Chaos Manor View, Friday, October 16, 2015

I’ve been overwhelmed with stuff, all urgent in the sense that it can’t be ignored. And now it’s past time for lunch. The Dyson’s Sphere speculation is fun, but hardly urgent…

Dyson Sphere on Space?

While it’s still too early to tell, and we had similar speculation when neutron stars were discovered, we may have confirmation that we’re not alone. I read many articles about this, and I plan to follow this closely:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/10/15/the-strange-star-that-has-serious-scientists-talking-about-an-alien-megastructure/

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

large structures orbiting a star
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-most-interesting-star-in-our-galaxy/410023/

Eric Gilmer

“Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilization to build.”

<http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/alien-megastructure-could-surround-giant-6632574>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

There’s been a lot about the discovery of a Dyson Sphere, or an “Alien Object” by the Kepler telescope.

The following is a series of emails tracking this story. Participants are an electrical engineer, a physicist and Stephanie Osborne, Interstellar woman of mystery and more relevantly retired NASA rocket scientist. It won’t settle the matter because it isn’t settled, but here’s what rational discussion brings us so far. It started with a note from a Ph.D. Physics friend:

From: Physicist

To: steph-osborn@sff.net (Stephanie)
Subject: Wow
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2015 17:06:20 +0000

Please forward (removing my work email) to the usual suspects

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/forget-water-on-mars-astronomers-may-have-just-found-giant-alien-megastructures-orbiting-a-star-near-a6693886.htmlP

– – –

Which is worthy of a wow to be forwarded to the usual suspects like me.

– – –

From: Stephanie [mailto:steph-osborn@sff.net Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2015 12:10 PM
Subject: RE: Wow

When I click on the link it gives me a page not found.

If it’s the same as this, it’s already all over Facebook:
http://www.outerplaces.com/science/item/10127-did-astronomers-just-find-evidence-of-an-extraterrestrial-dyson-sphere

and the probability is high that it is simply some very large stuff left over from system formation. Dyson spheres, it is now realized, take more material to build than is found in a typical stellar system, excluding the central star. Ringworlds aren’t a lot better. The article I listed actually proposes several different natural phenomes for the observations.
Stephanie Osborn

“The Interstellar Woman of Mystery”
http://www.Stephanie-Osborn.com

– – – –

Stephanie’s link led to

Did Astronomers Just Find Evidence of an Extraterrestrial Dyson Sphere?

http://www.outerplaces.com/science/item/10127-did-astronomers-just-find-evidence-of-an-extraterrestrial-dyson-sphere

The star, called KIC 8462852, experiences dips in its brightness, which is nothing unusual on its own. The Kepler Space Telescope has found thousands of exoplanets by observing their transits across neighboring stars, which causes their brightness to dim briefly. However, the dips are too extreme and too erratic to be the result of run-of-the-mill transiting exoplanets. A transit usually causes a star’s brightness to dim by less than one percent, and on a periodic basis, as the exoplanet orbits the star regularly. But this star has experienced huge dips in brightness, up to 22%, which simply could not be the result of a planet, and it doesn’t seem to be occurring on any kind of cyclical basis.
There are several explanations that are somewhat plausible, but none are perfect. It would make sense if there were some kind of massive planetary collision in the recent past that caused huge chunks of debris to surround the star, causing transits with no apparent rhyme or reason. But we would expect the dust created in a huge collision to emit excess infrared light, which hasn’t been observed in the area surrounding the star. The best explanation is a series of comets circling the star, but even then it’s difficult to explain such a huge blockage of light.

– – – –

That’s pretty intriguing, and is actually worth reading.

Next came the physicist, who is usually pretty skeptical:

From: Physicist

Subject: RE: Wow
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2015 17:14:05 +0000

Boyajian, who oversees the Planet Hunters project, recently published a paper looking at all the possible natural explanations for the objects and found all of them wanting except one – that another star had pulled a string of comets close to KIC 8462852. But even this would involve an incredibly improbable coincidence.

Paper at http://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.03622v1.pdf

– – – –

I guarantee you will not read all of this paper; here are the summary and conclusions:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.03622v1.pdf

5 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

In this paper, we have shown that KIC 8462852 is an unique source

in the

Kepler

field. We conducted numerous observations of the

star and its environment, and our analysis characterizes the object

as both remarkable (e.g., the “dipping” events in the

Kepler

light

curve) and unremarkable (ground-based data reveal no deviation

from a normal F-type star) at the same time. We presented an ex-

tensive set of scenarios to explain the occurrence of the dips, most

of which are unsuccessful in explaining the observations in their en-

tirety. However, of the various considered, we find that the break-up

of a exocomet provides the most compelling explanation.

Observations of KIC 8462852 should continue to aid in un-

raveling its mysteries. First and foremost, long-term photometric

monitoring is imperative in order to catch future dipping events. It

would be helpful to know whether observations reveal no further

dips, or continued dips. If the dips continue, are they periodic? Do

they change in size or shape? On one hand, the more dips the more

problematic from the lack of IR emission perspective. Likewise, in

the comet scenario there could be no further dips; the longer the

dips persist in the light curve, the further around the orbit the frag-

ments would have to have spread. The possibility of getting color

information for the dips would also help determine the size of the

obscuring dust. On the other hand, following the prediction in Sec-

tion

4.4.3

, if a collision took place, we should see re-occurring dip-

ping events caused from debris in 2017 May. Unfortunately, the

2015 April event likely went unobserved, as all available photo-

metric archives we checked came up with nothing. In collabora-

tion with the MEarth team (PI, D. Charbonneau), monitoring of

KIC 8462852 will thankfully continue from the ground beginning

in the Fall of 2015. This will enable us to establish a firm baseline

of its variability post-

Kepler

.

Several of the proposed scenarios are ruled out by the lack of

observed IR excess (Section

2.4

), but the comet scenario requires

the least. However, if these are time-dependent phenomenon, there

could be a detectable amount of IR emission if the system were

observed today. In the comet scenario, the level of emission could

vary quite rapidly in the near-IR as clumps pass through pericen-

ter (and so while they are transiting). The WISE observations were

made in Q5, so detecting IR-emission from the large impact sce-

nario, assuming the impact occurred in Q8 (D800, Section

4.4.3

),

is also a possibility. We acknowledge that a long-term monitoring

in the IR would be demanding on current resources/facilities, but

variations detected in the optical monitoring could trigger such ef-

fort to observe at the times of the dips.

Our most promising theory invokes a family of exocomets.

