I decided a little while ago that my blog should really be at wbillingsley.blogspot.com
rather than whb21.blogspot.com. "whb21" isn't very meaningful unless you're in Cambridge (it's my university ID), whereas "wbillingsley" is more self-explanatory.
But this has given me the little snag -- whb21.blogspot.com has been up for a while and has quietly accrued PageRank; wbillingsley.blogspot.com has a round PageRank of zero. Fortunately, given that I'm not a commercial blogger, this doesn't affect me financially. But it's a bit awkward that anybody who searches for my blog will always find the old one first...
Friday, June 01, 2007
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Bush, Ahmadinejad, and “Cheat” (the card game)
I don’t normally make political posts, and to be honest this one isn’t political either. I don’t want to get into the rights and wrongs of who should be allowed nuclear weapons, nor the honesty or dishonesty of either player – this post is purely looking at the game strategies of the two players, Iran and the US, assuming they are the sort of abstract game players you see in mathematics papers. But the conclusion is that Iran almost certainly is developing a nuclear weapon, and the US almost certainly should take action.
In the card game Cheat, players play cards face-down and claim what they are. When someone plays their cards, anyone can call “cheat” and look at them. If the player was cheating, they have to pick up the stack; if the player was not cheating, the caller has to pick up the stack. With Iraq, Saddam Hussein claimed not to have WMDs, Bush called “cheat”, and picked up the lost lives and political fallout of an expensive unnecessary war when no WMDs were found. Ahmadinejad is well aware that the US, with its hands full of Iraq’s troubles from its last call, would find it very hard to call “cheat” again and risk getting another handful of unnecessary lives lost, expense, and international embarrassment. Of course that’s also exactly what makes it more likely for Ahmadinejad to cheat…
I can honestly say that before the Iraq war I predicted Iraq did not have any WMDs (I posted it briefly as a rant on my website, before taking it down not wanting to make any political statements at the time – it’s maybe still on archive.org), and I can reasonably predict that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon. The reason isn’t any special intelligence, but just having a frank look at the “game situation” for the parties involved.
As I originally posted: In the 1990s Saddam Hussein certainly did have chemical weapons, but “strategy” suggests he’d have got rid of them by late 2002. For Saddam, in the 1990s, chemical weapons made sense as a strong weapon he could use against rebels within Iraq. But as soon as the US started threatening war over WMDs, it would have been very bad strategy to keep them – gas is not an effective weapon against a stealth bomber 3 miles in the sky, nor against the worlds best equipped army who he’d expect to have plenty of gas masks. Suddenly that well-equipped enemy was the biggest threat to his power, not the ill-equipped rebels, and the WMDs had become a risk and not a benefit. So what could he do? He couldn’t admit to having chemical weapons to the inspectors, or Bush could immediately shout “see, he’s had WMDs all this time, let’s invade!”. And he couldn’t risk the inspectors finding them either. So presumably the only strategy he had left was to quietly get rid of them and then pretend he hadn’t had any chemical weapons for ages, hoping the Americans would be persuaded to give up when the inspectors didn’t find anything. Become “innocent” quickly, and pretend he was innocent all along. And I reckon that’s probably what happened.
Ahmedinejad is in a different position. His public image and his popular support in Iran comes from him resolutely defying America. Also, he’s in a position where he possibly could get a nuke and become untouchable by the US, who have never gone to war with enemies they think are nuclear-armed (as opposed to chemically-armed) and maybe never could. If Ahmadinejad gives in and abandons the bomb, he risks being seen as weak in his own country, and potentially losing power. If he presses on, he just might get the security of that weapon and (hypothetically in his mind) be able to change the politics of the Middle East forever.
So just looking at the strategies and game situation, Ahmadinejad looks like he’ll cheat, and Bush needs to have the courage to call him on it despite having got the last “cheat” call so wrong. But with only two years left in office, and Republicans becoming less and less liked in America because of that previous call, I’m worried Bush might feel unable to call “cheat” again. And that’d be the beginner’s mistake in the card game (suckered into calling when you shouldn’t, and then immediately suckered into not calling when you should).
