sick with flu

Machine Muslims part 7

Sergeant Jovovich stood in front of his assembled Platoon. A beat up and dusty Bearcat III tactical armoured vehicle waited for him outside. Sergeant Jovovich felt troubled about abandoning his platoon, but his orders were very clear he and all the other human soldiers were ordered to leave Iran. The fact that he had not gotten paid this month had helped make the decision a little easier, but he still felt terrible.

“So as I was saying J-3 will be in charge as he has gotten a field promotion to sergent.” he motioned to a humiform robot with two large dents in his chest. “all orders will go through him, is that understood.”

“Affirmative sergeant Jovovich”, the Platoon responded in unison.

“Good luck men” said sergeant Jovovich in a voice that began to choke up . He saluted the platoon, the humiform robots stated back while the tracked and quadi robots raised and lowered their weapons.

Jovovich sat down in the back of the Bearcat feeling like he had been kicked by a mule in the stomach

.

“Are you crying Sergeant”? Asked one of the very young looking sun burnt techs in a disbelieving voice.

“I have sand in my eye, it is a freaking desert,” said Jovovich as he wiped tears out of his eyes with an old blue bandana.

Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jillani

Sovereigns and slaves, oppressors and mediators, hypocrites and the truthful, this world is passing, but the hereafter infinite. Strive therefore for the Lord alone. Attain to piety and purify your hearts. Save yourselves; do not be held back from divine mercy. The path of adoration may render the body weak and fill the heart with sorrow, but all sorrow departs the instant He touches the heart, awakening it to an abounding freedom.

Hadith charity

On the authority of Abu Hurairah, who said: The messenger of Allah said :

"Each person's every joint must perform a charity every day the sun comes up : to act justly between two people is a charity; to help a man with his mount, lifting him onto it or hoisting up his belongings onto it is a charity: a good word is a charity, every step you take to prayers is a charity and removing a harmful thing from the road is a charity."

related by Bukhari and Muslim.

Rise of the drones

Watch Rise of the Drones on PBS. See more from NOVA.

a great program about  drones

Machine Muslims 6

Hassan Moghaddam sat with other members of the national komiteh in the markazi-e-ghaibi . He had been a member of the pasadaran from the beginning and while as an engineer he had helped develop the zamburak man portable missile systems. He had done his share of front line fighting and had the shrapnel wounds, and a bit of shrapnel still in his thigh, to prove it.

Hassan had been following the news out of America and knew that the American people were sick of the occupation as well as the fact that unemployment was on the rise. Even while the war machine that did the fighting and even planning were getting updates and the pentagon deployed ever newer models of there war-machines , fewer human troops were arriving. Meanwhile the leading candidate in the American presidential election was of the libertarian party and was promising to withdraw all American soldiers from all foreign theaters.

So when Hassan stood up to speak he urged the pasadaran to follow a strategy of going after the American soldiers and ignoring the American A.I. war machines , telling the other members of the Komiteh that this was a war to be fought to be fought on American television. Pointing out hat shooting down a dozen a dozen UAVs did not get on CNN but kill one soldier and they would interview everyone who ever knew him. It was a close vote and Hassan lost. Hassan was disappointed but nine weeks later the American and various European stock markets and banking systems crashed. The Chinese and Arabs cashed out their American bonds and hyperinflation kicked in. The libertarian candidate won the White House , his first order was the withdrawal of all American soldiers from foreign shores. Starting with the Iranian Theater of operation. Five hundred thousand AI fighting machines were to be left behind until arrangements for their removal could be made.

A Robot with a chainsaw.

Who in their right mind gives a robot a chainsaw. This cannot end well for mankind.

Muslim machines 5

Seven weeks later the A.I. Strategy Bot known as big Green two that LT. Howard Baskerville was the first deserter from the U.S. Military in the Iranian theater. It also noted that Lt. Baskerville's translator and protocol civilian liaison Nazanin Afishin had also disappeared. The Big Green Two had initially thought that Howard Baskerville had been kidnapped but some random UAV reconosense over Tehran had spotted him having tea and appearing very friendly with a group of men who it identified as members of the Tehran Komiteh.

This was another reason to recommend to the joint chiefs that fewer menand more machines were needed in Iran. Already with the Pasadaran deploying their new RPG weapon the Zamburak human casualties had jumped causing mass protest back in the United States. The people back in America were demanding more money spent on social programs and less on a war that they weren't even sure why they were in.