One way we imagine such a barrage of comets could be triggered

is by the passage of a field star through the system. And, in fact,

as discussed above, there is a small star nearby (

1000

AU; Sec-

tion

2.3

) which, if moving near to KIC 8462852, but not bound to

it, could trigger a barrage of bodies into the vicinity of the host

star. On the other hand, if the companion star is bound, it could

be pumping up comet eccentricities through the Kozai mechanism.

Measuring the motion/orbit of the companion star with respect to

KIC 8462852 would be telling in whether or not it is associated, and

we would then be able to put stricter predictions on the timescale

and repeatability of comet showers based on bound or unbound

star-comet perturbing models. Finally, comets would release gas

(as well as dust), and sensitive observations to detect this gas would

also test this hypothesis.

Our physicist friend said the explanations given were fairy improbable; Stephanie said “Even so; I find that far more likely than the notion of a Dyson sphere.” I went off to LASFS having run out of time yesterday.

There came from our good friend the electrical engineer

Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2015 14:28:24 +0000
From: engineer
To: steph-osborn@sff.net
CC: usual suspects

Subject: Re: Wow

Randy Bovell just sent to me and I thought you all might find this interesting concerning the conversation.

Alien technology possibly spotted orbiting a distant star

Scientists recently identified an irregular mess of objects orbiting a distant star that defies most natural explanations.

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/space/stories/alien-technology-possibly-spotted-orbiting-distant-star

Nestled between the constellations of Cygnus and Lyra sits what might be the strangest, most mysterious star in our galaxy. This star, designated as KIC 8462852, is not particularly unusual in and of itself. What’s odd is what astronomers have spotted orbitting it: an irregularly-shaped mess of objects that appear unnatural, possibly even alien, reports The Atlantic.

The star was first flagged by amateur astronomers in 2011 for its peculiar dimming pattern, as detected by the Kepler Space Telescope. By themselves, dimming patterns in distant stars are not that usual. In fact, they are what Kepler scientists look for in their hunt for faraway planets. As planets pass in front of their stars, they momentarily block out a portion of the light being emitted by the star, thus revealing themselves. Thousands of exoplanets have been discovered this way in recent years.

PHOTO BREAK: 12 out-of-this-world observatories

The dimming pattern identified in KIC 8462852, however, was unlike any discovered among the over 150,000 stars that have been analyzed by the Kepler Space Telescope. The pattern suggested that KIC 8462852 was surrounded by a whole jumble of objects in extremely tight formation. Such a pattern might be expected from a young star, with a solar system that was first forming. Young solar systems are typically characterized by a messy field of debris, which eventually coalesces into a system of planets as the star’s gravity molds and shapes them. But KIC 8462852 is not a young star. A field of dust surrounding a young star would give off infrared light, and excess infrared light is not observed here.

“We’d never seen anything like this star,” explained Tabetha Boyajian, a postdoc at Yale. “It was really weird. We thought it might be bad data or movement on the spacecraft, but everything checked out.”

It should be reiterated that this mess of objects is irregularly shaped. It’s not something that should form naturally, not given a sufficient amount of time, anyway. So it’s likely that it was deposited there recently, because otherwise such a field of objects would have been shaped into a more regular pattern or swallowed up by the star’s gravitational field by now.

So what is it? Scientists have considered a number of scenarios, from instrument defects, to an asteroid belt pileup, to planets crashing into one another. But at this juncture the list of possible explanations has been narrowed to two. First, it’s possible that the debris field could be a sea of comets, recently yanked inward into the solar system by the gravity of another close-passing star. This sort of event would represent an extraordinary coincidence, though — a rare event, one not observed in any other star ever observed.

The second possibility that can’t be ruled out is a wild one, an explanation that scientists don’t put forward lightly. It’s possible that there is no natural explanation for the objects circling KIC 8462852 at all. It’s possible they are alien.

Makes me think of the dude that looks like a Centauri off of Babylon 5 and how much I want to throw something at the screen when he’s on. About all those shows are good for is getting ideas for SF stories.

Look, guys. Lemme give y’all a f’r-instance. Last night I had to comment and make corrections on someone else’s Facebook post, because the person was saying that the “new” coronal hole was a hole straight into the core of the Sun, and the solar wind from it was going to blast our atmosphere from pole to pole (not just AT the poles) and create all this horrid radiation. And it was getting shared fairly widely.

The LAST thing I look forward to is handling the misinformation caused by the complete distortion of an astronomical paper by the mainstream media. They do plenty enough of that in meteorology/climate research as it is. And yes, I HAVE already been dealing with it, starting along about Tuesday or Wednesday, when the first article came out.
Stephanie Osborn

“The Interstellar Woman of Mystery”

From: engineer
Subject: Re: Wow

Sounds like how much I love the Chariots of the Gods on the history channel. It makes me smile but it also makes me think.

From: “Stephanie”

Subject: RE: Wow

that’s exactly what we’ve been talking about, and it’s pretty much impossible. But every last media report has had something along that line for a headline. Tiny fractions of a percent probability that it is alien tech of ANY sort, next to impossible for it to be a Dyson sphere because it takes more material than is found in a planetary system (outside the star itself) to build one; most probably an accretion disk of some sort. But wow! Let’s make people read us! We’ll make the headline be about aliens! SMH. Shades of The History Channel.

Stephanie Osborn

“The Interstellar Woman of Mystery”
http://www.Stephanie-Osborn.com

And there, I think, we have about all we’re going to know about this for from months to years. I got to thinking about it: is it easier to make a Dyson sphere or Ringworld than to travel to another star?

The reason I ask that is that this is the only Dyson Sphere we’ve observed even if you assume that’s what we see. Yet what is the probability that such a thing was built recently? Isn’t it likely that if you can build one, you’d build a lot of them? You’ve had millions of years to do that. The probability that you invented it in the last couple of thousands of years is infinitesimal.

On the other hand, if you can go star faring, would you build a Dyson Sphere at all? And if you can’t, where did you get all that mass to build it out of? Maybe your sun used to have a companion you could just get to and start taking it apart, and you’re not done yet? But then I’m a science fiction writer. This looks like a job for Niven and Benford…

I’m enjoying this, but I am not sure where it leads

dyson sphere dilemma 
Dr. Pournelle;
Your comment that finding only ONE dyson sphere seemed a bit odd, that any super-civilization capable of making such a beastie would probably make many, seems, unsurprisingly, spot-on. However, would it not be difficult to detect a fully enclosed dyson sphere? Might there be hundreds or even thousands of them littered throughout space and they are simply too faint of an infrared signature to see? The star in the news recently might just be the only UNFINISHED dyson sphere floating around.
Speculating gleefully,
Eric Gilmer

Gleefully indeed; and of course I don’t know.

