Many worlds and many minds

After my last few reads of him, I keep saying that I'm going to give Greg Egan a bit of a rest because reading his mind-bending novels is clearly above my pay grade. They're really good, but they're hard, hard reads (in the science fiction sense; we're not in the misery genre here). However, since it's recently been Birthday-Christmas season, I've received quite a pile of new titles, two of which were written by Mr. Egan. So, in order to free up some book shelf space, I'm duty bound to tackle him again. That said, it's a little easier this time since Axiomatic is a collection of Egan's short stories.

The collection is Egan's first, and consists of stories published between 1989 and 1992. Pre-blog, I read his later collection, Luminous (which was also a present from C), and it definitely confirmed him as a must-read for me. The stories here range extremely widely in their subject and intent, although plasticity of mind, body and reality is a recurring theme.

Much as with his novel Quarantine, he visits quantum mechanics in the great opening story, The Infinite Assassin, inventing a special assassin who travels between universes to kill those with similar powers but who are intent to reshaping reality to suit themselves. The Hundred-Light-Year Diary imagines a future where everyone's daily lives are mapped out by diary entries ostensibly from the future. In The Caress, a detective who discovers a human-cheetah chimera is kidnapped to pose in a megalomaniac's reconstruction of Fernand Khnoff's most famous work. The widower protagonist of the eponymous Axiomatic takes an implant to "rewrite" his objections to capital punishment so that he can understand, and avenge, the murder of his wife. Meanwhile, the mind of the narrator in The Safe-Deposit Box flits nightly between different bodies, and uses the titular box to store the scraps of information he collects while unravelling his mysterious condition. Switching to electronic minds, Learning To Be Me concerns jewels, the artificial replacements for human brains that develop alongside them, and the conundrum of where consciousness really lies. The Moral Virologist is a fundamentalist with a training in molecular biology who creates a plague to target the "immoral", but his accuracy is blunted by biology's loopholes. In Closer a couple desire to know each other so completely that they trade bodies and even merge minds, but is perfect harmonisation really what lovers need?

As the selection above suggests, the collection is full of exotic treatments of biology, consciousness and reality. Several of the stories are simply jaw-droppingly imaginative and clever in the development and expansion of their central ideas, and Egan is almost uniformly excellent at wringing the most out of the worlds that he briefly creates. There are a couple of less successful stories, but even these contain the germ of a good idea.

More generally, I find that short stories suit Egan better than full-length novels. While their truncated page-count means that they lack the worked-out detail that his novels contain, this works in Egan's favour since he's forced to rein in his tendency to digress into full-throated dissections of physics. Also, since characterisation generally isn't a strong point of his novels, the necessary abbreviation of the occupants of his short stories obscures this weakness.

Overall, an excellent collection of stories. Not quite as good as the later Luminous I'd have said, but perhaps not surprising given that this contains his first forays into science fiction writing. And undoubtedly a more gentle introduction to Egan's obsession with the nature of reality and consciousness than his more gung-ho novels. A definite incentive to track down more of his short fiction.

Two Oscar Nominees

This weekend we caught two nominees for 2010 Oscars, The Hurt Locker, up for Best Motion Picture, and The Most Dangerous Man in America, nominated in the Best Documentary category.

Seeing the former film means that we've now seen 7 out of the 10 Best Picture nominees (the total number has been raised from the usual 5 just this year). This stacks on top of Up In The Air, An Education, Avatar, A Serious Man, District 9 and Inglourious Basterds. So, assuming that it's not one of the films that we've not seen, who should win?

Well, the favourites appear to be Avatar and The Hurt Locker, but I don't think either really deserve it. Avatar is jolly enough, but it basically boils down to little more than spectacle. THL is clearly the more serious film, and while I thought that it had some great scenes, I just didn't think it hung together terribly well as a film. The narrative jumps around semi-randomly between the major scenes, and while the overarching thread (that war can be an addiction) comes across [*], the script could definitely have been tightened. It's too much like a series of isolated events that only spasmodically illuminate or advance character. Really, films need to summarise and be more lucid in their themes. So says the armchair critic.

Taking in all of the runners that we've seen, my favourites for the top spot are Up In The Air and District 9 (though the latter would require that the jury be in a pretty sci-fi tolerant mood). Overall, I'd say that while the field isn't a particularly strong one this year, it doesn't have any egregious duffers in it. There's certainly nothing as soul-destroying as Braveheart, Titanic or (the horror) Gladiator in there.

[*] Not least because the film begins with a quote to this effect. Duh, talk about unnecessary foreshadowing.

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By way of contrast, I can be a lot more positive about The Most Dangerous Man in America. This documentary is a watchable and very informative introduction to the so-called Pentagon Papers, and the tale of their leak to the US press by the military analyst Daniel Ellsberg. And what a tale it is!

Ellsberg began as a hawkish analyst, actually a former marine, who changed his mind on the war in Vietnam, in part based on his hands-on experience on the ground. But he came to realise that no matter what he said to his superiors or what wrote in secret reports for them, successive administrations remained committed to an escalating but futile conflict. So over the course of a number of weeks he gradually photocopied his way through a highly critical report, the Pentagon Papers, that had been commissioned by Robert McNamara (himself the subject of the excellent documentary The Fog of War) to examine the full history of US-Vietnam relations. The report, in which Ellsberg was a contributor, candidly exposed the compounded mistakes made by every US administration after the Second World War, but was neither acted upon nor released to the public.

Ellsberg initially leaked it to several US senators hostile to the Vietnam War, but when they sat on it he then leaked it to the US press. In fairly short order he was identified as the leaker and, together with a RAND corporation colleague, was ultimately tried in court. However, the tactics adopted by the Nixon administration in pursuing this prosecution, which dovetailed with those employed in the Watergate scandal, ultimately led to it being thrown out of court. And the rest, as they say, is history.

The documentary tells all of this and much more about the political events, but along the way it also brings in a lot of very interesting detail from Ellsberg's own life. We hear about his on-off-on-again romance with his anti-Vietnam girlfriend (now wife), the assistance of his children with the leak and the family tragedy that blighted his early life. This probably all sounds stodgy and worthy here, but it works great in the film.

However, will the film win? As this is the only one of the documentaries that we've seen, it's impossible to judge. And with a less-warmongering President in office, it's not got a head of political steam behind it. But if it does, it'll be well-earned. Roll on Sunday March 7, 2010 ...