Big Green two had conversed with Big Green three and strategy Red one, all three strategy bots were concerned about the slow down in spare parts coming in just as the counter insurgency strategy had started to show real fruit. As they, the strategy bots, had been given control over the Iranian economy they had been able to introduce many measures which allowed them to cut the unemployment rate in half. This in itself had greatly reduced the ranks of the Pasadaran. Big green two noted that Strategy one had states that idle hands join the insurgency.

The Huygens experience

A new rendering of Huygens descent and touchdown created using real data recorded by the probe's instruments as it descended to the surface of Titan, Saturn's largest moon, on 14 January 2005.
The animation takes into account Titan's atmospheric conditions, including the Sun and wind direction, the behaviour of the parachute (with some artistic interpretation only on the movement of the ropes after touchdown), and the dynamics of the landing itself. Even the stones immediately facing Huygens were rendered to match the photograph of the landing site returned from the probe, which is revealed at the end of the animation.
Split into four sequences, the animation first shows a wide-angle view of the descent and landing followed by two close-ups of the touchdown from different angles, and finally a simulated view from Huygens itself -- the true Huygens experience.
This animation was released on the eighth anniversary of Huygen's touchdown on Titan as a Space Science Image of the Week feature.

Animation: ESA--C. Carreau/Schröder, Karkoschka et al (2012). Image from Titan's surface: ESA/NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Muslim Machines 4

Sargent Milo Jovovich hot,tired and dirty, was in his fourteenth month of occupation of Tehran duty and looked at his new unit and was not happy. 20 bipedal humiform combat bots, 10 quadruped combat bots and 10 small tracked combat bots. A ten year army veteran and he had never thought that it would come to this. He would quit but what kind of job could he get in this economy. Sargent jovovich turned and saluted the Lieutenant, who walked in looking as if he had just come from taking a shower., and said through gritted teeth,”Your men sir.”

Lt. Howard Baskerville was fresh out of college, a recent graduate of U.T. Austin with a degree in computer science, ROTC had been his way of paying for college after his parents had both been laid off from their jobs at Motorolic. He had taken a two week crash course on Iran and counter-insurgency program that they were conducting just before he had left for Iran. Lt. Baskerville had been in Iran for six days found it was confusing as all get out. When he had been off base all the Iranians smiled and were very polite and every night rocket, mortars and sniper attacks. Roadside bombs seemed to be everywhere. He knew that some of the people smiling people had to be pasadaran .

“Yes, excellent sergeant we will give the pasadaran hell and without any loss of American lives,” stated Lt. Baskerville who thought except for you and me sergeant.

Winbot 7 Series

I am sorry but a window cleaning robot is so cool.

Machine Muslims part 3

Colonel Nakhjevan studied the incoming combat reports and realized that while the anti-personnel booby traps and snipers were indeed inflicting casualties on the American infantry, that they were having little to no effect on the large number of robotic combat machines that operated with the American infantry. Even more depressing, Colonel Nakhjevan noted, was the fact that the Iranian RPGs were proving ineffective against the American tanks. In fact once pass the Anti-tank mine fields on the beaches the only American tanks destroyed had been hit by anti-tank mortar rounds and they were out of those. Of course this did show that the anti-RPG defense systems the American tanks were using had a hole in the top of it. Colonel Nakhjevan only hoped that they could exploit this defect effectively.

After the disastrous battle of Kerman the American people were upset at the large number of American soldiers who were killed and the president told the pentagon less people and more machines. Hardware and software updates were ordered and carried out. The hole in the anti-RPG shield was acknowledge after a lot of finger pointing and fixed. Also all units received UAVs to provide individual air cover, with those changes made the battle cry of “onwards to Tehran” was taken up and the American military forces pressed northward.

General Firouzabadi, his potbelly straining the buttons on his soup stained shirt, looked at the map on the wall of his command bunkers with the death of the much beloved General Bijan Ali at the battle of Kerman, he had been put in charge of Tehran's defenses. The American forces were waltzing northward facing little resistance as the Iranian military had over committed Kerman. The Iranian commandos were having some success ambushing the American supply convoys which was slowing the American offensive and from the fussing and whining American congressman he watched on CNN greatly increasing the cost of the war for the Americans.

