Colonizing space, flying angels, podcasting audio books, and other stuff

Mail 708 Wednesday, January 04, 2012

First the retraction:

40 marines circle the cribs

Jerry:

The story you repeated in Mail 708 about 40 marines circling the cribs from the Pentagon daycare has been circling the internet since at least 2008 and is reported to be false. There is no evidence that it is true.

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/glurge/daycare.asp

It is now widely posted on the web, always it seems without documentation.

Best regards,

–Harry M.

It probably isn’t true, then. I hadn’t heard it before, and on reflection given the geometry of the Pentagon it seems unlikely.

Of course I didn’t bother to do any fact checking for the simple reason that if it turned out to be made up, someone was certain to write me – and unlike some stories, which I do try to confirm before printing them, there was no harm to be done on this one. It’s not as if it couldn’t be true, or even that such activities by Marines would be all that unusual. But, as I said, on reflection given the geometry of the Pentagon, it does seem unlikely. Precisely where would this stockade have been built? I don’t know which ring has a nursery – indeed, I don’t think, on reflection, that there is one. On the other hand, things were much more open prior to 9/11; in my day you took a taxi to the Mall Entrance, walked up a ramp, and you could walk pretty well anywhere without being challenged or stopped. There were parts of the E Ring that were guarded, and a few project offices, but in general anyone could go almost anywhere in the building without challenge, and it’s not impossible that there had been a nursery area.

As to Snopes, I avoid that site. I find their attitude unpleasant, and their agenda is not mine.

But we are justified in deciding that this particular story of helpful Marines has been made up. I assure I can find lots of similar stories that are quite true.

Space colonisation

You say we can colonise the asteroids in much the same way we colonised Australia. Well, I disagree. One point is that Australia was colonised at least initially with criminals; I find it difficult to believe that such people will number among them enough people with sufficient technical savvy to keep the machinery going.

The other point is related to the first one. Anyone involved in exploiting space resources is not too far enough away from having access to WMDs. This might not matter after a century or two, when humanity has more than one basket to keep its eggs in, but early on it will matter. Which leads to a sub-point; there are some people, and IMHO some groups of people, who should never be permitted to go into space. Never.

Ian Campbell

Well – yes. I am familiar with Botany Bay and Captain Bligh and the other stories about convicts and the Australian settlement, but I hadn’t supposed that was the element alluded to in the letter I was answering. I had presumed that “in much the same way as we colonized Australia” meant long and uncomfortable voyages, and a rather small and slow return on the initial investment, but immediate payoff from mines and minerals. Given the cost of transportation it’s highly unlikely that even the Moon would receive involuntary colonists, and the costs of transport to the asteroids is far greater. It never occurred to me that anyone seriously meant colonization of the asteroids by convicts.

Many years ago the L5 Society conducted a survey and registry: we wondered if there would be any volunteers for colonization of the Moon. I was pretty sure there would be: after all, we colonized the West, and that was with horses and oxen. I found that the cost in 1979 dollars of a covered wagon, team of oxen, a horse, plow, shovels and axes, guns and ammunition, and enough food to last several weeks delivered to Independence Missouri was about $100,000. The L5 Society then looked to see if educated couples of fertile age would be willing to sign up for a Lunar Colony on the condition that return was not guaranteed and passage back to Earth was at the convenience of the colony company; the investment would be $100,000 US dollars. We started the registry, but we soon gave up: this was before we had small computers and could do this electronically, and frankly there were too many people volunteering. The paper work was overwhelming the tiny L5 staff.

Now true enough, many of those so eager to go one-way to the Moon might not be so quick to board an actual ship and head out, but it is astonishing how many said they were willing to do so and were willing to explain where they expected to get the money. If Lunar and asteroid colonies ever become a reality, I do not think we would lack for a few thousand well educated fertile couples who would undertake to try it. At least that was true of my generation. It may no longer be true, of course.

As to who might be permitted to go to space, and the need for a Space Navy, I agree, and in fact have written about that. A small rock with a mass driver is very much a weapon of mass destruction.

