Sometimes I like to think that in the 1990's (or at least before the Eternal September, but then I wasn't online yet) Internet and its services were somehow well organized and people knew how to use them. It isn't true, of course, but some things were better. Email was plain text and messages contained a well-formed signature - often set by the system administrator. This was my experience at Helsinki University of Technology in 1997.
Today, emails can be html, there might not be a plain text part at all, they might have background colors, images and even animations. Instead of a well-formed signature, there might be none or maybe a huge company logo. Even in official communications, you might get no hints of the identity of the sender of the email
Let's take an imaginary example of how emails often look like...
From: caw@umich.edu
To: mstuomel@umich.edu
Subject: Meeting tomorrow
Hi! Shall we meet tomorrow at 5:00 PM?
Cathy
Alright... Who is this person anyway? Some female member of the University of Michigan academic community, I would imagine. Her (nick)name is Cathy and her username seems to be caw. I might or might not find more information with Google or University of Michigan's search engine.
What if I need to contact her to tell I am late? Her email does not contain a phone number, or her faculty home page's URL. It does not even contain her real name. It might be Cathryn A. Witgenstein or Katrina Wu from what I know. She does not care or she does not realize that she should care.
This another imaginary example from the 1990's would be better:
From: Catherine A. Winston <caw@umich.edu>
To: Mikko Tuomela <mstuomel@umich.edu>
Subject: Meeting tomorrow
Hi! Shall we meet tomorrow at 5:00 PM?
--
Catherine A. Winston
Associate Professor, University of Michigan School of Information
caw@umich.edu | (734) 123-4567 | http://www.si.umich.edu/people/caw
Ah! Now I have all the relevant information and also a web address where I can find more.
This post was inspired by all the emails I have received through the years. Don't be offended if you think you have inspired me!
A common argument for teaching Creationism (or Intelligent Design) in public schools is that we should let the kids decide for themselves which seems correct, so we would respect their intelligence and freedom and so on. This seems to be what the Republican Governor of Texas Rick Perry - also a presidential candidate - believes.
There is one problem. Evolution is the prevailing theory explaining the origin of species and it is backed by science. If other scientific theories (and the scientific method in general) should be challenged in the classroom by non-scientific (or scientific but very unpopular) theories, the curriculum would be pretty absurd. This is actually the easy part.
But what about things that are not exactly science but questions of ethics, politics and so on? I would assume that Texans take certain things for granted - for example that you are allowed to defend yourself and your property or that you are allowed to start your own business, or marry whoever you wish. What if these "beliefs" would be required to be challenged in the classroom?
Consider these debates:
Socialism vs. Free market economy: Even though USA is generally in favor of free markets, why should the children be taught that this is the default or the best system? Why not Communism? Many things are better in Cuba than in United States, and Soviet Union's society had many advantages over the American one.
Militarism vs. Pacifism: There is a considerable amount of known thinkers in favor of non-violent resistance, pacifism and generally peaceful conflict resolution. I think Jesus, Mahatma Gandhi and John Lennon would be among these. Still, the situation where U.S. military conducting combat operations around the world does not seem to be challenged. Where is the challenge of this prevailing view, that violence can be justified?
Consumerism vs. Environmentalism: People consume and produce trash and pollution. That's very natural in United States and it is not going to change. Why not? The natural resources are not infinite and climate seems to be shifting - so why is this not taught at schools, challenging the traditional ways of the society?
Government vs. Anarchy: Americans seem to be proud of their country, their flag, their liberty and independence. But shouldn't other options be discussed in the classroom, too? The philosophy of anarchy, despising governmental control and authority, could be very interesting to kids. Most Texans also know Jesus, who has often been described as an anarchist thinker of some kind.
If evolution should be challenged, why shouldn't other models about how the world work? You know, we should not feed "the American way" to the kids, we should let them decide for themselves if they want to follow the teachings of Martin Luther King, Mao Zedong, Adolph Hitler, Ron Paul, Robert Heinlein, Jesus, Vladimir Lenin or George Washington, right?