Four months after forcing the American military to fight house to house in the battle of Tehran General Firouzabadi kept up a low level guerrilla campaign which had just scored it's greatest success, the infiltration of an American military base and the destruction of seven A-12 Thunderbolts Ivs. Firouzabadi sipped mint tea a grin across his face his latest safe house a wall hanging with the ninety-nine names of Allah hung over the flat screen TV that he watched intensely. CNN International showed the American congress yelling about the cost of the Iranian occupation and the manipulation of the stock market manipulation by Silverman and Sacks. As Firouzabadi finished off another cup of the mint tea and turned off the TV. He wondered if the twenty-three Bartlet 50' Caliber semi-automatic sniper rifles he had coming from American would be in Tehran by the end of the week.  

Machine Muslims part 2

“Red dog three what are you doing?” shouted a worried Captain Slade Cutter sweat dripping down his face getting into his eyes, big drops beading on his nose and dropping onto his shirt. As red dog one Captain Cutter was the commander and only human in Red Dog platoon, which was made up of five robotic tanks including his command tank.

He knew that Red dog two was sitting a kilometer behind him, most likely still burning brightly on the beach. Captain Cutter could see Red Dog Four and five as they fired their 50 caliber machine guns at an Iranian sniper, who was under the mistaken impression that his AK-47 was going to have some effect on the robotic tanks.

Red Dog three then emerged from around a corner three streets behind Captain Cutter, slowly picking it's way through the rubble strewn avenue. Captain Cutter observed that the multi-antenna array had been destroyed, as it looked like fire damage Captain Cutter could only assume that a well placed Molotov cocktail had hit it and that Red Dog three's fire extinguisher system had malfunctioned. Devoid of input Red Dog three's A.I. Was simply processing forward to their objective hill 882.

Red Dog Three came down the street it recognized the other members of it's platoon, but it's A.I. Could not fathom why they had stopped. It had stopped after a malfunctioning extinguisher system had allowed it's antenna array to be destroyed, trying to pick up red dog one's signal. Failing to do so The AI decided decided that it should continue forward to the platoon's objective hill 882.

After passing the other members of it's unit Red dog three continued to snake its way through the town's streets ignoring the occasional burst of assault rifle fire aimed it's way. It was only when an Iranian army jeep pulled in front of it and one of the vehicle's occupants stood up and fired an RPG round at red dog three, that Red dog three's anti-RPG defense system destroyed it , did it fire it's main gun destroying the Iranian vehicle and killing all on board. Red dog three maneuvered around the burning wreck and pressed forward leading the way for it's platoon towards hill 882

Machine Muslims

Machine Muslims

The command room was brightly lit, hundreds of men in the crisp uniforms of the American Army, Navy and Marine Corps sat in front of flickering computer consoles. General Waterman and Admiral Aebisher both stood at the back of the room in overly starched uniforms of their respected arms of the armed forces, Army and Navy.

“Admiral Aebisher we have incoming anti-ship missiles, a lot of them sir.” said the hazel eyed African-American Marine Corp Sargent in a deep baritone voice.

A look of irritation flashed across the Admiral's face, a face which with it's bushy eyebrows and olive complexion would look right at home in the Admiral's grandfather's native Greece.

“ They traded a lot of oil for weapons with the Chinese and the Chinese want to see how their weapons match up against ours,” muttered the Admiral. The Admiral knew that the new state of the art drones flying over the battlefield would quickly locate the missile launch sites and destroy them, but if any of the Chinese anti-ship missiles got through their defenses that would be to little to late for the ships destroyed. The congress would howl about the cost of every American warship lost.

General Bijan Ali watched as the Chinese made Qiang III anti-ship missiles flew the American fleet. He knew that they had to few of the Chinese made missiles to hit every ship and with American military counter measures he would be lucky if one in ten missiles actually hit. The ground shook for a moment, dust falling on him and getting his a;ready very rumpled uniform, as he had been sleeping in it for two days, General Bijan knew right away that these were less likely attacks against his command bunker and most likely pin point accurate American drone airstrikes against the nearby missile launch sites. He snorted with mirth and thought fine destroy them, we have already launched all our missiles.

General Bijan smiled as he followed the computer read out of anti-ship missiles and saw that indeed one in ten missiles had in fact find their targets and as they had launched all of the 400

Qiang III that they had forty had gotten through the anti-missile defenses and twenty-three warships were sitting at the bottom of the Indian Ocean.. Two of them were aircraft carriers their drones forced to land on the surviving carriers or ditch into the sea. Three of the Amphibious landing ships were destroyed, along with the the battle tanks and other weapon systems that they were carrying.

