Where have all the hippies gone?

It's interesting to observe the difference in response to this weeks release of Iraq war logs by Wikileaks and the response to the Afgan logs. It may be my very limited perspective, but to me it seems there is a lot less news and a lot more speculation. Especially about Julian Assange, poor guy... I don't think I can say I have perfected the art of psychoanalysis, but my impressions of him were not negative, he lead an effort that setup a website that allows within international legal frameworks to maintain secret information and facilitates the release of that information. That's it, right? It seems to me that if anyone deserves prosecution it's 'scum bags' that steal this secret information from the government and other organisations? He can be viewed as an accomplice I guess, but not the initiator.
This recent article in the Economist is appalling, I cannot believe such a generally respected news source is capable of such tabloid crap, and lack of analytic skill: http://www.economist.com/node/17361416?story_id=17361416&fsrc=rss

This guy I think gets it right: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2010/oct/29/wikileaks-julian-assange

Anyway, this is rushed and not exactly gleaming with intelligence, but the desire to expose my 5c to the web is overwhelming :D
... and now back to work!

Fashion

I am sick again... what is this... I run, I don't smoke, I eat health'ily (when I remember), I have beer for dinner... anyway, usually even when I'm sick I run on account of it raising my body temperature and helping to kill off the disease, however, this time round... I feel tired just making lunch, so I'm going to have to pass for a few days. It is such a beautiful day outside, so hard to accept the fact that I can't really muster the energy to go even for a walk... so the sure way to make myself feel better is reading fashion magazines.

Fashion magazines are amazing, full of all kinds of interesting ideas, from the totally horrific, to the sublime. And to my great fortune, this month, also hilarious - the fashion lingo section: "Fancy a quick lunchetta?" - we'll have some 'fabola' bruschetta. "Look at her rocking a Robocop jean" - apparently it says a lot more when you're wearing 'a jean' (I hope this is in no way reminiscent of the denim trend of showing off lower than your navel - fortunately it stopped before the fabric connecting the two 'jean' was removed.) , teamed with deliciously feisty glove, and knee high sock. Hahaha... wait, and is that a Gooch (Gucci) boot? (I love it!) I am typing this from my very own HP Vivienne Tam Butterfly Netbook Clutch now successfully running the 'divine' Ubuntu-lucid!

And one of my fav'etta'?: (I don't think I'm getting it... :P)
"Darling, that camel number really adds texture to your ensemble..." what the???.... but it doesn't have to make sense right? it's fashion.

Military Incompetence and Being a Good Person

Living in central London means you hear a lot of drunk people spilling their souls or stomach contents onto the streets at night. This is fine of course, unless you're an insensitive, selfish person trying to sleep. I happen to be one of these people, and try as I may, even considering my almost inexhaustible capacity to sleep anywhere, any time, my sleeping powers have proven worthless. The best solution to this of course is to fall asleep late enough that your slumber is so deep as not to be interrupted by these noises. And for me the easiest way to achieve this is to fall asleep reading a fascinating/captivating book.

On recommendation of a very interesting friend of mine I started reading a book on "Military Incompetence" and it was indeed fascinating reading first facts of various conflicts which the British had engaged in, and then a psychological assessment of the leaders of the conflicts. I am not sure if this is an entirely correct view, but this assessment made me realise that most of the qualities that good commanders/leaders should have, I definitely want - not only that, I see as necessities for being a good/reasonable person.
This of course is a simplistic view - as being a good military commander doesn't mean you're a good person, and being a good person is definitely not going to ensure that you're a good military commander - or is it? I guess what I'm trying to say is that being a good military commander necessitates being in possession of some qualities of a good person (...terribly insightful :P).

Ah, why is nothing ever simple! One of the most interesting point raised by the book is this idea of 'cognitive dissonance' something I am feeling right now...
...as well as sleepy :) Yay! So I'm going to have to leave this - until I thoroughly mull over these ideas and achieve cognitive consonance :D

Lunchtime

So I have again noticed that I am reading too many work related texts, and forgetting who the Prime Minister of Australia is (yes... I have actually done that... Kev, who?... very embarrassing...)... so at lunch I decided to peruse a favourite journal - Foreign Affairs, and found this very interesting article: Hydraulic Pressures - http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/66578/james-e-nickum/hydraulic-pressures?page=show.

