Friday, 1 September 2017
Barring women from the military makes not a lick of sense
I'm currently reading John Man's Amazons. Female warriors are neither new nor somehow inferior to men. It's blindingly simple : set everyone the same entry requirements and if they meet them, let them join. Equal opportunity must be the goal, not equal numbers (which would be daft).
The Royal Air Force has become the first branch of the British military to open up every role to men and women. From Friday it will accept applications from women to join the RAF Regiment - its ground-fighting force. The Army and Navy will open also roles to all genders over the next 12-18 months.
The main role of the 2,000-strong RAF Regiment, which sustained casualties in Afghanistan, is to patrol and protect RAF bases and airfields. Women make up 14% of the air force as a whole - compared to 10% for the whole military.
BBC Defence Correspondent Jonathan Beale says it is a significant moment because it means women can now apply for any RAF role, from fighter pilot to ground support.
The former head of British forces in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp, told BBC Breakfast he "vehemently disagrees" that women should be serving in close combat roles - because of their physical capability. He said: "Once you have got through selection, you are subjecting yourself to a minimum of four years of intensive physical training, day in and day out, in barracks and out of barracks, which puts enough of a strain on a man's body."
Quoting statistics that women sustain around twice as many serious injuries as men do during training, Colonel Kemp added: "I think the reality is we will find many more women than men suffer injuries… and we will then undoubtedly see very significant compensation payments being made out of the defence budget.
Because women are totally incapable of understanding that, I suppose.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-41119863
The Royal Air Force has become the first branch of the British military to open up every role to men and women. From Friday it will accept applications from women to join the RAF Regiment - its ground-fighting force. The Army and Navy will open also roles to all genders over the next 12-18 months.
The main role of the 2,000-strong RAF Regiment, which sustained casualties in Afghanistan, is to patrol and protect RAF bases and airfields. Women make up 14% of the air force as a whole - compared to 10% for the whole military.
BBC Defence Correspondent Jonathan Beale says it is a significant moment because it means women can now apply for any RAF role, from fighter pilot to ground support.
The former head of British forces in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp, told BBC Breakfast he "vehemently disagrees" that women should be serving in close combat roles - because of their physical capability. He said: "Once you have got through selection, you are subjecting yourself to a minimum of four years of intensive physical training, day in and day out, in barracks and out of barracks, which puts enough of a strain on a man's body."
Quoting statistics that women sustain around twice as many serious injuries as men do during training, Colonel Kemp added: "I think the reality is we will find many more women than men suffer injuries… and we will then undoubtedly see very significant compensation payments being made out of the defence budget.
Because women are totally incapable of understanding that, I suppose.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-41119863
Flying cars won't be stopped because they're risky - nothing else ever was
Nice (but short) summary of the current state of the art.
Dubai is racing to be the first to put drone taxis in the air. In June, its Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) signed an agreement with a German start-up Volocopter to test pilotless air taxis towards the end of this year. The firm has received 25m euros (£22m; $30m) from investors, including German motor manufacturer Daimler, to develop the 18-rotor craft capable of transporting two passengers at a time.
Dubai's RTA has also teamed up with China's Ehang and is testing the drone maker's single passenger Ehang 184 "autonomous aerial vehicle".
In February, ride-sharing giant Uber poached Nasa chief technologist Mark Moore and set him to work heading their Project Elevate - "a future of on-demand urban air transportation". Airbus, the French aircraft maker, is also working on a prototype air taxi, Vahana, saying it will begin testing at the end of 2017 and have one ready by 2020.
"If one crashes, who's ever going to take a drone?"
Who's going to take a car if one crashes ? Or a balloon ? Or if a ship sinks ? The same thing was said about space tourism. Then the inevitable happened to Virgin Galactic, and people still press on. Deep down, we know that accidents happen. Truly zero risk is impossible. Trying to achieve it is completely counter-productive.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-41088196
Dubai is racing to be the first to put drone taxis in the air. In June, its Roads and Transport Authority (RTA) signed an agreement with a German start-up Volocopter to test pilotless air taxis towards the end of this year. The firm has received 25m euros (£22m; $30m) from investors, including German motor manufacturer Daimler, to develop the 18-rotor craft capable of transporting two passengers at a time.
