Our favorite frenemies

Hi,

So last night we were talking about state quarters and presidential dollars and stuff and I said:

"You know what would be great? Quarters commemorating every country the US has invaded. The Japanese quarter would be AWESOME! A big mushroom cloud with BOOM! in comic lettering."

But it got me thinking: What foreign country have we invaded the most? By invasion, I mean we sent in US military troops/assets against the wishes of the ruling government and either removed said government or killed people/broke its stuff.

Like, Germany we've invaded twice, Iraq we've invaded twice. I'm not sure if there's someone we've invaded 3 times. I thought maybe Libya, but during WWII I'd be hard pressed to say it wasn't a German/Italian-controlled sector and thus counts as part of a larger invasion against them.

Any thoughts? Anyone we just love to invade?

later
Tom

Our favorite frenemies

Hi,

So last night we were talking about state quarters and presidential dollars and stuff and I said:

"You know what would be great? Quarters commemorating every country the US has invaded. The Japanese quarter would be AWESOME! A big mushroom cloud with BOOM! in comic lettering."

But it got me thinking: What foreign country have we invaded the most? By invasion, I mean we sent in US military troops/assets against the wishes of the ruling government and either removed said government or killed people/broke its stuff.

Like, Germany we've invaded twice, Iraq we've invaded twice. I'm not sure if there's someone we've invaded 3 times. I thought maybe Libya, but during WWII I'd be hard pressed to say it wasn't a German/Italian-controlled sector and thus counts as part of a larger invasion against them.

Any thoughts? Anyone we just love to invade?

later
Tom

Accelreview

Hey,

So last night I finished up Accelerando by Charles Stross. I've never read much Stross, but lots of people seem to like him, so I thought I'd give it a whack.

Accelarndo is essentially an envisioning of the Coming Singularity as seen through the eyes of three generations of the Mancx family. We start with Manfred, an early 21st century idea man trying to obliterate money. After disputes with his wife, spiny lobster AIs, a French aerospace manager, the Russian Music Mafia and a identify mugger, we move on to his daughter Amber who runs away from home to Jupiter at age 12 to become Queen of her own personal kingdom. Finally, we catch up with Amber's son Sirhan who sits in a bubble dome floating in Saturn for the return of the last known copy of his mother.

The book was kinda hard to get into at first. Stross wants to invoke a sense of the future shock that all of his characters go through, but that makes for some rough reading in spots. He sorta catches it up as he goes along. But he does go head on into one of the thornier problems that is often unaddressed in near-Singularity books like this -- the future super-intelligences descended from ourselves and our creations are as completely unknowable to us as we are to a tapeworm, and there's no reason to think that these super-intelligences should have any more care, or treat us any better than we would a tapeworm. Which isn't to say that these AIs are particularly malicious or ill-disposed towards us, they just can't recognize their intellectual ancestors and could wreak untold havoc unintentionally. I think it's an important point that doesn't get addressed enough. It's sort of the flip side of Blindsight's meditation on non-sentient intelligence.

It was an interesting book, although I'm not super interested in picking up more Stross right away. I've heard good things about Halting State so maybe I'll give that a look-see sometime later.

later
Tom

Accelreview

Hey,

So last night I finished up Accelerando by Charles Stross. I've never read much Stross, but lots of people seem to like him, so I thought I'd give it a whack.

Accelarndo is essentially an envisioning of the Coming Singularity as seen through the eyes of three generations of the Mancx family. We start with Manfred, an early 21st century idea man trying to obliterate money. After disputes with his wife, spiny lobster AIs, a French aerospace manager, the Russian Music Mafia and a identify mugger, we move on to his daughter Amber who runs away from home to Jupiter at age 12 to become Queen of her own personal kingdom. Finally, we catch up with Amber's son Sirhan who sits in a bubble dome floating in Saturn for the return of the last known copy of his mother.

The book was kinda hard to get into at first. Stross wants to invoke a sense of the future shock that all of his characters go through, but that makes for some rough reading in spots. He sorta catches it up as he goes along. But he does go head on into one of the thornier problems that is often unaddressed in near-Singularity books like this -- the future super-intelligences descended from ourselves and our creations are as completely unknowable to us as we are to a tapeworm, and there's no reason to think that these super-intelligences should have any more care, or treat us any better than we would a tapeworm. Which isn't to say that these AIs are particularly malicious or ill-disposed towards us, they just can't recognize their intellectual ancestors and could wreak untold havoc unintentionally. I think it's an important point that doesn't get addressed enough. It's sort of the flip side of Blindsight's meditation on non-sentient intelligence.

It was an interesting book, although I'm not super interested in picking up more Stross right away. I've heard good things about Halting State so maybe I'll give that a look-see sometime later.

later
Tom