| Monday
October 6, 2003
COLUMN TIME: VERY SHORT SHRIFT
Subject: Class Action Lawsuit against MS for
vulnerabilities
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,4149,1306813,00.asp
I'm surprised that this hasn't already happened.
If I were a rabid anti-MS person, I'd be working
with my state senator/rep to draft legislation making this easier. Then,
the next time a big outage occurs while they are in session, it is easily
introduced. 51 million names on the no-call list got the US Congress's
attention. A serious outage affecting their constituencies could do the
same think at the state level.
-- John Harlow, President BravePoint jharlow@BravePoint.com
Voice: (770)449-9696 Fax: (770) 449-9003
www.BravePoint.com Progress,Web and Java Specialists
A mind is like a parachute; it works best when fully
opened....
Dr. Pournelle: I guess I have been reading your
"Chaos Manor" website for at least three years now,
intermittently, as well as being a longtime fan of your fiction. Below is
a link to a well-organized essay on WHY it is so vital for the US to
intervene in Iraq. I have tried to find fault with the arguments presented
here, but have been unable to refute them.
http://denbeste.nu/essays/strategic_overview.shtml
I'm not sending this along to convert anyone, I just
thought this might prove interesting to you and your readers. James
Casertano
Thanks. I haven't read it yet. I'll
try to. And see below
=========================
On Global
Warming:
dear mr pournelle
i find this discussion about whether there is man made global warming
or whether it is a natural development quite useless. we live in a closed
system - it is quite large, but it is closed. if you live in such a system
do you try to keep it clean or do you soil it constantly? do you send your
dog out of the house to do its business - or do you let it do it inside?
if we mess up this world we live in - are we the ones to bear the
consequences or the future generations? when you go hiking you carry your
garbage back out - or do you just throw it away?
globalisation? well - one effect is that the world has become my living
room!
regards mario gysin this email has been checked for virus on sending
Mario Gysin Fürstensteinhof 1
Which is a good example of piety
without useable content I fear: I agree with most of that, but Switzerland has
roads and access trails that weren't there in Caesar's time; is that bad?
And more people.
I dealt with most of this in A STEP
FARTHER OUT. We can disassemble "pollution" into constituent
elements given energy. The Kyoto Convention and Greens in general would
see that we don't have the energy to deal with such problems.
Whatever the validity of Global Warming, the only
thing we can be absolutely certain about is that the world's only hope is
a prosperous United States. Cripple us with Kyoto, and we will not have
any surplus to aid the rest of the world.
Walter E. Wallis, P.E.
Indeed!
Jerry,
We have just passed through an 11 year sunspot cycle peak. Sunspots are
significantly fewer this year then the last two and will be steadily
decreasing for the next 5 years. I'll bet by that time there will be
pundits expounding about how we're 'winning' the battle against Global
Warming and that they have figures to prove it. Five years after that
we'll be losing again, per the same pundits.
Cheers John
-
rice@vx5.com Webmaster, Network Admin, Janitor
===============================
And, relevant to this:
Hello Dr. Pournelle
You have noted many times that the answer in the
near term for energy independence is building nuclear plants. It seems
that this has been prevented partialy by NIMBY along with costs that to a
large extent have nothing to do with the technical issues of building and
running them.
I think the redundent military bases that we can't
close due to political reasons might be the answer to part of this
problem. Could the President by executive order require each base with a
size larger than some set number of acres to host a nuclear plant to be
built and owned by private electrical companies? Would this remove the
state and local agencies that hold this up from the picture?
The Navy has lots of experience and expertise in
oversite and operation of nuclear plants. Perhaps the oversite function at
least could be handed over to them. This might help with the non-technical
cost issues of building and running them.
The current $87B price tag being handed to the US tax
payer clearly reflects on the price of doing nothing to break this log
jam.
Thanks Bob Oliver
"Give my children back the lightning!"
=And see below
===================
Subject: Magnetic monopoles found?
http://physicsweb.org/article/news/7/10/2
--- Roland Dobbins
Now that is news if true.