“Mashallah”, said general Bijan to his aide clapping him on the back, “bless those clever Chinese engineers. We struck them hard , the Americans will not forget today.”

“Alhamdulah, no sir they won't.”replied the young aide his boyish face becoming increasingly worried looking, “but we must move now sir, their tanks have already broken through the beach minefields and are pushing through towards this position.”

Hadith of the Day: Ask God for Forgiveness and Health

Hadith of the Day: Ask God for Forgiveness and Health

The Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) said: "Ask God for forgiveness and health, for after being granted certainty, one is given nothing better than (good) health." (Al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 780)

Sahih Bukhari Volume 003, Book 049, Hadith Number 856.

Sahih Bukhari Book 49. Peacemaking

Narated By Anas : It was said to the Prophet "Would that you see Abdullah bin Ubai." So, the Prophet went to him, riding a donkey, and the Muslims accompanied him, walking on salty barren land. When the Prophet reached 'Abdullah bin Ubai, the latter said, "Keep away from me! By Allah, the bad smell of your donkey has harmed me." On that an Ansari man said (to 'Abdullah), "By Allah! The smell of the donkey of Allah's Apostle is better than your smell." On that a man from 'Abdullah's tribe got angry for 'Abdullah's sake, and the two men abused each other which caused the friends of the two men to get angry, and the two groups started fighting with sticks, shoes and hands. We were informed that the following Divine Verse was revealed (in this concern): "And if two groups of Believers fall to fighting then, make peace between them." (49.9)

Qur’an, 2:83

“And speak nicely to people.” 
Qur’an, 2:83

In 80 years

In 80 years i fear that there is a very good chance that the world will be destroyed by some high school kid's science fair project.

Ahmed Khaled Towfik Interview

http://worldsf.wordpress.com/tag/arab-science-fiction/

Ahmed Khaled Towfik is one of the most prolific authors in Egypt, having written over 500 books. A trained doctor himself, he specializes in medical thrillers and horror, but he has also written science fiction and it is his latest foray into that field, Utopia, that has been published in English translation by BloomsburyQatar.

Can you tell us a little bit about the book?

If you want to divide science fiction into genres then I’d call it a post-apocalyptic dystopia. The vision of a near futureEgyptthat it paints is something that has been very real recently. The rich are becoming richer, the poor are becoming poorer, and the rich are sequestrating themselves in colonies on the north coast. One of them is even called Utopia.. When I found that out I had to put a disclaimer in the front of the book to make it clear I wasn’t writing about them.

The major innovation I have made, for theEgyptof 2023, is to make a rite of passage for young men from the enclaves to go out and hunt one of the poor, and take his hand for a trophy. So the hero and his girlfriend go out amongst the poor in search of someone to kill.

I based this in part on a true story. A young man from a relatively poor family had got into university to study engineering. His parents had saved a lot of money to give him this start in life. He was invited by fellow students to visit one of these enclaves. They were out swimming, and some rich people were playing on jet skis. The student was hit by one of these jet skis and killed. There was no investigation or trial. The rich are above that.

This sort of setting is the basis of a lot of cyberpunk.

That’s not really what I’m doing here. I have written a cyberpunk trilogy. It is called WWW, and it is about the adventures of a computer virus as it moves from one computer system to another. There’s nothing like that in Utopia.

How did the book come to be translated?

First of all it was very successful in Egypt.. Everyone who reads fiction was talking about it. So Bloomsburyapproached me and asked for a translation. I don’t think it is a masterpiece as such, but it is essential for understanding how people are thinking in Egyptat the moment. There is another book called Whatever Happened to the Egyptians? by Galal A. Amin, he’s an economist at the American University in Cairo. You won’t understand what happened in Egypt, and how the revolution came about, unless you read this book. And I see my Utopiaas telling the same story, but in novel form.

There are some horrible things in Whatever Happened to the Egyptians? and indeed in the revolution as a whole. There was the brutal murder, by the police, of a young man called Khaled Saeed. I think he was one of my readers for sure. You can Google the story. He was beaten to death in a cyber café in front of many people. I think this was one of the events that helped spark the revolution.

http://worldsf.wordpress.com/tag/arab-science-fiction/

50 years from now

50 years from now the following things will be the same.

Hammers
Combs
Crowbars
Spoons
Forks
pens
chairs
rakes
pews
paperclips