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!
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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...

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