverts. This is a huge 2 pages of report per minute broadcast.

It is clear that Channel 4 have allowed a programme to be broadcast with serious flaws which originate in part from the presentation style.

Ofcom regulation

Ofcom comes across as being almost impotent in forcing broadcasters to give a balanced view. Although they are allowed to regulate news programmes which must be accurate, they are unable to regulate other factual programmes.

In Ofcom's report they stated that they were only able to rule on whether the programme mislead the audience so as to cause harm or offence. In a way it is difficult to imagine how any programme on the environment could cause harm or offence. Certainly with 276 complaints such a view would unlikely to be taken.

Indeed this was the opinion of Ofcom, they did have reservations about the way certain facts were represented but there had been no material breach of the regulation code.

Ofcom did find against Channel 4 on grounds of impartiality but interestingly it could only rule on the 20% of the programme that would influence public policy. The 80% of the show questioning global warming could not be judged as it would not change the government stance on the environment.

In other words provided the government has a clear stance on an issue the documentary can be as biased as it likes.

For the two individual scientists and the IPCC, Ofcom found against Channel 4 on the grounds of fairness, stating that these three and their views had been misrepresented.

The penalty of course was an apology in prime time. Sadly the damage had already been done, according to George Monbiot several recent polls have shown that there has been a decline in the number of people that believe global warming is a real phenomenon as a direct response to this programme.

Conclusions

Currently there is little obligation on a broadcaster to check a documentary for bias and accuracy. Basically a dishonest programme maker can represent his or any organisations view as fact. The only boundaries to that is misrepresenting individual / organisations or broadcasting anything that may cause harm or offence.

This has highlighted a greater need for self regulation for media organisations and stronger regulation and punishment when self regulation fails. Ofcom should be able to pass judgment on factually inaccurate and misleading programmes.

The problem remains that Channel 4 have taken a cavalier approach to programme commissioning and the programme makers themselves have questionable journalistic integrity.

Channel 4 is in a position of trust and has a responsibility to check the accuracy and bias of programmes before broadcasting.

The Future is Bright, the Future is Nano (BBC)

Sometimes you read a news item and you get a feeling this could be the start of the next internet, the small piece of news that will change the world beyond all recognition in years to come.

This is one of those pieces, researchers have built the worlds smallest transistor just 1 atom thick and 10 atoms wide made of a new super material Graphene which is a single layer of graphite (the same stuff in your pencil). You really cant get much smaller than that.

Even better it is a UK research group doing the work from the University of Manchester.

Essentially Graphene will one day replace silicone and is anticipated to be even better than silicon especially in the nanometre range.

Dont expect to see the first Graphene products just yet. The researchers still have to find an efficient manufacturing process and scale it up. It will be at least another 10 years before we start seeing our first products but to be fair they only discovered it four years ago.

I shall leave the last words to Professor Bob Westervelt who was assessing the material and its future applications in the journal, "Science".

"The future should be very interesting"

Devorah Sperbler - pixelated abstract sculptures

These are absolutely fascinating. I first saw an example of these sculptures in New Scientist magazine.

Basically just as a pixelated picture is made up of single pixels of a certain colour, Devorah makes up sculptures out of spools of thread of a single colour.

As Devorah says in the New Scientist article (17 March 2007, pp 52):

"As a visual artist I cannot think of a topic more stimulating and yet so basic than the art of seeing"

- Devorah Sperber

The Science bit is appreciating how our minds process visual information and put it all together to from an image. The idea is that the sculpture makes us think about how the brain interprets the world around which may not be quite the same. The brain could be said to be playing tricks on us, in the same way that movies are still pictures but our brain processes them into moving pictures.

The world is not always quite as our eyes see it.

The day the earth shook and then I went back to sleep

Earthquake felt across much of UK (BBC)

For those of you unaware today there was a minor earthquake in the UK, for people from earth quakes zones it was a minor quake of only 5.2 on the richter scale. For the UK this is a big one, we only get one of these once every thirty years.

Of course the public and the media especially got all excited.

