| Thursday,
August 12, 2004 Jerry,
I thought you would find the first item interesting.
Jim Woosley
PHYSICS NEWS UPDATE The American Institute of
Physics Bulletin of Physics News Number 696 August 12, 2004 by Phillip F.
Schewe, Ben Stein
THE MASSIVE NORTHEAST BLACKOUT of a year ago
not only shut off electricity for 50 million people in the US and Canada,
but also shut off the pollution coming from fossil-fired turbogenerators in
the Ohio Valley. In effect, the power outage was an inadvertent experiment
for gauging atmospheric repose with the grid gone for the better part of the
day. And the results were impressive. On 15 August 2003, only 24 hours after
the blackout, air was cleaner by this amount: SO2 was down 90%, O3 down 50%,
and light-scattering particles down 70% over "normal" conditions in the same
area. The haze reductions were made by University of Maryland scientists
scooping air samples with a light aircraft. The observed pollutant
reductions exceeded expectations, causing the authors to suggest that the
spectacular overnight improvements in air quality "may result from
underestimation of emission from power plants, inaccurate representation of
power plant effluent in emission models or unaccounted-for atomospheric
chemical reactions." (Marufu et al., Geophysical Research Letters, vol 31,
L13106, 2004.)
THE LONG-TERM DYNAMICS OF THE ELECTRICAL GRID
are examined in new studies conducted by Ben Carreras and his colleagues at
Oak Ridge National Lab, the University of Wisconsin, and University of
Alaska. Engineers at the utilities are of course always looking for ways to
make their systems better, especially in the aftermath of large blackouts,
such as the event on August 14, 2003. These post-mortem studies typically
locate the sources of the outage and suggest corrective measures to prevent
that kind of collapse again, often by strengthening the reliability of
specific components. Carreras argues that a more effective approach to
mitigating electrical disasters is build more redundancy into the system.
And to do this, he says, you need to look at how the electrical grid,
considered as a dynamic system subject to many forces, behaves over longer
periods of time. And to do this one needs to build into any grid model
social and business forces in addition to the physics forces that govern the
movement of electricity. Thus the Oak Ridge model not only solves the
equations (governed by the so-called Kirchoff laws) that determine how much
power flows through specific lines in a simulated circuit, but also build in
the strain on the system over time caused by an increasing demand for power,
the addition of new generators and transmission lines, and even elements of
chance in the form of weather fluctuations and the occasional shorting
caused by warm, sagging lines contacting untrimmed trees. The model proceeds
to let the grid evolve, and for each "day" it computes possible
solutions---in the form of successful combinations of power generation
levels and subsequent transmission of that power over existing lines, some
of which come in and out of service---for the continued running of the grid.
The model derives a probability curve for blackouts which matches pretty
well the observed outage data for North America. The Oak Ridge scientists
believe that their model could be used by utility companies to test grid
behavior for various network-configuration scenarios, particularly those
where the grid is operating dangerously close to a cascade threshold.
(Carreras et al., Chaos, September 2004; carreras@fed.ornl.gov)
A Terrific Argument for nuclear power, but I don't
expect the "environmentalists" and those "concerned about the Earth" and all
the others who beat their voodoo science drums to pay attention. We're all
for the environment unless of course it means actually doing something.
And here is why I don't
trust Democrats. The Democrats and some Republican turncoats have taken the
sub-orbital THOR out of the R&D program, for largely peacenik reasons:
AIR FORCE AND DARPA FALCON/COMMON AERO VEHICLE
PROGRAM
The conferees agree to provide $29,110,000 for
the Air Force and DARPA FALCON/Common Aero Vehicle (CAV) programs. The
conferees are concerned that safeguards are not in place to guarantee that
nations possessing nuclear weapons capabilities would not misinterpret the
intent or use of the FALCON/CAV programs. Therefore, the funds provided
herein are for the development of hypersonic technologies for non-weapons
related research, such as micro-satellite or other satellite launch
requirements and other purposes as listed under the conferees
recommendations. The conferees direct that none of the funds provided in
this Act may be used to develop, integrate, or test a CAV variant that
includes any nuclear or conventional weapon. The conferees further direct
that none of the funds provided in this Act may be used to develop,
integrate, or test a CAV for launch on any Intercontinental Ballistic
Missile or Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile. The Committees on
Appropriations will consider expanding the scope of this program in
subsequent years if safeguards negotiated among our international partners
have been put in place.
