Let's give three cheers for NASA, our robots are on Mars
Because we are American they look like shiny cars
They're brave and uncomplaining as they trundle here and there
They take a lot of pictures and they have no need for air
As we go forth into the void our robots lead the way
Put on your 3-d glasses and behold the Martian day!
Read their LiveJournals here and here.
But even robots have their limits...
Saturday, October 28, 2006
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
2006 Study on Iraqi Deaths Contradicts 2004 Conclusions by Same Authors
The controversial Johns Hopkins study recently published in the Lancet follows up on a 2004 study by many of the same authors. The 2004 study was criticized because the limited sample size meant that the death estimates had a broad range of uncertainty. Nonetheless, the authors concluded that:
In the period of the study, about 60,00 Iraqis died from violence that wouldn't have happened if the prewar status quo had continued.
Most of them were killed by the invading coalition, and most of the victims were women and children.
In addition, another 40,000 Iraqis died from nonviolent causes that would have lived if the prewar status quo had continued, because of post invasion economic disruption, dislocation of the health care system, and so on.
In 2006, the team published a new study with a much larger sample size. The new study suggests that during the period measured by the 2004 study:
About 110,00 Iraqis died by violence. Most were killed either by insurgents or unidentified gunmen. Of the remainder killed by the coalition, most were males of military age.
Nonviolent deaths did not increase in the period immediately following the invasion. On the contrary, they decreased.
In a kinder, gentler universe, we might expect Les Roberts to explain:
"Wow. We really got the 2004 study wrong. In retrospect we should have understood that we didn't have enough data to know if most of the dead Iraqis were killed by the coalition or by local talent. We thought it was obvious that the coalition was using excessive force. In retrospect, we should have asked the coalition to be more agressive than it was. We were wrong and we're sorry"
I don't think we live in such a universe.
Will McLean
In the period of the study, about 60,00 Iraqis died from violence that wouldn't have happened if the prewar status quo had continued.
Most of them were killed by the invading coalition, and most of the victims were women and children.
In addition, another 40,000 Iraqis died from nonviolent causes that would have lived if the prewar status quo had continued, because of post invasion economic disruption, dislocation of the health care system, and so on.
In 2006, the team published a new study with a much larger sample size. The new study suggests that during the period measured by the 2004 study:
About 110,00 Iraqis died by violence. Most were killed either by insurgents or unidentified gunmen. Of the remainder killed by the coalition, most were males of military age.
Nonviolent deaths did not increase in the period immediately following the invasion. On the contrary, they decreased.
In a kinder, gentler universe, we might expect Les Roberts to explain:
"Wow. We really got the 2004 study wrong. In retrospect we should have understood that we didn't have enough data to know if most of the dead Iraqis were killed by the coalition or by local talent. We thought it was obvious that the coalition was using excessive force. In retrospect, we should have asked the coalition to be more agressive than it was. We were wrong and we're sorry"
I don't think we live in such a universe.
Will McLean
Saturday, October 14, 2006
More than 600,000 killed in Iraq?
So says a recent Johns Hopkins study published in the Lancet. Is it true? That's a huge number: somewhat more, as a share of population than the American Civil War, which took longer, and was fought with mass conscripted armies and 19th c. medicine and sanitation.
It's important to point out that this isn't an estimate of civilian dead. The study makes clear that there was no effort to exclude combatants from the death toll, and the study indicates that military age males account for a majority of violent deaths. The New York Times incorrectly described it as an estimate of civilian deaths, and I have not yet seen them publish a correction.
The Lancet's editor does seem to be to be a strong advocate for a particular political point of view with an interest in seeing the invasion of Iraq proved to have been a Very Bad Thing. That may have affected the timing of the study's release, and how vigorously it was reviewed before publication. Ultimately, however, the conclusions will rise and fall on the quality of the study itself.
The vast discrepancy between the estimate and the official figures raises concern, but not necessarily a fatal one. It is possible that local tallies of violent deaths at hospitals and mortuaries are either not making it in to the central government or being suppressed. That they are not being recorded at all seems an insufficient explanation: about 90% of the households in the survey that reported a death were able to provide a death certificate when asked.