Health care

Jerry,

Responding to Mr. Johnson’s letter:

I think there is little doubt that providing services to manage public health (sanitation and infectious disease) falls under "general welfare," and much of trauma medicine and occupational disease research can be justified by the need to "provide for the common defense" and "general welfare," though providing such services could arguably be limited to soldiers and federal workers (including contractors) in such environments.

Other medical research — and other medical services — are provided by the government as a public charity, albeit in principle one with a direct return to the general welfare through more productive citizenry. (Medicare, as a supposed "pay while you’re employed and we’ll take care of you later" insurance plan is something different from charity).

My personal preference in this regard would be:

1. Continued private medicine with health insurance reform that equalizes costs-per-patient for insured and uninsured patients. (I find it ludicrous that a doctor can see a covered patient and collect a $30 copay and get a $30 reimbursement with the ensuing paperwork, while an uncovered patient — just "cash the check" without the paperwork — is billed $120.) Services provided should be sharply limited, and (as an obese Type II diabetic) I would consider it fair to have to pay higher costs for related medical care as an incentive to mitigate the problem.

2. Something like the Ryan plan to maintain Medicare for current beneficiaries while weaning people from it.

3. The federal and state governments should offer a clinic service, fees commensurate on ability to pay but not exceeding private clinic reimbursements, staffed by nurses and interns. Government funding of health care is relegated to subsidies to such clinics. We should also encourage the return to charity clinics and offer tex incentives to private doctors to see charity and Medicare patients.

Jim

The notion that you ought to pay my doctor bills as general welfare would have astonished nearly everyone at the Convention of 1787.

Juan of the Dead

Dr. Pournelle

The West’s cultural weapons of mass destruction seem to have been effective in Castro’s Cuba. Someone down there is producing world-class zombie comedy.

http://www.firstshowing.net/2012/focus-world-releasing-cuban-film-juan-of-the-dead-vod-this-year/

Sadly, I believe that we are running out of time for the same implements to finish working in Tehran. The mullahs may have a nuclear weapon before we see "Mohsen of the Dead".

Gregory Norton

We have wasted four years in which the cultural weapons of mass destruction – iPhones, iPads, blue jeans, rock music, and other cool stuff – might have been directed against both Iran and North Korea. The current administration has chosen speeches and ‘engagement’.

Tripolitanian ‘Democracy’ in action.

<http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.ac8ca97b7248a2fcb350950c1c4b4b92.291&show_article=1>

Roland Dobbins

Alas neither the first nor the last of such stories.

Peacemaker

http://paulinhouston.blogspot.com/2012/01/peacemaker.html

03 Jan 2012 – 17:00 – I’ve already gotten a bit fond of this post,so naturally I just had to tweak it, play with it and add a couple of pictures.

Will I ever learn to just leave well enough alone?

Probably not. 🙂

—

Paul Gordon

I once flew a 24 hour flight mission on the B-36 (as a civilian operations research/human factors boffin). She was an impressive airplane.

Subject: Even the Washington Post is Against Energy Subsidies

Yes, the Washington Post comes out against ethanol and electric vehicle subsidies. Maybe there is some hope. They even point out the silly prediction of President Obama that there will be a million electric vehicles on the road by 2015.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/overcharged/2011/12/30/gIQAzQ0yUP_story.html?hpid=z2

—

Dwayne Phillips

A continuing story.

Geoengineering in reverse

A state of the art model of clean air mandate driven aerosol reduction suggests that angels can fall up :

http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering/browse_thread/thread/b8adf28ac78f88f3.html

—

Russell Seitz

If you say so…

Searching the moon for lost keys?

Hi Jerry

Just a minor comment about the SETI search of the moon:

"Although there is only a tiny probability that alien technology would have left traces on the moon in the form of an artifact or surface modification of lunar features, this location has the virtue of being close, and of preserving traces for an immense duration."

When I read this, I can’t help but think of the old story of the drunk looking for his lost keys:

"A policeman sees a drunk man searching for something under a streetlight and asks what the drunk has lost. He says he lost his keys and they both look under the streetlight together. After a few minutes the policeman asks if he is sure he lost them here, and the drunk replies, no, that he lost them in the park. The policeman asks whey he is searching here, and the drunk replies, ‘this is where the light is.’"

Surely there are better ways to invest the time and money SETI plans for this project?