Dubai's RTA has also teamed up with China's Ehang and is testing the drone maker's single passenger Ehang 184 "autonomous aerial vehicle".
In February, ride-sharing giant Uber poached Nasa chief technologist Mark Moore and set him to work heading their Project Elevate - "a future of on-demand urban air transportation". Airbus, the French aircraft maker, is also working on a prototype air taxi, Vahana, saying it will begin testing at the end of 2017 and have one ready by 2020.
"If one crashes, who's ever going to take a drone?"
Who's going to take a car if one crashes ? Or a balloon ? Or if a ship sinks ? The same thing was said about space tourism. Then the inevitable happened to Virgin Galactic, and people still press on. Deep down, we know that accidents happen. Truly zero risk is impossible. Trying to achieve it is completely counter-productive.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-41088196
Thursday, 31 August 2017
Realistic 3D scans from your phone
Impressive.
Sony has revealed new smartphones that can create detailed 3D scans of almost any object using the phone's camera. The company said the innovation was possible thanks to the power of the processor in its latest handsets. It unveiled a series of new devices at the Ifa technology show in Berlin.
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-41111442/sony-phone-app-takes-3d-clone-snaps
Sony has revealed new smartphones that can create detailed 3D scans of almost any object using the phone's camera. The company said the innovation was possible thanks to the power of the processor in its latest handsets. It unveiled a series of new devices at the Ifa technology show in Berlin.
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/technology-41111442/sony-phone-app-takes-3d-clone-snaps
Wednesday, 30 August 2017
Cheap drone deliveries can save lives
The content is fine but the editing isn't. Not only does it have the dreaded excess of one-sentence "paragraphs" but it jumps randomly between topics. So I've fixed it.
US robotics company Zipline, which launched the world's first commercial drone delivery service, in Rwanda, says it is close to expanding to Tanzania. It has been delivering emergency blood supplies within Rwanda since 2016. Chief executive Keller Rinaudo told the TEDGlobal conference that he was in talks with Tanzania's government to open four distribution centres.
Mr Rinaudo said he hoped a deal would allow the start-up to fly a range of medical products to thousands of Tanzania's health centres. "Having an agile supply chain for healthcare makes a big difference in improving access and empowering doctors," he said at the TED event in Arusha, Tanzania.
Billions of people lack adequate access to essential medical products such as blood and vaccines, and more than five million children die every year because of a lack of access to basic medical products, according to Mr Rinaudo. The company charges between $15 and $45 (£11.60 to £34.85) per delivery, depending on product weight, urgency and distance. "Think about what it would cost to make that journey by car, and that is about what it will cost," said Mr Rinaudo.
In Rwanda, the company is serving 12 hospitals via a central distribution centre. Doctors or medical staff requiring blood contact Zipline online or via a WhatsApp message. Its deliveries then take an average of 20 minutes. The company says it receives multiple orders each day.
"It is a magically simple experience for doctors. We send them a message saying the blood is one minute away, and they walk outside to collect it," said Mr Rinaudo. The drones are launched from a catapult and fly below 500ft (152m) to avoid airspace used by passenger planes. They have an operational range of 150km (93 miles). The blood is delivered by parachute, and the drones do not land.
Sooo.... they just keep flying then ?
However, the World Bank has questioned the Silicon Valley-based company's true motivation. "Demonstration of real commercial deals in Africa will help raise its track record for the US market," said Edward Anderson, a senior technologist at the bank in Tanzania. He said that Zipline was "doing wonders in terms of making drones real in Africa" but questioned whether the deal - a commercial one requiring the government to pay per delivery - would go through.
But he [Mr Rinaudo] made no apology for pursuing a commercial strategy. "One of the most important things we are trying to show is that it is possible to tackle this problem in entrepreneurial ways. "It doesn't just have to be NGOs [non-governmental organisations] and foreign aid working on these big global issues."
If the deal goes ahead, the centres would open over the next four years, allowing blood, vaccines and other medical items to be flown to health centres. Zipline says it is also hoping to expand its service in Rwanda to deliver further medical products.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40935773
US robotics company Zipline, which launched the world's first commercial drone delivery service, in Rwanda, says it is close to expanding to Tanzania. It has been delivering emergency blood supplies within Rwanda since 2016. Chief executive Keller Rinaudo told the TEDGlobal conference that he was in talks with Tanzania's government to open four distribution centres.
