| Thursday,
March 1, 2001
Ever since I read the report debunking hereditary
diseases: http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/special/germs.html I've
been alert for environmental causes of disease, especially the big modern
killers: heart disease and cancer.
There's a new book that popularizes a large amount
of research on circadian rhythyms: "Lights Out" by T.S. Wiley
and Brent Formby It has about 60 pages of citations, most from refereed
journals. It's written in an annoying diet-book style, but that doesn't
make it wrong.
Briefly, the argument is that people's metabolisms
are, like most mammals', tuned to seasons, sensed from light. The problem
is said to be that we use artificial illumination so freely that we force
our bodies into perpetual deep summer, deranging our circadian rhythyms,
and the associated hormones.
It's said to potentiate obesity, diabetes,
depression, cancer and heart disease by a number of plausible hormonal
pathways. The solution is to sleep at least 9.5 hours in the winter, in a
dark environment. Light leaks as little as 0.2 Lux, a candleflame, affect
the crucial hormones.
The availabiliity of artifical light does seem to
match the upswing of chronic diseases in time and geography.
I thought you'd all be interested.
Raymond Van De Walker
Reading through Alt.mail, I came across the
discussion on self-government and of what it consists.
When researching the "Island in the Sea of
Time" series, I did a fair bit of reading on the Town Meeting system,
as traditionally practiced in New England -- something that goes back to
the system established in the Danelaw in the old country, and in turn to
the "thing" of ancient Scandinavia, the assembly of all the
freemen of a district.
(The "Great Migration" to Massachusetts in
the 1630's was largely from the eastern part of the country; East Anglia
and Linconlshire, the old Five Boroughs of the Danes, were very
prominent.)
In New England, Townships and their Town Meetings
fullfilled most of the functions the County did elsewhere in the American
colonies and later the US.
It's a surprisingly practical way of getting things
done, on a local scale; issues get thrashed out at length, and by the time
a majority agree, everyone is thoroughly familiar with them. In the old
days it did everything from establishing what ear-croppings you used on
your pig to appointing a fence-inspector, through admonishing husbands who
drank too much and on to other stuff like encouraging millers to set up in
the township. Sort of a combination of legislature and court, with the
added duty of picking the executive committee to run affairs between
meetings.
The system does, however, require a community with a
fairly intense degree of consensus on basic issues and sense of communal
solidarity; which, of course, the deliberately selective quality of the
Puritan migrations which founded New England ensured for a long time. It
also assumes a well-educated voter with a certain quality of flinty common
sense. That's the only way a system like that could work among such
stubborn, argumentative people.
It certainly produced a social matrix much more
tightly governed than most of the US liked, judging how closely it's
restricted to areas of heavy Yankee (in the strict sense) settlement. On
the other hand, the political culture it established accomplished
remarkable things -- certainly closer to the "peaceable kingdom"
than most.
The Meeting wasn't as autocratic or self-selecting
or aristocratic as a Virginia parish vestry, but it was also far more
powerful when it chose to move on any given issue. Democracies can be.
Among other amusing things in doing the
"Island" series, I tried to come up with the sort of
Constitution a group of modern (but heavily old-stock) Yankee types
removed from the contemporary world would produce, basing it on the Town
Meeting setup they were familiar with and which is still very much alive
on Nantucket.
A surprisingly high percentage of people there are
really passionately involved with the Meeting, perhaps because it deals
with stuff that affects their lives directly, like building regulations.
They've got the most ferociously restrictive development code I've ever
come across -- even voted to outlaw McDonalds, unless they agreed to
delete the golden arches and make the building gray shingle with white
trim.
Among other things, I quizzed actual Nantucket
residents on the issue. (Surprising how ready people are to cooperate with
writers, isn't it?)
There was a fair degree of unanimity on a lot of
things. For example, pretty well everyone said that in that situation
(their island the seed-core of a new Republic) what they'd want would be a
confederation of autonomous Town Meetings with automatic provisions for
"fissioning" when they reached a certain size, sending delegates
to a central assembly, but retaining many powers.
The Swiss militia system also had a lot of support.