Google Book Scanning Ruled Fair Use
Appeals court rules that Google book scanning is fair use.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/appeals-court-rules-that-google-book-scanning-is-fair-use/
You probably have seen this 100 times already. I look forward to your comments.
My $0.0000002 (inflation!)
Just as Apple’s iTunes Match program brought in otherwise unrecoverable money from people who pirated music for years, I think having out of print materials available in Google searches can bring in (at least some) money to writers of otherwise lost works. Sell advertising against the searches and Google Ads in the display of the text, hand 70% to the writer. (just a suggestion on how it could work)
Les

This is just out; there is a lot of discussion in author associations about it. Nothing urgent.

U.S. confirms Iran tested nuclear-capable ballistic missile

The United States has confirmed that Iran tested a medium-range missile capable of delivering a nuclear weapon, in “clear violation” of a United Nations Security Council ban on ballistic missile tests, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.

“The United States is deeply concerned about Iran’s recent ballistic missile launch,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said in a statement.

“After reviewing the available information, we can confirm that Iran launched on Oct. 10 a medium-range ballistic missile inherently capable of delivering a nuclear weapon,” she said. “This was a clear violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929.”

SEE MORE: Iran says Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian convicted

The United States is preparing a report on the incident for the Security Council’s IranSanctions Committee and will raise the matter directly with Security Council members “in the coming days,” Power said.

Council diplomats have told Reuters it was possible to sanction additional Iranian individuals or entities by adding them to an existing U.N. blacklist. However, they noted that Russia and China, which have opposed the sanctions on Iran’s missile program, might block any such moves.

“The Security Council prohibition on Iran’s ballistic missile activities, as well as the arms embargo, remain in place,” Power said. “We will continue to press the Security Council for an appropriate response to Iran’s disregard for its international obligations.”

Surprised?

algae for the poor
Dr. Pournelle,
Soylent green isn’t people (yet):
http://nannofood.com/
-d

We feed it to astronauts. And I’d rather eat green slime than my boots

: Drone Assassination Leak

We have more Snowdenesque disclosures; these concern the drone assassination program. The disclosures seem to include information about JSOC and TF 48-4. I see nothing new or eye opening, but I’ve researched these programs run by CIA and JSOC for several years and I’m as about as surprised as I was by the Snowden disclosures — I wasn’t.

https://theintercept.com/drone-papers

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

“Without answers to these fundamental questions, the Air Force nuclear enterprise remains on the same trajectory as it has been for the last two decades – in ever-increasing decline.”

<http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/12/20/air-force-admits-nuclear-flaws-faces-uncertain-path-to-remedying/>

“If the practice continues to be to demand that the troops compensate for manpower and skill shortfalls, operate in inferior facilities and perform with failing support equipment, there is high risk of failure.”

<http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In-The-News/2014/Why-Nukes-Keep-Finding-Trouble-Theyre-Really-Old>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

Both articles are very much worth reading. Overseas adventures are possible only if the nation is secure. We still live in a nuclear age, and there are those who believe that End Times are worth bringing about.

Income Inequality: New problem, the rich get better breakfast sandwiches buffy willow

I read your post about income inequality yesterday evening. Excellent. I had read an “article” earlier in the day about the new serious problem, inequality of breakfast sandwiches. It is in the Washington Post, and titled “Inequality in Everything: The Rich get Better Breakfast Sandwiches, too.”

Link, should you care to click: Inequality in everything: The rich get better breakfast sandwiches, too

Inequality in everything: The rich get better breakfast … Things are getting a little awkward.
View on www.washingtonpost…	Preview by Yahoo

Well. My first thought was that it was a satirical article. But, alas, apparently not. I am stunned, and quite depressed, that there are people who can even conceive of such a thing, make it a problem and that a paper generally recognized as a major news outlet would print it. We are in a stage in our society where reality sounds like satire, and satire is mistaken for reality.

Better sandwiches, in my humble opinion, means that many people can afford a better meal than can be had at McDonalds, and that enterprising entrepreneurs are more than happy to provide them. Does this not help the economy just a bit? What’s wrong with having choices, and being free to make those choices, and having a little disposable income to allow one to make different choices? Apparently, we are all (except the elite rulers who will tell us what our choices are) to live in a gray and drab completely equal existence. Heaven forfend that some of us might be able to enjoy some nicer things as a result of our labors and decisions.

I very much agree with your points regarding income inequalities, and counting our blessings: Yes, there are income discrepancies, and vast inequalities; but perhaps we should once in a while count our blessings, and contemplate the requirements of keeping what we have, and adding to the real opportunities we all are given, rather than resenting what we don’t have and the rich can afford.

I, too, have an example of the blessings of technology. I noticed a distortion in the vision of my left eye last summer, and visited my optometrist very shortly after. He referred me to a retianal specialist, we saw me two days later. I have a condition that was untreatable 10 years ago, and I would have lost my vision in that eye. However, it was fairly easily treated and I have no discernable effect to my vision. A blessing, indeed.

Cheri Rohrer

>Pleasant Hill, California

The possibility that we can all get richer without inequality in income has not been demonstrated.

Jerry

Bill Whittle: It’s the steel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwLjFm6GMBM

re: 5TB drives used in disk
re: your comment of “Wow!” with respect to 5TB drives to be used in a RAID disk system.
Something to consider (that often isn’t) is the RAID rebuild time of a failed drive. a 5TB drive in a RAID[anything] would take a LONG, LONG time. I prefer smaller 1-2TB drives particularly in a small office or home system for just that reason.
Just my opinion, but borne out by many hours spent in a computer room waiting for rebuilds to complete.
.bp

All true, and thanks.

Inside Saturn V in cross sections

Dear Jerry:

In your InfoWorld column for 9/17/1990, you described the “… Saturn V rocket, the most powerful machine ever built, set on its side as a lawn ornament for the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston.”

https://books.google.com/books?id=LDwEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PT61&ots=9R2gy4PCJJ&dq=pournelle+lawn+ornament+infoworld&pg=PT61&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false

Especially your younger readers might like to see the glory that was the Saturn V in these beautiful cross section drawings.

http://i.imgur.com/NAok3jp.jpg

Best regards,

–Harry M.