Mr Rinaudo said he hoped a deal would allow the start-up to fly a range of medical products to thousands of Tanzania's health centres. "Having an agile supply chain for healthcare makes a big difference in improving access and empowering doctors," he said at the TED event in Arusha, Tanzania.
Billions of people lack adequate access to essential medical products such as blood and vaccines, and more than five million children die every year because of a lack of access to basic medical products, according to Mr Rinaudo. The company charges between $15 and $45 (£11.60 to £34.85) per delivery, depending on product weight, urgency and distance. "Think about what it would cost to make that journey by car, and that is about what it will cost," said Mr Rinaudo.
In Rwanda, the company is serving 12 hospitals via a central distribution centre. Doctors or medical staff requiring blood contact Zipline online or via a WhatsApp message. Its deliveries then take an average of 20 minutes. The company says it receives multiple orders each day.
"It is a magically simple experience for doctors. We send them a message saying the blood is one minute away, and they walk outside to collect it," said Mr Rinaudo. The drones are launched from a catapult and fly below 500ft (152m) to avoid airspace used by passenger planes. They have an operational range of 150km (93 miles). The blood is delivered by parachute, and the drones do not land.
Sooo.... they just keep flying then ?
However, the World Bank has questioned the Silicon Valley-based company's true motivation. "Demonstration of real commercial deals in Africa will help raise its track record for the US market," said Edward Anderson, a senior technologist at the bank in Tanzania. He said that Zipline was "doing wonders in terms of making drones real in Africa" but questioned whether the deal - a commercial one requiring the government to pay per delivery - would go through.
But he [Mr Rinaudo] made no apology for pursuing a commercial strategy. "One of the most important things we are trying to show is that it is possible to tackle this problem in entrepreneurial ways. "It doesn't just have to be NGOs [non-governmental organisations] and foreign aid working on these big global issues."
If the deal goes ahead, the centres would open over the next four years, allowing blood, vaccines and other medical items to be flown to health centres. Zipline says it is also hoping to expand its service in Rwanda to deliver further medical products.
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-40935773
Astronomy in Houdini
Master's student project on visualising astronomy FITS files in Houdini, for which I provided a very small amount of advice.
https://nccastaff.bournemouth.ac.uk/jmacey/MastersProjects/MSc17/07/index.html
Astronomical data from satellites and ground telescopes are publicly available on a number of online portals and are free to use. Many interesting data, ranging from relatively small star clusters, to dark matter maps, to maps of entire sections of galaxies containing billions of stars are available. Their usage is somewhat limited, and the software to parse the data are developed specifically to serve the astronomy community. The data formats are not made for portability or speed, but for longevity and ease-of-use. Hence, the files can be a few megabytes to several gigabytes in size. Many astronomy software provides parsing and viewing of such files, but most do not cater to more than one format. The approach is more scientific, with the focus being on extraction of data points, potting graphs and in some cases, a bare-minimum 2D or 3D visualization. For this project, similar concepts have been applied, as well as general astronomical data analysis theory, to bring similar capabilities into Houdini, and build assets for use in visual effects. Three of the most widely used formats in astronomy have been chosen - FITS, CSV and AMR. The motivation for doing this project is an interest in astronomy and desire to learn Python.
https://vimeo.com/230309447
https://nccastaff.bournemouth.ac.uk/jmacey/MastersProjects/MSc17/07/index.html
Astronomical data from satellites and ground telescopes are publicly available on a number of online portals and are free to use. Many interesting data, ranging from relatively small star clusters, to dark matter maps, to maps of entire sections of galaxies containing billions of stars are available. Their usage is somewhat limited, and the software to parse the data are developed specifically to serve the astronomy community. The data formats are not made for portability or speed, but for longevity and ease-of-use. Hence, the files can be a few megabytes to several gigabytes in size. Many astronomy software provides parsing and viewing of such files, but most do not cater to more than one format. The approach is more scientific, with the focus being on extraction of data points, potting graphs and in some cases, a bare-minimum 2D or 3D visualization. For this project, similar concepts have been applied, as well as general astronomical data analysis theory, to bring similar capabilities into Houdini, and build assets for use in visual effects. Three of the most widely used formats in astronomy have been chosen - FITS, CSV and AMR. The motivation for doing this project is an interest in astronomy and desire to learn Python.
https://vimeo.com/230309447
Terry Pratchett REALLY doesn't want you to see his internet history
Dammit, man !