More troubling is the discrepancy between the mid 2004 UNDP survey and this one. It used similar cluster sampling methodology to the Johns Hopkins study, but estimated 25,000 killed in the year following the invasion, compared to about 90,000 estimated by the Johns Hopkins study in the same period. It would appear that the UNDP figure was not intended to capture ordinary criminal murders, but that's hardly enough to explain the discrepancy: Insurgency, counter insurgency and sectarian violence seems to account for the lion's share of violent deaths.
Why might the John Hopkins study be wrong? To start with, it relies on dividing the country into equal size clusters, and sampling a group of households in each cluster. Accuracy depends on reasonably accurate estimates of population by region. One challenge is that accurate population estimates are hard to find in Iraq. The last nationwide census was 1993. Further, there's reason to question the accuracy of the Saddam era censuses: the ruling party had strong motives for inflating the number of Sunnis at the expense of other groups. The problem is compounded by the study's use of a two year old estimate.
If the population is overestimated in the more dangerous parts of Iraq, and underestimated in the less, then the more dangerous parts will be overrepresented in the sample. There's good reason to think that this was the case. The Sunni triangle would have benefited from any Saddam era selective distortion, and is generally considered to be one of the more violent parts of Iraq, and indeed this reflected is in the Johns Hopkins study. Further, you would expect the more violent regions to lose population share relative to the rest of Iraq since 2004, both because of flight and higher death rates.
Another problem might be nonrandom sampling of households. As I understand the protocol, the first household in the cluster was randomly chosen, and then the team would go to the nearest neighboring household, and so on. But in a lot of communities, a household will have two neighbors that are equally close. Ideally, the team should flip a coin, but that might not be what happens. "Asking about people killed in the fighting, are you? Then you should visit Widow Tikriti. She's right next door".
How can one confirm or refute the study? I have two suggestions. The first would involve asking local hospitals and mortuaries about the ratio of violent to nonviolent deaths. The other would be looking at demographics. If the study is correct, the violent death rate among adolescent and adult males has been very high since the invasion: 5% among 15-29 year olds, 9.5% among 30-44 year olds, and 7% among 45-59 year olds. Female violent death in the same cohort has been a very small fraction of that. The impact should be very visible in the male-female ratios in the relevant age groups. In doing such a study, one should keep in mind that sex ratios in the 44-59 age groups were already unbalanced by about that amount because of the deaths from Saddam's wars and massacres.
Update: More commentary at Asymmetrical Information, with more elsewhere on the site. And more here and here.
It's important to point out that this isn't an estimate of civilian dead. The study makes clear that there was no effort to exclude combatants from the death toll, and the study indicates that military age males account for a majority of violent deaths. The New York Times incorrectly described it as an estimate of civilian deaths, and I have not yet seen them publish a correction.
The Lancet's editor does seem to be to be a strong advocate for a particular political point of view with an interest in seeing the invasion of Iraq proved to have been a Very Bad Thing. That may have affected the timing of the study's release, and how vigorously it was reviewed before publication. Ultimately, however, the conclusions will rise and fall on the quality of the study itself.
The vast discrepancy between the estimate and the official figures raises concern, but not necessarily a fatal one. It is possible that local tallies of violent deaths at hospitals and mortuaries are either not making it in to the central government or being suppressed. That they are not being recorded at all seems an insufficient explanation: about 90% of the households in the survey that reported a death were able to provide a death certificate when asked.
More troubling is the discrepancy between the mid 2004 UNDP survey and this one. It used similar cluster sampling methodology to the Johns Hopkins study, but estimated 25,000 killed in the year following the invasion, compared to about 90,000 estimated by the Johns Hopkins study in the same period. It would appear that the UNDP figure was not intended to capture ordinary criminal murders, but that's hardly enough to explain the discrepancy: Insurgency, counter insurgency and sectarian violence seems to account for the lion's share of violent deaths.
Why might the John Hopkins study be wrong? To start with, it relies on dividing the country into equal size clusters, and sampling a group of households in each cluster. Accuracy depends on reasonably accurate estimates of population by region. One challenge is that accurate population estimates are hard to find in Iraq. The last nationwide census was 1993. Further, there's reason to question the accuracy of the Saddam era censuses: the ruling party had strong motives for inflating the number of Sunnis at the expense of other groups. The problem is compounded by the study's use of a two year old estimate.