: Even more Syria

Dear Dr. Pournelle, 
What road was it good intentions was a paving material for?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/did-us-weapons-supplied-to-syrian-rebels-draw-russia-into-the-conflict/2015/10/11/268ce566-6dfc-11e5-91eb-27ad15c2b723_story.html
So the US has been supplying anti-Assad rebels with weaponry — but NOT enough to win.  I quote:
“The plan, as described by administration officials, was to exert sufficient military pressure on Assad’s forces to persuade him to compromise — but not so much that his government would precipitously collapse and leave a dangerous power vacuum in Damascus.”
…
Does anyone in the administration realize that insurgency is not a cake that you bake at just the right temperature? That a dictator who will almost certainly be hung for war crimes is not going to “negotiate” any kind of exit unless he is compelled to leave with overwhelming military force?   And that , so long as he can call on Iran and Russia, it is going to be very hard to develop and project that level of force? 
As it is, think of this like a poker game:  The Americans raised the stakes by pushing TOW missiles onto the board. They expected (I don’t know why) Assad to fold. Instead, he went to his friends and raised the stakes himself with direct Russian military intervention.
So what’s the next step? Call or fold? 
Regardless, we have officially stepped into a time warp and are engaged in a proxy war with Russia, to the extent that weapons WE supply are being used to kill Russians. And if we continue to supply weapons, knowing that is going to happen , that will make the current accidental proxy war a deliberate one. 
Whose imbecilic idea was it to get us into a shooting war with the Russians, anyway? 
I am utterly flabberghasted. This sort of consequence should be obvious to any academy graduate. Heck, if you just ask a teenager who has played Civilization 5.  What the devil do we have a Joint Staff for, if they are willing to approve a plan like this, as opposed to resigning en masse?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

The Commander in Chief approves it…

“The bottom line was that there would be a supernova close enough to the Earth to drastically affect the ozone layer about once every billion years.”

<http://nautil.us/issue/22/slow/the-secret-history-of-the-supernova-at-the-bottom-of-the-sea>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

So, ‘global warming’ will cause the next ice age, which will then cause more ‘global warming’.

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/10/12/were-closer-to-a-day-after-tomorrow-ice-age-than-we-thought/>

Sounds a lot like . . . I don’t know, variations in solar output, vulcanism, and albedo over time?

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

And if you still haven’t had enough about the Dyson Sphere:

From Hot Air: http://hotair.com/archives/2015/10/15/by-the-way-scientists-might-have-discovered-a-gigantic-alien-megastructure-in-deep-space/

By the way, scientists might have discovered a gigantic alien megastructure in deep space

posted at 10:01 pm on October 15, 2015 by Allahpundit

Just a little news tidbit I thought I’d slip in between the more important stuff, like Jeb Bush’s third-quarter fundraising haul and whether that aunt who sued her nephew has hugged it out with him yet.

You are much, much better off using the time you’d devote to reading this post to reading someone else’s far more intelligent treatment of the subject instead. In particular, I’d recommend Slate, The Atlantic, and, for a more skeptical view, the New Scientist. Since clicking a link is too much effort for some readers, though, here’s the bottom line. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (actually, it’s our galaxy, but whatever), roughly 1,481 light years from Earth, something strange started happening to a star known as KIC 8462852. You can’t see it with your naked eye; we know it exists only because the Kepler Space Telescope picked up the light coming from it, along with light from many thousands of other stars. One way astronomers can tell if there are planets orbiting a distant star is by tracking the brightness of the light the star emits. If a star’s light dims a tiny bit at regular intervals, that’s evidence that something is passing between it and the telescope. For a star the size of KIC 8462852, which is around one and a half times as big as our own sun, having a planet the size of Jupiter pass in front of it should dim the light by around one percent.

Since scientists began watching KIC 8462852, they’ve found that its light does dim — but not at regular intervals. And it doesn’t dim by one percent. It dims by … 15 percent. And 22 percent. The dimming doesn’t happen symmetrically, with a slight, gradual fade followed by a slight, gradual brightening. It can dim slowly and then rapidly brighten. Per Slate, “There’s also an apparent change in brightness that seems to go up and down roughly every 20 days for weeks, then disappears completely.” This is not the way stars normally behave. In fact, after having looked at thousands of other stars captured by the Kepler, this is the only star known to astronomers to behave this way. They’ve rechecked their data to see if there’s an error in the math or some sort of flaw in the lens, but if there were, you would expect to see the same sort of error in other stars’ measurements. Again: This is the only star that seems to operate this way.

One possibility is that it’s a young star, (relatively) recently formed, with lots of dust and debris still circling around it in the aftermath. That would explain the irregular dimming — except that the dust that surrounds young stars typically leaves a signature of infrared light, and KIC 8462852 doesn’t have that. Same goes for the idea of a nearby planetary collision. Lots of dust should mean lots of infrared reflections, but KIC 8462852 is emitting just the right amount of infrared light you’d expect from a normal star its size. The working hypothesis for now on what’s behind the strange dimming phenomenon is that it’s actually an enormous swarm of comets that were somehow sucked towards the star, possibly by the gravitational pull of another nearby star in transit, and are now burning off like fireworks all around it. That would explain the irregular, unpredictable dimming coupled with the lack of elevated infrared. The New Scientist explains:

Having worked through the other possibilities, the team concluded the most likely explanation is a family of exocomets that veered close to the star and were broken up by its gravity, producing huge amounts of dust and gas in the process. If the comets are on an eccentric orbit passing in front of the star every 700 days or so, further breaking up and spreading out as they go, that could explain all the dips in the data.

KIC 8462852 is about 50 per cent larger than our sun, so if this comet explanation is correct, the dust cloud would be pretty big. It would be an impressive sight up close, says Boyajian. Something that size in our solar system would blot out a significant amount of sunlight. When Earth passes through the debris clouds left in interplanetary space by passing comets, we get meteor showers. There’s no evidence of a planet in the KIC 8462852 system, but someone standing on such a world as it passed through the dust cloud would see quite a light show, says Boyajian. “The scale of the meteor shower would be huge, like cosmic-scale fireworks.”

Here’s where a more intelligent commentator would be useful because I don’t understand why the dust generated by an enormous storm of comets disintegrating around the star wouldn’t also generate an elevated infrared reading. I’m also having trouble conceptualizing the scope of a storm that could dim the light of the star by 22 percent when a mass the size of Jupiter could only manage one percent. And scientists have another problem with the theory: It seems remarkably coincidental that KIC 8462852 would be in the process of devouring a massive comet cluster just at the moment that we happened to point our telescope at it — the blink of an eye cosmically. How long would the heat and gravity from the star realistically take to suck a belt of comets into it? And we somehow caught that on the Kepler, in progress, in the few years that the telescope was functioning properly? That’s some luck.