How far would you go letting them decide for themselves?
Computers and computing resources used to be only for professionals. Later, after the advent of the personal computer, individuals could use and operate their own computers, getting the privilege and limitation of the equipment they owned. Ethernet, Internet and other network technologies have since made limited resource sharing between home computers (and others) possible and peer-to-peer networks enable effective horizontal communication without centralized administration. The Gaia Network is the next logical step.
Right now, the home computer is still going strong. Individuals own equipment and associated computing resources. They usually share very little of it to others, yet they might browse Wikipedia with a computer that has a dual core 2 GHz processor and 4 GB of main memory, with 90 % of the 300 GB hard drive unused. In a way, they are using a supercomputer to play Space Invaders. At the same time, when they need even more resources, they need to buy more equipment; it's the only way. They might have other computers, too - desktop computers, laptops, mobile phones, media players - but they cannot offer their resources to boost the computer that is in need.
What if Internet was replaced with a universal network enabling all modern computing devices to share their resources? They would make a self-organizing network, automatically sharing everything they can do, to always provide the most effective computing ecosystem possible. They would be sharing CPU power, processes, memory, storage, specialized interfaces, users... to a common good, to enable feats that are not possible without cooperation. Wherever you would go, your devices would make new friends and assemble a powerful virtual team to do work, retrieve information, process data - to service your needs as a user. Isn't that how humans (optimally) interact?
Dropping one node out of The Gaia Network would mean less resources to share but others would take its place automatically with no visible effect to the result. Because Gaia would constantly organize itself in the most efficient way, bottlenecks around central nodes (as is typical with Internet) would not matter so much.
A turbo boost to computing. A powerful shadow of virtual power. A dream team always around. A virtual exoskeleton in a cloud.
Except that it will not happen.
The owners and operators of computing devices do not want to share their resources. The network is not ready for the amount of traffic and there is no centralized authority to design and implement Gaia. Resource allocation and sharing is not a trivial thing to do and Gaia would need it to be smooth and invisible - and effective, of course. Jealosy is another thing. If some use the power of Gaia to copy new movies, should there also be somebody (or something) to say that it is wrong, or should be allocated less resources? What about abuse, DDOS, privacy issues, copyright issues, anonymity? And think about the children, will you?
The current way of computing seems like the work of a control freak if compared to Gaia. We have our own equipment bought with our own money, used for our own purposes (even if we only use 5 % of its resources), and sharing it might even be illegal even if it was possible.
Cloud computing and distributed computing are, of course, already reality but they fall short of Gaia, a holistic computing ecosystem. The utopia.
Finland sacrifices 0.5 % of its population every year to produce the electricity and heat its population uses. Yes, more than 20 000 citizens are killed every year, with full knowledge. Finland only represents roughly 0.1 % of the world population, so pause for a second to think about the global massacre that is going on.
The article Deaths per TWH by energy source lists the average number of fatalities per source of energy. Not surprisingly, burning coal to produce electricity and heat is very polluting - and causes deaths. Even though it is by far the worst method (by fatality rate), burning other fuels are dangerous, too.
By combining those figures and the table called Electricity and heat production by production mode and fuel in 2009 from Statistics Finland, a very grim figure emerges. Production of electricity and heat kills about 24,000 people annually. Of these, over 19,000 die because of using coal as fuel. 1295 die by oil, 447 by natural gas, 2409 due to biomass/biofuels, 842 by peat, 18 by hydro, 1 by nuclear and 0 by wind and solar. The death toll is about 0.5 % of the population of Finland - every year.
Granted, those deaths/TWh figures are world average and Chinese coal mining and hydro power accidents are included, and so are the fatalities of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster. The actual number of deaths in Finland are thus probably lower and the good preventive health care also counts. We are still talking about deaths of people, an event where life ceases to exist. And this is no surprise - of course we know that ordinary citizens pay the price for polluting and by building coal plants we kill people. In modern world, that is totally acceptable and legal, right?