A hard drive containing unfinished works by Terry Pratchett has been crushed by a steamroller, as per instructions left by the fantasy novelist. It is thought up to 10 incomplete novels were flattened at the Great Dorset Steam Fair. The six-and-a-half tonne Lord Jericho was used to roll over the hard drive several times before a concrete crusher finished off the remains.
Pratchett died aged 66 in March 2015. The creator of the Discworld series had been battling Alzheimer's disease. Before vanquishing the hard drive, Rob Wilkins, the writer's long-serving assistant, tweeted that he was "about to fulfil my obligation to Terry".
Richard Henry, curator of Salisbury Museum, said: "The steamroller totally annihilated the stone blocks underneath but the hard drive survived better than expected so we put it in a stone crusher afterwards which I think probably finally did it in". He said Pratchett did not want his unpublished works to be completed by someone else and released.
He added: "It's something you've got to follow, and it's really nice that they have followed his requests so specifically. It's surprisingly difficult to find somebody to run over a hard drive with a steamroller. I think a few people thought we were kidding when I first started putting out feelers to see if it was possible or not."
The pieces of the hard drive will go on display in the Terry Pratchett: His World Exhibition at the museum on 16 September.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-dorset-41093066
A hard drive containing unfinished works by Terry Pratchett has been crushed by a steamroller, as per instructions left by the fantasy novelist. It is thought up to 10 incomplete novels were flattened at the Great Dorset Steam Fair. The six-and-a-half tonne Lord Jericho was used to roll over the hard drive several times before a concrete crusher finished off the remains.
Pratchett died aged 66 in March 2015. The creator of the Discworld series had been battling Alzheimer's disease. Before vanquishing the hard drive, Rob Wilkins, the writer's long-serving assistant, tweeted that he was "about to fulfil my obligation to Terry".
Richard Henry, curator of Salisbury Museum, said: "The steamroller totally annihilated the stone blocks underneath but the hard drive survived better than expected so we put it in a stone crusher afterwards which I think probably finally did it in". He said Pratchett did not want his unpublished works to be completed by someone else and released.
He added: "It's something you've got to follow, and it's really nice that they have followed his requests so specifically. It's surprisingly difficult to find somebody to run over a hard drive with a steamroller. I think a few people thought we were kidding when I first started putting out feelers to see if it was possible or not."
The pieces of the hard drive will go on display in the Terry Pratchett: His World Exhibition at the museum on 16 September.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-dorset-41093066
Tuesday, 29 August 2017
Saving FAST from tourists : my solution
According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), government statistics released this month show that in the first half of 2017, nearly four million tourists visited “FAST” (Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope). Tourism officials estimate that 10 million tourists will visit the the highly-sensitive device this year. “That will be as many as the tourists to the Great Wall in Beijing,” the official announced. “Here we have a new wonder of the world.” China did such a great job of building something impressive, that its core function is at risk of being nullified.
I suggest building an identical but non-functional decoy telescope closer to a major city. With blackjack, and hookers... in fact, forget the decoy telescope !
http://gizmodo.com/the-worlds-largest-radio-telescope-has-a-massive-touris-1798389051
Monday, 14 August 2017
No you twerps, 70% of us don't want a hard Brexit
TLDR : That claim that everyone is suddenly in favour of a hard Brexit is complete and total bollocks. It's statistical games taken to a whole new level. Nor do they even suggest people want to expel foreigners.
This was not a conventional opinion polling exercise in which a sample of respondents are asked a straightforward question and their answers published after some standard statistical adjustments for national representativeness. Instead, it was a complex and innovative process designed to “reveal” people’s underlying preferences when faced with forced trade-offs over potential outcomes.