Yours, Steve Stirling
Interesting. I have put this over
there as well as here.
what do you think of this?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=001851641145319&;rtmo=aCq5hWuJ&;atmo=99999999&;pg=/et/01/2/27/wgun27.html
SWB
I know what this picture (current view, Tuesday)
looks like, but c'mon, who is it really ? I recognize the one on the left,
but the one on the right is supposed to have passed on in 1955. Though, I
haven't seen a REALLY recent photo of you lately either.
I don't speak German (sheesh, I barely speak
American, much less English) so I couldn't interpret the comments and
infer anything there. I knew you ran in lofty circles, and were highly
regarded and all that, but this could impress most people (unless it is
one of the current products of digital photography, in which case it's
only technically novel).
As usual, Thanks for listening.
Larry O'Neal Computer Associates
Heh. Wie gehts?
Jerry :
Reading through the issues related to DSL, I think a
note of caution about the technology is in order. If the uses of DSL are
as "mission critical" as many are commenting, perhaps they
shouldn't be using DSL, but perhaps other technology, such as a T1 line.
The technology is spreading, albeit slowly, to
various places in the country. Even New Mexico is seeing the movement to
better connections, and we're certainly not at the front of the list for
such things.
I have DSL service in my office from Qwest, but I
only took on "interruptable" service, where I get two hours at a
clip and then a five minute cooling off period before resuming service
again. While I did have some delays in service start-up for my location,
the installation process was comprised of Qwest sending me an internal
modem card with instructions. Qwest was pretty upfront about the delays,
and continued to update me as we grew closer to the start date.
Installation took about thirty minutes, lengthened
and complicated by what turned out to be a poor quality telephone cord (my
own, not one sent by Qwest, I might add). I think that the overall
installation could have taken as little as fifteen minutes except for the
cord issue. My CD-RW hiccuped a bit with the new Intel card, but that,
too, ended up being addressable with some patience.
Getting my office network connections under
Win2000Pro to allow me to successfully and consistently share the
connection actually took longer then getting the DSL service to function.
Tinkering with some network protocols along with a few other tweaks was
more annoying than difficult, to be frank and honest.
My DSL connection has been stalwart and dependable
(so far), but then, I drop off service every two hours. I suppose if I had
to have continuous service, I might not be as pleased, but then I don't
_need_ continuous service on a 24/7 basis. The download and upload speed
has been excellent, I typically see close to the theoretical maximum for
the linkage, and I'm capable of tinkering with it if I want to try and
stay on the "bleeding edge" (I don't really need to get that
level of optimisation with all the committant upkeep, though).
I save money with this arrangement, as well!
As for dial-up services, Compuserve has served me in
travels around the world. I don't always get the fastest connections in
more rural areas, but I can get access with a high level of success. If I
want to have incredible speed on the road, I'm out of luck, but I can plan
to make the big downloads when I'm back in the office. CIS may not be
perceived by some to be as sexy or exciting as some services, but I've had
a longish time with the service, and it performs in a pretty good fashion
overall.
My expectations for connections to the
Internet/e-mail are coloured and tempered by some pretty practical
considerations. I don't care to pay for a T1 line, I regularly travel to
small towns or areas with limited telecommunications infrastructure, and I
know that I can survive without a constant connection. I still hit times
when I can't get online, certainly get briefly annoyed, but then move on
to other matters until I can get access again.
What's probably gotten me through most of these
things has been some level of patience, and a significant dose of humour.
I know for a certainty that the Internet and all the ISPs do _not_ revolve
around me, and I have proof of this!
Life's short, after all, and I can find something
else to occupy my mind and spirit than just getting cranky <g>.
John P.
http://www.dallasobserver.com/issues/2001-03-01/feature2.html/page1.html
This link takes readers to a write up on Beal
Aerospace, Andrew Beal, and the closing of a commerical rocket company by
politicians.
Beal was a real estate tycoon / banker /billionaire
who _really_ wanted to be a spacer.
I am saddened by his defeat.
Thought you and your readers might be interested.
Rice/Powell, 2004
Thanks. Before his time...
Arguably you both worked all your lives for peace as
best you could.