If the population is overestimated in the more dangerous parts of Iraq, and underestimated in the less, then the more dangerous parts will be overrepresented in the sample. There's good reason to think that this was the case. The Sunni triangle would have benefited from any Saddam era selective distortion, and is generally considered to be one of the more violent parts of Iraq, and indeed this reflected is in the Johns Hopkins study. Further, you would expect the more violent regions to lose population share relative to the rest of Iraq since 2004, both because of flight and higher death rates.
Another problem might be nonrandom sampling of households. As I understand the protocol, the first household in the cluster was randomly chosen, and then the team would go to the nearest neighboring household, and so on. But in a lot of communities, a household will have two neighbors that are equally close. Ideally, the team should flip a coin, but that might not be what happens. "Asking about people killed in the fighting, are you? Then you should visit Widow Tikriti. She's right next door".
How can one confirm or refute the study? I have two suggestions. The first would involve asking local hospitals and mortuaries about the ratio of violent to nonviolent deaths. The other would be looking at demographics. If the study is correct, the violent death rate among adolescent and adult males has been very high since the invasion: 5% among 15-29 year olds, 9.5% among 30-44 year olds, and 7% among 45-59 year olds. Female violent death in the same cohort has been a very small fraction of that. The impact should be very visible in the male-female ratios in the relevant age groups. In doing such a study, one should keep in mind that sex ratios in the 44-59 age groups were already unbalanced by about that amount because of the deaths from Saddam's wars and massacres.
Update: More commentary at Asymmetrical Information, with more elsewhere on the site. And more here and here.
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Social Cues in Historical Movies
In the 1954 film Sabrina, Humphrey Bogart and William Holden portray two brothers from a wealthy family. One is a nose-to-the-grindstone businessman, the other a feckless playboy. A few subtle details, such as the angle of Bogart's hat brim, help convey their relative roles and character to the audience. These cues were clear enough to the film's original viewers, and still reasonably understandable.
For a film set 600 years ago, how practical is it to convey similar cues to a modern audience? A few medievalists might know that one style of sleeve denotes a respectable lady, and another that the wearer is a prostitute, but only a tiny minority of a modern audience could be expected to know this sort of detail.
If this information isn't conveyed then the modern audience is missing some important information about the relationship between the characters. What to do?
Ian McKellen's 1995 Richard III represents one solution. Setting the medieval story in a 1930s alternate reality transposes it into a society more comprehensible to modern viewers. The Woodvilles are portrayed as Americans, capturing their status as isolated outsiders in a way that the Olivier version missed. The interfamilial horror of Richard's coup is also underlined and the social relationship between Richard and his henchmen made more accessible.
But transposing a story to another era also has a downside. Shakespeare's Richard III may have manipulated popular opinion to gain power, but he wasn't a fascist. Fitting him into a fascist template is false to the actual Richard III, who belonged to a different era and thought differently.
The director of Knight's Tale followed a related strategy. One of the key plot elements is a romance between a rising commoner who is passing himself off as a knight and Jocelyn, an aristocratic lady. How can the director make the social gulf between them as clear to the audience as it would be to the hero? How can the director convey, not merely "she has expensive clothes" but "one of her dresses costs enough to support an ordinary family for a year?" In the film, Jocelyn wears clothes that evoke a modern couture wearing jetsetter. In one scene she wears a hat that might remind the viewer of one worn by Audrey Hepburn. In another she wears a strategically sheer dress that has more in common with modern high fashion than the Middle Ages. Her hair is the sort of expensive confection that can only be achieved with professional help, and perhaps not at all before the invention of styling mousse.
What she wears isn't necessarily much like what a woman of her rank would actually have worn in the 14th century. But it does convey a sense of expensively conspicuous consumption to the typical modern audience, and probably does a better job of doing so than literally correct costume and hairstyles would.
For a film set 600 years ago, how practical is it to convey similar cues to a modern audience? A few medievalists might know that one style of sleeve denotes a respectable lady, and another that the wearer is a prostitute, but only a tiny minority of a modern audience could be expected to know this sort of detail.
