Mail June 27, 2011 – 1
New design
I like the new design layout… but is there any chance you could continue using the old parch5.jpg background image – seems like it’s been around long enough to be a tradition.
Chuck
It can be done, but the consensus around here is that it comes out weird colors depending on what you are looking at it with. I always saw it as parchment, but many saw an odd pink, and it changed from time to time. I like the grey for readability, and it’s probably time to give that a try. JEP
= = = = = = = = = =
None of the suggested formats come anywhere close to the standards set by Chaos Manor and Mail for the last 15 years. DO NOT use any of them as an example when setting up your new formats. Please come as close as possible to what you have been doing since I have been subscribing to Chaos Manor.
Chuck Anderson
Thanks for the kind words. We are trying. I really am trying to come as close as possible to what we have been doing, in part because I sure don’t want to learn something new. I do reserve the right to try various things, but I promise to get rid of them when they are ugly, as some probably will be. It’s an adventure game…
= = = = = = = =
The old format worked just fine for me, but I’m sure that I’ll get used to the new one and it will be fine too.
An unidentified reader provided the following:
“Instead, just post reader mail as it comes in along with your own comment – each in a separate post. I would think this would be simpler for you, too, by eliminating the compilation step.”
Please don’t do that. I know that many blogs allow reader comments to appear instantly. It is not necessarily a desirable ‘feature’. I like the idea that letters from your readers, mine or anyone else’s, appear because YOU read them and you, personally (It is YOUR blog, after all.), thought that they were worth passing along. If you feel that my letters, any or all, or those of your other readers that you choose not to publish, for WHATEVER reason, are better suited to the ash bin of history than to your blog, fine.
After all, I think that is what attracts many to your site: your personal involvement.
Also his suggestion that you comment on ALL of your reader mail seems mighty liberal with your time. Who was it that starved to death answering reader mail? We don’t need you as another example.
Anyway, thanks for your efforts.
Bob Ludwick
The only way to comment here is to send me mail. I get far more mail than I can publish. Some is quite good enough for publication, but it is part of a flood on the same subject. Some is flattering but doesn’t show any new perspectives. Some just doesn’t strike me as appealing to the readers. I select what I think is interesting, and the result is that I think this is one of the most interesting mail sections on the Web. We have a wide variety of readers with great perception and often great expertise.
While I try to read all the reader mail, I am sometimes a long way behind on that. I do have other things I have to get done. I wish I could comment on all the mail I select, but I often can’t. We does the best we can…
= = = = = = == == =
Site Redesign
Jerry,
As a longtime reader, I can get along with everything I saw on the new page, except that the new page puts Saturday below Sunday. Personally, I can’t stand “blog order” – we read from the top down, and chronological order should run from the top down, not from the bottom up.
If the new software is not capable of placing the entries in logical order, the next best thing would be to recreate the “Monday – Tuesday – Wednesday” etc. links that were at the top of the old page, so readers could click a link and read Saturday first, then return to the top and click to read Sunday, instead of having to scroll futilely about the page to read in chronological order.
Best wishes for a speedy recovery.
Respectfully,
Tom Brendel
We’re looking at this but I am not sure what to do. The calendar over there on the right is live, and it will let you go to a particular day; that may be the best we can do. For the moment we’re going to stay with what we have, but that doesn’t me we can’t revise once we see just how this works. For the moment I’m trying to get used to using what I have. Thanks.
= = = = = = = = = =
re: contempt of cop
It may interest you and your readers to know that in IL it is a class 1 felony punishable by 4-15 years in prison and $25,000 to record a police officer in performance of his duties.
This is on par with rape.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/08/chicago-district-attorney-recording-bad-cops_n_872921.html
http://www.heartland.org/full/29892/In_Illinois_Its_a_Felony_to_Film_Police.html
R
There is a trend in this direction. After the Rodney King incident it will not happen in Los Angeles; and I would think that the 14th Amendment give Congress ample power to defend the rights of citizens to monitor and report the actions of the local police. That is, after all, what Civil Rights is all about. Interesting that Illinois thinks that is not needed.