The quake happened just before 1 am and it woke me up. I am about 130 miles away from the epicentre of the quake. I could sense the room moving from side to side and stuff or the building rattling in the roof space.

The immediate thought was that it was an explosion like the Bunsfield oil one or an earthquake. I kind of decided it was a quake and then tried to remember what you did in a quake, stand under a doorway or get outside. This took about ten seconds to think about and then it stopped.

Electricity Still on.

All quiet, no immediate danger.

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ. I went back to sleep.

I am now off to fill in the British Geological Society Earthquake questionnaire on my experiences, contribute to the scientific understanding of Earthquakes in the UK.

The Future of the Car - Part 2

Source: New Scientist, Vol 196 No 2630, 17 November 2007. pp 28-30.

I wrote an article about the future of the car, in July 2007 where I mused about the future of computer controlled cars.

According to the New Scientist article the computer controlled car has come one step closer.

DARPA, the US defence research agency has been running an Urban challenge which builds on their previous challenges for computer controlled cars.

The Urban Challenge was a 6 hour, 100 km race along the roads of a simulated city. All participants must navigate roads, obey the laws of traffic and avoid each other. Not only are there the normal route finding tasks but also individual tasks like parking. Six teams managed to cross the finish line.

There are some features that were not tested that will be needed before we get civilian production models. The cars were not tested against moving objects like people or pets, plus none of the cars reached speeds that would be acceptable out in the normal world.

Having said all that, those tests could come next, so the future is a step closer.

The author of the article had this to say about the driver less future:

"It will also be a long, and maybe un-winnable, battle to persuade people to give up their love affair with driving."

Driving, yes but what about commuting. Who wouldn't want to flip a switch and then fall asleep on the way to and from work. What about nights on the town, cant drink because you have to drive, not any more, let the computer drive you home.

Can't pass your driving test or simply cant be bothered, buy a computer controlled car.

Lost your licence buy a computer controlled car.

I think the author clearly, a keen driver underestimated all the times people cant drive or just hate to drive. It is a much stated fact that people drive because they have to, now there would be an alternative, let the computer drive.

Lets face it who wouldn't want their own chauffeur?

Plus what about costs, lets assume that the computer controlled car is the ultimate in safe driving. Insurance costs would drop, fuel costs would drop as computers are more efficient at fuel efficient driving and the government might even introduce a tax reduction for computer controlled cars.

It may be a slow start but people will give up driving, or at least driving will become a hobby something to enjoy on the weekends or on holidays, not on the boring traffic jam on the way to work.

This Week 50 years ago (New Scientist)

In this weeks New Scientist the accidental discovery of super glue is told.

Apparently a polymer was discovered and thus standard tests were undertaken to establish the physical properties. The refractive index was being measured by squeezing a sample between two prisms.

The extraordinary adhesive property was only found when they tried to separate the prisms after the test. It could not be done.

Just think how easy it might have been for someone just to throw the prisms away without realising the significance of them being stuck together.

New Scientist cover art

The Royal Mail do framed collections of a year's stamps recognising that the stamps are often art work in themselves.

New Scientist magazine should consider doing the same, some of their cover art is inspired and even better you get a new one each week. The only disadvantage is that the cover is always cluttered up with text of what's inside.

To illustrate the artistic nature of the covers, I took the original covers, de cluttered them and the put them in a nice collage. These are some of my favourite covers out of the magazines that I had hanging around. All from either 2006 or 2007.

All copyright belong to New Scientist magazine. On their website you can often see examples of covers and in the archive are all the covers from recent years.

237 reasons to have sex

Seen on 'Short Sharp Science' a recent study has been asking people why they have sex and they have produced a definitive list of 237 reasons. Yes, there are apparently more than the two reasons of "too have fun" and "to make babies". Entire academic article available here.

So extracted from the table of top 50 reasons to have sex for men and women:

M & F: 1. I was attracted to the person.

F: 9, M: 17. I realised I was in love.

F: 39, M:Not in top 50. The person was intelligent.

F: 2, M:3. I wanted to experience the physical pleasure.

F34, M:16. The person had a desirable body.

M & F:7. I was 'horny'.