If this information isn't conveyed then the modern audience is missing some important information about the relationship between the characters. What to do?
Ian McKellen's 1995 Richard III represents one solution. Setting the medieval story in a 1930s alternate reality transposes it into a society more comprehensible to modern viewers. The Woodvilles are portrayed as Americans, capturing their status as isolated outsiders in a way that the Olivier version missed. The interfamilial horror of Richard's coup is also underlined and the social relationship between Richard and his henchmen made more accessible.
But transposing a story to another era also has a downside. Shakespeare's Richard III may have manipulated popular opinion to gain power, but he wasn't a fascist. Fitting him into a fascist template is false to the actual Richard III, who belonged to a different era and thought differently.
The director of Knight's Tale followed a related strategy. One of the key plot elements is a romance between a rising commoner who is passing himself off as a knight and Jocelyn, an aristocratic lady. How can the director make the social gulf between them as clear to the audience as it would be to the hero? How can the director convey, not merely "she has expensive clothes" but "one of her dresses costs enough to support an ordinary family for a year?" In the film, Jocelyn wears clothes that evoke a modern couture wearing jetsetter. In one scene she wears a hat that might remind the viewer of one worn by Audrey Hepburn. In another she wears a strategically sheer dress that has more in common with modern high fashion than the Middle Ages. Her hair is the sort of expensive confection that can only be achieved with professional help, and perhaps not at all before the invention of styling mousse.
What she wears isn't necessarily much like what a woman of her rank would actually have worn in the 14th century. But it does convey a sense of expensively conspicuous consumption to the typical modern audience, and probably does a better job of doing so than literally correct costume and hairstyles would.
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Knight's Tale
There's a lot that a purist could complain about in this movie, but I still like it. It has a bad case of historical clichés #4 (Real Men Don't Wear Dresses) and #5 (Bad Hair). The armor is mostly 16th c. in a story set in the 14th, and the tourney circuit portrayed in the film was more characteristic of the 12th century. 14th century squires are portrayed as peasants rather than the gentlemen they were. There's a plot hole in the final joust you could drive a Hussite war-wagon through. And yet...
I'm willing to cut the movie a lot of slack on the historical accuracy side because it doesn't pretend to be. When the opening tournament features the sound of air horns, fans doing the wave and "We Will Rock You" as background music, the viewer has fair warning that the movie is not going to be a literal recreation of the 14th century. Fair warning is good.
Having frankly admitted that it isn't necessarily going to be faithful to the actual Middle Ages, the film proceeds to provide nuggets of medieval goodness. William Thatcher (Heath Ledger), squire to the inconveniently dead Sir Hector, decides that he nonetheless has a shot at making it on the tourney circuit. He and his companions shortly encounter young Geoffrey Chaucer (Paul Bettany). "Perhaps you've heard of me? Book of the Duchess?...well fair enough, it was an allegory.." Bettany's wonderfully mournful crestfallen expression as it becomes clear that his listener's have not read the Book of the Duchesse was worth the price of admission for me.
The Chaucer subplot proceeds to wind in some characters from the Canterbury Tales and an explanation of the true background to "Chaucer's Complaint to His Purse" This sets up the conceit that the action nominally set in the 1370s thus justifies the high proportion of '70s music in the soundtrack.
Thatcher, pursuing his beloved, the aristocratic Jocelyn, is taken aback to discover that to win her love he must not simply do his best in the tournament, but go against his natural inclination and do his worst on her bidding. I'm happy to see a direct steal from Chrétien de Troyes on this, and the movie actually seems to have a fairly good take on the dynamics of courtly love. "I demand poetry, and when I want it, and I want it now." says Jocelyn, stamping her feet.
In spite of being something of a temporal tossed salad, the movie frequently tosses in highly plausible medieval artifacts. I had joyful moments of saying to myself "Hey! I recognize that aquamanile!"
And the recognition of the social value of a discovered or invented genealogy is an authentic medieval touch. This happens twice in the film. The first time it is clearly fraudulent. The second is nicely ambiguous: at a key point another tremendously convenient genealogy is revealed. Do the powers that be truly believe it, or is it a fiction that they wink at to achieve their ends without directly challenging social norms?
