FORESKINS! Am I really posting about this?

TAE has a cute little daughter, so has not come face to face with the decision whether or not to circumcise my child. However, Mrs. TAE and I plan on more kids in the future, so the subject is worth considering. But is it worth posting?

This article summarizes all of my best points, and thereby saves me the trouble. In short, circumcision is like driving...as long as done by someone qualified, then there are nothing but benefits.

Now, I certainly respect the rights of individuals to choose to opt their newborn sons out of any non-compulsory procedure, whether because of their doctor's advice or because of their own feelings. But as I have stated before, I feel those individuals that so choose are being selfish and unethical to increase the population's disease risk because of their own personal feelings (and unsubstantiated claims) about vaccines and their belief that personal risks outweighs the need for the larger community to be protected. The same goes for circumcision. By not circumcising your son, you are protecting him from rare, but possible nerve damage and deformity. Meanwhile, your putting him at much (read: MUCH) greater risk for many diseases. And you also add your son to the chain of "infectables" that act as tentpoles for a disease to travel through a population.


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Who will watch the watchmen?

Kathleen Sebelius, replacement for Tom "income tax is for wimps" Daschle, also owed back taxes. The extra taxes were from "unintentional errors" that her accountant found during the vetting process. Of course, her accountant didn't find those errors when her taxes were actually paid and the 1040 was actually submitted...you know, back when she actually owed the U.S. government the money...don't we all wish we could skimp 8 grand in taxes for a few years, and not pay it until the time is convenient (or never pay it at all)? Does anyone really think that these people were all completely unaware of their tax mistakes?

What was it I said the other day?

Is there anyone in the world that isn't a damnable liar?!

Here, you can sign a petition calling for an immediate IRS audit of all 557 Congresspersons, and the President. This will never happen, IMHO, because chances are 80%+ of Congress has errors in their tax returns, just like the rest of us.


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The Armageddon Competition is ON!

Late last year, I wrote (as did many others who are much less sarcastic and critical of the project) about CERN's Large Hadron Collider, which was meant to smash tiny atoms against one another at never-before-reached speeds, producing the Higgs-Boson particle, gaining greater insight into the formation and makeup of the universe.
However, there is a small chance, some scientists argued, that the LHC will produce a black hole. There is also a small chance, some of those scientists argued, that the black hole will then consume the Earth.
I joked that fortunately the LHC broke before it could smash any particles, and our Singularity-imposed doom was delayed.
Many people wondered if the United States had fallen behind in the international technological prowess race, as we did not have anything that was nearly as powerful as the LHC.

Well, fear no more! Today the DOE is expected to certify Lawrence Livermore Laboratory's new "Super Laser", a $3.5 billion device that will concentrate 192 not-quite-super lasers into a single point the size of a pencil eraser. At that point, scientists expect to see energy levels on the same order of magnitude as the sun, giving them insight into fusion. Some scientists, however, are skeptical, claiming that a sustained fusion reaction would be uncontrollable, and would consume everything around it.

Super-expensive, possibly-apocalyptic devices are going from oddity to trend very fast, and eventually someone will build one that actually can destroy the Earth.


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Man builds robot suit in garage using car seat

Okay, well, I'm not the only one who took a little journalistic license on this story. Nevertheless, it points to the idea that the technologies required for a powered suit not only exist, but exist in cheap and readily available places. It's all a question of integrating the parts into a successful design.
It also serves as an example that you don't need $75 million in DARPA research funds to produce something that helps people.


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Adventures in legalese

So apparently some 34 year-old intrepid person decided that kidnapping Shawn Johnson at gunpoint would be a really classy way to win her love, sort of like that genius that attempted to assassinate President Reagan to impress Jodie Foster.

He got caught, and was subsequently charged with felony stalking and two counts of carrying a loaded weapon in a car.

Which made me ask: if he had one loaded gun in one car...how is he charged with two counts of carrying a loaded gun in a car? This is a common problem for me, when people get charged with tons of repeat counts of an offense when they only appear to have committed the offense once.
Like I read some guy was charged with 46 counts of sexually-oriented charges. Can't you just charge him once with "being a disgusting, rotten scumbag"?

I have to wonder if the D.A. throws as many charges as possible at offenders, in hopes that the offenders' greasy lawyer won't be able to get all of them dropped. Sort of like slinging mud at a wall.


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Dug up an old video

When the robot overlords come to take you away...just flee up some stairs.


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Competition from the Warmongers

Now that I have resolved to build the world's most amazing powered suit, I have to study my competition. The current "leader" in the powered suit business is SARCOS. Watch this video here, it's impressive.

Well, it's impressive right up until you realize that the suit has rudimentary hook hands and you really can't "grab" anything.

As an exercise, make your index and middle finger into a "hook" and curl up your other fingers, including your thumb. Now go to the fridge and try to make yourself a sandwich or open a bottle of wine. Pretty tough with hooks, isn't it? Powered suits really aren't any good if you can't use them!

I won't deny the controls integration of the SARCOS suit is leaps and bounds ahead of the one I have sketched out. But am I honestly the only person who has thought a power-augmented hand should be the first order of business, and then you should build from there? Humans really have two things that separate them from all other animal species: upright, running stature and a keen intellect coupled to the power to devise and use tools.

The argument is long to make, and I don't really want to do it here. The point at which I would eventually arrive is that there is a separation between the military complex and the civilian need and the division is that the military complex doesn't require hands, just hooks. A soldier can easily lift a 400 lb bomb up under a plane wing with hooks, then an assisting soldier clamps it in place. A soldier can have several hundred pounds of ammo and equipment stacked on his power assisted suit, then hike it for miles, never once needing his hands.
But in the civilian world, the applications for powered suits almost always requires hands. Perhaps assembly line workers could assemble larger pieces of machinery, or carry more product, if they had a powered suit. This would be difficult with hooks but simple with power-assisted hands. Think of something you've tried to do that required you to strain yourself. Chances are, it would be a lot easier if you had a powered suit, but would require hands to do it.
My personal favorite example is the idea of moving into a new home. Wouldn't it be easier (faster and more efficient too) to unload all that heavy furniture if you had a powered suit? But would your wife be okay with you putting hook-holds in the sides of the leather couch? Better buy the suit with hands.

But the research funding is all military. Seems like any time you mention "super-soldier" you get instant Army dollars, and a guaranteed article in Popular Science.

I guess maybe I'm just a whiny pacifist on this one, but I just don't think it's a good investment of a human mind to devise better ways of killing one another. Seems like the civilian sector is where this research should be conducted. The problem is that the DOD has a $530 billion budget, and the NIH (which funds private research) has a budget roughly 1/20th of that.

The argument could be (and usually is) that government research eventually trickles down to civilians, like Velcro and Tang, but I guess my problem is that I don't want powered suits to trickle down from soldiers to civilians. I don't even want there to be soldiers. I dream of a peaceful (though far-fetched world) where no one fights with anyone else, and making deadlier soldiers seems (though in the best interest of good defense) converse to the idea of preserving and raising the quality of life. I'd much rather see a powered suit in the hands of Tony Stark than in the hands of Obadiah Stane, to rip right from the movies.


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