The gentleman said "Wie gehts?" to which I replied "Es
geht mir gut, und Ihnen?" which seemed to non-plus him. Perhaps my
HochDeutsch wasn't comprehensible to a Swiss? Ah well.
Try the HochDeutsch with Nikolas Wirth in Zurich.
"I know what this picture (current view,
Tuesday) looks like, but c'mon, who is it really ? I recognize the one on
the left, but the one on the right is supposed to have passed on in
1955."
Just to correct a fingerfehler although he was
schooled from secondary school through Ph.D. in Switzerland Einstein was
born in Ulm (scene of a battle with Napoleon and Austrians), and director
of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Physics in Berlin for 20 years until
he left Germany for the United States. Good alt history story if Einstein
had been Swiss and gone home, never to write a letter to Roosevelt.
I seem to recall that changing schools was the
source of one urban legend about Einstein having poor grades in
mathematics. At one point his grades did in fact reverse, as I recall, but
that was because he changed schools and countries so the grading schemes
reversed numbers - in one case higher was better in the other lower was
better.
Clark ClarkEMyers@msn.com
Ah. Yes, of course, I actually knew that Dr.
Einstein had been born in Ulm. Which reminds me of a story. Mrs. Regina
Possony, widow of my mentor and collaborator
Stefan T. Possony, was a Berliner whose father was an enemy of the
Nazis. He fled to the USSR taking his family with him in the late
1930's. Stalin promptly put them all into a labor camp. Regina, then still
a young girl (and thus in a less strict environment than her father) wrote
a letter. She knew that when she was very young she had taken a trip to
the US and her family had introduced her to a very famous man. She had no
notion of his address so she wrote to Herr Doktor Albert Einstein, United
States of America, and told him of her plight, beginning the letter
"You will not remember me but I once met you at your home..."
He got the letter, wrote back to her, sent her
some money and some soap and cookies and other items. The camp guards were
afraid to steal these goodies for fear that she would tell her powerful
friend who might call Stalin and tell him. She got very much better
treatment after that, eventually got out, and managed to get her father
out; they fled through China and ended up in the United States. Steve
Possony had been part of the Schussnig government in Austria, fled to Czechoslovakia
after the Anschluss, fled to France after Munich, fled to Oran in North
Africa at the Fall of France, and from there to the United States where he
was in intelligence work during and after the war. He had his Ph.D. from
the University of Vienna and was taken on the faculty at Georgetown
University and later became a Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution,
which is where I met him in the 1950's. He met Regina in Washington just
after WW II.
And a very good letter on
NASA.
Jerry
It's been posted on NASAWatch most of the day, but
word has reached the NASA field centers that both X-33 and X-34 have been
officially cancelled, probably effective March 31. Probably the X-38 Crew
Recovery Vehicle will also be eliminated.
I shed no tears for the first two, which have been
nothing more than corporate welfare for the last few years. However, the
demise of the CRV would be unfortunate. It was a neat, in-house NASA
research program - an adaptive control system that tugs on parachute
shrouds to steer a lifting body shaped reentry vehicle to a soft landing
based on GPS guidance. Lots of good basic engineering went into it, and it
was a cost-effective project to boot. (And now the astronauts will be
depending upon Soyuz capsules for escape vehicles. UGGH!)
I agree with you on cuts to the ISS. It seems that
we in the space establishment don't know how to do anything
cost-effectively. The Station was a complex task but its current
implementation was specified by a committee, international at that. And if
the last administration hadn't been fixated on involving the Russians, we
would not be looking at the overruns we are seeing today.
NASA has too many people that don't know how to do
anything useful, and too few that appreciate their position of trust with
taxpayer dollars. We also have too incestuous a relationship with the
major space hardware suppliers. I don't know the solution to this, except
to form a new space agency and junk the old one. I doubt this would be
politically feasible, but who knows? With a REAL MAN in the White House
anything's possible.
Rgds (name withheld on request)
I have high hopes that we will get a new space
program. SDI requires access to space on a routine basis. If we are to
have SDI we will have to have new space vehicles. Crew Recovery is another
good reason. I would not like to see the CRV program cancelled and I will
see what I can do.