Strategically the worst thing to do would be for the US or Britain to make any public statement ruling out military action. Tell a Cheat player you'll definitely not call "cheat" on their next play, and you've just given them carte blanche to put their whole hand down while claiming it's just a pair of threes.
In the card game Cheat, players play cards face-down and claim what they are. When someone plays their cards, anyone can call “cheat” and look at them. If the player was cheating, they have to pick up the stack; if the player was not cheating, the caller has to pick up the stack. With Iraq, Saddam Hussein claimed not to have WMDs, Bush called “cheat”, and picked up the lost lives and political fallout of an expensive unnecessary war when no WMDs were found. Ahmadinejad is well aware that the US, with its hands full of Iraq’s troubles from its last call, would find it very hard to call “cheat” again and risk getting another handful of unnecessary lives lost, expense, and international embarrassment. Of course that’s also exactly what makes it more likely for Ahmadinejad to cheat…
I can honestly say that before the Iraq war I predicted Iraq did not have any WMDs (I posted it briefly as a rant on my website, before taking it down not wanting to make any political statements at the time – it’s maybe still on archive.org), and I can reasonably predict that Iran is trying to build a nuclear weapon. The reason isn’t any special intelligence, but just having a frank look at the “game situation” for the parties involved.
As I originally posted: In the 1990s Saddam Hussein certainly did have chemical weapons, but “strategy” suggests he’d have got rid of them by late 2002. For Saddam, in the 1990s, chemical weapons made sense as a strong weapon he could use against rebels within Iraq. But as soon as the US started threatening war over WMDs, it would have been very bad strategy to keep them – gas is not an effective weapon against a stealth bomber 3 miles in the sky, nor against the worlds best equipped army who he’d expect to have plenty of gas masks. Suddenly that well-equipped enemy was the biggest threat to his power, not the ill-equipped rebels, and the WMDs had become a risk and not a benefit. So what could he do? He couldn’t admit to having chemical weapons to the inspectors, or Bush could immediately shout “see, he’s had WMDs all this time, let’s invade!”. And he couldn’t risk the inspectors finding them either. So presumably the only strategy he had left was to quietly get rid of them and then pretend he hadn’t had any chemical weapons for ages, hoping the Americans would be persuaded to give up when the inspectors didn’t find anything. Become “innocent” quickly, and pretend he was innocent all along. And I reckon that’s probably what happened.
Ahmedinejad is in a different position. His public image and his popular support in Iran comes from him resolutely defying America. Also, he’s in a position where he possibly could get a nuke and become untouchable by the US, who have never gone to war with enemies they think are nuclear-armed (as opposed to chemically-armed) and maybe never could. If Ahmadinejad gives in and abandons the bomb, he risks being seen as weak in his own country, and potentially losing power. If he presses on, he just might get the security of that weapon and (hypothetically in his mind) be able to change the politics of the Middle East forever.
So just looking at the strategies and game situation, Ahmadinejad looks like he’ll cheat, and Bush needs to have the courage to call him on it despite having got the last “cheat” call so wrong. But with only two years left in office, and Republicans becoming less and less liked in America because of that previous call, I’m worried Bush might feel unable to call “cheat” again. And that’d be the beginner’s mistake in the card game (suckered into calling when you shouldn’t, and then immediately suckered into not calling when you should).
Strategically the worst thing to do would be for the US or Britain to make any public statement ruling out military action. Tell a Cheat player you'll definitely not call "cheat" on their next play, and you've just given them carte blanche to put their whole hand down while claiming it's just a pair of threes.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Tales from Mumbai - a visa for Arthur Dent?
If you're travelling to India, one of the first things you need is a visa. The High Commission website tells you that visas can often be processed the same day in person, and since our group was making the trip at fairly short notice we thought we'd do that rather than risk posting three passports and hoping for no delays. It turns out that this was a terrible mistake.