Each person was presented with two menus of Brexit-related outcomes and asked to choose which one they preferred. The option of “neither” was not available... The mix of the two menus offered to respondents was randomly generated. After their first choice, respondents were asked to repeat the process a further four times, every time with two new randomly-generated menus of options.
One of these menu options was the “future rights of current EU nationals in Britain”. And one of the extreme options presented for this category was “all must leave”. And here is the important part. No one was directly asked: “Do you think all EU nationals should leave Britain after Brexit”?
Instead, this was an option that cropped up as part of large bundle of outcomes that respondents were asked to choose between. On the favourability index the researchers constructed this option got a score of about 29 per cent for Remainers and 42 per cent for Leavers. But that does not mean 29 per cent of Remainers support the deportation of EU nationals.As the researchers stress: “These values cannot and should not be interpreted as the raw or unconstrained percentage of respondents supporting a given feature level; instead it measures the degree to which individuals trade-off any given level for all of the others.”
It gets even worse for the hard Brexit conclusion :
As well as asking respondents to choose between various randomly-generated baskets of outcomes, the researchers also presented them with three “fixed” baskets. And these were constructed by the researchers to roughly resemble three Brexit outcomes often described as “soft”, “hard” and “no deal”. Respondents were forced to state a preference. They were not given the option of saying “don’t know” or “neither”.
Further, respondents were not given any sense by the framing of the question of the consequences of the choice of basket. For instance, in the “no deal” basket there were superficially attractive items such as “no payment” to the EU and rather anodyne-sounding ones such “some administrative barriers to trade and 2.5 per cent tariffs”. There was no mention of the fact that “no deal” would mean the UK being in breach of its international treaty obligations. There was no hint at the travel chaos and economic pain that would inevitably follow such a “cliff-edge” outcome. Similarly, the hard Brexit scenario contained no mention of the economic pain relative to the soft scenario.
http://www.independent.co.uk/infact/brexit-report-latest-remainers-deport-eu-citizens-uk-back-hard-european-union-study-explained-a7892216.html
This was not a conventional opinion polling exercise in which a sample of respondents are asked a straightforward question and their answers published after some standard statistical adjustments for national representativeness. Instead, it was a complex and innovative process designed to “reveal” people’s underlying preferences when faced with forced trade-offs over potential outcomes.
Each person was presented with two menus of Brexit-related outcomes and asked to choose which one they preferred. The option of “neither” was not available... The mix of the two menus offered to respondents was randomly generated. After their first choice, respondents were asked to repeat the process a further four times, every time with two new randomly-generated menus of options.
One of these menu options was the “future rights of current EU nationals in Britain”. And one of the extreme options presented for this category was “all must leave”. And here is the important part. No one was directly asked: “Do you think all EU nationals should leave Britain after Brexit”?
Instead, this was an option that cropped up as part of large bundle of outcomes that respondents were asked to choose between. On the favourability index the researchers constructed this option got a score of about 29 per cent for Remainers and 42 per cent for Leavers. But that does not mean 29 per cent of Remainers support the deportation of EU nationals.As the researchers stress: “These values cannot and should not be interpreted as the raw or unconstrained percentage of respondents supporting a given feature level; instead it measures the degree to which individuals trade-off any given level for all of the others.”
It gets even worse for the hard Brexit conclusion :
As well as asking respondents to choose between various randomly-generated baskets of outcomes, the researchers also presented them with three “fixed” baskets. And these were constructed by the researchers to roughly resemble three Brexit outcomes often described as “soft”, “hard” and “no deal”. Respondents were forced to state a preference. They were not given the option of saying “don’t know” or “neither”.
Further, respondents were not given any sense by the framing of the question of the consequences of the choice of basket. For instance, in the “no deal” basket there were superficially attractive items such as “no payment” to the EU and rather anodyne-sounding ones such “some administrative barriers to trade and 2.5 per cent tariffs”. There was no mention of the fact that “no deal” would mean the UK being in breach of its international treaty obligations. There was no hint at the travel chaos and economic pain that would inevitably follow such a “cliff-edge” outcome. Similarly, the hard Brexit scenario contained no mention of the economic pain relative to the soft scenario.
http://www.independent.co.uk/infact/brexit-report-latest-remainers-deport-eu-citizens-uk-back-hard-european-union-study-explained-a7892216.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)