The whole article I thought was interesting, well written, and especially at the end, some very interesting comments:

As water experts say, water flows uphill to money. The rich and powerful, frequently the urban and industrial, have the biggest pumps. And there often is an inverse relationship between economic rationality and political rationality: the economic laws of scarcity push prices up even as the political laws of scarcity give officials a reason to keep prices down. Another complication is that water problems are irremediably connected, sometimes as a symptom and sometimes as a cause, to many other issues: globalization, demographics, governance, energy, health, the role of women and children, the environment. The world's water problems reflect all the world's problems.

But finally, what made me reflect a little (off topic of the water crises), is the next to last sentence on the issues, and namely the particular mention of 'women'. It didn't say: people, children, the environment, women were singled out. I guess the reason this struck a chord was that as far as we have come in equality in Western countries, there are still so many many places where women are less than people.

Damnit!

How hard is it to install linux on a netbook?!

Hmmm.... well, not as easy as I expected...

1. My netbook has no CD drive (obviously)
2. While my netbook was still running Windows7 (God I hate this OS!) I downloaded the Fedora distro and created a bootable USB disk.
3. Installed Fedora, but wait.... my mouse touchpad doesn't work, and and actually, the wireless driver was not installed (there goes any chance of 'yumming' and finding the mouse fix).
4. Surprisingly difficult to navigate the menus with a keyboard - if anyone knows how to activate the menus at the top with a keyboard shortcut, please let me know I couldn't find anything online.
5. So... now continuing this at home was not an option, had to go into work. However, at work, my network connection is tied to my work computer. Which is a Mac... but that's okay, I downloaded the wireless drivers, and installed them, and went home.
6. They didn't work.
7. :( So, stuff it, neither did the mouse - it's funny reading recommendations on how to fix the fact that the touchpad doesn't work: "just click on Applications -> System -> etc... - but what if my mouse doesn't work?!)
8. Okay, got an external mouse, but the wireless still didn't work. So now, I'm thinking I'll just give up on Fedora, and try Ubuntu... heard it's doing okay these days...
9. Go into work again...
10. Onto the Ubuntu website for netbook installs. Remember I have a Mac at work, so I need to click - creating bootable USB from Mac. Do the thing, and of course, it's considered that if you create a bootable USB/CD from a Mac, you're necessarily going to use it on the same Mac.... ! AH! So of course it does nothing to my netbook when I try to boot from it.
11. So, fortunately, I have a virus ridden, 3 year old Dell that runs Windows/Linux from my thesis days which I won't touch until I get 'that' piece of paper...
12. So, I download the install manager and Ubuntu image from the website onto Mac, transfer it USB drive...
13. And my virus riddden Dell runs out of battery and shuts down.
14. Of course! I forgot I had moved to the UK, so I need an adapter to power the computer, which I had taken home for the weekend, and the batteries are shot. DAMN IT!
15. You know, usually, I'm not so badly prepared... but this moving country, getting a netbook pre-installed with Windows7 and so much stupid dumb software it runs slower than a snail... AHG!
16. Okay, okay, I calm myself down. Can I use the power from the netwook...? no the power cable is 3 pronged... can I use the power cable from a Mac.... no, it's a Mac.
17. Hahaha, so now I a starting to see the 'funny side', so I go get a power cable (I need one anyway)....Boot up the virus ridden Dell, make the USB bootable, and fortunately no visible virus folder pop up as they do....
18. Insert into the netbook, and boot.... so far so good..... finally....

Loss of Perspective

Hmmm... I guess because the Wikileaks issue with releasing the "War Diaries" is really challenging quite a few societal norms, that I am still interested in it. However, I realized to my horror that the state of play that is currently being held - with Wikileaks intending to release 15,000 more files on top of the 70,000 they have already released is a huge perversion. Whereas previously I think the intentions of Wikileaks could have been justified by the need to expose the reality of the war (which frankly I think a lot of people who had ever seriously thought about it would have recognised), now their threats to expose the additional 15,000 is just about showing off - that they can. What honorable aim can they possibly think to achieve by this action? I guess I wait to find out...
On another note, I heard in an interview recently they mentioned that a volunteer was detained by the US at the airport, and their laptop etc confiscated and searched for data. Fortunately we were told it was of course already sanitised - I wonder how? How can you remove data from a HDD securely - low level format? (takes forever!!!) or bring a strong magnet over the drive?...
Anyway, I guess I wait to see the unfolding of the events, and I trully hope that this war is not based on whose ego is bigger... :(

Secrets

After some more thought... (aside note, it's amazing how much time you have to think when you're on holidays, and how sluggishly you actually do it...) I think what I wrote earlier about secrets and whom they belong to is not right at all. Considering that secrets which bring someone to harm are actually no longer yours to keep (innocent or not? - may be a different aspect). It is a different point about whether they should be revealed to the whole world, or should specific organizations be targeted.
Now to roll over and tan... :P

The morality of Wikileaks?