This Congressional action is ironic, given that the
primary reason the Clinton Administration gave for not taking out Bin Laden
is that they could not keep track of his position in Afghanistan long enough
to blast him with a cruise missile. The FALCON program is designed to
produce the capability to perform one-hour from alert to impact non-nuclear
strikes from CONUS.
JR
In other words, we mustn't scare anyone into
thinking we will Do anything. This is a formula for losing the Technological
War. But the Democrats have always been good at that.
I don't like Republican greed and I don't like
imperialism, but I sure do want to survive the technology wars.
Scott Kitterman (afp@kitterman.com) has sent you a
Yahoo! Singapore News article
Personal message:
They seem to have discovered that the empire needs
auxilliaries....
Scott Kitterman
US wants to build network of friendly militias to
combat terrorism
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/040811/1/3mci0.html
Astonishing.
Subject: Got any spare change?
August 10, 2004: The last World War II PT boat, fully
equipped in wartime configuration, is up for sale. PT-728 was one of 800 PT
(Patrol Torpedo) boats the United States built during World War II. This one
was produced in 1945, and never saw combat. After the war, it spent several
decades serving as a fishing boat in Canada. Bought by an American collector
in 1994, PT-728 was returned to its wartime state. However, the twin .50
caliber machine-guns and 20mm cannon are not functional, and the four Mark
VIII torpedoes are dummies. But at a glance, the 72 foot boat looks like a
World War II photo come to life. The owner, Bill Bohmfalk, is auctioning it
off on eBay. Floor bid is $500,000.
John Monahan
I know someone who could use it for photos so he'd
look more like Kennedy. He can afford it, too. Or his wife can.
================
Subject: the rock in the Canary
Islands
Jerry,
Concerning this story
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3553368.stm , this was also the
subject of a Discovery Channel program. They had a series on various natural
catastrophes that have occurred before and the prospects for them occurring
again. The interesting thing about this topic is that it presents a third
fundamental mechanism for generating large waves from large masses of stuff
falling into the water. The first two mechanisms are wind and earthquakes,
and there are limitations on how large waves can get from those processes.
Two points about "stuff falling into water"; (1) The idea that this
mechanism can generate large waves is pretty new, (2) there is really no
limit to the size of the wave; it just goes up with the impact of the
falling material.
The program documented a landslide-generated wave in a
fiord-like area in Alaska where a 90 foot fishing boat was flipped by the
wave. There were pictures of large evergreen trees scoured off the hillsides
about 90-100 feet above the waterline (numbers are from memory, but
approximately correct). This was a very -small- landslide wave compared to
the Canary island scenario. The program had a graphic showing the
devastation that could be expected on the East coast. The loss of life would
be like a full-scale cold war nuclear exchange. The wave goes much farther
inland than I would have believed possible.
So, the mechanism for generating large waves is very
real. The threat is real. I suppose we can only hope the rock falls in
bit-by-bit and that we get some warning.
Chuck Bouldin
Santorini, or Thera, which generated a number of
legends when it blew up then collpsed in either 1450 or 1200 BC (there's
still some controversy over when) generated most of the waves through
collapse: stuff falling into the water.
Hello,
I haven’t emailed in while, and have been able to
check in sporadically of late, but I have to say that your comment on
education having decayed into credentialing has certainly hit a sore spot
with me. I’m 44, was subjected to every trendy teaching method available in
elementary, middle, and high school. I have a bachelor’s degree, two
master’s degrees and recently finished a PhD from a major state school,
where the instructors are expected to act like consultants. Despite my
extensive education I do not believe I am educated in any meaningful sense.
We are heading for troubled times if nothing is done.
Please read “Illusion of Victory” by Thomas Fleming.
It deserves a “Book of the Month” accolade.
Thanks
Fred C. Dilger PhD.
See Jane Jacobs on the coming dark age...
============
On the Decline of The West:
Title: In defense of Judge James Moody
Despite what Robert Spencer might think of Judge
Moody's ruling, I say God bless him.
Do we arrest people for using a business or charity
established by organized crime for the purpose of laundering money? No, we
don't -- there's no way to prove the customers know anything about the
activities of such a place. What we do is shut the store DOWN. When we DO
arrest a customer or contributor, we must first prove that the people are
knowingly contributing to the criminal activity, not the charity. This is
not a new standard. It is ignorance of the *law*, not ignorance of the
criminal activity, that is not an acceptable excuse.