The jousting is splendidly kinetic and, as Jocelyn says, "abrupt", although I cringed a bit at the inadequate neck protection of some of the jousters.
Finally, I think Jocelyn's highly anachronistic hair and clothing are part of a deliberate and legitimate strategy for conveying important information to the audience. But that's fodder for another post.
I'm willing to cut the movie a lot of slack on the historical accuracy side because it doesn't pretend to be. When the opening tournament features the sound of air horns, fans doing the wave and "We Will Rock You" as background music, the viewer has fair warning that the movie is not going to be a literal recreation of the 14th century. Fair warning is good.
Having frankly admitted that it isn't necessarily going to be faithful to the actual Middle Ages, the film proceeds to provide nuggets of medieval goodness. William Thatcher (Heath Ledger), squire to the inconveniently dead Sir Hector, decides that he nonetheless has a shot at making it on the tourney circuit. He and his companions shortly encounter young Geoffrey Chaucer (Paul Bettany). "Perhaps you've heard of me? Book of the Duchess?...well fair enough, it was an allegory.." Bettany's wonderfully mournful crestfallen expression as it becomes clear that his listener's have not read the Book of the Duchesse was worth the price of admission for me.
The Chaucer subplot proceeds to wind in some characters from the Canterbury Tales and an explanation of the true background to "Chaucer's Complaint to His Purse" This sets up the conceit that the action nominally set in the 1370s thus justifies the high proportion of '70s music in the soundtrack.
Thatcher, pursuing his beloved, the aristocratic Jocelyn, is taken aback to discover that to win her love he must not simply do his best in the tournament, but go against his natural inclination and do his worst on her bidding. I'm happy to see a direct steal from Chrétien de Troyes on this, and the movie actually seems to have a fairly good take on the dynamics of courtly love. "I demand poetry, and when I want it, and I want it now." says Jocelyn, stamping her feet.
In spite of being something of a temporal tossed salad, the movie frequently tosses in highly plausible medieval artifacts. I had joyful moments of saying to myself "Hey! I recognize that aquamanile!"
And the recognition of the social value of a discovered or invented genealogy is an authentic medieval touch. This happens twice in the film. The first time it is clearly fraudulent. The second is nicely ambiguous: at a key point another tremendously convenient genealogy is revealed. Do the powers that be truly believe it, or is it a fiction that they wink at to achieve their ends without directly challenging social norms?
The jousting is splendidly kinetic and, as Jocelyn says, "abrupt", although I cringed a bit at the inadequate neck protection of some of the jousters.
Finally, I think Jocelyn's highly anachronistic hair and clothing are part of a deliberate and legitimate strategy for conveying important information to the audience. But that's fodder for another post.
Tuesday, September 19, 2006
Celebrating National Talk Like a Pirate Day
So, what's every pirate's dream, me mateys? Kiera nightly. Aarr arrr arrr.
To be fair to them Islamic protesters, Manuel II was a bit brusque with the whole "Show me just what Muhammad brought.." thing. Now, we hearty swabs aren't much on theology, arr, what with avoiding priests as unlucky. What stands to reason, with always seeing them at funerals and all. And not bein' much on regular reading of the Bible, on account of generally not being much on literacy, and even if you are you can't hardly open the book without reading something disapproving about wenching and plundering and what not, that leaves you feeling all conflicting about your career choices. Let alone the bits about not eating shellfish. And when you do get to a good nautical part, it's always some swab being swallowed by a whale, or St. Paul being shipwrecked and marooned and the like. Or Leviathans. I hates 'em, I do.
Where was I? Arrr. Well, it seems to a jolly tar like me that there are some of them, what you call 'em, genuine theological innovations to Islam besides the Jihadding about and suchlike capers. It's not like they're just Christians only with cutlasses. I mean to say that you get to be a monotheist but you don't have to be Jewish and you don't have to to keep straight the whole business with the Trinity which is so confusin' to a jolly swab.
