Zimmerman-Martin, alas poor ornithopter, and other matters

Mail 718 Monday, March 26, 2012

Martin-Zimmerman Story

Jerry,

Most of the coverage of this case is sloppy, and some of the sloppiness seems deliberately inflammatory. Take a look at these if you want what’s actually known so far.

– The Orlando Sentinel with leaked info from the local PD (since pretty much confirmed as authentic by the local city manager in the course of saying he wants an investigation of the leak.)

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-26/news/os-trayvon-martin-zimmerman-account-20120326_1_miami-schools-punch-unarmed-black-teenager

– ABC News with an account from Martin’s girlfriend, who was on the phone with him at the time.

http://gma.yahoo.com/trayvon-martin-shooter-told-cops-teenager-went-gun-030349812–abc-news.html

and more from the girlfriend in the Orlando Sentinel

http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-20/news/os-trayvon-martin-girlfriend-speaks-details-20120320_1_shooting-death-gated-attorneys

The mob wants to crucify Zimmerman. Looks to me the local cops made the right call; there’s no case there. If anything, there’d be more of a case (not much, but more) against Martin for assault and battery, if Zimmerman hadn’t made the point moot.

sign me

Porkypine

One more data point – Martin was caught with a bunch of women’s jewelry plus a large flat-blade screwdriver in his bag at school last October.

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/03/26/3515140/multiple-suspensions-paint-complicated.html

One reason Zimmerman was out patrolling was because of multiple recent burglaries in the neighborhood. I’d be curious when they started, versus when Martin came to stay in the neighborhood. Also, was he on a reasonable route from the store he’d been to back to where he was staying when Zimmerman followed him, or wandering somewhere else?

Not proof of anything either way, of course, but indicative. I won’t hold my breath to see answers to these, mind. Even asking the questions doesn’t fit the "innocent martyr to gun-toting racism" narrative.

Porkypine

I have more mail on this, but most of it points to this being a case for the local authorities, and indicates that the original investigating officers made the right decision. The reopening of this may have been no real favor to Mr. Martin’s family. Our local radio talk show dug into the records and although they continue to demean Mr. Zimmerman, they have broadcast that Mr. Zimmerman made an average of 2 911 calls a year.

Re: Crime Procedurals

"I don’t think I have read more than one crime procedural novel taking place in Florida"

Well maybe they don’t actually count as ‘crime pprocedurals’ in a normal way (as Elmore Leonard’s don’t either) but the Travis McGee stories by John D. MacDonald surely count in my estimation.

As to Special Prosecutors, one particular failure of G.W.Bush in my mind was that he did not, *immediately* upon learning the Patrick Fitzgerald KNEW from Armitage’s confession, that no-one else was quilty of anything, fire Fitzgerald ‘with prejudice’ and pardon Libby.

It is to my mind unconscionable that a ‘special prosecutor’ should question anyone about anything when the object of the prosecutional investigation has been determined.

It was as far as I can tell, GWB’s only failure of nerve. He knew that the MSM would howl, and he left Libby in the wind, when he was legally and morally in the right to stop the investigation at that point, and to punish Fitzgerald for his arrogance and tyranny.

My $.02 worth

Geoff

Special Prosecutors find something to prosecute or they have nothing to do. So they keep looking. I think it is a very bad thing to do. The Constitution makes Congress the Grand Inquest of the Nation, but it has seldom functioned so. I do not think that was GWB’s only failure of nerve, but it was a major one.

I have a flood of mail on keyboards, and I will have a report on keyboards I can recommend. I have ordered two keyboards to try out; I had standardized on the Microsoft Comfortcurve keyboards until I started thinking about it and realized that although I have several of them including on my writing maches (one running a ThinkPad, for instance) I actually type faster on this Ortek. I hoave thought that before and then let the thought go because there ain’t no more Ortek boards.

Mechanical Keyboard Club!

Jerry

Once upon a time I was looking into mechanical keyboards. I started here:

http://www.overclock.net/t/538389/mechanical-keyboard-club/0_30

Not being a fan of clicky keyboards, I settled on one that I can’t remember. I foolishly deleted my bookmarks on the subject. I recall that I was looking for white backlights to work in the dark, silent keys but that clicky feel. Most of the best switches are by Cherry these days.

A decent one (a Das kb) seems to be here: http://www.daskeyboard.com/model-s-professional-silent/

Another good one (Filco Majestouch): http://www.diatec.co.jp/en/det.php?prod_c=757

Ah! Found my keyboard: http://www.deckkeyboards.com/product_info.php?products_id=95

It’s the Deck Legend – Frost (tactile). And it’s big. “The Deck 105 key Legend measures 18.5" long x 7" deep x 2" high (with feet raised) and weighs 3.5 pounds. Cable length is approximately 6 feet (exposed). Tactile feedback switches (Cherry MX1A-C1NW, clear).”

Yup. This is the one. I still want it, actually. But my 1997 Dell is still holding up so well I can’t justify the purchase.

Ed

Ed also adds:

Jerry

One more thing: the place that specializes in keyboard enthusiasts is http://geekhack.org/

Ed

I have an old keyboard. Like your ‘old’ it is very very very old. A MaxiSwitch MaxiTouch Model 2189022xx PN 218902200-21200.

This is a full size, heavy, PROGRAMMABLE keyboard with a separate Insaert/Home/Page section and number section. A full 20" wide by 8"

deep. Solid, heavy, well built.

Iirc I ordered it because you wrote a review about it. Nice medium to heavy key action, No click, but I HATED that about the IBM keyboards.

This is very close to the IBMin feel.

