Beijing - Page 3

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Details: Written by: Richard_McKie; Parent Category: Travel; Category: East Asia; Published: 09 March 2011; Hits: 45511

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Beijing and Xi'an

We went to China again in 2009; this time with friends. Our itinerary took us from Beijing to Xi’an and then to the ‘terracotta warriors’ then back to Beijing.

Terracotta Warriors

From Beijing we visited the Great Wall and the Summer Palace.

The Great Wall

Everything in Beijing is on a huge scale. We soon learned that what looks like a short distance on a map can take several hours to walk; as when we tried to circumnavigate the Forbidden City. We quickly found out how to use the Metro. Here we discovered that many Chinese people are strangers to Beijing and within a day we were helping people negotiate the turnstiles and the other vagaries of the system.

As in most of China old Beijing is rapidly disappearing. For example most of the old city wall has been demolished to be replaced by a multi-lane ring road.

Typical Beijing Roads

One historical street has been reconstructed, complete with a tram; now powered by batteries and recharged at a charging station to avoid the overhead conductors. When we visited many of the shops were not yet occupied and it had a Disneyland aspect to it.

Because the massacre there, on June 4th 1989, Tiananmen Square is of particular interest to tourists, an unofficial ambiguity is tolerated. Officially nothing happened; but with a nod and wink tourists are allowed to know the gory details. At one end of the square is the Forbidden City and at the other the mausoleum of Chairman Mao. Each side is flanked by government buildings. Along the west side is the Great Hall of the People and along the east is the National Museum of China.

Forbidden City (small part)

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Travel

Sri Lanka

In February 2023 we joined an organised tour to Sri Lanka.

Beginning in the capital Colombo, on the west coast, our bus travelled anticlockwise, in a loop, initially along the coast; then up into the highlands; then north, as far as Sigiriya; before returning southwest to Colombo.

Fiction, Recollections & News

The Atomic Bomb according to ChatGPT

Introduction:

The other day, my regular interlocutors at our local shopping centre regaled me with a new question: "What is AI?" And that turned into a discussion about ChatGPT.

I had to confess that I'd never used it. So, I thought I would 'kill two birds with one stone' and ask ChatGPT, for material for an article for my website.

Since watching the movie Oppenheimer, reviewed elsewhere on this website, I've found myself, from time-to-time, musing about the development of the atomic bomb and it's profound impact on the modern world.

Nuclear energy has provided a backdrop to my entire life. The first "atomic bombs" were dropped on Japan the month before I was born. Thus, the potential of nuclear energy was first revealed in an horrendous demonstration of mankind's greatest power since the harnessing of fire.

Very soon the atomic reactors, that had been necessary to accumulate sufficient plutonium for the first bombs, were adapted to peaceful use. Yet, they forever carried the stigma of over a hundred thousand of innocent lives lost, many of them young children, at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The fear of world devastation followed, as the US and USSR faced-off with ever more powerful weapons of mass destruction.

The stigma and fear has been unfortunate, because, had we more enthusiastically embraced our new scientific knowledge and capabilities to harness this alternative to fire, the threat to the atmosphere now posed by an orgy of burning might have been mitigated.

Method:

So, for this article on the 'atomic bomb', I asked ChatGPT six questions about:

The Manhattan Project;
Leo Szilard (the father of the nuclear chain reaction);
Tube Alloys (the British bomb project);
the Hanford site (plutonium production);
uranium enrichment (diffusion and centrifugal); and
the Soviet bomb project.

As ChatGPT takes around 20 seconds to write 1000 words and gives a remarkably different result each time, I asked it each question several times and chose selectively from the results.

This is what ChatGPT told me about 'the bomb':

Opinions and Philosophy

Medical fun and games

We all die of something.

After 70 it's less likely to be as a result of risky behaviour or suicide and more likely to be heart disease followed by a stroke or cancer. Unfortunately as we age, like a horse in a race coming up from behind, dementia begins to take a larger toll and pulmonary disease sees off many of the remainder. Heart failure is probably the least troublesome choice, if you had one, or suicide.

In 2020 COVID-19 has become a significant killer overseas but in Australia less than a thousand died and the risk from influenza, pneumonia and lower respiratory conditions had also fallen as there was less respiratory infection due to pandemic precautions and increased influenza immunisation. So overall, in Australia in 2020, deaths were below the annual norm. Yet 2021 will bring a new story and we've already had a new COVID-19 hotspot closing borders again right before Christmas*.

So what will kill me?

Some years back, in October 2016, at the age of 71, my aorta began to show it's age and I dropped into the repair shop where a new heart valve - a pericardial bio-prosthesis - was fitted. See The Meaning of Death elsewhere on this website. This has reduced my chances of heart failure so now I need to fear cancer; and later, dementia.

More fun and games.

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