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In passing, a particular thought that occurred to me while watching the detail of the Pentagon Papers unspooling, was that while the Iraq War was instigated for all the wrong reasons and with all manner of unfortunate consequences, the circumstances surrounding the conflict in Vietnam show it to have been a much more significant débâcle. It embroiled a series of administrations, none of whom seemed to learned anything from it, and all of whom strove to keep the public ill-informed or misinformed about it. And with a much, much higher body count.

Another, partly positive thought was that although the various US administrations presented hawkish façades in relation to Vietnam, sane and critical opinions were still expressed behind the scenes. Admittedly, they weren't heard anywhere near early enough, but they existed and ultimately played a role in bringing the war to an end. That said, they kept publicly quiet for years, and it took one (brave) person to break ranks and reveal what they were saying behind their masters' backs. Would I have leaked?

Front Page Pipes

Courtesy of hard work on the part of my old boss, another paper on ocean pipes has now been published, and its made our institute's front page. My contribution this time extended largely to comments and some discussion, rather than simulation and number-crunching.

I've alluded to this paper before, largely because its results are much more interesting than those that I found. In part, this stems from the use of a more detailed physical model that includes a simplified atmosphere which allows feedbacks that my ocean-only simulation just had to gloss over. The model (UVic for those who care) is also lower resolution than OCCAM, so longer simulations were possible.

Anyway, what happened? In the ocean, the pipes were still largely inefficient at sequestering carbon, although here they were allowed to cleverly alter their lengths here to maximise their use of so-called preformed nutrients (i.e. those that come with no associated carbon). Interestingly, the pipes did slightly counter the slowdown of the THC caused by global warming in the simulation (although in doing so they also brought up more CO₂-rich seawater).

However, the real action was on the land. Here, cooler temperatures, driven by the cooling effect of the ocean pipes, led to a drop in the respiration of the land biota (TRIFFID for those who care). In fact, the changes on land were responsible for about 80% of the total sequestration of carbon in the simulation. Not what the proposers of ocean pipes had in mind, and not something that'd be easily verified in the real world to gain carbon credits.

Another interesting result was that switching off the ocean pipes leads to a (slightly) warmer Earth than would happen in the no-pipes control Earth. So, if the pipes are running but start to have some unforeseen negative effect, turning them off comes with an additional climate change penalty. Essentially, you'd have been better off not using them at all. Again, not what the proposers of ocean pipes had in mind.

While there are still some questions that the ocean pipes throw up, this seems another knock to them. Still, the geoengineers are rarely put off by such hurdles ...

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P.S. The press release associated with this paper has been cut-and-pasted into (at least) three external blogs (here, here and here). This seems a pretty armchair approach to adding content to your web presence. Perhaps Strange News could bump up its posting-rate this way ...

Salisbury Sojourn

We took a trip out to neighbouring Salisbury today. It's been a long time since I last visited, an embarrassing 12 years to be exact, so it was long overdue a return trip.

The main attraction was, unsurprisingly, the Cathedral, an 11th century marvel that's holding up pretty well. Because of its stature, it pretty much dominates the town, so provides a very helpful navigation marker.

As well as hosting the usual range of stained glass photo-opportunities and the obligatory cavernous vertical spaces, it also had a really neat baptismal font up front. Viewed from afar, this appeared to have four shiny metal legs, but up close these were revealed as spouts of (presumably holy) water from the corners of an X-shaped (oddly not cruciform) font. I tried to snap off some pictures of this, and its impressive mirror-like surface, but none turned out well.

Aside from its religious fixtures and fittings, the Cathedral also houses one of only four remaining copies of the Magna Carta. While it was great to finally see this (reading it not being an option given its language and scripting), I'm still somewhat unmoved by its ostensible significance. Yes, I can see how our current freedoms, etc., somehow stem from it, but my mind always drifts back to it really being about the freedoms of the ruling classes of the 13th century. I'm pretty sure that the document's drafting committee would be absolutely horrified at what's become of their sceptred isle since then, what with all of these commoners, serfs and (the horror) women being afforded the freedoms that they thought they'd safely confined to themselves. Still, I suppose I should be grateful.

Bar a trawl around the city's streets and a visit to another religious edifice (the Parish Church of St. Thomas and St. Edmund), not a whole heap more to report from Salisbury. We did find an interesting sundial that dated from the Reformation of the Calendar in 1752. Somewhat to my surprise (having surveyed a number over the years), it was actually almost correct as well. We saw it at 2:28pm, and its face claimed about 2:10pm, so not bad. Close by we also came across a blue plaque for the novelist William Golding (though I say that as if I've read any more than Lord of the Flies).

Anyway, a nice daytrip out. Hopefully it won't take another 12 years for Salisbury to pique my interest again. Actually, I've still got Stonehenge to do (having been impressed by the automobile equivalent), so we're bound to be back at some stage.

(Needless to say, lots of photographs from our trip)

Ice age

Brrrr. After seeing us right through the coldest January that I've known in Southampton, our boiler's decided to pack up today. And just when we were about to have a few days off work too. Our hopes are now pinned on a visit tomorrow from British Gas that will revive the ailing machine and allow us to make something of the weekend.

Getting academic about it for a moment, because we typically have an open fire going in the living room, the rest of the house usually feels (relatively) cold. But now that the central heating's on the fritz, it's abundantly clear just how much of a difference it normally makes to things.

Clearly my years in the south have officially softened me up too much.

Cambrian smackdown

There are few things more satisfying than having one of your long-held views vindicated. Today's WUN seminar, actually broadcast out of Penn State, gave me one of those moments.

The Cambrian explosion is the name given to the geologically "sudden" appearance of most major animal groups about 530 million years ago. As fossil strata go, it represents a strikingly singular event, when life on Earth appeared to go from nothing to being prodigiously well-stocked with a diverse plethora of forms. Sort-of like the "big bang" of biology. However, I've never bought it.

It probably stems in part from a deep-seated unease with a seemingly ex nihilo creation event. But I was also largely won over by molecular clock evidence years ago, and have been perennially sceptical of over-confident palaeontological assertions about the lack of Precambrian fossils. This in spite of being trained up as a "whole organism" biologist with only a scant grasp of things molecular.