Going over the table some stereotypes are reinforced but it is also obvious that men and women aren't that different after all. On the scoring side of things men gave higher scores than women suggesting perhaps that women had a wider variety of reasons for having sex where as men have more narrow reasons.

I thought it was all so simple, I wonder if anyone did it for love. The authors of the article then went on to identify four large factors and 13 sub factors.

It all sounds rather interesting, I hope new Scientist do a more detailed article on it at some point which might be a bit more easy going for us non academic researchers.

I have a question though, Can someone fund a study to find out whether more sex goes on at sex psychology conferences than other similar conferences.

The article does not state whether the authors had sex and for what reasons. Perhaps the over analysis of the reasons for having sex put them off the idea and they decided to read a good book instead.

Blogs of Note: Short Sharp Science

Not only is it a bit of a tongue twister but it is also the New Scientist magazine's news blog on all things science.

Always worth a read if you want to know the latest bit of science.

Ten Steps to making Better Decisions (New Scientist)

In May 2007, New Scientist magazine had an article entitled 'How to make decisions', The article outlined and discussed ten steps to help us. The article was a collection of scientific reports and study which supported each step.

Ethically it would be wrong of me to publish the entire 10 steps as it is a subscription magazine and the entire article is not available on the net.

Some of the ten steps are fairly predictable indeed if you wrote down ten things that your parents told you which turned out to be true you would probably get quite close to the New Scientist list.

6. "Don't cry over spilt milk"

This is where we have invested something in a project and are therefore more inclined to stick with it rather than just walk away. Even governments suffer from this, examples include the channel tunnel and Concorde.

If something is no longer a good idea then it is time to walk away. Careers can be like this, you spend ten years working your way up only for the industry to go through a massive restructure. You don't have to go back into the same industry, but we think with ten years experience you would be a fool to walk away now.

7. "Look at it another way"

The Science they bring into this is that the way we frame a problem impacts on our decision.

Consider the following two hypothetical situations taken from the article:

Scenario 1

"Your home town faces an outbreak of a disease that will kill 600 people if nothing is done. To combat it you can chose either programme A, which will save 200 people or programme B, which has a one in three chance of saving 600 people but also a two in three chance of saving nobody. Which do you choose?"

Scenario 2

"You are faced with the same disease and the same number of fatalities, but this time programme A will result in the certain death of 400 people whereas programme B has a one in three chance of zero deaths and a two in three chance of 600 deaths."

Of course most people would choose A in Scenario 1 and B in Scenario 2. The certain saving of 200 people while condemning 400 to death. The media would crucify you either way but that is the curse of disaster management, you make the best decisions you can to save as may lives as possible.

Both scenarios are the same and both result in the same probabilities but because the way the scenario's are framed we are left predisposed to a specific answer. The more positive a statement the more we are likely to agree with it.

"It also explains why healthy snacks tend to be marketed as "90% fat free" rather than "10% fat".

-Ten Steps to making Better Decisions (New Scientist)

Elephants may be able to detect mines by smell

From the sound bites page of NewScientist,21 July 2007.

"They move about with their trunks right on the ground, and it could be that they pick up the scent in this way."

- biologist Ian Whyte at the Jruger National Park in South Africa.

Of course there is now a bit of self selection going on in the Angolan elephant population. This could be evolution in progress. As only mine detecting elephants will survive and prosper. So Angolan elephants could break into a sub species of elephant with fantastic sense of smell in the future. There may be other characteristics that are being self selected as well. At what point will we need to designate these elephants a new species?

Ian Whyte in the National Geographic magazine is more pragmatic and suggested that avoidance of landmines may instead be a result of group learning.

"But they are also intelligent animals which move in groups. Maybe they learn to avoid places where they see other elephants get blown up."

- biologist Ian Whyte at the Jruger National Park in South Africa.

The other part of this story is that following Angola's decades of war there are vast uncharted mine fields which virtually make whole regions uninhabitable. This makes any conservation or re-establishment of wildlife areas impossible.

Mines and un-exploded munitions are a problem in a lot of countries around the world. Although there are some charities that work to clear landmines, there are always more to clear. Animals and humans both suffer and they have to find a way to cope and continue with their lives.