=========================
Date: 10/04/03
subject: Copywrites and File Sharing
Dear Jerry:
On a web
board discussing this recently one comment was:
"What I think is hilarious is when they're
talking about lost CD sales when only one or two songs from a CD were
ever available from multiple users on Napster, Kazaa, etc.(Greatest Hits
albums excepted). The logic therefore is that the rest of the CD was
essentially worthless. 'Hey, you band members, 80 percent of your stuff
is junk and not even worth copying,' is what they're really
saying."
Is this
whole issue really the recording companies crying because they tried to
charge people the price of an album, already outrageously too high, for
what was essentially a single?
Best,
Stephen
DELENDAM ESSE SAUDI ARABIA!
=And see below
====================
Hi Jerry, Perhaps this will be the impetus to get
the Air Force into the manned spaceflight game instead of NASA: http://www.strategypage.com/fyeo/howtomakewar
/default.asp?target=htspace.htm
October 3, 2003: China's first manned space mission
is tentatively scheduled for October 15 with the launch of Shenzhou 5, a
domestically manufactured spacecraft based on the Russian Soyuz.
Speculation as to what kind of missions the secretive Chinese are planning
to fly is increasingly focused on Electronic Intelligence (ELINT). An
antenna array on the front of the spacecraft appears to be designed for
locating radar emissions, which would allow tracking of Carrier Battle
Groups among other things. The additional payload space is dedicated to an
optical imaging system which would allow mapping and surveillance with a
resolution of 1.6 meters. Government officials claim that the mission will
also include an experiment to test the effects of zero gravity on seeds,
but after offering to fly some seeds for Taiwan, this seems little more
than a gesture. -- Tom Georgianna
Thanks, Jim Laheta
--
Dr Pournelle,
Chinese in Space
I'm reluctantly coming round to the view that the only thing that's likely
to get the US manned space effort (I hesitate to use the word 'program')
moving forward again in short order is competition, specifically competition
which is at least perceived to be of the military variety.
http://www.astronautix.com/craft/shenzhou.htm
http://www.geocities.com/CapeCanaveral/Launchpad/1921/
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/1997747.stm
http://www.strategypage.com/
fyeo/howtomakewar/default.asp?target=htspace.htm
Maybe we don't have so very long to wait for a second Sputnik-style shock—
maybe we should even be hoping for one.
Maybe we should be asking if the United States could sit idly by while the
Chinese established a manned base on the Moon, which is their stated
objective?
Jim Mangles
Think on this for a while. I should
write more on this; I'll get back to it later.
With all of the
attention on the Chinese Shenzhou it is important to remember that it's
heritage includes Soviet designs not only for 'orbital modules' but for
opbital Battle Stations which were on the verge of deployment when the
USSR collapsed in the late '80s.
The Russians has a wealth of nearly flight-ready
hardware and designs that were not deployed for financial reasons. These
included orbital ABM platforms and rockets (the Mir Spektr module was 'resuced'
from mothballs by US funds and launched to MIR) as well as manned
on-demand tracking stations and FOBS platforms. It's known that the
Russians 'imaged' and tracked Space Shuttle Challenger in 1984 with a
low-power laser system which disrupted on-board systems as well as
temporarilly blinding at least one crew member.
We should all be aware that the Russians had these
and other technologies in a near-deployment state when the Strategy of
Technology simply bankrupted the USSR. The Chinese on the other hand have
both the capital resources as well as national willpower to further
develop these systems and deploy them as desired.
Chuck
Yeah
===========================================
Dear Dr Pournelle
Interested in building your own Segway scooter?
Probably not, but interesting that someone has.
http://www.tlb.org/scooter.html
Warmest regards
Skip Neumayer
===============
Dear Mr. Gysin:
I wish to respond to points made in
your e-mail, published by Dr. Jerry Pournelle on his website. Since
this follows closely on the heels of the sensible Russian Federation
decision to consider Kyoto more carefully, I presume you are reacting to
Kyoto and its claims to solve the problem of global warming.