Anyway, today's seminar was delivered by the evolutionary biologist Blair Hedges. And he played something of a blinder with his seminar. He started off in an ever-so-slightly dull fashion with evolutionary trees, and how they can be redrawn to show how the separation of branches has occurred through time. So far, so pedestrian. He then drew in some work he's done with nobody's favourite group of organisms: the eubacteria. Through some clever analysis of all sorts of factors (including GC-content), he showed how the evolution of bacteria splits modern groups into terrabacteria, who display phenotypic features that favour life on land, and hydrobacteria, who display traits more suited to aquatic existence. He also showed when the split between these groups occurred: around 3 or so billion years ago. This was news to me, but it was the tip of the iceberg in his talk.

This appearance of a specifically land-loving clade of bacteria way back in deep time points to the correspondingly early colonisation of land. Traditionally, this has been viewed as a relatively recent phenomenon, but the ancient origin of bacteria adapted to life in the dry paints the history of the Earth very differently. Expanding into the eukaryotes, Hedges showed similarly ancient diversification in plants, animals and fungi, and drew out links between evolutionary milestones and changes in life's relationship with the Earth. Specifically changes in the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and oxygen, and the succession of "Snowball Earth" events in the Neoproterozoic.

From here Hedges skipped onto specifically animal evolution, and again showed ancient splits between the major lineages; splits that have been suggested before, but which now have much greater weight as the quantity and diversity of molecular evidence relentlessly grows. He also made an observation which was new to me, but is pretty damning of fossil evidence: most modern fauna, especially small, soft-bodied animals, have a shockingly poor fossil record. Groups which must date back to at least the Cambrian only crop up in very recent strata, and some don't show up at all. So the "cast-iron" evidence of missing fossils starts looking extremely moth-eaten to say the least. Hedges posits that the Cambrian explosion, far from being a revolution in biology, actually represents a more modest change in animal diversity driven by larger size (in turn driven by atmospheric oxygen) and the appearance of preservation-conducive "hard parts".

Another interesting piece of analysis that Hedges brought to the table was the evolution of complexity. Using his revised phylogenetic and temporal trees, Hedges and his colleagues have estimated the complexity of lifeforms over the history of the Earth based on the total number of cell types. So the appearance of particular groups at specific times adds to the complexity of life on Earth. Viewed this way, the Cambrian explosion is a slight rise in a much longer trend of increasing biological complexity. Hedges used this to make the much wider claim that our apparently "Rare Earth" may not be so rare after all. Something to raise a smile (and hopes) in astrobiology circles.

Obviously, such a sweeping assessment of the evidence isn't without its critics, and I'm probably blinded by my own prejudices in my reaction to it. But it just felt good to have such long-held hunches "confirmed", slide by Powerpoint slide.

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In passing, along with several colleagues, Hedges is responsible for a remarkable project called www.timetree.org. This brings together papers on phylogeny to both enable easy searches, and the construction of novel meta-phylogenies (trees of trees) based on the data collated to date. This includes a fun application which allows you to estimate the date of the last common ancestor between arbitrary organisms. For instance, for cats and humans this was about 98 million years ago. For humans and my favourite invertebrate this is a massive 981 million years ago.

Two duffers

Our skill at picking DVDs to watch is clearly much lower than that for picking cinema trips ...

Two Lovers is a moody shambles of a film. Basically, a guy (whose unexplained suicide attempt pretentiously starts the film) meets two girls: one nice, brunette, stable and Jewish; one exciting, blonde, crazy and non-Jewish. Pointless, meandering, overwrought heartache ensues. The end. The only surprise for me was that he, essentially, gets to have his cake and eat it. Or is he making a compromised decision at the end of the film that he'll regret for the rest of his life? I couldn't care less.

Broken Embraces, while considerably better and a lot less disappointing, was still something of a let-down. Almodóvar is usually very reliable, so this was something of a surprise. Split between two time levels, it tells the story of a film director and his ill-fated encounter with a beautiful actress who he steals from her jealous sugar daddy. All of the usual elements from his films are present, but they just didn't seem in place for once. The plot, for instance, seems structured strangely, so that the "mystery" to be solved actually only appears late in the film rather than being its backbone. It's not helped by the (overplayed) film-within-the-film being awful - I wasn't sure whether it was meant to be, but the reaction of the characters suggests otherwise. Anyway, still quite an alluring and attractive-to-watch film, but not up to Almodóvar's usual standards, though only really on plot grounds.

TUPE or not TUPE?

Unexpectedly, the great institution of NOCS is undergoing a form of divorce. Formerly a marriage of convenience between the University and NERC, NOCS is now experiencing a civilised separation. What's more, NOCS is being shotgun-wedded to a scouser sister institute, POL. And the resulting union is to be known by the imaginative moniker NOC. As it happens, NOCS will still be known as NOCS, but POL is changing its maiden name to NOCL to reflect its home city and to distinguish it acronymically.

So, what's the fallout? So far, it sounds like the outcome will largely be business as usual, albeit with somewhat closer ties across NERC's centres and ostensibly clearer lines between NOC and its university partners. That's the big picture. At my bacterial level, the primary change is that I'll no longer be indentured to the University, but will now be a government wage-slave. Actually, that's not entirely accurate (or a fair characterisation of my privileged academic position). Because of TUPE, the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment), I keep all of my terms and conditions, and even my payscale. My pension is less certain, but there's a suggestion that things might actually improve there.

Anyway, this has all been a big surprise at NOCS (and, one presumes, POL; sorry, NOCL). And it's not at all clear yet what the longer term consequences will be. Ostensibly it's a positive move, but seeing as it coincides with large government-mediated cuts to the university sector, it's difficult not to be a little uneasy. It'll all come out in the wash I guess, but it has made this week more interesting than I'd been expecting.

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To answer the title question, one can't not TUPE. Refusal to switch employers is equivalent to penning one's resignation letter. So I'll be TUPE-ing.

A way with words

On account of an as-yet-unfixed puncture, I've been walking to work this week (which, given the heavy snow earlier in the month, has actually been my main mode of locomotion to work in January). This has given me the opportunity to catch up on the vast quantity of podcasts that have accumulated on my iPod over the past year. Hitherto, I've been somewhat unconvinced by the format, and have only amassed such a haul through acquisitiveness: once I've started collecting something, and I originally only started to see what the fuss about podcasts was all about, I tend to keep going.