Maybe the elephants what ever way they do it have found one such way.

The Future of the Car

Over the last few weeks I have been thinking about cars and how technologically they don't seem to have developed much in that they still rely on a human driver to do the majority of the work.

Technology is beginning to reach the stage where no one will learn to drive except as a hobby to drive the old cars. These two BBC articles are typical are some of the new technologies that are being developed:

Connected cars 'promise safer roads' (BBC)
Look, no hands (BBC)

According to these articles the car of the future will require no driver and will be constantly forming ad-hoc networks with other local cars to share information about road conditions and traffic jams.

The result fast moving traffic jams, I am thinking it will be a lot like starlings at dusk. All the cars will flock together on the same roads, then come apart only to make up a new traffic jam on another road. It is an unlikely vision of the future but when all the cars are processing all this data and decide an alternative route is appropriate what will happen. If they all run the same program with the same variables wont they all make the same instantaneous decision.

How about a neural network, one that learns from mistakes and adapts to regular routes and localities. Then ever car would be as unique as the owner, but who wants to own a thick car that cant cope with driving round London just because it hasn't been there before.

There is also the consideration of whether we trust computers to do the driving or think that we are the best drivers. Manufacturers know about this pride in our own driving skill and so are introducing technology slowly so we still feel in control.

If computers drove all the cars on the road then in all probability there would be less accidents and less deaths.

"We kill about a million people a year around the globe. Almost every loss of life is a result of human error. Statistics will tell us the truth, that these cars are more reliable than human driving."

- Professor Sebastian Thrun, Stanford artificial intelligence expert.

Of course the one problem trusting computers with safety issues is viruses. What if a rogue car sets out along the road and spreads a virus through these ad-hoc networks and overrides the safety protocols causing high speed crashes. In reality the systems would be isolated from each other and to gain access to the engine controls you would need to be wired in with a hardware key.

It will probably be one of the most exciting developments in technology, that moment when we trust computers to drive us to work and back.

That is if there is still work to be done by mere mortals or the world hasn't ended in some environmental or technological catastrophe.

Then there is the problem of getting a computer to cope with questions from the kids. How do you program a computer to satisfactorily answer the question "Are we nearly there yet?".

Zephyrist's sunday night briefs - week 17, 2007

Well this week saw the local elections in the UK, the first of the May three day freakin weekends and tornadoes in the mid US.

Just what was I looking at on the interweb this week:

Spacecraft returns Jupiter images (BBC)

I like stories that look to the stars. This article shows the latest pictures of Jupiter by the NASA New Horizons spacecraft (what is the difference between a spacecraft and a probe?). There are some really fantastic photographs. According to the NASA home page for New Horizons some of the pictures taken are for artistic rather than scientific value.


I quite like this one entitled Two moons over Jupiter (artistic photograph). You can find out more on the picture by clicking on it to go to the NASA page.





Bush honours Queen at White House (BBC)

Two notable parts to this story, one is the customary bit where Bush puts his size 12's straight in it. Apparently the Queen was not amused although from what was said not surprisingly.

The other bit of note is the Queen is now doing her bit for the environment. With each of these state visits the carbon emissions of the air miles will now be offset as a cash donation to an environmental charity.

That is it for this week, obviously all the news this week was rather mundane and not worth clipping because that is the end of the file for Zephyrist's Sunday night briefs.

Scientists find most Earth-like planet yet (CNN)

Well European Scientists have found the most earth like planet yet, a planet with a similar temperature as Earth which could therefore sustain liquid water and potentially life.

Unfortunately scientists are a bit useless at naming things and have called it '581 c'. In order to correct this mistake I hereby use the ancient method of naming new places that are similar to old places by naming the planet 'New Earth'.

So what do we know about 'New Earth', well a full rotation of the 'New Sun' takes just 13 days so an octogenarian will be just getting ready to go to primary school.

Gravity is a bit heavier at 1.6 times earth's gravity so people might be naturally shorter, who knows they might even be ewoks.

The red dwarf 'new sun' will be twenty times larger than our 'old sun' and the planet may not even rotate.

