crispy web roll, or, this morning I saw it in tubes

Interspersed amid simple chores, food rites, and blank spaces several things have bubbled up for my reflections. And as it is said: if it bubbles it is, most likely, worth the trouble.

First off, not only do 'M16 officers' (These are MP's or Marines or what?) get immunity from the government in regard to crimes against humanity that they may have (why bother investigating further?) perpetrated on behest of the United States of America in the interrogation of Gitmo detainees. The best part is that the diplomatic power relationship that protects them from consequence is exactly the threat of American abandoning Britain's side in "Intellegence Cooperation." The prisoner in question, whose case found its way to a British court, and who is said to have had his scrotum sliced by a razorblade, among other outrages, has been determined innocent. So what do we learn from this gnarly little knot of W. reverb?
As we once morbidly suspected but gradually knew:
('National Security' + 'Strong Diplomatic Ties') > most other human concerns (uncleft scrotums)

to me it seems that there is some more complicated, damning math to be had here. trying to parse it out.

That England is protecting American volunteer soldiers who colluded with other, British volunteer soldiers to disfigure the undercarraige of an Islamic British citizen who was involuntarily, unjustly incarcerated and stripped of all attestable rights including the right to a sealed scrotum on an American military base in Communist Cuba, and that the wiggy, flop-sweaty magistrates of Britian have found legally that they have no public comment to make or no duty to admit these facts into the public record because, assumedly, to do so may lead to a contraction of cooperative goodwill between the bosses of volunteer soldiers from friendly countries who want to be able to oversee the fraternal slicing of testicle bags without rebuke, and America has threatened that they will maybe not let the British officers partake of these youthful frivolities, if Britain tells on them. Moreover, the better to stay mum since such troublesome-type news reports may have the undesired consequence of embarassing Britons.

Somewhere in that paragraphical examination there is an obscene kernal.

Next: Big Breaking Robot News!!!!
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126946.600-unnatural-selection-robots-start-to-evolve.html?full=true

Scientists at the Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, UK are fine tuning a robotic operating system which not only mimics the mechanism of evolution across robot 'generations', but can actively 'evolve' itself in real time. Perhaps fears should be allayed by the truism: the evolution of technology represents an exponential upward trajectory in time and that it outpaces genetic evolution by probably millions of times. This seems obvious enough. So why my concern/excitement?

The proliferation of artificial intellegences embodied in finely articulated mechanical systems continues to be an unfulfilled promise in this present incarnation of the future, despite great leaps in technology. To a world in which robots are a marginal, if fascinating, presence, mostly consigned to science fiction, industrial plants and vacuuming pools and carpets, news of this order is allowed to pass freely under the bridge.

Yet these advances and these creations may well shape the future yet.

The new system at Aberdeen improves on earlier evolutionary algorithms in that the robot is able to respond to its own feedback by making adjustments and trying new possibilities when it is unable to meet the demands of the task it has been programmed for. ( The fact that there are a species of extant humanoid robots that are able to evolve solutions to such programmed problems is apparently old news.) The new Incremental Evolutionary Algorithm allows the robot to reconfigure its own 'brain' given changing circumstances.

This heralds the existance of complex, multifaceted, learning, immortal, intellegent and constantly evolving humanoids of great strength or other mechanical ability. But it also cracks the door open for robots to perform any number of learned human-order tasks. And there is no data to suggest that robots will develop political class consciousness or expect maternity leave, medical benefits or company happy hours. They will, however, systematically exhaust all given possibilities for the accomplishment of a programmed goal, probably in a fraction of the time that a mere human would require.

The job market is going to get even tougher.

Of course, as Obama suggested recently, one great use for such robots would be to replace them on manned space missions, to represent the humanoid form to any celestial onlookers. (Obama didn't actually mention humanoid robots, but he did call for an end to manned missions and replacement with robotic systems (more economical, safer, and sterile).

Oversight, regulation and a strict adherence to the Three Laws is archly important.

Robotic cars, though, I am in support of. A recent NPR program had a scientist saying "there is absolutely no reason that people should be responsible for driving cars, which causes so much senseless carnage and strife." or something just like that. true that.

So that's all for now.