My colleague, went down to put the applications and came back with two receipts and he message that the visas should be ready on Thursday next week. (He'd not been resident in the UK for a year, and I have dual Australian/British citizenship, so that makes things take a little longer). Ok, so far so good, and I had the easy job of taking the receipts down and picking the passports up. On the Thursday I duly rang the number on the receipt and was told the visas would be ready at 3pm, no problem...
God still speaks in the world, and he does it with great humour, so naturally my journey into Greater Bureaucracy began when I hopped onto a London bound train, found myself a seat, and seconds later the message "due to a faulty overhead line in Royston, this train is now cancelled and will terminate here" (along with all other London bound trains that day). Friday. The trains are running, and I make my way to India House: one of the biggest and busiest embassies of one of the world's fastest growing high-tech economies.
The place you collect visas from is a small external window that during lunchtimes looks as though it is a closed remnant left over from the fifties. It turns out that this is because the entire High Commission feels like an old remnant left over from the fifties. The upstairs and downstairs halls are full of old wooden bank-teller windows behind which the overworked staff sit, dealing with paperwork in ranks of wooden pidgeon holes. I'm sure they do have computers too, but they seem well hidden. Both the upstairs and downstairs halls are packed so full of applicants it's hard to move around. At the front door, a tired man looks at an enormous queue of people's paperwork and snaps 'upstairs' or 'downstairs' at them depending on where they need to go. In my case this turned out to be downstairs, where they told me about the little window outside I really needed to go to (when it opens after lunch).
The woman behind the window (after lunch) was friendly but quiet. I handed over the two receipts, and she efficiently hunted through her pigeon holes, eventually returning both receipts and one passport. There was then an awkward pause as I stood there waiting for the second passport, or for her to say something, while she stared quietly out at me, presumably wondering what the heck I was doing still standing at her window. I broke the silence with a nervous
"Erm, I think there should be a second passport".
"Not ready."
"Oh, do you know when it will be ready?"
"It's not here. It's not ready."
"Yes, but can you check when it will be ready - they told me on the phone it was ready yesterday"
"Not ready. I don't have it. It's not ready."
This was a little awkward. The official on the phone had told me it was ready, so presumably it had left her desk, and it hadn't arrived at the collection window. I had visions of my colleague's passport floating lost around a creaking embassy building while nobody would look further than their pigeon holes to find out where it was. I didn't have a phone or pay-phone change to call the first official with. Obviously I'd have to ask inside the halls. But whom? Faced with the daunting task of two halls crammed full of people and a take a number system that I knew (from another colleague) would give you a number at 9.30am that could be called at 4pm, I decided to ask the doorman.
"Excuse me".
"Upstairs".
"No, I need to ..."
"Downstairs."
"Can you please listen to me first. Last week my colleague applied for our visas, and..."
"Applications upstairs"
"No, we've already out in the application, but..."
"Collection downstairs"
"...the woman on the phone said they were ready, but..."
"You need to go to the window outside"
"but the woman at the window didn't have them"
At this he said something new - "Go to the PRO". Unfortunately, the questions "Where is the PRO?" and "What is the PRO?" were also met with the response "Go to the PRO". After a trip upstairs, frantically looking for anything marked PRO (there isn't any sign), and returning to ask "I can't find the PRO, where is it?" his helpful reply was "Just go to the PRO".
Luckily for me, asking random customers in the hall "Excuse me, do you know where the PRO is?" worked, as the second customer asked happened to have been there before. The PRO is the unsigned locked door between two of the upstairs bank-teller-like windows (numbers 9 and 10 I think) that's normally obscured by all the people waiting for the windows. (How foolish of me not to realise!)
When I squeezed my way to the door, there was a small huddle of forlorn-looking people who were also waiting for the mystical PRO. Apparently, they said, a grumpy man (the PRO?) would come to the door every now and then, open it, maybe say something to someone, then close it and disappear. More worrying was the tale of the PRO-seeker in front of me. He had a story that started similarly to mine -- he had applied for two visas and only one passport was returned. He found the PRO, and explained his plight. The PRO said to come back next Wednesday, which was difficult because the man was flying on Monday. The PRO relented after a while and asked to see the passport he did get back, so he could sort the problem out. He then abruptly disappeared behind the door, returning some twenty minutes later with a receipt for the passport and the message "yes, you can collect it next Wednesday" (still two days after the flight).