Moody made a ruling not based on the specifics of the
defendent, but on what his ruling would mean to the laws as they are applied
to anyone. It may mean, in this case, that a person who knowingly supported
terrorism will go free, and that is not a good thing. His ruling, however,
IS a good thing for any citizen who is being "used" by a criminal
organization.
The great strength and weakness of our legal system is
that those who are accused are protected. This is done in order to protect
those who are accused unjustly or due to error. I am alarmed when someone
says, impatiently, "but it's obvious there should be an exception in this
case!" Perhaps there should be.... but exception creates precedent, and the
wrong precedent will defeat the reason why we have laws in the first place.
What Judge Moody did was the *opposite* of anarcho-tyranny:
he set a standard for the law and applied it even to an undesirable. God
bless him for it, I wish more would do the same.
Regards,
Christopher B. Wright (wrightc@ubersoft.net)
and we have:
Dear Jerry:
The judge's instructions in that South Florida case
were correct. There is still no such crime as "suspicion" in this country,
no matter how much certain members of the Right might wish it otherwise. Go
far enough with that idea and you get to the point of the medieval Bishop
who said "Kill them all. Let God sort them out.". I was watching C-SPAN
again yesterday. General Bill Odum, former head of the NSA, was giving
members of Congress an education in practical intelligence gathering. One of
the things he said was that we lack effective counter-intelligence in this
country because we've relied upon the FBI, which sees itself as a law
enforcement agency, to do it. He favors having counterintelligence agents
who have no powers of arrest. His argument is that, if you can arrant them,
then you will do so, just for the publicity. The preferred doctrine is to
watch them and try to discern all of the connections and resources at their
command. This gives you much better ability to frustrate and disrupt their
plans. Some overeager and ambitious junior US Attorney does not get to
advance his career by making a bug noisy public arrest that drives other
people to ground. It is an interesting idea. He said that we also need to
drop the artificial distinction of domestic vs. foreign intelligence. It's a
cold war artifact. Again, a very interesting idea. Counterintelligence would
then be fused across the disciplines and "intelligence factories". (That's
agencies like NSA and NRO). In other words, it should work the way it does
in television and the movies.
All of this is part of the discussion abbot
implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 commission. The Congressional
hearings are bringing forth people who have struggled with these problems
for decades. The entire culture has to be changed, and that means more than
just rearranging the deck chairs.
As for the TSA, I wonder if they would pull that 'you
can't write down my badge number" crap if they knew you were a reporter.
There are petty tyrants and bullies in every organization and they need to
be opposed. I'm pretty sure that such a policy does not exist. It would be
counter-productive to good order and discipline within the ranks.
And the guys who arrested Mike Wallace are inspectors
for the New York City Limo and Taxi division, which is notorious for such
petty tyrannies. I question why these guys even have powers of arrest. They
are not involved in law enforcement, but in civil regulation. There has been
a lot of commentary on Romensko on this by other journalists and Mayor
Bloomberg has taken an interest. I rather suspect those two clowns are going
to end up washing limos rather than inspecting them. More seriously, this
kind of abuse by minor officials plays into the hands of terrorists and
tyrants. No one feels safer . Public safety is not improved. The first rule
of any business is to remember who the customer is and that the customer is
in charge. Otherwise you don't have a business.
Sincerely, Francis Hamit
If we cannot see the difference between
representatives of an enemy culture pledged to finish us off, which raises
money to use for purposes that are very clear to everyone -- he would have
had to be pretty stupid not to know where the money went -- then we are
indeed in trouble.
But the west no longer believes it has anything
special, and the liberal philosophy that generates tolerance for everything
including intolerant enemies has no real stuffing any longer. Tolerating
enemies as monuments to our freedoms makes sense only if we know what
freedom is. Instead we defend the worst sort of "freedom" while grinding
down anyone who actually tries to be free of the system. Moreover, the next
step is to require that our enemies be paid with public money, and that we
import more of them and put them on the dole.
A legal system that cannot tell the difference
between real charity and front groups that raise money for terrorism will
spend its time harassing Hatfill but not doing much about the real enemies.
So it goes.
And if one cannot tell the difference between "Kill
them all" and putting that sort of operation out of business, that's
significant.