Cheers

Brad

Depends on whose money. I certainly would not borrow money from China to pay for it; in other words, I would not at the moment think it a good public investment. On the other hand, it’s a free country, and if the SETI people want to raise the money to try this, they are welcome to do so and I’ll watch with interest.

One thing about liberty, lots of people do things I wouldn’t pay for, and more power to them. It’s when they want to do it with my money that I get concerned.

New self publishing options: Audiobooks through ACX.com, which is, of course, an Amazon.com company

Dear Jerry:

Here is a short article about doing audiobooks of your existing books through ACX.com. I wrote this for my fellow members of the Military Writers Society of America, but see no reason why you should not use it as well.

And a reminder. The special holday sale on the e-book edition of "The Shenandoah Spy" for 99 cents ends on January 8th. The price goes back up because we’re not selling enough copies to make up for the margin we have at the higher price. This seems to be another bifurcated market. There are e-book consumers who want good books and will pay for them and others who just want cheap books, regardless of their quality. Well, quality costs. The experiment continues.

Article begins here:

At Brass Cannon Books we have started publishing audiobook editions of some of the works we have on Amazon Kindle, in a co-production deal with producer/narrators. When we started looking at doing this about two years ago, it was pretty daunting. Audiobooks , unless you narrate and produce them yourselves, are as expensive to make as your first hardbound edition in offset. Several thousand dollars. Why audiobooks? Because this is a whole new audience for your work. There is very little overlap with traditional print readers or e-book readers. If my neighbors in Kern County are an example, the main audience are all those people who do not read at all, but like to listen to a good story while driving long distances. Call it the truck-and-road warrior market rather than the brick-and-mortar one. Seriously. These folks balk at paying eight bucks for a mass-market paperback, but regularly plunk down forty dollars for a new audiobook.

ACX.com is an Amazon.com company and this is a place where their desire to own the universe actually can work for you. Because they also own Audible, which distributes through Amazon and is also on iTunes. Most of the audiobook market now is downloads to the MP3 player and like devices. On ACX there are rights holders and there are producers, who are usually narrators as well or can hire them. And you can hire a producer or make a partnership them to divide the royalties 50/50.

Given that good narrators go from $100 to $1.000 per finished hour and a 100,000 word novel will be about 12 to 14 hours long, it wasn’t a hard decision for us to give up half the royalties. Most narrators there simply want to get paid their fee, but there are some that will take the 50/50 deal because they see the potential of the piece. As rights holder, you control the process. They audition the voices for you. They post samples of their narration. You can also ask for a reading of the first few minutes of your book. The 50/50 deal gives Audible exclusive distribution rights, but your up-front investment is very small. And Audible has a big chunk of the market. Their license is only for seven years. After that you can make other arrangements.

We have been insisting that the narrators and producers read the entire work before we do a deal. We have parts that some people can’t handle (sex, violence, politics) or find that there are more voices than they can comfortably do. While this is not a traditional performance, it does require someone who can act and change the tone of the narration to fit the text. There are hundreds of different ways that any text can be read aloud. So you have to choose wisely.

We started with two full novels and three shorter pieces of fiction. There are not many short pieces in the Audible catalog, and we think this might be a profitable niche. Two of the shorter pieces are in production and should be available for download by next month. The text are on Kindle, so we hope that the availability of a Kindle edition will spark the audiobook sale and we note that one writer who has become famous for offering full novels at 99 cents sells the audiobook edition for eleven or twelve times as much.

We take our time reviewing and approving the final product because it has our name on it. We own it. So quality is a concern. Rather than replicate everything on the ACX.com site here, I am going to recommend that you go check it out yourself. It’s easy to navigate and easy to use, and it doesn’t cost anything to register your work. You should have a Kindle version in the system for them to look at and approve.

Francis Hamit

I have found Audible to be a good source of income, but I have no direct experience with them. I would think that the same techniques that make podcasts work could be used to do audio books. In my case I almost never read from my own works in public, but some authors do, and some have the voice quality to make it sound good.