Which brings us to the other theory. The Atlantic:

Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University, is set to publish an alternative interpretation of the light pattern. SETI researchers have long suggested that we might be able to detect distant extraterrestrial civilizations, by looking for enormous technological artifacts orbiting other stars. Wright and his co-authors say the unusual star’s light pattern is consistent with a “swarm of megastructures,” perhaps stellar-light collectors, technology designed to catch energy from the star.

“When [Boyajian] showed me the data, I was fascinated by how crazy it looked,” Wright told me. “Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilization to build.”

The theory, in other words, is that the energy from KIC 8462852 is being harnessed by some sort of planetary-sized structure of solar panels or something akin to that — a “Dyson sphere,” named after Freeman Dyson, who imagined that alien civilizations would figure out a way to satisfy their energy needs by milking local stars for it. A star’s just a big nuclear reactor, right? Might as well hook up some power lines to it and enjoy the juice. How a Dyson sphere would explain the data from this star isn’t clear to me, except as the end of a “no other theory works” process of elimination. Any sort of technology we can imagine, however massive, that’s pumping energy from KIC 8462852 would be in orbit around it, no? That means, I would think, that we should be seeing regular dimming intervals, not irregular ones, as the Dyson sphere transits around the star. The answer to that, I guess, is that maybe the dimming isn’t the product of a shadow passing in front of the star but the star itself actually temporarily losing luster as energy is drained from it, like the lightbulbs in a home momentarily dimming when there’s a sudden surge of demand on the grid. That’s hard to conceptualize too, but that’s the beauty of this theory, I guess. Whatever’s happening is so freaky deaky weird that you can indulge whatever flight of fancy you like in imagining how this technology would work. Who knows? Maybe it’s a giant Death Star and dims whenever it’s firing at Alderaan or whatever the aliens’ latest target is.

The Kepler telescope no longer works so astronomers don’t know what’s been happening with KIC 8462852 lately. The next step now is to point a giant antenna at the star and see if any unusual radio signals come back. If they do, hoo boy.

Blair Shorney

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

Chaos Manor View, Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Masten & XCOR partnering to re-create the DC/X with DARPA funding.

<http://www.popularmechanics.com/space/rockets/a17574/masten-space-systems/>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

I am overjoyed that the idea of X projects has not been completely killed by the Lockheed X-33 fiasco.

DC/X was designed in the Great Hall, my upstairs office I don’t get to as much as I would like. Actually, we designed the SSX, a 600,000 pound Gross liftoff Weight (GLOW) Single Stage to Orbit (SSTO) ship, reusable; that, as Max Hunter said, might not get to orbit, but it would scare it to death. The point being that SSX was savable – it would survive many booster failures that would destroy most rocket ships – and reusable, and did not have to make orbit to have a successful flight. The first tail numbers probably would not achieve orbit – but could land safely and be reused.

By designed I mean what in the aerospace industry was called a preliminary design description, describing the goals of a design; obviously we did not do the actual design work; that would be the point of an X project contract. We described what we wanted and believed would be possible.

The notion was to learn how to build SSTO by flying the ship with partial fuel loads on missions not intended to achieve orbit. Refuel and fly it again. Examine strains and problems. Improve, lighten the ship, and try again. Bore holes in structures overly strong, which most would be until we had flying hardware data on strains and stresses.

This is how we went from the plane the Wright brothers designed to the DC-3; in increments, learning what we were doing; and this in an era without computers. Now we had computers. This was to be our path to becoming a space-faring nation. The concept of using X projects to get to space is summarized in How to Get to Space, http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/gettospace.html, which I posted in 2010 but comes from the 1980’s. A technical paper on the SSX concept from those earlier times https://www.jerrypournelle.com/slowchange/SSX.html is old but the basic physics do not change; the concepts apply, except that we now have many new materials and the weight of needed structures is lower, thus affecting the achievable mass ratios.

SSX was never built. Max Hunter, General Graham, and I sold the concept to then Vice President of the United States and Chairman of the National Space Council Dan Quayle in the White House in early 1989. Quayle had been a space defense advocate in the Senate (to the media he was “the respected Junior Senator from Indiana” up until the day he was nominated for Vice President, after which he was a clown) and asked RAND and other experts to reevaluate the SSTO concept; and although he could not swing the financing for the full SSX, he did get funding for a 60,000 pound GLOW scale model, which, after being awarded to Douglas, became known as the DC/X. DC/X successfully proved a number of SSTO principles and the feasibility of single stage to orbit, by flying successful missions, landing, refueling, and flying again.

Lockheed then absorbed $4 billion in NASA funding for SSTO in new designs that never flew; the money was entirely wasted, and the notion of reusable space ships died away, much to the relief of successful vendors of expendable rockets. Meanwhile NASA had built the rebuildable Shuttle and flew a few missions a year – the multi-billion Shuttle budget did not vary from year to year whether NASA flew 8 missions or none that year – but no one continued to build and fly actual reusable rocket craft, learning by flying. The Shuttle wasn’t reusable. It wasn’t designed to be. It was salvageable, and could be rebuilt to fly again; but it couldn’t simply be refueled and take off. It was never intended to.

I am pleased to see that after 30 years, my notion of how to get to space is revived although I doubt that many of the participants ever heard of me or know how the DC/X came to be; but the best way to get to space is to fly ships that will get you there. Elon Musk is trying one reusable concept. Others favor two stages to orbit. No one is trying to fly reusable space ships on ac routine basis. We think we can go from the Sopwith Camel to the 747 in one jump. And over the years we have spent billions. I applaud Elon Musk, and it may be that capitalism will do what the government cannot; but X programs taught us much about airplanes, and a real X program, not given to a major aerospace company who sells competing concepts, can teach us a lot about getting to space.

For more see https://www.jerrypournelle.com/slowchange/SSX2.html

Going back to basics
I guess the Navy finally accepted their wonderful electronics, even shielded, are vulnerable, as are satellites. They’re back to sextants. Personally, if I were going to attack any United States military, I would start with the electronics; we seem to rely so much on them.
Seeing stars, again: Naval Academy reinstates celestial navigation:
http://www.capitalgazette.com/news/naval_academy/ph-ac-cn-celestial-navigation-1014-20151009-story.html

David Smallwood

The best way to start a conflict with the United States Navy is to loft a 20 Kt weapon above your own nation and detonate it; it will do you no harm, but it will pretty well blind the United States. Of course your own officers will be trained to navigate and direct fire without electronics.

