Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Human Rights

With all the fuss over human rights legislation there seems to be a trick missing.

In his Robot books Isaac Asimov postulated 3 laws of robotics:
1. A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Eventually in another novel (The Caves of Steel) he realised that there should be a zeroth law:
0. A robot may not injure humanity, or, through inaction, allow humanity to come to harm.
A condition stating that the Zeroth Law must not be broken was added to the original Laws.
(reference - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics)

So, is it simply not the case that any human rights actions should take on board a simple zeroth Humanity Rights law as well?

Friday, June 02, 2006

David Gilmour

Well some rumours were (W)right!  Rick Wright was there for all three nights, although having seen him on the R2 broadcast a few weeks ago that was no surprise really.  However the first night was a real surprise with David Bowie on Arnold Layne.  Mica Paris appeared for the next 2 nights for a 'not my cup of tea'  version of The Great Gig in the Sky.

But, cue drum roll, the best bit was Nick Mason appearing for Wish You Were Here and Comfortably Numb on the final night.  Well worth getting home at 2am for!  Sadly Kate Bush did not appear, despite many expectations that she would.  Another time eh?

Overall - the new album finally grew on me by night 3 (I'd not been a big fan so far), and I was disappointed by the complete absence of any material from the earlier Gilmour solo efforts.  We deserved Mihalis at least!