= = = = = = =
Solar Windows
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/25/BUHP1K2FGD.DTL&type=tech
San Mateo based company.
The product reduces the amount of direct sunlight entering windows and converts it to electricity instead.
This product won the GE ecoimagination challenge.
John Harlow, President BravePoint
That appears to make sense. There is no point in wasting solar energy just to do that: the question is whether it is economical to try to make use of it. Thanks. Intruiging.
= = = = = =
Space Solar Power
Hello Jerry,
“I do know that when we did the Boeing study one of the tests was transmission of power through atmosphere using Goldstone as the transmitter to a rectenna; the efficiency of the operation, that is, the ratio of usable power out of the rectenna to the input power at Goldstone was about 90%.”
Actually, the recent spate of YouTube videos on the subject say that the rectenna produced an output of around 82.5% of the INCIDENT RF energy.
The Goldstone transmitter for the Venus tests produced around 450 kilowatts of rf. The the input power from the grid that was required to produce the rf was not reported. The best klystrons available today produce around 700 kw at an efficiency of 44% (current state of the art). The ones available in 1975 were considerably less efficient. Even granting 40% efficiency, the Goldstone transmitter tests required at least 1.2 megawatts of power from the grid to produce the 30 kilowatts from the rectenna.
Some (maybe most) of the newer proposals do away with the thousands of huge klystrons in orbit and replace them with large numbers of lower power solid state modules driving elements of a phased array. Here is a paper listing several alternatives (interestingly, the paper proceeds as if the down link were buildable).:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/54333065/2/History-of-Wireless-Power-Transmission
It includes information on the Goldstone tests, by the way.
One of the tables in the paper lists rudimentary specs for the downlink antenna. The number of transmit modules range from 97 million (NASA/DOE with 185 w/module) to 3.5 billion (Old JAXA proposal, with 1 w/module). The NASA/DOE proposal with a downlink at 2.45 GHz, a 1 km transmit antenna, and a 1 km receive rectenna is not believable; the ‘cold equations’ of aperture vs beamwidth don’t allow it. A 1 km diameter transmit antenna @ 2.45 GHz WILL NOT produce a 1 km diameter beam at a distance of 22,500 miles.
All of this sort of begs the issue: Antennas are not infinitely scalable, any more than are telescopes. At least not buildable ones. It is a little like using the specs for Hubble (8′ diameter, resolution .05 arc seconds) as ‘proof of principle’ for a telescope with a diameter of 50 million feet so that we could resolve 1 mile surface features on planets orbiting Alpha Centauri. In theory, that would work; in practice, we aren’t building a 50 million ft diameter telescope any time soon. Neither are we building, stabilizing, and maintaining a geosynchronous phased array antenna a couple of kilometers in diameter with a billion (more or less) driven elements any time soon.
Bob Ludwick
Thank you. I haven’t looked at the data in decades. I can only say that a team of us, all experienced, with a span of expertise we thought more than adequate, concluded after a lot of hard work that SSPS was economical once the capital costs – considerable capital costs – were paid. General Graham had a similar experience with his team of High Frontier staff and volunteers. So did Lawrence Livermore. I think that conclusion is still viable. Space Solar power isn’t easy – that’s one thing we have learned about space and with a vengeance, nothing is easy – but not easy doesn’t have to mean physically or economically impossible. I do not believe the dream is dead.
= = = = = = =
Benign incompetence or competent malevolence
Hello Jerry,
“One may draw any conclusion one likes.”
True, but the sign being waved by the SEIU half of the Obama/SEIU mutual admiration society, combined by the observed behavior of the Obamunist half over the last two and a half years, should surely influence one’s conclusion a bit, I would think.
I suppose that the conclusion would also depend upon whether one thinks that stamping out a capitalist representative republic and replacing it with a socialist/Marxist/communist/fascist tyranny is benign or malevolent. (I know, socialism/Marxism et al are not identical, but one or more of them would be appropriate descriptions of ALL of the Obamunist actions since they took command–literally–of our country.)
Bob Ludwick
One does not need to impute malice to the normal operations of the Iron Law.
= = = = = = = = =