==============
Subject: Webroot Spysweeper
Dear Mr. Pournelle:
>On a separate note, I have found that Webroot
Spysweeper is a well done piece of anti-spyware. I have used AdAware and
Spybot and think that Spysweeper >does a better job. It's not free, but I
believe you get what you pay for in these cases. It is quite similar to
Norton Anti-Virus, with a >LiveUpdate-style system in place. In my tests,
Spysweeper will even remove CoolWebShop, the most pernicious spyware I know.
> > >Good luck in the quest for cyber safety. > >Sincerely, > >-Michael
Pusateri
With all due respect, I find that I must disagree with
Mr. Pusateri's assertion as to the superiority of Spysweeper. I'm a
professional desktop PC and notebook computer troubleshooter and these days,
a significant part of my work and income comes from removing the various
kinds of spyware, viruses, trojans and worms from clients' computers. I have
come to discover that when a client has Spysweeper installed, even when it
is rigorously kept updated, it will not find all of the malware that Spybot
Search & Destroy 1.3 and As-Aware 6 will find. I have an experience base of
over 100 tested and serviced computers to date in real world environments.
Spysweeper simply in my experience can't perform as well as Spybot and
Ad-aware. It's not an enjoyable task to tell a client that Webroot
Spysweeper that he paid for isn't as good as are the free versions of Spybot
or Ad-Aware.
One thing I do is to use both Spybot and Ad-aware on
the systems I service. Sometimes it takes them both to get all the nasties
cleaned out. But if I have to pick just one application, then it will be
Spybot 1.3 due to it's stay resident component. With all that said, there
are some malware, usually certain trojans, that can only be removed by
manually editing the registry (not for the faint of heart) and deleting
files that stay behind after deleting the trojan in question and then
reinfect the computer on next power cycle.
Sincerely,
Karl Murphy CM/IT Solutions.
-==============-
Subject: The Underground History of American Education
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/toc1.htm
--- Roland Dobbins
Fascinating.
Sample:
You aren’t compelled to loan your car to anyone
who wants it, but you are compelled to surrender your school-age child to
strangers who process children for a livelihood, even though one in every
nine schoolchildren is terrified of physical harm happening to them in
school, terrified with good cause; about thirty-three are murdered there
every year. From 1992 through 1999, 262 children were murdered in school in
the United States. Your great-great-grandmother didn’t have to surrender her
children. What happened?
If I demanded you give up your television to an
anonymous, itinerant repairman who needed work you’d think I was crazy; if I
came with a policeman who forced you to pay that repairman even after he
broke your set, you would be outraged. Why are you so docile when you give
up your child to a government agent called a schoolteacher?
His thesis is correct: schools, at least the ones
we have, aren't needed except to provide jobs to the education industry.
=========================
An article and a response:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/
la-oe-pinkerton6aug06,1,6370050.story?coll=
la-news-comment-opinions
COMMENTARY As the AIDS Bureaucracy Cashes
In, the Prospect of a Cure Dims By James P. Pinkerton
August 6, 2004
The big news on AIDS is that there is no news.
After 20 million deaths over 25 years, there should be some news - of a
vaccine, of a cure - but there's nothing on the horizon. And in no small
part, it's because politics has squeezed out science.
Last month I traveled to Bangkok to cover the
15th World AIDS Conference. Many luminaries - Kofi Annan, Nelson Mandela,
CEOs of various pharmaceutical companies, actress Ashley Judd - were there,
all talking The Language of Concern and Compassion. But nobody talked
seriously about a vaccine or a cure; the phantom of this opera was the
prospect of actually eradicating the virus.
Activists blame the U.S. government and the
pharmaceutical companies. Uncle Sam, they say, underfunds condom
distribution. Given the activists' antipathy to abstinence-eager Texans, it
probably won't do much good to point out that the dreaded Bush
administration is spending more on condoms than Clinton's ever did. This
year, the U.S. Agency for International Development is expected to donate
more than 500 million condoms to poor countries around the world.
The "Big Pharma" story is less straightforward.
Activists say the drug companies have underfunded R&D. But the truth is that
the drug makers have spent tens of billions of dollars on fighting AIDS.
Now, however, they are quietly pulling back. Why? Because they no longer see
profits ahead. The drug companies are being pressured into basically giving
away their existing anti-AIDS meds in Third World countries, home to 95% of
the 38 million people infected with the virus.