> i find this
discussion about whether there is man made global warming or whether it is
a natural development quite useless. we live in a closed system - it is
quite large, but it is closed.
1. We do have much greater control over the inputs
and the intermediate mechanisms than you present here. Spreading several
cargo ship's load of fine iron filings upon the ocean could produce a
dramatic sequestration of carbon dioxide, and result in a significantly
lowered greenhouse effect.
Likewise, we could paint roadways whilte and seed
clouds at appropriate altitudes to increase the planetary albedo, and
thereby reflect thermal energy back out of the atmosphere.
You have not even mentioned bootstrapping ourselves
out of the practice of fossil fuel consumption by replacing coal-fired
plants with nuclear electricity generation, replacing
internal-combustion-engine vehicles with diesel-electric or
gasoline-electric hybrids with smart recharging when not being driven, and
with microwave-transmission of electrical power from satellite solar power
arrays, as the Japanese are experimenting with.
I've made the investment to replace my truck for
commuting with an electric bicycle; have you?
In short, there are solutions, but many of them are
unacceptable as they _are_ solutions and not an opportunity to continue
with the status quo.
> if you live in such a system do you try
to keep it clean or do you soil it constantly? do you send your dog out of
the house to do its business - or do you let it do it inside?
2. The analogy begs the question of your state of
mind. Why not just stick to the issues of heat and cold, instead of using
semantically loaded images such as a dog soiling the house? This is not an
objective way to frame an argument.
3. If we do not agree global warming is deleterious,
then there will not be consensus for action. Russia would benefit greatly
by warmer climate. The United States have benefited to the tune of $14
billion in 2002. Might warmer climate also benefit Switzerland?
4. If economic studies show (and, to date, they have
not) that global warming would be on the whole bad, please consider that
we do not understand the _cause_ of the situation. Therefore, rushing to judgment
on how to apply a draconian solution (e.g., Kyoto Treaty-type
dictats and the consequent global negative economic impact, falling
largely on the poor if equally applied) is entirely inappropriate.
Until the source of a problem is understood, fixing
the problem applies the Law of Unintended Consequences. Would you like us
to overshoot and enter a new Ice Age?
> if we mess up this world we live in -
are we the ones to bear the consequences or the future generations?
5. I think you know the answer to that one. Why pose
it, if not to indulge in rhetoric for its own sake?
> when you go hiking you carry your
garbage back out - or do you just throw it away?
6. Again, a semantically loaded red herring.
7. If you had read Dr Pournelle's books, you would
know he leaves his campsites at least as clean as he found them.
> globalisation? well - one effect is that
the world has become my living room!
8. Again, had you read Dr. Pournelle's books or his
writing here, it would be clear that he opposes globalization for its own
sake. You seem to object to this. Congratulations for agreeing with Dr.
Pournelle.
===== -- John E. Bartley, III - K7AAY telcom admin,
Portland OR, USA - Views mine. palmwireless (dot) cjb (dot) net Wireless
FAQ for PalmOS(r)
This post is quad-ROT13 encrypted. Reading it
violates the DMCA. Dilbert is a documentary.
And see below
=========================
Subject: the essay
on Arabia
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
I read through the posting at http://denbeste.nu/essays/strategic_overview.shtml
referenced in the Monday, October 6, 2003 Mail. The observations made by
the writer about Saudi Arabian attitudes and opinions are accurate to the
best of my limited knowledge. His opinions on how we should change them
and why are his own, but they do reflect an understanding of the people
and their culture. Our US government should be as well versed in the
Islamic culture before making decisions. I completely agree with his
statement that changing the culture will take time and work. Remember that
slavery was outlawed in the USA by the fourteenth amendment to the US
Constitution after the Civil War, and not the Emancipation Proclamation,
as many believe. Some people in the USA still have not gotten the word
that slavery is against the law, and that all races and religions are
regarded as equal, even the ones that a person does not like.
The site for the posting is in Niue, a small South
Pacific Island that apparently sells anonymity to registrants.
regards,
William L. Jones wljones@dallas.net
But see below on the
.nu designation.
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