Admiral: North Korea can hit US with long-range nuclear missile | Fox News

Jerry:

I continue to be confused by your comments regarding the demise of SAC. While we no longer have a huge force of manned bombers at a high state of reediness to ensure that some could survive a preemptive attack, we have a small force of somewhat survivable ICBMs and a larger force of very survivable submarine based missiles. The accuracy of nuclear armed missiles based either in silos on land or more notably the Trident II on submarines at sea has evolved to the point that they are nearly as capable of destroying hardened targets as large force of manned bombers might be. Given the fact that potential adversaries have air defenses but not significant missile defenses, our missile forces are more capable than the bombers. We still have the capability to destroy North Korea’s fledgling nuclear forces with a preemptive strike until such time as North Korea deploys it’s nuclear forces in a survivable mode such as advanced, ballistic missile submarines.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/10/12/admiral-north-korea-can-hit-us-with-long-range-nuclear-missile/?intcmp=hplnws

The only relevant, “nuclear war fighting capability” that we lack is antimissile defenses and credible civil defenses. By “credible civil defenses” I mean hardened bomb shelters rather than half baked ideas for emergency evacuation of prime targets areas. While the technological potential for antimissile systems is more promising than ever before, President Obama and the establishment intellectuals have decreed that enabling America’s enemies to kill Americans by the millions is a good thing.

Given these realities, I believe that Americans should seriously reevaluate the fundamental premiss that the US should be willing to confront a nuclear armed North Korea. In the wake of the 9-11 attacks and President Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech, South Korea adopted an extremely pacifist approach to foreign policy and decreed that a policy of negotiation and appeasement was preferable to confrontation and preemption. Japan was also reluctant to cooperate with aggressive preemption. The failure to find “significant” WMD in Iraq compelled the US to acquiesce to South Korea’s and Japan’s intransigence. As a result, North Korea now has nuclear weapons and either has or in the not to distant future will have the capability to launch a limited nuclear attack on the United States. Perhaps the time has come for the United States to abandon it’s alliances with South Korea and Japan? Since the pacifists populations of America’s “allies” were demanding that the US negotiate until North Korea was able to develop nuclear weapons, it is they rather than the people of the US who should have to cope with a nuclear armed North Korea.

James Crawford=

Well, perhaps I have overly regretted the demise of SAC, and I hope you are correct, because we seem headed for some serious situations. I will not comment on your last paragraph at this time.

I hope you are correct and that our nuclear war fighting forces are adequate and well trained now that SAC is gone.

DNC Debate

Well, the DNC debate was so uninteresting that I watched a few clips of it and didn’t bother with much more. Clinton did the normal stuff that she does, speaking while smirking and then switching to her authoritative voice. It’s like she can’t quite figure out what facial expressions and tones to use and there’s a bit of a matching error as if someone got the video and audio transcodes on their DVD off by more than a second, denying the brains ability to automatically correct the same.

<.>

Hillary Rodham Clinton revised history in the Democratic debate when insisting she’s not a flip-flopper on a trade deal she promoted as secretary of state but turned against as a presidential candidate.

Bernie Sanders overstated the share of wealth being taken by the richest Americans, a subject that goes to the core of his campaign.

</>

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20151014/us–dem_2016-debate-fact_check-9882728f76.html

The article gets into the facts. Looks like more of what we expect from the left; they change directions more often than a spinning top and they try to drive a harder bargain than the facts justify.

Situation normal at the DNC. Let’s hope they don’t manage to get themselves elected again.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

I watched very little of it; it was hardly a debate, and Mrs. Clinton’s absolution with regard to leaking secrets was not in that company’s power to give, although of course that was the main purpose of the enclave. Mrs. Clinton’s path to coronation goes forward.

A blast from the past. This is from https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/x-projects-a-day-after-the-debate/ October 17, 2012

As Possony, Kane, and I showed in The Strategy of Technology, technologies can be created on demand through proper strategies. That is vital to military capabilities.

“A gigantic technological race is in progress between interception and penetration and each time capacity for interception makes progress it is answered by a new advance in capacity for penetration. Thus a new form of strategy is developing in peacetime, a strategy of which the phrase ‘arms race’ used prior to the old great conflicts is hardly more than a faint reflection.

There are no battles in this strategy; each side is merely trying to outdo in performance the equipment of the other. It has been termed ‘logistic strategy’. Its tactics are industrial, technical, and financial. It is a form of indirect attrition; instead of destroying enemy resources, its object is to make them obsolete, thereby forcing on him an enormous expenditure….

A silent and apparently peaceful war is therefore in progress, but it could well be a war which of itself could be decisive.”
–General d’Armee Andre Beaufre

https://www.google.com/#hl=en&sclient=psy-ab&q=strategy+of+technology&oq=strategy+of+technology&gs_l=hp.3..0j0i30l2j0i5i30.146.4190.0.4786.22.18.0.1.1.2.847.3601.5j7j3j2j6-1.18.0.les%3B..0.0…1c.1.Fcs2rKtfiZ8&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.r_qf.&fp=113d4d484dcc5d02&bpcl=35440803&biw=1120&bih=472

This can be true in the development of critical national capabilities as well.

One such capability is access to space. Yes, the aeronautical business was developed by private enterprise – but much of its technology was done in partnership between industry and government. The same can be true for space. I wrote most of this in “How to Get to Space” http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/gettospace.html. Sometimes government action is needed. The problem is that government isn’t very good at picking and choosing winners: funding companies is not a good way to build an industry.

Fortunately there are ways of developing technology without betting on winners and losers. This is all described in my Getting to Space presentation. We used X Projects to develop the aerospace industry, and we can do that for Green Energy and other national resources. The best developers of new technology are not always the best at commercial exploitation – as was proved in the growth of the aviation industry. It is true in many other cases.

Government can develop technologies without investing in companies.

I have explained X Projects many times. The basic idea is simple: the government puts out a contract for competitive bids. The contract will be to build, with the best technology available as of now (or in the very near future) working models of something that illustrates the best we have in the technology we are developing. One example was flying higher and faster. No one expected the X projects to come up with prototypes of commercial – or even military – aircraft. Instead you build the best thing you can and learn from it. An example was the Douglas X-3 Stiletto. It was the first airplane to take off from a runway and go faster than sound. That’s what it did – and while the Stiletto wasn’t a useful prototype of anything, we learned from it, and from that came the F-104 which dominated military airspace for more than a decade. What the X Project did was develop technologies. After that the aerospace industry could develop actual fighters.

The same principle can apply in other areas of technology. About twenty years ago Dr. Rolfe Sinclair of the National Science Foundation and I co-chaired a panel at an annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science on the applicability of the X Project concept to development of non-military technologies. It’s hardly a new idea; but it would work.

If much of the TARP money had been given out as funding for high technology X Projects, not in subsidies to technology companies, we would have learned a lot from that; and the “stimulus” effect would have been pretty well the same. The money would have been spent.