Alcohol kills less than 2,000 people per year in Finland (source) and traffic less than 400 (source). These causes of death are seen as major problems in the Finnish society and a lot of money and effort goes into preventing these deaths by different campaigns. At the same time, it is known that people die of pollution, but this is not seen so important. And - of course - nuclear power is feared because of the radiation and its potential to wipe out a major part of the population with one accident.
No, 24,000 people do not actually die annually as a direct result of energy production related pollution in Finland. In some other countries the relative death toll is probably above the global deaths/TWh figure but as there are not any Finland-specific figures, I go with the global ones. It should also be noted that the fuel might be imported from abroad and the pollution spreads in the atmosphere, so whatever we do inside one country's borders is not just our problem and we also suffer from others' decisions.
Recently it was announced that Germany will fund new coal plants with money originally meant to fund renewable energy research (Germany to fund new coal plants with climate change cash). Thus, Germany knowingly kills its citizens in thousands, with money intended for research.
These figures are huge. Even if they were only one hundredth of what were listed in the Deaths/TWh article, would they be justified? After all, our industry, our game consoles, trains, lights and hospitals need energy.
And an afterthought: I usually recharge my mobile phone in the evening. It means that some time during the night, it beeps to signal that the battery has been recharged and I should unplug the charger. So, the phone wakes me up to use some calories to unplug the charger, so that I would conserve some 0.1 W of power and that some 8 hours later in the morning the battery would be only 60 % full. And I might not fall sleep again after waking up. That makes no sense.
This is a review of Stephen Baxter's 1996 novel 'Voyage'. It belong to the genre of hard science fiction - it does not depict technologies or phenomenons that go way beyond our understanding of laws of nature. Actually, its events happen roughly between 1970 and 1986 - but not in our history but of a parallel world, where John F. Kennedy did not die in 1963 (though Jacqueline Kennedy did).
I say very hard because the whole book is a detailed description of a space program that could have been real. Stephen Baxter is an engineer by training and many NASA engineers and astronauts were involved in creating 'Voyage'. The story does have human eyes and many of the events are seen through the first female (American) astronaut Natalie York, a civilian scientist who gets chosen to the crew of the first manned Mars mission. A lot of the narrative, however, is actually description about the technical and political aspects of the endeavor. This is, somewhat naturally, the strongest point of the book, and at the same time, the most boring for those who do not care about space technology and manned space flight.
The narrative switches between York's experiences aboard the Ares flight to Mars and her and others' journey through the aftermath of Apollo, astronaut training, NASA internal politics, flight hardware contracting process and, quite importantly, the development of the NERVA nuclear booster stage. We meet York's boyfriend, a couple of fictional astronauts, the fatherly veteran cosmonaut, many NASA administrators and directors. Everything is connected and Natalie York's sometimes cynical attitude reflects the realities of manned space program.
Indeed, York is chosen for astronaut training as one of the new scientist astronauts, to complement the old test-pilot astronauts, who she regards as 'assholes' with a macho attitude. To get freedom handling his characters, Baxter embeds fictional astronauts in the history of spaceflight - Joe Muldoon seems to be a fusion of Deke Slayton and Buzz Aldrin and is described as having been the LM pilot of Apollo 11 and is in the focus as a new director of NASA - and does have many of Aldrin's personality traits. Chuck Jones is a former Mercury astronaut, an archetype of a flight jock, a manly test pilot who perishes with his crew during the Apollo-N test flight. He reminds me of Alan Shepard. The Soviet veteran cosmonaut Vladimir Viktorenko is, of course, the fictional counterpart of Alexei Leonov, even so far as being the commander of the Soyuz/Moonlab mission (counterpart of Apollo Soyuz Test Project), where he meets Joe Muldoon (commander of Moonlab, clearly a counterpart of Deke Slayton in this role).