Now, seems like poor old Manuel had some reason to be grumpy-like. On account of Bayazid having him as a vassal, and rubbing his nose in it by making him help take Philadelphia for him. No, not the one in the Tom Hanks movie, the one in Asia minor, what was full of Christians that had never done him harm. And then plundering most of what was left of his empire, and besieging him for what seems like an inordinate length o' time. And then they sends off a French army to rescue him, and it being the 14th century and them French he just knows that's goin' to end in tears and it does. Must have fair set him on his beam ends.
And then he starts to write up this dialogue he says he was having with one of them Persians, back when Bayazid is having him make up a fresh pot of coffee while Bayazid is pigging out on the stuffed dates and all. And he starts giving himself all the snappy comebacks that he didn't think of till later, and making the other swab go all stupid like and lose all the arguments, just like he was one of those swabs like Robert A. Heinlein or Socrates.
So that bit what old Manuel wrote wasn't exactly shipshape,but let it go, OK? Arrr. Some people need to put it behind them and move on.
To be fair to them Islamic protesters, Manuel II was a bit brusque with the whole "Show me just what Muhammad brought.." thing. Now, we hearty swabs aren't much on theology, arr, what with avoiding priests as unlucky. What stands to reason, with always seeing them at funerals and all. And not bein' much on regular reading of the Bible, on account of generally not being much on literacy, and even if you are you can't hardly open the book without reading something disapproving about wenching and plundering and what not, that leaves you feeling all conflicting about your career choices. Let alone the bits about not eating shellfish. And when you do get to a good nautical part, it's always some swab being swallowed by a whale, or St. Paul being shipwrecked and marooned and the like. Or Leviathans. I hates 'em, I do.
Where was I? Arrr. Well, it seems to a jolly tar like me that there are some of them, what you call 'em, genuine theological innovations to Islam besides the Jihadding about and suchlike capers. It's not like they're just Christians only with cutlasses. I mean to say that you get to be a monotheist but you don't have to be Jewish and you don't have to to keep straight the whole business with the Trinity which is so confusin' to a jolly swab.
Now, seems like poor old Manuel had some reason to be grumpy-like. On account of Bayazid having him as a vassal, and rubbing his nose in it by making him help take Philadelphia for him. No, not the one in the Tom Hanks movie, the one in Asia minor, what was full of Christians that had never done him harm. And then plundering most of what was left of his empire, and besieging him for what seems like an inordinate length o' time. And then they sends off a French army to rescue him, and it being the 14th century and them French he just knows that's goin' to end in tears and it does. Must have fair set him on his beam ends.
And then he starts to write up this dialogue he says he was having with one of them Persians, back when Bayazid is having him make up a fresh pot of coffee while Bayazid is pigging out on the stuffed dates and all. And he starts giving himself all the snappy comebacks that he didn't think of till later, and making the other swab go all stupid like and lose all the arguments, just like he was one of those swabs like Robert A. Heinlein or Socrates.
So that bit what old Manuel wrote wasn't exactly shipshape,but let it go, OK? Arrr. Some people need to put it behind them and move on.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Muslims Enraged by Statement by Byzantine Emperor
CONSTANTINOPLE, September 18, 1391. Ritters News Service.
Muslims around the world continued to demand a full apology after a recent statement by Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologos.
"The derogatory remarks about the philosophy of jihad and Prophet Muhammad have injured sentiments across the Muslim world and pose the danger of spreading acrimony among the religions," said Ottoman ruler Bayezid I from a siege battery outside the walls of Constantinople.
"It is obvious from the statements that the Emperor doesn't have a correct understanding of Islam." said Grand Vizier Qara Timurtash, speaking from field headquarters in Thessalonica
Gazi Evrenos Beg said on Thursday that Manuel II was "full of enmity and grudge" against Islam. He opposed the Emperor's proposal for a November truce in the ongoing siege of Constantinople.
A spokesman for the League of Jihadists in Anatolia demanded an apology and said. "I am enraged. I am boiling angry. Steam rises from my turban. He should be beheaded, and the head fed to a dog. And then you should behead the dog. It is shameful to say something like: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached........God is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death..."
"Even to quote such words is shameful, and worthy of death." said the spokesman before pausing briefly in consternation and beheading himself.
Muslims around the world continued to demand a full apology after a recent statement by Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologos.
