A WAR GONE WRONG

 

The best analysis of the War with Iran to date is in Maritime Executive

It is written by Brigadier Jonathan Campbell-James, a one-time senior military intelligence officer, and it is on pages 28-29.

"To defeat an enemy like the IRGC," starts a particularly pertinent paragraph, "you need the resolve and cunning of a lion, and you need lawyers and diplomats who understand the negotiators sitting on the other side of the table.

"The U.S. has plethora of those with profound understanding of Iran and its ways as well as a deep well of U.S. citizens of Iranian origin to draw from, but they were not deployed or were put on mute for this negotiation. "

And yet, strong, intelligent, wily negotiation is essential.  As the wise brigadier stresses, Iran has an overwhelming ambition to establish Persian national dominance and religious evangelism over the Middle East, and it is extraordinary that this was not factored into the MoU.

There is one thing on the bright side.  The Iranian people themselves are turning away from this fundamental religion, resenting its restriction, severity, and unfairness. But, the war is largely negating this advantage.  Because of the threats from the U.S. and Israel, they are fired up instead by a sense of nationalism.  They have become fervent patriots.

As Campbell-James says, "The Islamic regime is about the most hated government in the world; the population is turning away from religion, but patriotism and national pride still prevail when faced with foreign interference."

As he concludes, "In the final analysis, strategy can only be effective if based on a deep understanding of the threat. Waging war without clear strategic objectives is a set-up for failure. It squanders human life, wastes money, and is ultimately counterproductive."

DISTRUST OF AI AND HATRED OF DATA CENTERS

 

Sixty-five percent of New Zealanders DO NOT WANT data centers

This, according to a recent news item in Wellington's Stuff, is out of synch with the rest of the world, where an average of 49% of measured populations is reasonably happy with them.

As the very pertinent article goes on to state, data centers are the most visible part of the AI goldrush, and Kiwis are, to put it mildly, sceptical of AI.

Kiwis are environmentalists, on the whole.  The wonderful landscape of the country is to be treasured, and to be kept as pristine as possible. AI and the attendant data centers are viewed as resource greedy and environmentally destructive.

There is plenty of evidence for this. AI gobbles whole libraries, turning millions of books into degradeable bytes (or whatever the right word might be), while data centers chew up enough power to keep a whole town alight, and demand rivers of fresh water. 

There are about 20,000 of these greedy beasts worldwide, and currently New Zealand has fifty-six of them.  More are planned, and the backlash is growing. When a conference of data center leaders was held in Auckland this past week, a protest was mounted.

The Green Party has called for a twelve-month moratorium, in imitation of what is already happening in New York (which already has a moratorium in place) and Texas, where a hold is being put on 1800 sites.

The argument for data centers is that there is a huge global demand for the kind of computing that AI can provide, and New Zealand should hop on the gravy wagon to get a share of the profits from selling data created here.  The problem is -- will the profits stay here, or land in the techbros' pockets?  The dire suspicion is that the second option is what will happen. 

So the other argument is that they are needed for our economy and national security.  But are those vague goals a good excuse for domestic power bills lifting by at least six percent?

And how do we make sure that our personal data does not flow out on the same current? When it is considered that AI companies use pirated books and casual written conversations to build up their databases, the suspicion becomes a valid one. 

As the founder of a local tech company observes, these huge data centers are not being built for New Zealand or New Zealanders. Instead, we are effectively giving away renewable energy, and driving New Zealand businesses and New Zealand workers away. The more we and our government depend on giant AI companies, the more we send our data and money offshore, for little return.  So why feed the monster?

Americans, take note. Over forty percent of data centers, plus leading labs, like Anthropic and OpenAI, are sited in your country.

TINA - THE UNMISSABLE FILM

 

Somehow, I missed this wonderful film when it was in the theaters

But luckily, I was able to pick it up on Netflix.

I haver never seen a Samoan made or inspired film without loving it.  Thus, I expected a lot when I started watching Tina, (with a macron over the A, it being a Samoan word that means "mother"), and was not disappointed in the slightest.  Instead, I was enraptured.

Written and directed by the talented Miki Magasiva, the story features a Samoan music teacher, Mareta Percival, played by the equally talented Anapela Polataivao.  She works at a decile one school in Christchurch, New Zealand, where decile one is the lowest grade, staffed by dedicated teachers who are working with often disadvantaged children, who often come from the poorest homes.

Stricken with grief when her daughter is killed in the 2011 Christchurch earthquake, trapped in the CTV building when it collapsed, Mareta becomes incapable of work, or any kind of normal life. Then, when her unemployment benefit is threatened by her failure to apply for any jobs, she is forced to turn up for an interview at a prestigious Christchurch secondary school, for the position of substitute teacher.

To her disgust, she gets the job. To have a sturdy, middleaged Samoan woman in puletasi (lavalava or sarong with matched top) walk into a white, upperclass, snobbish college is hilarious, and with typically impish Samoan humor, the writer makes the most of it. 

"You must be the first Polynesian to enter these prescincts," comments the loftily superior senior teacher

"Well," says Mareta after an eloquent pause. "Congrats."

The atmosphere threatens to descend into mutual contempt - but then Mareta discovers a musically talented girl, Sophie (played by newcomer Antonia Robinson), who suffers from depression and scarring, evidently from the same earthquake.  Mareta's motherly instincts surface, as to her surprise she finds that these teenagers are as desperately in need of guidance and love as the children in the decile one schools.  To get Sophie to sing, she founds a choir, though very much against the school's traditions and rules.

The evolution of the choir is simply wonderful  Despite the opposition of the school board, the teachers, and the school rugby team, it flourishes, while at the same time the teenagers learn Samoan ways and traditions.  They wear white to sing at a Samoan church, and they learn (most reluctantly) to wear a lavalava.

