Security

The Hunting of the Snark

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The AP reports that poetry has been referenced in the decision against Guantanamo:

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit cited the 1876 poem, “The Hunting of the Snark,” in ruling that the military improperly labeled a Chinese Muslim as an enemy combatant. The ruling was issued last week but an unclassified version of the opinion was released only Monday.

This part actually reminds me of Kafka’s book The Trial:

The three-member court, which was made up of two Republican judges and one Democrat, was particularly pointed in its criticism of the argument that evidence is reliable because it appears on multiple documents.

“The government insists that the statements made in the documents are reliable because the State and Defense Departments would not have put them in intelligence documents were that not the case,” the court wrote. “This comes perilously close to suggesting that whatever the government says must be treated as true.”

Kudos to the court for turning to poetry to help provide clarity in the debate over national security. The Hunting of the Snark is by Lewis Carroll. Here is “Fit the Eighth – The Vanishing“, which closes the poem on a sobering note:

They sought it with thimbles, they sought it with care;
They pursued it with forks and hope;
They threatened its life with a railway-share;
They charmed it with smiles and soap.

They shuddered to think that the chase might fail,
And the Beaver, excited at last,
Went bounding along on the tip of its tail,
For the daylight was nearly past.

“There is Thingumbob shouting!” the Bellman said,
“He is shouting like mad, only hark!
He is waving his hands, he is wagging his head,
He has certainly found a Snark!”

They gazed in delight, while the Butcher exclaimed
“He was always a desperate wag!”
They beheld him–their Baker–their hero unnamed–
On the top of a neighboring crag.

Erect and sublime, for one moment of time.
In the next, that wild figure they saw
(As if stung by a spasm) plunge into a chasm,
While they waited and listened in awe.

“It’s a Snark!” was the sound that first came to their ears,
And seemed almost too good to be true.
Then followed a torrent of laughter and cheers:
Then the ominous words “It’s a Boo-”

Then, silence. Some fancied they heard in the air
A weary and wandering sigh
Then sounded like “-jum!” but the others declare
It was only a breeze that went by.

They hunted till darkness came on, but they found
Not a button, or feather, or mark,
By which they could tell that they stood on the ground
Where the Baker had met with the Snark.

In the midst of the word he was trying to say,
In the midst of his laughter and glee,
He had softly and suddenly vanished away—
For the Snark *was* a Boojum, you see.

Apparently the Bush administration has been leading the country on a snark hunt. Amazing that judges have tried to call it out and put an end to the nonsense.

Energy, Sailing, Security

Algae and China’s Olympics

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The AP reports that competitors in Beijing may face environmental challenges:

To host the Olympic sailing events, the Chinese port city of Qingdao moved a massive boat yard, relocated industries and spent about $850 million on transport links, parks, pollution controls and coastal green belts.
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But with little more than a month to go until the Games, a different challenge is cropping up: A forest of blue-green algae is choking the coastal waters, suffocating beaches and lying in thick layers along sailing routes.

The Olympic committee should bar any country from applying to host the games if they can not achieve environmental guidelines such as air and water quality.

The New York Times had an interesting look at cause:

Water quality has been a concern for the Olympic sailing events, given that many coastal Chinese cities dump untreated sewage into the sea. At the same time, rivers and tributaries emptying into coastal waters are often contaminated with high levels of nitrates from agricultural and industrial runoff. These nitrates contribute to the red tides of algae that often bloom along sections of China’s coastline.

But officials in Qingdao this week said pollution and poor water quality did not have a “substantial link” to the current outbreak, according to Xinhua. Instead, scientists blamed the bloom on increased rainfall and warmer waters in the Yellow Sea. Algae blooms now affect more than 5,000 square miles of sea water, according to Xinhua.

Regardless of cause, the real question is impact. I guess the 10,000 people who are cleaning up all the algae could be tested for ill effects, as well as all the animals fed the stuff:

Photographs in the Chinese media showed rickety wooden boats overflowing with green mounds of algae collected from the sea. One photo showed a young boy crouched on a beach beside piles of the leafy glop as a dump truck carried off a large load of algae. State media reported that 100,000 tons of the algae had already been taken out of the water. Much of it was being transported to farms as feed for pigs and other animals, according to news reports.

Maybe the Chinese could convert the Algae into biodiesel? It is great the Olympics are forcing China to clean up, but the clean up should come long before the games so these risky and questionable quick-fix solutions would not be necessary.

Food, Security

Biometric Surveillance Proven on Penguins

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Uniqueness and patterns in penguin breast feathers have been used by a video surveillance system to monitor tens of thousands of the birds, according to the BBC:

Professor Barham said: “We set a camera up in a location where the penguins will regularly walk past on their way to or from the sea.

“Every image that the camera processes is then sent back to a computer.”

The software has been trained to recognise if there are any penguins in the camera’s field of vision. If there are, it looks at the spot patterns to determine whether it is a bird that it recognises or new penguin. It then records and ID number and the date, time and location of the sighting.

How do the scientists prove uniqueness? Naturally the system will be soon discussed in terms of leopards, zebras, cheetahs and other patterned animals. Even if humans do not have uniquely patterned feathers or fur, it seems to me this technology will eventually make its way into correlation engines that can track a suspect with certain features and provide a single storyline across multiple cameras. On the other end of the spectrum, pun not intended, humans are getting more savvy at using infrared LED to completely disguise themselves from night-vision surveillance. This defensive maneuver might prevent identification of the person, but a pattern-matching system perhaps would still be able to track and report on that person’s movements.

While the privacy debate continues around video surveillance, the BBC also reports that audio surveillance has started to be integrated into camera systems:

Dr David Brown, from the University of Portsmouth, said: “The visual-recognition software will be able to identify visual patterns but for the next stage we want to get the camera to pivot if it hears a certain type of sound.

“So, if in a car park someone smashes a window, the camera would turn to look at them and the camera operator would be alerted.

This seems a reduction of usefulness, in some ways, as sounds are often a distraction more than an aid. If you read the article you will find some optimism for pattern-matching technology. For example, the researchers plan to be able to detect breaking glass versus other sounds. They do not mention if someone throwing a bottle would actually be a simple defensive measure to divert the camera. And what if you throw the bottle at the same time that you break a window?

I would love to test these systems.

Energy, Security

The future market of energy

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This story is what the future of energy is all about:

The company stuck solar panels on UCSF’s Genentech Hall as well as a nearby parking garage. MMA owns the panels and sells the power to the school, under a contract that locks in electricity prices for the next 20 years. The rates are lower than Pacific Gas & Electric’s, and the school didn’t have to pay for the panels up front.

“It’s very simple – we got someone else to take on the headaches, and we get the power,” said Maric Munn, the school’s director of facilities management.

In other words, generation of energy needs to become more localized and democratized in the same way that PCs changed the information generation model from mainframe and slaves to networked peers.

The advantage of diesel in this model is that it has many more options than most power generators — the input can come from virtually anywhere. Thus if the output is standardized, the market for micro-generation could explode.

Excellent story.