"The derogatory remarks about the philosophy of jihad and Prophet Muhammad have injured sentiments across the Muslim world and pose the danger of spreading acrimony among the religions," said Ottoman ruler Bayezid I from a siege battery outside the walls of Constantinople.
"It is obvious from the statements that the Emperor doesn't have a correct understanding of Islam." said Grand Vizier Qara Timurtash, speaking from field headquarters in Thessalonica
Gazi Evrenos Beg said on Thursday that Manuel II was "full of enmity and grudge" against Islam. He opposed the Emperor's proposal for a November truce in the ongoing siege of Constantinople.
A spokesman for the League of Jihadists in Anatolia demanded an apology and said. "I am enraged. I am boiling angry. Steam rises from my turban. He should be beheaded, and the head fed to a dog. And then you should behead the dog. It is shameful to say something like: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached........God is not pleased by blood - and not acting reasonably is contrary to God's nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats... To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death..."
"Even to quote such words is shameful, and worthy of death." said the spokesman before pausing briefly in consternation and beheading himself.
Sunday, September 17, 2006
So what if college faculties skew liberal?
....asks Michael Berube in a New York Times article.
After all, he argues, students should expect to feel uncomfortable about their beliefs as a matter of course. So what if liberals are disproportionately represented among the professors?
For starters, because it cheats the students. We all have biases. If we spend most of our time with colleagues that share our views, we get intellectually flabby. Berube cites a study in which in which there are only three times as many self declared liberals as conservatives among college professors.
Now, if he knew any Republicans in his department, they might ask him: Aren't self-declared liberals rarer than self declared conservatives these days? Don't they represent approximately the leftmost 20% of the American political spectrum, while self-declared conservatives represent the rightmost 30% of the political spectrum? And what about the professors who happily describe themselves not as Liberal, but "far left?". Eyeballing the chart they look like about 5% or more of professors, while I expect the number of Americans that describe themselves that way is somewhat less than sampling error.
If he had that advantage, he would need, if intellectually honest, to come up with some reasonable answer to those objections. And his arguments would be the stronger for it.
If you haven't had much exposure to the best arguments of the other side, you have a tendency to depend on being right for the wrong reasons. "Oh poohpoohpooh. Higher marginal tax rates decreasing growth? That's just silly. I just don't see how that could be true."
There are good reasons to argue for more progressive taxation, but this isn't one of them. Someone that rubbed elbows with people from the other end of the ideological spectrum a little more often would know that.
And there are probably good reasons why people from the leftish side of the political spectrum would prefer to work in the closest thing America offers to a government subsidized Worker's Collective with excellent job security, and why aspiring capitalists would rather do something else. That doesn't explain why the liberal tilt in universities is increasing over time.
Berube argues that there's no evidence that liberals are "actively conspiring to keep dissenting voices off the faculty roster". Surely that's a rather low bar. "Well, we didn't have a formal conspiracy to keep out people that thought differently from us. It just mysteriously sort of happened that way, and more and more each year. We didn't keep minutes or anything. It was just obvious that anyone 50 degrees to the left or right of us was an unreasonable person that didn't deserve tenure. That's fair isn't it? Because we're where the center of gravity in American politics would be if Americans weren't temporarily deluded. Surely every reasonable person agrees. Or at least every one I know."
After all, he argues, students should expect to feel uncomfortable about their beliefs as a matter of course. So what if liberals are disproportionately represented among the professors?
For starters, because it cheats the students. We all have biases. If we spend most of our time with colleagues that share our views, we get intellectually flabby. Berube cites a study in which in which there are only three times as many self declared liberals as conservatives among college professors.
Now, if he knew any Republicans in his department, they might ask him: Aren't self-declared liberals rarer than self declared conservatives these days? Don't they represent approximately the leftmost 20% of the American political spectrum, while self-declared conservatives represent the rightmost 30% of the political spectrum? And what about the professors who happily describe themselves not as Liberal, but "far left?". Eyeballing the chart they look like about 5% or more of professors, while I expect the number of Americans that describe themselves that way is somewhat less than sampling error.
If he had that advantage, he would need, if intellectually honest, to come up with some reasonable answer to those objections. And his arguments would be the stronger for it.