The following is a press release:

Facebook cybercriminals rip-off consumers and companies, says Commtouch 2011 Year in Review Report

Dear Jerry,

Not only are cybercriminals using Facebook for “traditional” fraud like phishing and identity theft, but they are also using it as a “gray” market for building – and defrauding – affiliate businesses.

Facebook threats have become so prevalent that Commtouch has devoted much of its 2011 Year in Review Trend Report to them. Commtouch® (NASDAQ: CTCH) provides Internet security solutions to more than 150 security companies and service providers including Google, Microsoft and Rackspace.

http://www.commtouch.com/threat-report- <http://www.commtouch.com/threat-report-january-2012> january-2012 <http://www.commtouch.com/threat-report-year-end-2011>

View the infographic at: http://www.commtouch.com/facebook-threats

We invite you to download the report and graphic and use them in any of your materials; we simply ask that you attribute Commtouch.

The report’s author is available for personal interviews, if you’d like me to set up a call.

Please let me know if I may assist in any way.

Over 2012 (and immediately), we invite you to visit blog.commtouch.com for twice-weekly threat updates. Feel free to use the content here, too. Again, we just ask that you attribute Commtouch.

Happy New Year!

Regards,

Amy

Amy Kenigsberg

K2 Global Communications

I include this largely because I have a number of messages warning me of Facebook frauds. I don’t Facebook so I wouldn’t know much about it.

Big Government Conservatives Dear Jerry,

Using Milton Friedman’s idea that best way to measure the size of government is by how much it spends (not how much it taxes), we could say that a "Big Government Conservative" is one that endorses a lot of government spending. Thus, conservative supporters of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan could be an example of "Big Government Conservatives". Or, consider that a few days ago Rep. Steve King of Iowa stated in an interview on CNN that Ron Paul’s foreign policy of withdrawing U.S. troops from around the world would not only embolden China, but possibly result in a Chavez-led revolution in Cuba! (I would have thought we could project enough force from Florida or Georgia to prevent that.) True, he did not mention wars with Canada or Mexico, but, we have fought them before, and if they continue to grow marijuana it is not too hard to think that King would endorse warring with them again. Can’t be too careful, you know.

As to enhancing the power of local governments, that is an interesting idea, but one shockingly at odds with the notion of state constitutions; thus, showing that while you may be a conservative, you are no mere worshipper of tradition! For myself, I would prefer that local power be enhanced privately via covenants that run with the land, rather than by more majoritarianism. Local power might not be properly called "Big Government", but I think the real concern is with Meddlesome Government regardless of party affiliation.

Gordon Sollars

I am quite certain that simple populism will result in many injustices; indeed, it was fear of simple democracy that spurred the drafting and adoption of the Constitution of 1787. Regarding local powers being devolved from the states, I understand that’s a fairly radical proposition. I reserve the right to bring up such notions for discussion. I can see how states like California that have Initiative and Referendum for Constitutional Amendment might manage to get there from here. Whether it’s likely is another matter entirely.

I do think that consent of the governed is important, and that the best way to see that most people live under governments they consent to is to break up the jurisdictional areas, so that everyone gets a bunch of the laws and conventions they want. But then I am not running for office and I don’t have to worry about such speculation.

I completely agree that Meddlesome Government and the Nanny State is undesirable; but since there seem to be a lot of people who think that’s a great idea, I would like to see such things implements in local areas, rather than across a whole state. It’s unlikely, I admit.

If Big Government advocates are those who want a lot of government spending – a perfectly good definition in my judgment – then Mr. Santorum can hardly be called in favor of Big Government. He is adamant about cutting spending.

The Golden State Turning Brown

Jerry,

The obvious continues…

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

<http://news.investors.com/Article/596620/201201031854/california-business-leaving-child-booster-law-arson.htm>

The money paragraphs

"….While the California legislature spent 2011 fiddling with nonsense legislation, the state’s business environment continued to burn. Joe Vranich, a business consultant who monitors the Golden State’s exodus, said in November that "large corporations, family-run companies and even startup enterprises in all industries continue to leave" due to high business taxes and excessive regulation "imposed on commercial enterprises of all types."

Vranich calls California the worst state in the nation to locate a business, Los Angeles the worst city. He estimates a business can save 40% in costs just by leaving…."

You did have to remind me, didn’t you? Ah well.