I feel way behind my time here... I just now discovered Wikileaks through browsing TED and stumbling upon Julian Assange's interview - http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/julian_assange_why_the_world_needs_wikileaks.html.
I take my PhD project as a reason for being so desperately ill informed. And I make a note here that while being an idiot may be a reason for an action, or state of mind as in this case, it's definitely not an excuse.
In any case, it's all new just now, so I have not yet formed an opinion, but I wonder the morality of the project?
My initial reaction is to praise their efforts, but I wonder the implications. It's obvious to say that the media has a huge effect on people, consequently, it's doubtful that the project simply releases material as it comes. Even with best intentions there must be a priority list, and this in itself has the potential to send a message rather than simply reveal the 'truth'/facts objectively.
...........
After some discussion, it seems that the situation runs thus:
1. A secret is always someones private property.
2. Every individual will be against publicity of their personal secret.
3. and, yet, if the secret is big enough we are all for publicity of other peoples secrets... hmm... seems like a dirty motive hiding behind under the guise of higher order morality - freedom of speech and public knowledge.

Although it must be acknowledged, that theoretically it can be argued that a democracy cannot by its tenets have 'secrets' and must be transparent. What is truth and what are facts? So many times a sentence taken out of context can be grossly misinterpreted, a partial image illustrate provide a completely erroneous representation of a situation. Is it possible that it may be unethical to reveal all secrets simply because it is impossible to provide their context and as a result they are in themselves lies.

Life is rarely black and white, there is no truth or fact, just a context or point of view. The history of mankind has demonstrated countless times just how easily the public is manipulated.
Back to the general point however, whether the publication of 'secrets' or rather material which an organization spends effort to conceal from the public (?) is ethical. Gosh, personally, I feel like I am opting out from taking a side because I can think of situations whereby it seems absolutely imperative for a fact to be made public, and efforts to conceal it are a crime. Yet, of course as mentioned above it is private property and public knowledge is a violation of human rights.

Information is power, and there is no way of objectively representing it and letting it loose to the general public whose levels of readiness to accept the information and act reasonably are varied if at all in existence. Consequently it must be controlled and whose to say that those that control it will not manipulate it to their own secret benefit.
Hahaha, now I sound as thought I have my own conspiracy theory... :) But it's just all too complicated.... I guess my final view of the matter is this: every action must have a goal or aim to which it strives otherwise it is not reasonable. Possessing information and control over its dissemination is a way of achieving an aim, not recongnising this is foolish and I doubt wikileaks are guilty of such ignorance.

Wise words, I think I am in love

Hahaha, why not? :)

"I simply did not believe, except so far as mere statements of experimental facts were concerned. This had its disadvantages; one can get on faster if one has sufficient faith - which we know can move mountains - to accept certain hypothesis unhesitatingly as a fact, and work out its consequences undoubtingly, regardless of the danger of fixing one's ideas prematurely."

The Altruism of our Time

It has concerned and irritated me for some time the increasing amount of material (of all forms) on the subject of our common human baseness, our ignorance and lack of care of the environment, our consumerism, our 'bigger is better'/'more is better' attitude which is destroying the Earth, our one and only home. Reflecting back on the days when human society was more about giving, was more altruistic. Looking back at the days of the bush men tribes, where it was a live and let live society, in harmony with mother Earth and her other children.

I'm relatively sick of this.

I wonder if my idea on the progression of our global societies, explaining its current state, is correct... The idea that I have is this...

Previously when religion permeated all societal acts and expressions, selfishness was considered evil. Selfishness back in those days was associated with not sharing with your neighbour, not being pious, not giving to the needy, not turning the other cheek, etc etc, your sacrifices in this life, would mean great gifts in the next. Basically, the ethics of the day, was that altruism in your expression of life within your society was admirable/good.