If you haven't had much exposure to the best arguments of the other side, you have a tendency to depend on being right for the wrong reasons. "Oh poohpoohpooh. Higher marginal tax rates decreasing growth? That's just silly. I just don't see how that could be true."
There are good reasons to argue for more progressive taxation, but this isn't one of them. Someone that rubbed elbows with people from the other end of the ideological spectrum a little more often would know that.
And there are probably good reasons why people from the leftish side of the political spectrum would prefer to work in the closest thing America offers to a government subsidized Worker's Collective with excellent job security, and why aspiring capitalists would rather do something else. That doesn't explain why the liberal tilt in universities is increasing over time.
Berube argues that there's no evidence that liberals are "actively conspiring to keep dissenting voices off the faculty roster". Surely that's a rather low bar. "Well, we didn't have a formal conspiracy to keep out people that thought differently from us. It just mysteriously sort of happened that way, and more and more each year. We didn't keep minutes or anything. It was just obvious that anyone 50 degrees to the left or right of us was an unreasonable person that didn't deserve tenure. That's fair isn't it? Because we're where the center of gravity in American politics would be if Americans weren't temporarily deluded. Surely every reasonable person agrees. Or at least every one I know."
Swords and Thrown Spears
Yesterday I watched a Mythbusters Mega Movie Myths special episode. Mythbusters looks at those questions you've always wondered about. Could a medieval Chinese would-be astronaut have ascended to heaven in a rocket propelled chair? Could methane buildup trigger a port-a-john explosion? And, if not, can we find an excuse to blow something up anyway? "Well, Jamie, it looks from our controlled experiment that it's plausible that someone could have used a stick of dynamite to try and clean the hardened cement out of their cement truck. Looks like a bunch of the cement got chipped off. Now let's see what happens when we use 850 pounds of mining explosive. Folks, don't try this at home." Great fun.
Happily, one of the movie myths they looked at was "the scene where one guy slices through the other guy's sword". Step one demonstrated that none of them were particularly competent at swinging swords. They then brought in an experienced test cutter, filmed him slicing through tatami mats and deeply into ballistic gel, and calculated the speed of the sword's point of percussion at impact. This turned out to be 48 mph. More on this later.
They then built a swinging arm to give the same velocity, which replicated the ballistic gel performance. Cutting to the chase, unless it's a low quality sword, you can't cut it, but you can break it.
Now, we also have data on how fast a modern javelin can be thrown: nearly 70 mph for an 800 gram (1.76 lbs)javelin. The runup is a significant contributor to the difference in velocity. Since kinetic energy increases with the square of velocity, a mass moving at 70 mph has more than twice the kinetic energy of the same mass at 48 mph.
For comparison, Hardy's Longbow claims that a 70 lb bow can shoot a 57.4 gram arrow with a long bodkin point at 97.5 MPH. The javelin has seven times as much kinetic energy.
Which helps explain the persistence of thrown spears in 15th c. deeds of arms. I should caution that we don't know how their technique compares with a modern athlete's, and throwing a spear in armor would have reduced performance to some degree.
Happily, one of the movie myths they looked at was "the scene where one guy slices through the other guy's sword". Step one demonstrated that none of them were particularly competent at swinging swords. They then brought in an experienced test cutter, filmed him slicing through tatami mats and deeply into ballistic gel, and calculated the speed of the sword's point of percussion at impact. This turned out to be 48 mph. More on this later.
They then built a swinging arm to give the same velocity, which replicated the ballistic gel performance. Cutting to the chase, unless it's a low quality sword, you can't cut it, but you can break it.
Now, we also have data on how fast a modern javelin can be thrown: nearly 70 mph for an 800 gram (1.76 lbs)javelin. The runup is a significant contributor to the difference in velocity. Since kinetic energy increases with the square of velocity, a mass moving at 70 mph has more than twice the kinetic energy of the same mass at 48 mph.
For comparison, Hardy's Longbow claims that a 70 lb bow can shoot a 57.4 gram arrow with a long bodkin point at 97.5 MPH. The javelin has seven times as much kinetic energy.
Which helps explain the persistence of thrown spears in 15th c. deeds of arms. I should caution that we don't know how their technique compares with a modern athlete's, and throwing a spear in armor would have reduced performance to some degree.
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