In the story, Apollo 13 happens as in real history but then President Richard Nixon cancels all future Apollo missions, except for Apollo 14, which is a huge success. After a lot of speculation of the future of the American space program and plans of a Space Shuttle (and launching of two "wet workshop" space stations), Nixon authorizes the manned Mars program, named Ares. It is to employ the NERVA nuclear engine as the third stage of the successful Saturn V booster. However, its first manned test flight goes wrong as the NERVA stage blows up (due to damage after S-I stage pogo oscillates during launch) and the astronauts die of radiation exposure. After this disaster, the NERVA project is cancelled and a Venus flyby trajectory is chosen, with S-II (with extra fuel tanks) acting as injection booster.
The development of the Mars Excursion Module (MEM) by (fictional) Columbia Aerospace and its innovative but obsessive director JK Lee gets a lot of attention in the story. It is a classic tale of heroic engineers - an echo of the Apollo program of the 1960's. Baxter in no way pretends that the engineering work that went into Apollo and in this book to Ares was the right way to work - he makes it very clear how working around the clock does bad things to marriages, physical and mental health and so on. The obstacles of getting the program funded by the Senate are detailed, too.
An excellent YouTube video of the Ares mission as depicted in the book
This is an engineering adventure. All the characters in this novel live for the program. Through them, the reader experiences the process of building a manned space program.
Some details did not completely fit in place. I may be nitpicking, but there is no reference to the actual flight numers of the Ares program. There is only one manned Mars mission - called Ares - but the several test flights are only referred with the mission types, not mission names. Or should I expect a flight to be called "Ares D-prime"? The NERVA test flight was called Apollo-N for some reason. A more logical naming would have been Ares 1 for the first test flight of the program, Apollo-N being maybe Ares 4. The manned Mars flight might have been Ares 12.
The descriptions of Skylab/Moonlab, Saturn VB, mission control and other aspects of (fictional) manned spaceflights are very realistic and vivid. They reflect very much what flying to space is like - or how I would imagine it to be. There are many anecdotes of obsolete technology, fears of disasters and failures and endless notions of the test pilot astronauts' not-so-perfect attitudes towards serious scientific work.
The novel is quite balanced, straight-forward engineering adventure. The reader must withstand tons of technobabble but is also rewarded after going through it all. Everyone interested in manned spaceflight should read this book - not because of the quality of its narrative (which is not bad) but because of the unique and believable vision of how humans would have reached Mars.
As part of the Miss USA 2011 beauty contest, the contestants were interviewed on a variety of subjects. One question was about teaching of evolution: should evolution be taught in public schools? There is still a lot of debate about this matter around United States, especially in the Southern states, where conservative Christian views dominate.
There was a good variety of answers by the very pretty contestants and they speak in a clear and smart manner. Most of them, however, approached the problem with the idea that evolution is a belief or that a student's personal belief's should dictate what is taught at school.
Many of the contestants stress that they personally do not believe in evolution. Because it is a matter of belief, it should not be taught in classroom, or "both sides" should be presented so that children could make their own decisions about which is true.
While I find it worrying that these ladies confuse science with personal beliefs, let us think why they are in this contest in the first place. They are not competing to become science teachers. They are trying to convince the judges that they are not only good-looking but also gentle, friendly and good to present themselves, in a clear and positive manner. They probably aim to work in a profession related to publicity: as a model, actor, presenter.
In what they were expected to do, they did well. They presented themselves as caring, gentle and friendly. The question was presented as a challenge, not as an inquiry about their scientific and theological knowledge. They had no problem speaking their mind and answering the question and many of them extended a hand to "both sides".
At the same time, they present honest and dangerous misconceptions about what science and beliefs mean and what should be taught in the classroom in general. The theory of biological evolution is the prevailing scientific theory about the origin and development of species. There are no other significant theories, so if you want to present the children "the alternative" or "both sides", what should you tell them? Also, should the kids' own (or the parents') conceptions about the matter affect what they are taught?