Anyway, this week I've been going through my substantial library of David Attenborough's weekly Point-of-View slot Life Stories. I've actually talked here before about one of these slots that included the sad tale of the Great Auk. They're invariably a fascinating and highly enjoyable fusion of some aspect of natural history together with some tale drawn from Attenborough's own life as a naturalist-cum-broadcaster. This week I've discovered that modern snakes evolved from subterranean reptiles; that Tiktaalik is the new Coelacanth; that early books of animal classification included dragons; that humans and bowerbirds share an aesthetic sense; and that bird's nest soup is largely tasteless (hence, presumably, why it's bolstered with meat stock and spices).

I've also come to better appreciate Attenborough's style of delivery. Largely, I suppose, because it isn't something that I could do myself. In each of the programmes there's a central "big theme" that he's heading towards, but he often starts on what seems an unconnected parallel story that eventually ties in to his main subject. Frequently, this parallel track is one based on his own wide-ranging experiences in natural habitats or with the various people he's encountered on his travels. But he's so brilliant at interleaving his main story with it that, to the listener, the latter maps naturally onto the former. In passing, it's also simply amazing quite how broad his knowledge is, and how matched it is by his life experience. A true national treasure.

An angry scientist

A rare visit to non-fiction land this time, with the book of the newspaper column of the blog, Bad Science, by the medical doctor Ben Goldacre.

As a regular reader of Goldacre's column, I mistakenly figured this for a collection of his columns, so waited till it graced the 3-for-2 table before picking it up. As it turns out, while it does pick up a number of stories from his column, it does so in much greater detail, and uses the format to fill in background material that, while important, would be less than engrossing in newsprint. In terms of its topic, while Goldacre occasionally makes general asides on "bad science", his book focuses largely on its appearance in medicine and related healthcare.

As such, he takes in familiar (and deserving) targets such as homeopathy, MMR and quacks with varying degrees of public endangerment, including "Dr." Gillian McKeith, Patrick Holford and Matthias Rath. The latter I was aware of because of a well-publicised (after the fact) libel trial that Rath took out against Goldacre and The Guardian. As it happens, the example of Rath, following on as it does from the lesser crimes of McKeith and Holford, illustrates just how pernicious and dangerous modern-day quacks can be. That there is a long history of quacks is not surprising, especially when one considers what once passed for mainstream medicine; that they persist to this day alongside modern medicine, and frequently make outrageous and deadly claims, is pretty shocking.

Which brings me to what I think is the book's strength: Goldacre's cold, contained rage. While he writes quite wittily at times, and certainly isn't averse to making fun of various "alternative medicine" targets, he's clearly very angry about much of what he describes. But he's able to channel this well, and he writes carefully and methodically, avoiding simply stirring the reader up with exasperating tales of money-printing quacks. He's also pretty good, at leading the reader into mildly technical topics, and he does so without (in my opinion) patronising the less familiar reader. But, throughout it all, his passion to rout the "bad science" he describes is engaging. And is pretty infectious - I found myself eye-rollingly livid on more than a few occasions.

Another aspect of the book which greatly strengthens its power is Goldacre's tackling of more mainstream targets such as the drug companies and the media. These get, and justifiably so, much the same scrutiny as the book's early anti-science bugbears. In particular, the chapter on how the media presents - and misrepresents - scientific stories is one that's of wider interest and use to scientists beyond medicine. I really enjoyed these chapters, and Goldacre's savaging of these institutions alongside the easier alt-med targets made the book a much more balanced read than I originally thought it might turn out to be. I shouldn't have been surprised given the range of his newspaper column, but given the shamelessness of so many quacks, I'd not have blamed him if he just focused his beatings on their turf.

Overall, a very enjoyable if simultaneously enraging read. Doubtless not the most thorough on this subject, but done well. And you've got to love his anger.

Fallout for Half-Life

For those who care about such things, I just wanted to register that Fallout 3 is truly magnificent. As the name hints, it's a post-apocalyptic romp around the ruins of Washington D.C. It plays as a cross between Grand Theft Auto and Half-Life 2, with a strong (but not overbearing) dose of RPG (and RPGs, of course). Its chief attractions are its enormous play area, the detail that's been put into every wrecked corner of this, and its strong storytelling. The latter just has a mind-boggling amount of characters, plot strands and background detail.

That said, it's got me thinking that Half-Life 2: Episode 3 has got a lot to do if it wants to trump this sort of title. Sure, HL2 is superior in some respects (most notably combat and AI), but the gulf in both scale and depth that Fallout 3 has opened up is going to take some beating. And the canalised gameplay mechanic of HL2, which practically holds your hand from one end of the game to the other, is going to feel pretty contrived compared to this. I'm already wildly off-piste with Fallout 3, at least in terms of my central goal, but I've had an incredible journey so far [*]. And there's not the slightest sign of it ending any time soon.

Could Valve have finally met their match for my heart?

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[*] In that sad, gameplaying way, of course.

Existentialism and firing

Caught the latest Clooney juggernaut, Up in the Air, this evening. Though I'd high hopes going in, I was still surprised at how good this was. From coinciding perfectly with the ongoing spate of downsizings, to its deft dodging of a pat conclusion, it didn't put a foot wrong for me. Though largely comedy, it engaged quite seriously at times with its portrayal of the personal loss caused by redundancy. And it also successfully juggled the existential vacuum of the central character's pared-down life without resorting to faux redemption. Most excellent.

"MP In Sex Scandal"

Dipping once again into the world of Inspector Rebus, this time with Strip Jack, the fourth in Ian Rankin's series.

Orchestrated by his Chief Inspector as part of a moral drive to clean up Edinburgh, Rebus finds himself part of a raid on one of the city's brothels, unexpectedly discovering popular local MP, Gregor Jack. When Jack's unorthodox wife, Elizabeth, subsequently disappears without trace, Rebus' attention gradually turns to the tight-knit circle of childhood friends that she and Jack associate with. As the investigation proceeds, Rebus builds up a picture of Elizabeth more suggestive of a wild-child than the constituency wife of a young MP. Furthermore, as the investigation appears to link to a second concerning a spate of recent murders of women, Rebus begins to suspect that Jack is actually being framed in a campaign to strip him of his reputation and standing.

There's actually not a lot that I can write about this book. It's pretty satisfying Rebus fare, with little about it that merits much expansion. I did like the digression into childhood friends, and how such relationships change (or not) into adulthood, but otherwise the novel was a fairly routine, if twisty, crime novel. Well up to Rankin's usual literary standards, but not necessarily stand-out.