Another blast from the past: http://www.informationweek.com/desktop/jerry-pournelle-a-short-biography/d/d-id/1103785?

I found it while searching for my old posts on x projects.

I have just read it over again, and I recommend my How to Get to Space for everyone interested in the subject. 

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/gettospace.html

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

Chaos Manor View, Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an editorial page article, about the latest Nobel Prize in economics winner, Angus Deaton. http://www.wsj.com/articles/measuring-world-poverty-as-it-shrinks-1444692792 ; the prize is for finding ways to measure the extent of poverty in a world of rapidly rising technology. Deaton’s ideas on why poverty is shrinking – we’re down to 9.6% http://www.economist.com/news/finance-economics/21673530-number-poor-people-declining-data-are-fuzzy-tricky-work-measuring-falling worldwide — are in his major book,

The Great Escape: Health, Wealth, and the Origins of Inequality

http://www.amazon.com/The-Great-Escape-Origins-Inequality/dp/0691165629.

Although poverty is shrinking, a great deal of attention has been given to income and wealth inequality in reviews of his works; Deaton himself says:

“Life is better now than at almost any time in history,” writes Mr. Deaton in the book’s opening. “More people are richer and fewer people live in dire poverty. Lives are longer and parents no longer routinely watch a quarter of their children die. Yet millions still experience the horrors of destitution and of premature death. The world is hugely unequal.”

The Economist article is a bit more “economic” rather than editorial, as might be expected.

The tricky work of measuring falling global poverty

http://www.economist.com/news/finance-economics/21673530-number-poor-people-declining-data-are-fuzzy-tricky-work-measuring-falling

THIS is the best news story in the world,” said Jim Yong Kim, the president of the World Bank, of the announcement this month that the proportion of the world living in poverty is now in single digits, at 9.6%. The claim has rekindled a long smouldering debate over the reliability of such statistics.

Counting the poor is no easy task. The Bank bases its poverty figures on household surveys, which are undertaken by developing countries every few years. In the years between surveys, the Bank takes the last set of survey figures and shrinks them by assuming that the fortunes of the poor improve at the national growth rate. But the benefits of economic growth in many developing countries often accrue to the rich. In India and China, inequality has been increasing in recent years. From 1981 to 2010, the average poor person in sub-Saharan Africa saw no increase in their income even as economies expanded. Because there is no household data since 2012, it is impossible to know if these trends towards greater inequality have since changed.

Still, there is more concern for rising inequality than joy over the fall in the number of those in poverty. The US defines poverty in percentages, not in the actual wealth of those “in” or “out” of poverty; and as far as I can see, virtually no one pays attention to something I pointed out fifty years ago in my Galaxy columns, and repeated in A Step Farther Out http://www.amazon.com/Step-Farther-Out-Jerry-Pournelle-ebook/dp/B004XTKFWW, technology gives to the poorest of us real choices not available to the wealthiest on Earth not all that long ago. Kipling’s wonderful; novel Captains Courageous http://www.amazon.com/Captains-Courageous-Rudyard-Kipling/dp/0486407861 which every school child once read with joy (and ought to be reading now, in my judgment) describes how a 1900 California railroad baron, one of the wealthiest men in the world, discovers that his formerly lost at sea son is alive and on the East coast; and how he takes his private train across country, at a frantic pace, to rush from San Francisco to Boston in a day or so; a feat no other man alive could have accomplished. Now any lower middle class father could do that.

When I was growing up, and just after I got out of the Army, I could and did hitchhike across the country; sometimes I was uncomfortable on the road in the middle of the night, but it only took me two days to get from New York to The University of Iowa, and the trip cost me nothing at all – indeed a truck driver bought me breakfast.

My income at the time was zero. I don’t know what the truck driver made, but the ratio of our incomes was infinite; yet I got to Iowa City as fast as Leland Stanford could have not many years before I set out on the George Washington bridge with a portable typewriter and a barracks bag – everything I owned.

I am over 80 and still have teeth. I have survived brain cancer thanks to radiation therapy. I have mostly recovered from a stroke last January, and I received no better treatment for that than would anyone else appearing in the Emergency Room at St. Joseph’s in Burbank. Back when I hitchhiked across country no person alive could have survived my brain cancer, or recovered from my stroke.

Yes, there are income discrepancies, and vast inequalities; but perhaps we should once in a while count our blessings, and contemplate the requirements of keeping what we have, and adding to the real opportunities we all are given, rather than resenting what we don’t have and the rich can afford. Civilization sometimes a delicate flower, and more easily killed than you might suppose. Ask anyone during the Thirty Years War in Europe; or ask any non Res Guard survivor of Mao’s various drives and campaigns; or those who lived under Stalin http://www.amazon.com/The-Harvest-Sorrow-Collectivization-Terror-Famine/dp/0195051807 .

No campaign for income equality could have given me teeth at 80, or survival from brain cancer at 77, when I was a young man hitchhiking across country to the State University of Iowa, where, incidentally, I got through without going into debt by working at various jobs including board jobs (no money paid) in Reich’s Café; impossible now for those not rich. Board jobs were outlawed by minimum wages. Minimum wages were imposed to help reduce inequality.

The number of people living in poverty is growing smaller. Much of that is due to technology giving us all, rich and poor, more choices, some of which were formerly impossible. I would bet that Moore’s Law has done more to reduce the number of people in poverty than all the wage regulations since the beginning of time.

Ginni Rometty: Forget digital—cognitive business is the future

A new era of cognitive business is here.

http://fortune.com/2015/10/13/ginni-rometty-cognitive-business/

IBM Chairman and CEO Ginni Rometty said that a new technological era is upon us, one that marries digital business with digital intelligence. It’s what’s known as cognitive business.

“Digital is the wires, but digital intelligence, or artificial intelligence as some people call it, is about much more than that,” Rometty told Fortune Editor-in-Chief Alan Murray at the Most Powerful Women Summit in Washington, D.C. “This next decade is about how you combine those and become a cognitive business.”

“It’s the dawn of a new era,” said Rometty.

There’s a vast amount of information out there, from the Internet to your computer hard drive, but nearly 80% of that information has been invisible to systems and computers until now, explained Rometty. For instance, while there may be millions of songs and movies digitally stored, a computer hasn’t known what’s inside those files before today’s technological innovations.

Artificial intelligence has been around for decades but it hasn’t been until recently that its power’s been unleashed. IBM’s IBM -0.99% Watson is symbolic of this era and is able to demonstrate the power of digital intelligence, said Rometty. Systems can now understand, reason, and learn. See: Watson’s breath-taking performance on Jeopardy! in 2011 when it took down the gameshow’s top two contestants ever.