Then came the age of Enlightenment (check), the philosophers of the day moved away from God, embraced free thinking: what do you think is good or bad. The 10 commandments are seen to be the means to survival, are we born with an inherent understanding of good/bad... etc etc. Then the movement of capitalism shouldering its way to the surface from the deluge of communism and similar societal structures, which are the embodiment of the previously admired altruism. The world begins to shun the idea of socialism, and marketing through its amazing intuition/understanding(?) of the human psyche begins to sell us our image.

(Aside idea, previously farming enable people not to all be farmers and toil over the land to eat, this 'progress' has come so far, then, sewing machines allowed us to stop being tailors for ourselves, and so on. Is it possible that we have come so far, that these days we are able to even buy an image? I guess that is partly true, not only through the fashion trends, and styles of today, but with the increasing popularity and inventiveness of online gaming, where you can in actual fact be the perfect blonde, size 8 barbie you have always wanted to be...)

Altruism on a societal level is now shunned (e.g. Ayn Rand philosophy (which from the outlook as been largely embraced by society), and frankly reads well for the first few pages, but its so fundamental that it doesn't take long to get the idea... and yet, you notice there are still many pages to be read... and it starts to be tedious, and read like a religious text, marred by fanaticism and elitism which is tedious. But, if you know Hank Rearden, say hi for me ;)).

Okay, so I come to the point, that altruism while being shunned on a societal level has taken root on a personal level. Is it possible that whereas before 'we' were taught to give concessions to others who were not as fortunate as 'we', and bear the burden of 'their' idiocy or just downright cretinism. Having stepped away from this mode of 'thinking about others' (before yourself, okay, I know that society didn't actually do this all the time, if at all, but it was the ethical structure back then... society at least talked about it. It was filled with 'saints' who scarified themselves for others, or greater good.), now, in rejecting this idea of selflessness, and turning to 'ethical' selfishness, it has forgotten that 'ethical selfishness' has two sides: the necessity, the inherent responsibility of looking after yourself and building your own morality.

These days people are selfish, (its so easy to be, comes so naturally :D), but they are altruistic when it comes to recognising their own faults, and working on rooting them out. These days the mantra is: accept me for who I am, me for me... Even though I just bough 'me' on sale at Myer/Maceys... Hahaha...My goodness... it's laughable... :)

Hopefully, 'we' get over this, self indulgent outlook/inlook? I guess this is my irritating contribution to the plethora of stuff written on how bad we are as a society :D But you know... at least there's hope here, and not just the empty words of 'we have the power to make a change', 'every little bit counts', but phrased like this: you're not okay the way you are. Okay, seriously, but still in a tongue in cheek way, I would have to end it like this: think more, and feel less.

Probability Theory As Extended Logic

has a magical ring to it, doesn't it? :)

Edwin Jaynes was the driving force behind this idea - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwin_Thompson_Jaynes.

Something to be proud of! :)

The day started as most days do in the last few months, wake up, think about thesis, get up, have breakfast thinking about thesis. Sit at desk, and work on thesis... then dad called me to help him with his windows reinstallation as there were some things not working properly....hmmmm....easy....
It was a 3 partition drive (1. for the OS; 2. for data; 3. for more data). Dad wanted me to wipe the first partition, do whatever it took to get the sound card working....
Anyway, so this is were the story gets long because I misunderstood, and thought I had complete reign of the whole computer....so I, deleted all partitions:

1. Formatted from an ntfs (a 3 partition drive) to linux and installed fedora (to check if the hardware was okay under a different OS - it was)
2. Formatted the linux single partition into 3 sections, and installed windows....

Then, realised (with dad's help and shock/horror expression) that there was precious data on partition 2 and 3 of the original drive....

OH MY GOODNESS! I can't even begin to re-live the sinking feeling and cold sweat you succumb to when you realise you deleted someone else's data (I wouldn't have felt so bad about my data - I have had a few experiences of this myself, and it doesn't feel nearly as bad).

Anyway, after two days of agony and pouring over the internet, learning about NTFS/ext3 and keeping positive (the thought that the military shoots holes through their drives to completely render their data deleted)....it's over, everything is safe and sound, and I am expert at hdd recovery! :) I even managed to recover the mounting point (and mount it) for the third partition!