Only another 13 novels in the series to read ...

Geoengineering survey

The UK's major funding agency for environmental topics is slowly getting around to tackling geoengineering. Though they're not committing any funds to its study just yet (unlike their physical sciences counterpart), they are initiating a public consultation. How touchy-feely / useful this will be is up for grabs. Prior to running this, they've sent a note around academia to gather the community's opinion (and to spare themselves some work by fielding for questions to ask the public!). As I seem unable to resist putting my oar in, I've obviously replied ...

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I am responding to the request for comments on NERC's public dialogue on geoengineering.

With respect to the particular questions raised in the request, I would respond as follows.

1. What are your hopes and concerns about the potential use of geoengineering technology?

In an ideal world, I would hope that it proves unnecessary to resort to geoengineering technologies in the future. All of the schemes proposed to date either have negative (or uncertain) secondary effects, are prohibitively expensive, or (further) disrupt natural ecosystems. As such, I would hope that their use is restricted unless serious climate change occurs unexpectedly rapidly.

Furthermore, I am concerned with our lack of understanding of the full effects of such purposeful climate modification. For instance, methods to reflect incident solar radiation may deleteriously alter cloud and rainfall patterns, or introduce acidic pollutants to the atmosphere. Similarly, methods that remove CO2 from the atmosphere through oceanic modification will (at least temporarily) accelerate ocean acidification and may expand ocean anoxia (with further consequences for the production of greenhouse gases). In the case of technologies that enhance natural biological sinks for CO2, changes in biodiversity are also liable to occur.

I am additionally somewhat concerned that the availability of geoengineering technology may serve to diminish efforts to decarbonise technological societies, the so-called "moral hazard". Since measures to address CO2 emissions are liable to lead to increased costs in the short- to medium-term (and the benefits are liable to be economically unquantifiable "externalities"), geoengineering schemes that promise to resolve climate change at a fraction of the cost will appear strongly attractive to governments.

All that said, I hope that government and other bodies are able to fund research into geoengineering so that, should disastrous climate change appear unavoidable, such technologies are available for use and considerably better understood. Given that some geoengineering research can run alongside existing research, it need not be especially expensive to investigate. But having a more complete understanding of possible climate interventions is crucial if they are to serve as a plausible "Plan B".

I would also hope that governments and other legislative bodies would assist to ensure that researchers are permitted to undertake small-scale trials of potential geoengineering technologies. In early 2009 an open ocean trial of iron fertilisation was heavily disrupted by legal activity, despite its activities being almost insignificant compared to the natural background of ocean processes. If geoengineering is to be evaluated properly (even for use as a "Plan B") it is important that efforts are not derailed by disproportionate or misguided appeals in the courts.

2. What questions should we ask people about the future of geoengineering research? What issues and options should be considered?

Both the question subjects and wording should be carefully considered (and/or studied in of themselves) to avoid polarising members of the public who are not familiar with climate issues in detail. For instance, the two following statements are liable to elicit different responses despite asking the same question.

• Should geoengineering technologies (which purposefully alter the climate) be (a) investigated, and (b) potentially deployed?
  
• Given that technological societies have already inadvertently altered climate, should geoengineering technologies (which purposefully alter the climate) be (a) investigated, and (b) potentially deployed?

That said, I would suggest the following as possible questions to ask people during public dialogue.

• Given that technological societies have already inadvertently altered climate, should geoengineering technologies (which purposefully alter the climate) be (a) investigated, and (b) potentially deployed?
  
• If geoengineering technologies are deployed, how should they be controlled? For instance, by companies or special interest organisations, by national governments, or by transnational organisations such as the United Nations.
  
• Under what circumstances should geoengineering technologies be deployed? For instance, to return climate to its pre-industrial / modern state, or only when severe climate change is occurring.
  
• When evaluating the safety of a geoengineering technology, how much weight should be given to negative impacts on natural ecosystems? For instance, consider a situation where a technology cools climate but significantly damages wildlife.
  
• Should small-scale trials of geoengineering be permitted or banned?
  
• Should geoengineering technologies complement or supplant efforts to decarbonise technological societies or the development of adaptations to climate change?
  
• How should geoengineering research be funded? For instance, by normal government routes, or by private organisations that are either responsible for CO2 emissions or can profit from geoengineering.
  
• Is any additional oversight, that is beyond government and regulatory authority, required for geoengineering? For instance, should lay individuals be formally involved.
  
• Should the UK engage with geoengineering if the principle benefits of it are received elsewhere? For instance, some geoengineering schemes are liable to have the greatest benefit for high latitude (polar) areas.
  
• Should the UK engage with geoengineering if negative consequences are caused elsewhere? For instance, some geoengineering schemes may cool the Earth, but impact negatively on weather patterns (e.g. the monsoon) in areas outside the UK.

Since geoengineering is tantamount to the alteration of the Earth at the largest scale to suit human needs and interests, I would additionally suggest that any questioning of public attitudes is accompanied by questions that aim to establish how people value and evaluate the worth of the Earth. For instance, whether participants consider that the Earth, its ecosystems or its charismatic megafauna have cultural (or other) worth. I certainly think it would be useful to know *why* people hold particular views (or which views overlap) alongside the views themselves.

Finally, given geoengineering's necessary connection to climate change, it seems crucial to me that some assessment is made of participants' views of climate change science as well. People whose views do not accord with the scientific consensus are liable to respond differently to those who accept current evidence and thinking. If one does not trust observational data or modelling simulations for climate change, it seems unlikely that these will be viewed positively for assessing geoengineering.

For reference, I am a coauthor of a review of ocean geoengineering (Lampitt et al., 2008; [1]), and was lead author on a study of the use of ocean pipes for geoengineering (Yool et al., 2009; [2]).

[1] Lampitt, R.S., (10 other authors) and Yool, A. (2008). Ocean fertilisation: a potential means of geo-engineering? Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. A 366, 3919-3945, doi: 10.1098/rsta.2008.0139
[2] Yool, A., Shepherd, J.G., Bryden, H.L. and Oschlies, A. (2009). Low efficiency of nutrient translocation for enhancing oceanic uptake of carbon dioxide. J. Geophys. Res. 114, doi: 10.1029/2008JC004792

Sucker for polls: how moral am I?