The singing, mostly in Samoan, is sublime. Off-screen, it was led by Tuilagi Dr Igelese Ete, who was the choirmaster for the Lord of the Rings and Moana. The last item, the choir's entry in the finals of the "Big Sing" competition, is utterly awesome, as the students themselves would say.

The film debuted at the 2024 Hawaii International Film festival, to an ecstatic reception, thoroughly deserved.  Released in New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Fiji, the Cook Islands and (of course) Samoa, it continued a run of huge success.

If you haven't seen it, do.  Highly recommended

AI and book destruction

 

New Zealand bookstore receives mysterious orders

The store is in Newtown, Wellington, and is called "Bookhaven."  It stocks mostly New Zealand books, many of them non-fiction dating from the 1970s and 1980s, and some of them Maori editions.

Business was as usual until suddenly massive, multiple-copy orders for outdated non-fiction books came racing through from a Canada-based operation. The owner, Annemarie Thorby, smelled a rat, as the cost of shipping alone would make the purchases cost-ineffective.  So, was it a AI enterprise, aimed at data-mining?  Where the actual books were destroyed? She feared so, and cancelled the orders.

Interviewed, she said:

"One order was for 71 books, and we physically can't handle that.”

The buyer wanted books with ISBNs (a unique code used to identify a specific book, edition, or format) from the 1970s and 1980s, she told RNZ’s Midday Report.

“They were local non-fiction niche books, so New Zealand local history, a tourist pamphlet on Waitomo Caves, Māori language books, New Zealand cookbooks, biographies, political cartoons, very niche - the local anglers club.”

With postage and tariffs there was no way the buyer could turn a profit, she says.

“A $10 book could end up costing $40, so ridiculous. It had to be something else. That's when we did some sleuthing and contacted AbeBooks, their little online forum.”

These kinds of odd orders were happening around the world, she says.

“Tens of thousands of books being bought by this one company to go to a warehouse in the USA. It was India, it was Europe, it was us, and it wasn't just us in New Zealand, there were other bookshops.”

AI companies are buying these books and training their large language models, sometimes destroying books in the process. It's the only way for them to do it, she says.

“They're not recycling, they're devouring them, they're destroying them. One of the quotes from the Anthropic court case was, Project Panama - so this is from the company, from Anthropic - Project Panama is our effort to destructively scan all the books in the world.”

Annemarie Thorby, according to Techspot, is perfectly correct.  This massive buying of non-fiction books from that era is going on all over the world.  AI firms are buying up these older books -- ones that can be guaranteed free of any AI content, which apparently degrades over time -- to train their models, and destroying the books in the process. 

The outfit that is creating this immense database is known as "ISBNdb" and is employing firms such as ABE books to make purchases ranging from 1000 to a million books from secondhand bookstores.

And these books are often rare.  Yet they are treated with no respect at all.  The spines are ripped off and the loose pages run through scanners, then shredded. 

What are the AI companies carrying out this wholesale process?  The names are kept secret in an atmosphere of strict confidentiality.  But the name of Anthropic crops up all the time

TAKE SHELTER

 

This film is billed as a psychological thriller ... but I don't quite agree

For me, it was partly a window into what it is like to endure the agony of mental illness. Insanity is usually something to be observed, with pity but little understanding.

In Take Shelter a young husband, father and drill operator  -- Curtis LaForche, brilliantly played by Michael Shannon -- experiences terrifying nightmares.  The son of a committed paranoid schizophrenic, he comes to the conclusion that he is mentally ill, yet is still driven by a mad, uncontrollable compulsion to build a shelter from an oncoming catastrophic storm. The confusion Curtis is enduring is portrayed so vividly that it is impossible not to share his pain.

His awful dreams always begin with a storm, heralded by thunder and forked lightning. The rain is greasy, like oil. Birds scream in strange patterns and clusters in the darkening sky. His beloved dog attacks him, so violently that the pain in his arm persists long after he wakes.  There is a zombie, too, so horrifying that when he wakes he finds he has wet the bed.

His wife, played with tenderness by Jessica Chastain, loves and supports him, despite her growing fear. There is a small daughter, Hannah, deaf and beautiful, in need of constant supervision and protection, portrayed by a talented child who is actually deaf, Tova Stewart.  While adored, she adds to the pressure on the little family.

The film is also a commentary on the state of health in the United States -- consulting a psychiatrist is too expensive, while the free counseling clinic has too few clinicians, men and women who are well motivated, but are shifted around to fill gaps in the ranks. Curtis is trapped in his job because of the good medical insurance involved, and when he is fired it means that Hannah does not get the cochlear implant she has been promised.  Nor does he get the psychological help he needs.

There is loneliness, too. Christian inlaws are distant and unsympathetic. One friend and his one brother ask him if he is all right, but are helpless.  When Curtis loses self-control and screams a warning to a dinner crowd that an epic storm is on the way and that it is imperative to find shelter, the reaction is silent, uncomprehending hostility. He is a good worker, but when he borrows a backhoe from his work site to dig out his own shelter, his boss refuses to try to understand the strange situation, and fires him, instead.

A tornado does come.  The shelter he has built (at a cost he cannot possibly afford) does seem to serve its purpose.  But when morning dawns the world is bright, calm and sunny, with very little evident damage.  It was just a regular twister that has gone on its way.  It is this that persuades him that he has indeed gone mad

But has he? The real message is, of course, about global warming. And the remarkable and unexpected ending makes the strong, final point -- that perhaps Curtis LaForche was not insane at all, just eerily prescient.