Even so, they are routinely vilified; the chief
of Pfizer, Hank McKinnell, was booed off the stage in Bangkok. If a
pharmaceutical company were to come up with an AIDS-smiting "silver bullet,"
Magic Johnson would gladly pay the sticker price, while everyone else would
demand it free. If you're Pfizer, it's hard to make money that way. <snip>
And a resoponse:
Every American "ideal" (e.g., curing AIDS) morphs into
an "industry" in an average of 20 years, plus or minus. This has happened
with civil rights (now the "Race Industry") and environmentalism, so given
that AIDS burst on the scene in the early 1980s, it's timely.
One bizarre thing, though, is how the New York Times
can find people with "M.D." behind their names to cite "poor access to
health care" as a reason for Afro-Americans *contracting* HIV in the first
place. An equally bizarre thing is that the same people will speak of HIV as
"manageable". For Andrew Sullivan, perhaps, but in sub-Saharan Africa??
Cavils:
> following what scientists know as a Darwinian >
inevitability - mutating into newer and > more lethal forms
I thought diseases were just as likely to mutate into
kindler, gentler, let-your-
infectious-host-live-longer-so-he-can-spread-you-more-efficiently forms.
> And if perma-funding for the dying becomes > the new
"mode of production"
Did he mean "means of production" (after Marx)?
JW
Another example of the NYT being "All Race, All The
Time" that follows the depressing pattern--you name the social problem, and
American blacks are a little over 1/2 of it.
THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/07/
national/07deaths.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=
The New York Times August 7, 2004 Patients With H.I.V.
Seen as Separated by a Racial Divide By LINDA VILLAROSA
================
More on Bluetooth
Subject: BlueSniper.
http://www.tomshardware.com/business/200408021/defcon-05.html
Roland Dobbins
==========
Subject: Bluetooth and security...
Hi -
I had a wonderful experience with Bluetooth the other
day and it's kept me chortling ever since.
At the local Saturn superstore here in Frankfurt,
Germany, I recently was deciding which PDA to buy. My Sony-Ericsson T610 has
Bluetooth and I didn't want to run any more wires on my desk than I need to,
so it was pretty easy to make a choice. At the Saturn store they've got a
whole passle of PDAs out, cabled for security, but otherwise running.
So I decided to take a look at the PalmOne Zire 72. I
activated the Bluetooth and let it take a look after I made my T610 visible.
After all, if it can't see it in such an environment, then it's not much
worth, right?
I found 19 active telephones. 19! I quickly checked to
see if I could log on to my own phone (worked) and turned my Bluetooth off.
Then I took a further look, and there were still 17 within the range of the
PDA. I started seeing if I could get access to these phones and was able to
log on to three of them, which were completed naked to any Bluetooth in the
area.
I ended up buying the PalmOne Zire 72 (aka BlueBeast)
and took a walk through a floor at work to see what I could find. Not so
extreme, only 3 phones out of some 20 were visible.
Bluetooth is apparently "on" by default on at least
some Siemens and Nokia telephones; the makers and service providers are
amazingly lax or ignorant when it comes to proper use of the technology.
And when I was searching, two people came up behind me
to see what was so interesting, and I could see their phones become visible.
When I pointed this out to them, they looked at me strange and said words to
the effect that their phones didn't even have Bluetooth, and when I told
them what their phones were they were amazed.
Great parlor trick if it wasn't so amazingly stupid.
Best regards,
John F. Opie
Ouch! Roland keeps warning us about this...
===============
Subject: An IDE for storylines and plot development
An IDE for storylines and plot development
This is an interesting idea. It may force me to
install .NET on my computer. But if I did that I'd have to actually *write*
some of the stories in my head, and it's so much easier to be a non-writing
writer.
http://www.habitualindolence.net/labyrinth/
Labyrinth is an integrated development environment for
developing and recording storylines and plots.
* Novels and scripts: Keep track of complex plotlines
and analyse relationships between characters * RPGs and ARGs: Ideal for
developing a plot for your campaign, or tracking the progress of a game
you're playing.
Features
* Use structures to show relationships between plot
elements * Use timelines to show how plot elements change over the course of
a plotline * All plot elements are cross-referenced automatically: navigate
between plot elements, structures and timelines in a simple, common-sense
way * Contains an integrated task list (new in version 3.2) * Fully
extensible: easily write your own add-in functionality (new in version 3.2)
--Gary Pavek
=========================================== "And the day came when the risk
to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom."
---Anais Nin (1903-1977)
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