The scientists were very cautious about the discovery and the possibility of life on 'New Earth':

"It's a nice discovery. We still have a lot of questions."

Michael Mayor - University of Geneva Astronomer

So we may be at the start of the journey to find out whether there is life out there. What if on 'New Earth' there are astronomers looking to the stars who are also announcing the discovery of a planet orbiting a bright yellow star which is twenty times smaller than their sun. Who discovered who first, and will they be our first visitors at only 20 light years away.

Of course when we finally get round to destroying earth we now have somewhere for the escape pods to head for.

So this is the first earth like planet to be discovered but where there is one there is likely to be many so we will have to get much better at naming them.

The truth may still be out there ...

Zephyrist's sunday night briefs - week 16, 2007

Well this week I have been google earth train-spotting. I cant remember much from the news except more bleak news from Iraq and concerns about rising UK inflation and interest rates.

Here are some of the things that have crossed my desk this week:

A hard rain's a-gonna fall (Guardian)

I was watching the film "The Day after tomorrow" where abrupt climate changes causes super cell ice storms and floods, freezing New York. It is an excellent disaster movie but it supposedly has science in it. So is the film based on accurate scientific theories or is it just Hollywood fiction. Find out in the Guardian article.

On a personal note I was hopping it would be more like the BBC drama 'Super Volcano' with science being central to the story. In "The Day after tomorrow" they didn't get the same balance and really should have skipped the bit where the dad was the scientist, it would be an easier plot if the dad was like a marine, fire or police officer. Then they could concentrate on the rescue as the main plot and the politics / science as a back drop.

Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future (Guardian)

Everyone looks to the future including governments and companies. The Ministry of Defence has looked 30 years into the future and this article reports what they see.

Here are some quick bullet points:

• electromagnetic weapons will be operational
• Neutron weapons will be in use
• Unmanned delivery / weapons platforms will be used
• Electronic brain implants hard wired to the brain
  
• flash mobs - rent a mob by internet
• Middle classes become revolutionaries against the super rich
• The terrorism threat will grow
• The threat from climate change will grow with potentially the start of a temperature drop in Northern Europe.

Russia threatening new cold war over missile defence (Guardian)

The cold war may have ended but no one seems to have told the Americans and Russians. The US continues to build super weapon technology in order to protect itself from countries such as Iran or North Korea. This method of building super defence technology just antagonises everyone and helps create the uncertain world we live in and suggests the Americans would prefer war to diplomacy.

Now they are planning to place a new missile defence system in Eastern Europe which could potentially start a new nuclear arms race.

'Smart dust' to explore planets (BBC)

This is just like one of those science fiction stories. Intelligent computer chips as small as dust particles get blown on the wind exploring an alien planet (earth in the science fiction plot version).

They are able to act over a local network with each other to distribute computing power.

I can see a horror movie script in this story.

Another week done, tune in next week for more of the same.

Drugs may boost your brain power (BBC)

This story might seem a bit dull until you start to think about some of the implications for society.

This article tells us about two studies, first a scientific investigation into whether such drugs work and second a study into how such drugs might effect society.

If you assume they do work what are the implications for society?

Well you could theoretically buy intelligence, buying the pills would give you an edge over other people that didn't in exams, jobs etc. Would exams have to get harder to compensate or would pills be banned for exams to level the playing field?

What about employment, as part of high performing schemes companies could insist that managers take the drugs to enhance their performance. Could taking the drug be written into someone's contract if the company paid for the drugs?

What about the long term health effects, it will be decades before any time bomb is realised. What if prolonged use leads to parkinson's, alzeheimers or cancer?

One area of life that the article does mention is at school, parents will push the drugs onto children to enhance their performance at school, so they can get in the right schools and get the best chance in a career. If you as a parent chose not to let the child use the drugs would that constitute child abuse?

The UK Government has commissioned a report to assess the impact of 'intelligence' drugs on medicine and society. The report will be published later this year.

I always thought it was going to be brain implants or biochemical body enhancements that would create this kind of social divide but it seems I forgot the power of the pill, intelligence in tablet form.