Keeping my passport well-hidden inside my coat, I braved the PRO.
"Three thirty", he said to me before I could even say a word.
"I was told my colleague's passport was ready, but..."
"It'll be ready at three thirty", he said still not looking at the receipt and having no idea which passport he was talking about. I had a strange feeling I'd had this conversation before, with the doorman.
"No, I was told it was ready yesterday at three thirty..."
It took a little convincing, but eventually I did convince the PRO to at least look at the receipt and check where my colleague's passport was, without handing over my own precious passport. And, with an expression of utter jubilation, a short while later I did get the passport with the visa. I understand the previous customer also eventually managed to persist enough to collect his and his colleague's passports that day (rather than having to return two days after their flight).
If there's a moral to this story, well I guess it is this. Bureaucracy is always going to be tough and slow with any country and any embassy, but if you need to apply for a conference visa to India, maybe you'd better do it by post.
My colleague, went down to put the applications and came back with two receipts and he message that the visas should be ready on Thursday next week. (He'd not been resident in the UK for a year, and I have dual Australian/British citizenship, so that makes things take a little longer). Ok, so far so good, and I had the easy job of taking the receipts down and picking the passports up. On the Thursday I duly rang the number on the receipt and was told the visas would be ready at 3pm, no problem...
God still speaks in the world, and he does it with great humour, so naturally my journey into Greater Bureaucracy began when I hopped onto a London bound train, found myself a seat, and seconds later the message "due to a faulty overhead line in Royston, this train is now cancelled and will terminate here" (along with all other London bound trains that day). Friday. The trains are running, and I make my way to India House: one of the biggest and busiest embassies of one of the world's fastest growing high-tech economies.
The place you collect visas from is a small external window that during lunchtimes looks as though it is a closed remnant left over from the fifties. It turns out that this is because the entire High Commission feels like an old remnant left over from the fifties. The upstairs and downstairs halls are full of old wooden bank-teller windows behind which the overworked staff sit, dealing with paperwork in ranks of wooden pidgeon holes. I'm sure they do have computers too, but they seem well hidden. Both the upstairs and downstairs halls are packed so full of applicants it's hard to move around. At the front door, a tired man looks at an enormous queue of people's paperwork and snaps 'upstairs' or 'downstairs' at them depending on where they need to go. In my case this turned out to be downstairs, where they told me about the little window outside I really needed to go to (when it opens after lunch).
The woman behind the window (after lunch) was friendly but quiet. I handed over the two receipts, and she efficiently hunted through her pigeon holes, eventually returning both receipts and one passport. There was then an awkward pause as I stood there waiting for the second passport, or for her to say something, while she stared quietly out at me, presumably wondering what the heck I was doing still standing at her window. I broke the silence with a nervous
"Erm, I think there should be a second passport".
"Not ready."
"Oh, do you know when it will be ready?"
"It's not here. It's not ready."
"Yes, but can you check when it will be ready - they told me on the phone it was ready yesterday"
"Not ready. I don't have it. It's not ready."
This was a little awkward. The official on the phone had told me it was ready, so presumably it had left her desk, and it hadn't arrived at the collection window. I had visions of my colleague's passport floating lost around a creaking embassy building while nobody would look further than their pigeon holes to find out where it was. I didn't have a phone or pay-phone change to call the first official with. Obviously I'd have to ask inside the halls. But whom? Faced with the daunting task of two halls crammed full of people and a take a number system that I knew (from another colleague) would give you a number at 9.30am that could be called at 4pm, I decided to ask the doorman.
"Excuse me".
"Upstairs".
"No, I need to ..."
"Downstairs."
"Can you please listen to me first. Last week my colleague applied for our visas, and..."
"Applications upstairs"
"No, we've already out in the application, but..."
"Collection downstairs"
"...the woman on the phone said they were ready, but..."