As a confirmed sucker for online polls, I couldn't resist this one on "moral politics" that floated passed. Although identifying one's core views with only 16 questions is unlikely to throw up anything significant, with so few questions what's to lose?



Apparently this result means that I'm positive on the "moral rules" dimension (i.e. I favour a collectivist viewpoint), and negative on the "moral order" dimension (i.e. I don't believe in a sturdy ladder of moral authority). Basically, I'm a godless communist.

Somewhat more subtle (= has more questions) is this so-called "political compass". It's a bit more arduous to complete in terms of its length, but it also has fewer questions that stumped me. As it happens, I've taken it a couple of times in the past and largely find myself stuck in the same quadrant ...



Still there this time too: I'm a subversive communist who wants to replace "family values" with "anything goes". Or something.

Overall, slightly more informative than astrology, but since the latter poll has me sitting pretty with the Dalai Lama, some salt definitely needs pinching (if there's any left that's not already been ear-marked for the snowy roads).

More catch-up: Gaming in 2009

Continuing to exploit our confinement to quarters to catch-up on my blogging, a round-up of the games that I played in 2009 ...

Halo 2
Mildly fun, but generally disappointing. I really enjoyed the original Halo, but found this far too much of a retread to distinguish it. And the tweaks that did distinguish it, for instance the back-and-forth switch of player perspective between the Master Chief and the Arbiter, really didn't work for me. While switching narrative viewpoint works fine in non-interactive fiction like books and films, it's jarring when you're in charge of things. Furthermore, the game ends, shamelessly, on a cliffhanger, but there's not the slightest sign of its sequel being released on PC. Not a feature that endeared the game to me. All that said, it did contain a few excellent science fiction vistas to take in from time to time, so it wasn't a complete loss. But it's very far from the step-up that one expects from gaming sequels.

Grand Theft Auto IV
Magnificent, but ever so slightly flawed. Definitely a worthy successor to its preceding titles, with a greatly enriched game environment and a much more involving and cinematic plot. Particular highlights are Liberty City itself (and its thousands of residents), the biting satire (helped by the immigrant player character's viewpoint) and a surprisingly bitter conclusion (so much for the American Dream). Potential mistakes by the developers were the regular and intrusive requests by the player character's "cazzan" to socialise, and the ditching of the RPG (role-playing, not rocket-propelled) elements that gave San Andreas an extra level of depth. The game's much-vaunted "morality" choices were also a bit thinner on the ground than I'd expected, and had practically no impact on my progress. Much as with San Andreas, I began the game hoping that I'd be able to impress something of my own morality onto Niko Bellic, but I quickly wound up being channelled into excessively (if enjoyably) violent pathways by the game's mechanics. Still, it's a highly enjoyable, immersive and memorable title. I still remember my first boat ride around a misty Algonquin at dawn to the strains of Philip Glass.

Just Cause
Very much a GTA wannabe, but one largely lacking in the depth, polish and humour of the titles it's mimicking. A major plus is the beautiful game environment, which includes perfect tropical beaches, spectacular atmospheric effects and gorgeous jungles. All of which are rendered brilliantly from a technical standpoint. But the game falls flat when it comes to gameplay, with repetitive territory-grabbing missions, supersensitive vehicle controls and unconvincing AI opponents. Furthermore, in playing the CIA as straight-shooting white hats it also misses what could have been some great tricks with the plotline. I kept hoping the plot would twist into my player character working out he was just some Company stooge doing the evil bidding of The Man, or that the WMDs ostensibly owned by the dictator I was set on toppling would turn out to be phantoms. But no dice - in the end all I got was a totally cliched and unimaginative plotline. All that said, I still got a lot of pleasure alternatively drinking in the natural beauty of San Esperito and strafing it with missiles from my helicopter.

Mass Effect
Bar its science fiction setting and generally high rating, all I knew going in was that this game had caused a minor stir in the US for its purported sexual content. What was "shocking" to me was how tame, and how brief, this content actually turned out to be. These people really need to get out more often. Ironically, Mass Effect is easily the most sophisticated of the titles in this round-up when it comes to morality. Unlike GTA IV, Mass Effect both allows the player a lot of freedom to behave however they choose, but this latitude comes with consequences (though not ones that go so far as to prevent completion). As I played through the game I unwittingly revealed myself as a goody-two-shoes on the galactic stage of Mass Effect, ultimately finishing up practically a saint (I'd be lying if I didn't admit to getting a little buzz out of polishing my reputation to a dazzling shine). This gaming aspect is a new one to me, but I understand it's been in other titles for years. Anyhow, Mass Effect is otherwise a rather rich sci-fi yarn centred largely on exploration (by foot, vehicle and spaceship) and shooting space aliens. The former part of this reminded me somewhat of the fun I had almost two decades ago in the Gamma System (ahhh, nostalgia ...). The latter part (the shooting) is pretty competently done, although I think GTA IV is easily several steps ahead. A big plus for me is that its set-up is largely an intelligent raid on science fiction novels rather than a rehash of the kind of "Cowboys-and-Indians-in-Space" that makes up 90% of cinematic and televisual treatments. The developers have gone to some lengths to plausibly back-fill what's already a nicely twisty sci-fi plotline. However, there are also parts, notably the increasingly repetitive excursions to identical remote facilities, where cut-and-paste has clearly taken the place of careful thought. Still, the central missions have a lot more attention lavished on them, and are frequently both pleasingly complex and set in beautiful, extraterrestrial locations. Returning to the story itself, one bum note that the science fiction strikes is the virtual apartheid against AIs. They're universally portrayed as hostile to "organics" if not actually evil - even, as with the Geth, if they've previously been enslaved by said enlightened "organics". Were it not for the fact that they were constantly trying to take my head off with a hi-tech shotgun, I'd have been siding with them. This moral blind spot reminded me of something similar in a more hackneyed piece of "science fiction": Star Wars. There (in the Old Republic sense), the Jedi Knights are presiding over a galaxy in which slavery is pretty much OK (cf. Anakin Skywalker's mum). Anyway, another title to add to the "good, but slightly flawed" pile.

So, that was 2009. Things are already looking up for 2010 with Fallout 3, but that'll have to wait for another time.

Christmas in Carnoustie

Now that we're effectively "snowed-in" in Soton, I can catch-up on the blogging I've been putting off for the past couple of weeks ...