At the same time, kids should be taught what a theory is and how science is done. They should understand that while there is a theory of evolution, it is not "just" a theory and while you can criticize it like any other theory, it prevails. Creationism, on the other hand, is a religious belief and while some of its claims could be assessed like other details, as a theory it should not be taught in a biology or physics class. Generally, I believe, that it is important to know that people have conflicting views about the origin of the world, but that is not a matter of physics or biology but sociology, philosophy and ethics.
Since Nokia went to panic mode some months ago, it has been led by the new CEO Stephen Elop, formerly of Microsoft. The Finnish media (and foreign, as well) has been publicizing stories about this man and his plans to fix, refine or rebuild Nokia - the pride of Finnish high-tech industry.
I used exclusively Nokia mobile phones from 1996 to 2010 - 1610, 5110, 3310, 3650, 6630, E70 and E71, in that order. Even though I jumped on the Android bandwagon by buying a Samsung Galaxy S a year ago and moved to United States, I have been following what is happening at Nokia - not the least because so many of my friends are employed (either directly or indirectly) by Nokia.
The Symbian operating system showed great promise when its first edition was running on the Nokia 3650. The year was 2003. The user interface was slow and unstable but with it, and the advanced hardware, the phone was ahead of all competition. Period. Many years later, it seemed as Symbian, while evolved, still had the same problems as before. A nasty architecture, stiff user experience and no real support for touch screens (that Nokia avoided). Symbian^3 then arrived, being touted as a great leap for both Symbian and Nokia.
In early 2011, it became clear to Elop and VP Kai Öistämö and the rest of the MeeGo team that their new Linux-based operating system for mobile devices will not be completed quickly enough to have the intended impact. (However, I must wonder how many phones per year do they think they need?). The new Nokia N9 flagship phone was apparently cancelled and most of the MeeGo and Symbian development axed. The Windows Phone operating system from Microsoft was brought in. Elop indeed rocked the boat and caused huge ripples with his (alleged) comments and opinions about Nokia's products.
There has been a lot of speculation about how Nokia actually screwed up. The big and formerly innovative company ended up wasting resources in projects that never matured and managers stopped real innovative projects. Sure, something had to be done and possibly even moving to Windows Phone was the right choice.
I recall Steve Ballmer said that the Finnish engineers are the best in the world (could not find the exact quote). He is probably right. At the same time, there have not been so many positive comments coming from the new CEO of Nokia. He has compared Nokia to a burning platform. What do you do to a burning platform? You probably jump away and abandon and sink it, and build a new one. For a major technology company, that does not sound right. There should be a managed transition.
Right now, there are still millions of happy (or unhappy) users and owners of Nokia's Symbian and Maemo smartphones in the world. Thousands of developers who create software for these platforms and are using the Ovi Store to distribute their work. Millions of outlets around the world selling the phones to customers. As the Symbian and Maemo/MeeGo systems have been effectively abandoned and defaced, what is going to be the sales pitch for these devices? While the systems are being phased out, Nokia still has to put out phones until they can use Windows Phone in all of their new smartphones (excluding S40, of course).
I have the feeling that the message the Nokia of Elop is giving is:
To users: We lied. Actually, our phones are crap and you still use them.
To developers: You are developing for dead platforms. You are idiots. Get a job!
To Nokia employees: You are crap. Get a job!
To affiliates and the distribution network and outlets: You sell crap, and you will be selling crap, until we get our new phones out. Good luck!
Apple is not remembered for its failures (there have been many) but for its successes, but here it seems that the whole Nokia (or at least the mobile communications division of it) is a failure. Stephen Elop might be on the right track in restoring Nokia into a company that actually innovates and makes money but at the same time he rebuilds Nokia into something that is a bit alien to us, and causalities from the destruction of the old Nokia will be haunting its efforts to climb to spotlights. It will be but a hardware manufacturer and I doubt there will be much pride in it.