There’s still a long way to go before digital intelligence becomes the standard, but Rometty recommended five areas where a business can benefit now if it starts building a cognitive business:

1. Drive Deeper Engagement: Help clients behind the scene for better customer experience.

2. Scale Expertise: Companies spend lots of money training employees, this could be scaled more effectively.

3. Put Learning in Every Product: Build products that adapt to each consumer’s needs.

4. Change Operations: Streamline your supply chain to help margins.

5. Transform How You Do Discovery: From pharmaceuticals to financial industries, research will be the foundation of many many segments will work in the future.

“Instead of being disrupted, be the disrupter. I do it inside my own business,” said Rometty. “You will be the disrupter if you choose to do it.”

I bet she makes a lot more than the girl who cleans her floor and washes her dishes.

Re: A perspective on uncertainty and climate science

Jerry,

There was a guest post on Judith Curry’s blog a couple of days ago that was quite good (title & URL follow).

A perspective on uncertainty and climate science

http://judithcurry.com/2015/10/11/a-perspective-on-uncertainty-and-climate-science/

Some excerpts.

“Word “around town” is that science is truth. Sorry to damp the zeal, but science is NOT truth. By definition, science equates to varying degrees of uncertainty, with hypotheses and theories bookending the uncertainty spectrum – to some, a rather boring outlook.”

“In time, it is not difficult to see how we come to believe the little fantasy world we have made for ourselves in attempt to make sense of nature’s vast stomping grounds.”

“The motivation for adjusting data is honest; at least we hope it is. A recent increase in the frequency of data adjustments in temperature trends has raised red flags, with findings of undocumented changes, questionable extrapolation practices, and computer-initiated “homogenization” changes made according to assumptions. Some argue that where assumptions might have trumped accuracy, the number of errors is so small as to not present a problem. Yet, it seems yesterday’s data sets showed variability over the years. Now the warm 1930’s and 1940’s have been erased, relegated to mythology. We shiver as we are told of the “warmest years on record” by hundredths of a degree, and with minor data re-calculations, “pauses” in observed temperature trends disappear overnight, and we are told to accept this, and we do, in light of all the uncertainties. Can this be???”

““Photo-journalism and social media have enhanced our understanding of the world. They bring to our eyes, and our hearts, the enormity of global changes that imperil our future.” This eloquent statement, said to me recently by an acquaintance, was followed by an attempt to boost the credibility of her words – “And I’m a Republican”! Yes, I understand the political framing, much as I rebel against it – as it has no place in science – but that is today’s reality. And she was on to something; indeed, photo-journalism and the power of social networking have scripted our perceptions and redesigned reality for our consumption. But, behind every photograph of a stranded polar bear, of mountain glaciers shrinking, of drought-ravaged landscapes, of tornado-inflicted devastation, of flooded neighborhoods, of pounding seas and calving glaciers, hurricane-pounded surfs and ice-locked shipping ports, our impulse to assign cause to effect confounds our ability to reason, to see the story behind the sensation.”

I can only hope this approach continues gathering steam enough to overwhelm the BS.

Regards,

George

Every school child knows, or should know:

There were farms in Greenland and vines in Vinland during Viking times.

Cannon were brought across the frozen Hudson to General George Washington in Harlem heights in December, 1776.

The Hudson hasn’t frozen hard enough to walk on in over a hundred years.

No model we have predicts all these events.

Microsoft delivers new Windows 10 ‘Threshold 2’ test build for PC users (ZD)

Microsoft has made Windows 10 test build 10565 for PCs available to Windows Insiders on the Fast Ring.

By Mary Jo Foley for All About Microsoft | October 12, 2015 — 17:58 GMT (10:58 PDT) |

Microsoft released a new Windows 10 Insider Preview build — No. 10565 — to PC testers on the Fast Ring on October 12.

The previous build on my Surface Pro 3 was 10547; 10565 is installing now.

The Aviationist » No, the Turkish Air Force has not shot down a Russian aircraft near the Syrian border (at least, not yet)

Jerry:

The reports of a shoot down might be exaggerated or just premature.

http://theaviationist.com/2015/10/12/no-russian-aircraft-shot-down-over-syria/

James Crawford=

We don’t seem to be at war yet.

How to Detect Killer Asteroids.

<http://makezine.com/2015/10/13/how-to-detect-killer-asteroids/>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

Subj: NK can hit US with LR nuclear missile

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/10/12/admiral-north-korea-can-hit-us-with-long-range-nuclear-missile/?intcmp=hplnws

Among other things, the Chinese aid proves that NK is intended to distract us from the other things China is doing.

Respectfully

Jim

We have no SAC but the boomers patrol the seas… Of course they cannot fight a war so much as wreak terrible vengeance.

Education: It Mostly Doesn’t
Most jobs only require a basic solid high-school level education, and a lot of people are simply unsuited for high levels of academic achievement.
As far as public education goes, the major factors are:
1. The native ability of the student
2. The socioeconomic status of the parents
3. The socioeconomic status of the other children in the school.
That’s it. Throwing money at administrators and fancy buildings etc., having teachers with PhDs in education etc. does basically nothing.
However, this simple reality has been clouded by vested interests.
Wages and living standards are headed down, because of too rapid immigration (nobody beats the law of supply and demand, not even PhDs), outsourcing industries to low-wage countries, and bailing out Wall Street and starving real productive enterprises of investment. But this doesn’t sound good, so the rich often blame the schools: ‘oh we have to import foreign workers because the American schools are so bad that there aren’t enough skilled American workers’ (hahaha). ‘The inner cities aren’t failing because there are no jobs and no money, no, it’s because the schools are so bad.’ etc.
However, the educational bureaucracies and unions have bought into this. They like promoting the fantasy of teacher-as-miracle-worker who can magically transform ordinary people into the next Einstein and single-handedly turn East St. Louis into Geneva Switzerland.
And in the short run the educational mafias made some bucks off this fantasy. They got big raises and lot of plum administrative jobs (where you don’t even have to do any of that grubby teaching stuff).
But now the bills are coming due. Having claimed that schools are more important than they really are, now teachers are having to take responsibility for what is really not their fault. The inner cities still failing? Facebook still wanting to replace its entire workforce with H1Bs? It must be the fault of the schools! It must be the fault of the teachers!
Too late, as their unions are broken and public funds are diverted to private or charter schools, teachers must be realizing what a toxic bargain they made when they joined with big business in blaming so many of our societal ills on the schools…

TG

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.