But X-33 became a shitepoke. In theory it was
mine: a followon to DC/X. In practice it was a monster that ate reusable
spacecraft. It WAS NOT AN X PROGRAM and that monster gave
real X Programs a very bad name. X-34 might have been all right but it
was hard wired to OSI over the objections of technical advisors who knew
OSI would not be able to do it. Pure political influence. It deserves to
die.
CRV is worth keeping. But NASA probably can't do
that either. There was a time when we could do such things. I was proud to
be part of that. But that was in another country and the old NASA died
before Shuttle first flew. For more tirade from me see
VIEW.
This was sent to me by a friend, a retired C-130
driver. I filed the serial numbers off, because I don't know if the guy
who wrote it would want to have his name associated with it on a public
service.
Subject: Food for Thought Date: Thu, 22 Feb 2001
08:49:46 -0800
On 18 February 2001, while racing for fame and
fortune, Dale Earnhardt died in the last lap of the Daytona 500. It was
surely a tragedy for his family, friends and fans. He was 49 years old
with grown children, one, which was in the race.
I am new to the NASCAR culture so much of what I
know has come from the newspaper and TV. He was a winner and earned
everything he had. This included more than "$41 million in winnings
and ten times that from endorsements and souvenir sales". He had a
beautiful home and a private jet. He drove the most sophisticated cars
allowed and every part was inspected and replaced as soon as there was any
evidence of wear. This is normally fully funded by the car and team
sponsors.
Today, there is no TV station that does not
constantly remind us of his tragic end and the radio already has a song of
tribute to this winning driver. Nothing should be taken away from this
man, he was a professional and one of the best in his profession. He was
in a very dangerous business but the rewards were great.
Two weeks ago seven U.S. Army soldiers died in a
training accident when two UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters collided during
night maneuvers in Hawaii. The soldiers were all in their twenties,
pilots, crewchiefs and infantrymen. Most of them lived in sub-standard
housing. If you add their actual duty hours (in the field, deployed) they
probably earn something close to minimum wage. The aircraft they were in
were between 15 and 20 years old. Many times parts were not available to
keep them in good shape due to funding. They were involved in the
extremely dangerous business of flying in the Kuhuku mountains at night.
It only gets worse when the weather moves in as it did that night. Most
times no one is there with a yellow or red flag to slow things down when
it gets critical.
Their children were mostly toddlers who will lose
all memory of who "Daddy" was as they grow up. They died
training to defend our freedom.
I take nothing away from Dale Earnhardt but ask you
to perform this simple test. Ask any of your friends if they know who was
the NASCAR driver killed on 18 February 2001. Then ask them if they can
name one of the seven soldiers who died in Hawaii two weeks ago.
18 February 2001, Dale Earnhardt died driving for
fame and glory at the Daytona 500. The nation mourns. Seven soldiers died
training to protect our freedom. No one can remember their names and most
don't even remember the incident.
Thanks.
From above: >My point isn't that
the government should provide insurance-Medicare has >been a nightmare
of runaway costs. But Congress does need to enact >reasonable reforms
to prevent all medicine from being socialized in the >future. The
Republicans have the opportunity to do this before something >larger is
forced upon us by necessity, and before a large portion of our
>population is completely uninsurable.
I don't know that the Republicans are any better (or
worse) at this that the Democrats but we will indeed all be uninsurable.
We all have some genes that increase risk for something.
Perhaps we need to go back to ignorance in the sense
that we just don't use that information to determine eligibility for
health insurance.
Notice that in Washington State paying medical bills
for state employees is eating up the state budget and cutting into social
services for the medically dependent population. I think to in Washington
State much of Boeing's labor troubles are tied to open ended rising
medical costs. The employees view anything but the historical full
coverage as a takeback and the Boeing Company views a willingness to pay
more and more as hardly a takeback but also thinks an unlimited and
unknown and uninsurable future obligation is incompatible with sound
business and greatly complicates the forecasting of expenses that goes
with pricing airplanes for future delivery.
The HMO model was originally intended to level pay
from patients to medical providers and give physicians a steady income
with an incentive to practice preventive medicine. These incentives don't
apply to insurance companies.
Clark
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