• 22 December: Bit of a disrupted journey up. Snow on the east coast made my parents wary of coming to get me from the airport, so I prebooked a bus ticket for this leg instead. Not that this helped me: delays elsewhere in the UK stalled my flight 2 hours, causing me to miss my ride. These were then compounded by the world's slowest carousel-loading service at Edinburgh - a record-breaking 65 minutes after touchdown. Anyway, after ditching the idea of making an alternative bus connection (Megabus being pants), a short bus hop (with a young Australian climate skeptic; Tate/Nate) followed by a train ride got me to Dundee. The roads to Carnoustie from there were sufficiently clear for a parental rescue.
  
  
• 23 December: Overnight, a further few cm of snow fell making ideal conditions for me to waste time taking faux arty photographs. Walked through the woods and along the High Street to the Flats, where Caitlin and I made a snowman. In the PM there was the ritual fixing of the parents computer to attend to.
  
  
• 24 December: No new snow, but I disastrously postponed my walk until the afternoon, whereupon it started instead to rain. So this turned into a stay-at-home day whose primary achievement was present wrapping. Despite the rain, the snow persisted, turning instead into snowman-useless ice.
  
  
• 25 December: Christmas Day had the usual shape of a walk (this time along Carnoustie beach at sunrise), followed by a family get-together. I caught up with both brothers, their partners and both of my (new-ish) nieces.
  
  
• 26 December: Though now suffering from the traditional CCC (Carnoustie Christmas Cold), in the PM I took a walk out along the beach between East Haven and Arbroath. Cue panorama beach photographs. Despite said cold, I was still able to be appalled by the sewage farm section of the walk. Out to see Jennifer et al. in the evening.
  
  
• 27 December: Spent the morning playing with Caitlin on her Wii, largely on the game that I bought her for Christmas. We also tried out some of the Wii fitness stuff - actually a lot more arduous than I figured it would be. The games aren't quite what I'm used to (less headshots, for instance), but playing alongside someone in the same room, and doing so via a quite physical interface, is a lot of fun. In the PM I carefully ventured across the snowy roads to neighbouring Monifieth to catch up with Phil's parents. The evening saw me round at the Bickerton's, catching up with the family and finally passing along much-belated birthday presents.
  
  
• 28 December: After being unable to resuscitate my parents' aged printer (a decade-old Epson), it was off to the town of my birth to secure a replacement. The shining newcomer impressively doubled as a scanner, but curiously managed (and manages - I never got to the bottom of this) to interfere with the wireless broadband whenever it was switched on. Out in the PM for a walk around Craigmill Den with Dave, Suze and Harry. The evening was a great get-together with the full gang, though alarmingly high in nostalgia index.
  
  
• 29 December: More mucking about on the parental PC, and an effort to spreadsheet Dad's blood sugar data. No interesting long-term trends, but I did find out how alarmingly early he gets up in the morning. Round to Colin and Catherine in the PM. Sounds like they had an interesting cruise-based trip around Norway and Iceland since my last visit. Spent my last Carnoustie evening down with brothers and family. Much shooting of the breeze followed, plus some shooting of airport hostages. Reminded me that consoles really aren't as good as PCs.
  
  
• 30 December: Packing and photographing Ava. She accompanied me to the airport in the PM, but in distracting her with my (new) phone, I managed to leave it behind in Scotland (it finally made its way to me on the 3rd January). The return journey was a nice contrast in timeliness to the upward leg. Home.
  

Auditory farce

Back to regular fiction and to a novelist who I’ve somehow managed not to read for a number of years for no good reason. David Lodge is well-known for his campus novels, and his latest, Deaf Sentence, is no exception.

The novel's protagonist, Desmond Bates, is a retired professor of linguistics in an British university, slowly coming to terms with his change of status and his encroaching deafness. While his career is largely over, his wife's has found a new lease of life. Meanwhile, his similarly deaf father is struggling with living alone in distant London, but is unwilling to either seek or accept help. Desmond's life is also complicated by the arrival of Alex, an American doctoral student who he accidentally agrees to help after a typical hearing-related misunderstanding. At first, Desmond's major concern is that this assistance may ruffle the feathers of academic rivals at his old department, but Alex proves to be much more of a unhinged handful, with further requests of Desmond that can't be put down to his hearing.

The novel actually got a bit of a bludgeoning in the Grauniad’s Digested Read column when it was first published, so I was more than a little sceptical at first. However, I read Lodge's Thinks ... several years ago, and found it excellent, both in its ruminations on self-consciousness and on academic life in a small research group. Furthermore, as C greatly enjoyed this novel, I figured that it was worth a shot. Just as well, since it was a really enjoyable and interesting read.

It does tend to the lighter end of the reading spectrum, being largely structured as a farce, but it makes time along the way for some more weighty issues (though possibly one too many; see later), and handles each deftly and considerately.

For instance, Desmond’s deafness serves largely as a pretext for comical miscommunication and misunderstanding. However, it is also carefully explored and articulated to the point that I can safely say that the novel has given me the greatest insight into disability (albeit a very specific one) that I’ve ever had. As ever, this probably says more about my reading choices and disinterest in life experiences different to my own, but the book did give me pause to consider how profoundly lives can be shaped, and curtailed, by physical limitations.

The book also made me acutely aware of my own hearing, and I do wonder if Lodge was thinking of this when he wrote it. Perhaps this is a little joke on his readers by making them paranoid about the range and acuity of their own faculties. It certainly made me notice a persistent, high-pitched tone in my head while lying awake at night.

The novel also does a commendable job tackling Desmond’s relationship with his father, and the journey that this takes as his father’s health, physical and mental, gradually declines. Though it’s a million miles from my family situation, I recognised aspects from my life and from that of my parents. Desmond’s education and academic life have opened a chasm between him and his father that, while unbridgeable, can be accommodated.

Much as with Thinks ..., the novel is great on details of academic life in the UK. Lodge does a good job of leavening the book with insights on departmental politics and research assessment exercises that undoubtedly stem from his own experiences in academia. And his handling of Alex's research topic, the semiotics of suicide notes, is completely convincing. I was quite engaged with this while I was reading the novel, and just assumed that he'd done his own research on the subject, but it turns out that the account he presents is largely invented. If I'd been a peer-reviewer, I might well have missed that ...