The software that saved the day and that I highly recommend (after trying at least three others) is: Active@ UNDELETE 7 Professional. It is simple, elegant and best of all works! It's embarrassingly easy to use, and basically all that I learned in the two days of 'recovery mode' I didn't need if I had found that software right at the start.

Climate Change

Some time back, we would be talking of ‘global warming’, a scientific hypothesis that human induced carbon emissions are substantial enough to alter the climate and weather patterns of our planet. These days we talk
of ‘climate change’, and this expression not only more accurately describes the climatic events (which are no longer just ‘warming’) that have been observed and are being predicted but most importantly gives credence to the fact that this is becoming a ‘phenomenon’ of sorts. Climate change is no longer just affecting our climate system, but through peoples efforts it is having an effect on our thinking, society, our markets, policy, economics, and industry. Sadly constantly the phrase rings out – I ‘believe’ in climate change, I do not ‘believe’ in climate change.

I hope we are all here because we do not believe in climate change, but because as we see its far reaching influence, we want to ‘know’ more about it.

My thesis abstract!

Finally, the latest draft of my abstract is ready, hope it makes sense :)
I really cannot wait to submit!
-----------------------------------
Antarctic sea ice and its snow cover are integral components of the global climate system, yet many aspects of their vertical dimensions are poorly understood, making their representation in global climate models poor. Remote sensing is the key to monitoring the dynamic nature of sea ice and its snow cover. Reliable and accurate snow thickness data from an airborne platform is currently a highly sought after data product. Remotely sensed snow thickness measurements can provide an indication of precipitation levels. These are predicted to increase with effects of climate change, and are difficult to measure as snow fall is frequently lost to wind-blown redistribution,
sublimation and snow-ice formation. Additionally, accurate regional scale snow thickness data will increase the accuracy of sea ice thickness retrieval from satellite altimeter freeboard estimates.

Airborne snow depth investigation techniques are one method, providing a means for regional estimation of these parameters. The airborne datasets are better suited to validating satellite algorithms, and are themselves easier to validate with in-situ measurement. The development and practicality of measuring snow thickness over sea ice in Antarctica using a helicopter borne radar forms the subject of this thesis. The radar design, 2 - 8 GHz Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave Radar, is a product of collaboration and the expertise at the Centre for Remote Sensing of Ice Sheets, Kansas University.
This thesis presents a review of the theoretical basis of the interactions of electromagnetic waves with the snow and sea ice media. The dominant general physical parameters pertinent to electromagnetic sensing are presented, and the necessary conditions for unambiguous identification of the air/snow and snow/ice layers for the radar are derived. It is found that the roughness of the snow and ice surfaces are a dominant determinant in the effectiveness of layer
identification in this radar. Motivated by these results, the minimum sensitivity requirements for the radar are presented.

Experiments with the radar mounted on a sled confirm that the radar is capable of unambiguously detecting snow thickness. Helicopter borne experiments conducted during two voyages into the East Antarctic sea-ice zone show however, that the airborne data are highly affected by sweep frequency non-linearities, making identification of layering difficult. A model for the source of these non-linearities in the radar is developed and verified, motivating the derivation of an error correcting algorithm. Application of the algorithm to the airborne data set demonstrates that the radar is indeed receiving reflections from the air/snow and snow/ice interfaces.

Consequently, this thesis presents the first in-situ validated snow thickness estimates over sea ice in Antarctica derived from a Frequency Modulated Continuous Wave radar on a helicopter-borne platform. Additionally the ability of the radar to independently identify the air/snow and snow/ice layers allows for a relative estimate of roughness of the sea ice to be derived; this parameter
is a critical component necessary for assessing the integrity of satellite snow thickness retrieval algorithms such as those using the AMSR-E data product.

This thesis provides a description and solution or mitigation of the many difficulties of operating a radar from a helicopter-borne platform, as well as tackling the difficulties presented in study of heterogeneous mediums such as sea ice and its snow cover. In the future the accuracy of the snow depth retrieval results can be increased as technical difficulties are overcome, and at the same time the radar architecture can be simplified. However, further validation studies are suggested to better understand the effect of the heterogeneous nature of sea ice and its snow cover on the radar signature.

Oliver Heaviside

I have known Oliver Heaviside's work, and a little of his life for a long time of course, but today I am particularly full of admiration. Here is a photograph of him (from wiki... duh :D)

the agony of wanting to do nothing...

.