"You need to go to the window outside"
"but the woman at the window didn't have them"
At this he said something new - "Go to the PRO". Unfortunately, the questions "Where is the PRO?" and "What is the PRO?" were also met with the response "Go to the PRO". After a trip upstairs, frantically looking for anything marked PRO (there isn't any sign), and returning to ask "I can't find the PRO, where is it?" his helpful reply was "Just go to the PRO".
Luckily for me, asking random customers in the hall "Excuse me, do you know where the PRO is?" worked, as the second customer asked happened to have been there before. The PRO is the unsigned locked door between two of the upstairs bank-teller-like windows (numbers 9 and 10 I think) that's normally obscured by all the people waiting for the windows. (How foolish of me not to realise!)
When I squeezed my way to the door, there was a small huddle of forlorn-looking people who were also waiting for the mystical PRO. Apparently, they said, a grumpy man (the PRO?) would come to the door every now and then, open it, maybe say something to someone, then close it and disappear. More worrying was the tale of the PRO-seeker in front of me. He had a story that started similarly to mine -- he had applied for two visas and only one passport was returned. He found the PRO, and explained his plight. The PRO said to come back next Wednesday, which was difficult because the man was flying on Monday. The PRO relented after a while and asked to see the passport he did get back, so he could sort the problem out. He then abruptly disappeared behind the door, returning some twenty minutes later with a receipt for the passport and the message "yes, you can collect it next Wednesday" (still two days after the flight).
Keeping my passport well-hidden inside my coat, I braved the PRO.
"Three thirty", he said to me before I could even say a word.
"I was told my colleague's passport was ready, but..."
"It'll be ready at three thirty", he said still not looking at the receipt and having no idea which passport he was talking about. I had a strange feeling I'd had this conversation before, with the doorman.
"No, I was told it was ready yesterday at three thirty..."
It took a little convincing, but eventually I did convince the PRO to at least look at the receipt and check where my colleague's passport was, without handing over my own precious passport. And, with an expression of utter jubilation, a short while later I did get the passport with the visa. I understand the previous customer also eventually managed to persist enough to collect his and his colleague's passports that day (rather than having to return two days after their flight).
If there's a moral to this story, well I guess it is this. Bureaucracy is always going to be tough and slow with any country and any embassy, but if you need to apply for a conference visa to India, maybe you'd better do it by post.
Tales from Mumbai
This week I'm over in Mumbai, at IIT Bombay's TechFest, helping our research group present the same MindReading Machines demo that we presented at the Royal Society's summer science exhibition. (Don't worry, MindReading Machines won't find out that you had Mars Bars for breakfast -- it's all about understanding facial expressions and gestures rather than mystically reading your secret thoughts.) I'm not directly involved in the MindReading Machines research, but I'm usually up for a free trip somewhere exciting!
Anyway, travel to exotic climes is always fun, and I've got a few spare jetlagged hours when I can't sleep, so I'll try to post a few of the more fun stories.
Anyway, travel to exotic climes is always fun, and I've got a few spare jetlagged hours when I can't sleep, so I'll try to post a few of the more fun stories.
Monday, January 15, 2007
Comments Moderation turned on
Well, those more regular updates haven't happened (yet). Neither has posting sections of my thesis (it turns out I'm too embarrassed to post the unedited parts, and some sections of my thesis include work that has not yet been published so blogging it is perhaps a bad idea).
I've turned on comment moderation, so the number of spam comments should slow down. Why do I mention this on a so-far fairly inactive blog? Site statistics for the Computer Lab suggest a surprisingly large number of people visit my lab pages each month (probably mostly prospective PhD applicants checking out the group). Since I do link this blog from there, it's worth making sure the spam comments are kept in check.
I've turned on comment moderation, so the number of spam comments should slow down. Why do I mention this on a so-far fairly inactive blog? Site statistics for the Computer Lab suggest a surprisingly large number of people visit my lab pages each month (probably mostly prospective PhD applicants checking out the group). Since I do link this blog from there, it's worth making sure the spam comments are kept in check.
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