The one misstep I thought it made was the late entrance of a passage dealing with the Austwitz concentration camp. Desmond visits this very briefly at the end of a lecturing tour to Poland, and goes on to describes it pretty perfunctorily in his diary weeks after his return. In fact, he even comments on this cursory treatment as he writes his diary entry. Given this rather passing treatment to the subject, I'm not at all sure what Lodge was trying to achieve here. In these brief notes on a holocaust site, he may just have been observing that even what should be significant encounters with events or places can wind up as brief summary entries in our life histories. Or he may have been running up against a publishing deadline - it's not easy to tell.

Overall, a book badly served by Digested Read. I can see how the familiarity of the campus novel makes it appear stale and easily parodied, but I got a lot more out of it than just this. And I say this as someone not usually engaged by farce.

Christmas creativity

I'm completely useless at making anything myself by hand. Fortunately, the magic of the internet means that, as long as I can turn something into a digital file, someone else can turn it into a physical item for me. So, this year I've tried to knock up a couple of presents for C this way.

First up, her favourite novel as a Penguin-style mug ...



Next, ripping off the local artist Tina Bird Wallbridge to make a stylised map of our local neighbourhood ...

3D or not 3D? That is the question

With yesterday's snow making us chicken out of a run up to London, we bummed around Southampton for the day before heading out to see James Cameron's much-hyped Avatar. With the exception of [shudder] Titanic, I've always found Cameron's work a lot of fun, and his Aliens is still one of my favourite films. But the (over)selling of Avatar began early, so I was skeptical that Cameron would successfully tackle aliens on a remote planet^[*] for a second time.

The plot can be summarised in a single sentence: a crippled marine, Jake, goes to a distant world where his mind is projected into a fully-functional alien body, the avatar, ostensibly so that he can infiltrate the aliens and persuade them to let evil corporates rape the planet, but he goes all fifth-column on his masters when he belatedly discovers how evil they are, and ultimately leads the aliens (read "Native Americans") to a military victory over said evil-doers. OK, that would probably read better as two sentences, but it's not exactly Tolstoy. Serviceable science fiction nonsense (which, obviously, I love), but not exactly best-original-screenplay-Oscar material.

Aside from its pretty flawless integration of computer animation into live action, the other big selling point is the film's use of 3D. This is the bit I was probably more skeptical about going into the film. My first experience of this was watching, or rather trying to watch, Creature from the Black Lagoon in crappy anaglyph-o-vision^[**] way back in youth club when I must have been 10 years old. I then managed to dodge 3D for more than two decades, and figured it was dead, until I caught one about the ISS on IMAX in Florida. That was kind-of OK, but IMAX is still a sufficiently novel experience for me that it was difficult to separate the 3D from that. All of which makes Avatar my first experience of mainstream cinema 3D.

Coming out of the film, I'm still not convinced that 3D is the way forwards. Leaving aside the massively inflated ticket price (it cost us slightly less than double a seat at our local arthouse cinema), 3D just doesn't bring enough to the table to my mind. Firstly, it obviously does absolutely nothing for normal cinematic conventions like plot or character. A film will still stand or fall based on it making coherent internal sense and being filled with engaging characters, not on whether some of said characters appear slightly closer to the viewer than others.

Secondly, for all of Avatar's technical prowess, there were still moments where its 3D became briefly incoherent and times when I had to consciously make it 3D by re-focusing my eyes. For instance, early in the film there's a fast chase through a beautiful jungle that has the viewer racing along with Jake's avatar. Unfortunately, there's so much 3D information passing so quickly that my eyes gave up the ghost and the whole sequence was lost on me as a 3D spectacle. Other times, particularly in enclosed scenes, I found myself looking around the frame to objects much closer than the subjects that Cameron wanted me looking at, objects that were either difficult to bring into focus in the first place or which made it difficult to change focus when the action moved on.

Anyway, overall the 3D is pretty impressive, but I remain unconvinced that it's the way forwards for cinema. I think it's not a bad trick for spectacles like Avatar, but I'm not sure it'll add anything to conventional, character-based films. And there's still the economic aspect to whether studios will support it, namely: since DVD is now a major way by which films recoup their costs and make profits, and since TV is a long way from 3D and is inherently an unlikely platform (would you like to watch little 3D figures battle it out in a corner of your living room?), studios can't make a buck from the extra costs 3D films take to make. So I still remain to be persuaded on 3D.

Changing tack, is conventional, 2D Avatar up to much? Generally yes, but I don't think that it's up to Cameron's usual standards. I was kind-of suckered by the biological detail of the world, Pandora, that he's created, but I suspect that most people don't appreciate, or even spot, the homologies in the Pandoran fauna. I also suspect that many of Cameron's usual fans might be a little put-out by his flagrant tree-hugging as well. Again, this is something that I don't mind ... too much, but I would imagine that many more gung-ho fans might find themselves sympathising with the evil corporation's more laissez-faire attitude to Pandora's natural wealth. Furthermore, the underlying theme of biological unity sits interestingly with the heavily weaponised spaceships and exoskeletons.

There were one of two items I did particularly like or engage with. Firstly, that Cameron carries the idea of avatars further than simply the body that Jake "occupies". Both the corporate mercenaries (and their exoskeletons) and the native Na'vi warriors (and their mounts) extend themselves into the platforms they ride on, so there's a kind-of meta-avatar thing going on. I also quite liked the (ultimately new-agey) biological oneness that ties Pandora together. I was hoping that it might have a more sciencey explanation by the end (as hinted by Sigourney Weaver's scientist character), but Cameron left it as some mystical mumbo-jumbo that one had to gloss over. And, of course, I'm always suckered by films that use the evil-corporation-vs.-oppressed-underdogs dynamic. Although they were giant, blue-skinned and digitally-rendered space aliens, I totally got behind them.

I did wonder how Cameron will follow this one up though. We'll see.

---

[*] Actually, it's a moon of a gas giant that looks suspiciously like Jupiter. Admittedly, aside from zonal banding, the gas giants we're familiar with can look a little boring, but did Cameron really have to cut-and-paste Jupiter's Great Red Spot onto his fictional companion of Alpha Centauri? I'd have thought he could have been a bit more imaginative than that - perhaps two giant spots that merge during the film in some sort of meta-thing? He totally should have come to speak to me.

[**] Much to my surprise, I've just this minute discovered that the film was originally shot with the kind of polarised light 3D that is more popular nowadays, and which Avatar uses. I always figured that red-and-green were the official colours of the flag of ancient 3D films.