Still in the cupboard as a backup, with a DIN to PS2 adapter rubber banded onto the end of the cable. And I saw the Manual not too long ago.

It explains the programming features. Macros at your fingertips.

If you want it, just say the word and give me an address, and I will drop it off at Fedex, paid from my end, as a ‘Non-returnable Review sample’!! I would consider it my donation to the cause. But only if you expect that it will not just become an aggregation to the midden known as Chaos Manor!

But I have given up on cables, since I need extensions to reach from the computer case beside the credenza, up into the credenza to the keyboard slide. Now using a Logitech DiNovo which is a bluetooth cordless kb + mouse combo. I don’t think I could go back to a corded mouse. But if IBM made a cordless keyboard with a trackpoint, I’d be THERE in a flash (they only make a corded trackpoint’ed version).

Geoff

This will do until I get some boards in to try.

Jerry

What would it be like to live on the evil side of an alternate universe portal?

http://www.gocomics.com/brewsterrockit/2012/03/25

Ed

Brewster Rocket knows…

One comment to the letter from "Stephanie S" regarding Pfizer’s prospective profits under Obamacare: history has shown that socialized medicine is not a boon for the pharmaceutical companies, as expensive new remedies are never funded for implementation. Even the European pharmaceuticals today make up their R&D money proving new drugs in the US market, as they are obligated to provide any new remedies at a small markup on cost elsewhere — if they make that much.

Admittedly, Obamacare was sold as a boon to the pharmaceuticals in the short term. That was just one more lie…

The market system has done well for the United States. Adding a safety net when we can afford it is a nice thing to do, but charity works better on that. Political systems can’t really distinguish between the deserving and undeserving poor, and that makes a difference, as you will find if you have to make several trips to an emergency room and are observant.

Aristotle tells us that injustice consists of treating equal things unequally and also of treating unequal things equally.

The main difference between Germany, Japan, and Afghanistan.

The main difference between Germany, Japan, and Afghanistan is that Germany is inhabited by Germans and governed by Germans; Japan is inhabited by Japanese and governed by Japanese; and Afghanistan is inhabited by Pashtuns, Gilzais, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Hazara, Almaks, Turkmen, Balochs, etc., and is governed by no one.

–

Roland Dobbins

That is certainly an important difference. And Iraq consists of Arab Shiities, Arab Sunni, Arab Baathist atheists, and Kurds who aren’t Arabs at all. Plus some other diversities. If diversity is a good thing for a democracy they have it. Usually diversity promotes empire or did historically. Indeed the Hittites and their Trojan neighbors (who were said to be the founders of Rome had the trick of bringing in and assimilating different peoples and having them become loyal to the state. The Greek democracies never did learn that trick. Rome did…

Various

Jerry,

In response to your Sunday Chaos Manor:-

There is great educational value in having Wiki bookmarked on the screen when reading your postings. For example I now know what a J curve is and the meaning of isentropic.

The traditional way of sinking submarines was to drop a series of bombs each about the size of a 45 gallon barrel at the place where you hoped the submarine would be when the bomb arrived. This was not particularly effective. It was then realised by some OR type that there was a reason that flying birds are not hunted with rifles but with shotguns which fire a projectile with an effective diameter of a couple of feet. Hence hedgehog, a sort of marinised mortar shell, fused to explode on contact. A small explosion in contact with the pressure hull did the business, could be carried in very large numbers, and didn’t deafen your sonar.

In comparing the success of WW2 occupations with the present efforts you left out one of the factors essential for success. In 1943 the United States began training the administrators who were to run the captured territories. Then when they were needed they were fluent in the local language and had a good grasp of local administration. The Iraqi people, not to be confused with the Iraqi armed forces, never felt defeated and some continued the war using new tactics for which the occupiers had no effective counter. It is far worse in Afghanistan. Here each man, family, and village constitutes it’s own armed forces. The only way to bring peace to such a country is to defeat, ie., kill them in detail. What Tacitus once described as making a desert and then calling it peace. Not a sensible way to spend borrowed money even if the money can never be repaid.

John Edwards

 

When the military were conquering Iraq in the early days of the war, the generals told the Iraqi generals to keep their troops in barracks, keep them orderly, and “you will have an honorable place in the rebuilding of Iraq.” Then came Bremer who sent the Iraqi army home armed and unemployed. The worst proconsul since the Romans led legions into that desert …

Medieval warming WAS global – new science contradicts IPCC

Once again, you are proven right…

Medieval warming WAS global – new science contradicts IPCC More peer-reviewed science contradicting the warming-alarmist "scientific consensus" was announced yesterday, as a new study shows that the well-documented warm period which took place in medieval times was not limited to Europe, or the northern hemisphere: it reached all the way to Antarctica.

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/03/23/warm_period_little_ice_age_global/

Abstract:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X12000659

Calcium carbonate can crystallize in a hydrated form as ikaite at low temperatures. The hydration water in ikaite grown in laboratory experiments records the δ18O of ambient water, a feature potentially useful for reconstructing δ18O of local seawater. We report the first downcore δ18O record of natural ikaite hydration waters and crystals collected from the Antarctic Peninsula (AP), a region sensitive to climate fluctuations. We are able to establish the zone of ikaite formation within shallow sediments, based on porewater chemical and isotopic data.

Having constrained the depth of ikaite formation and δ18O of ikaite crystals and hydration waters, we are able to infer local changes in fjord δ18O versus time during the late Holocene. This ikaite record qualitatively supports that both the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age extended to the Antarctic Peninsula.

Description: Horizontal_Line

Chuck Ruthroff

The greatest mistake you can make is to be continually fearing you will make one. — Elbert Hubbard

I try to pay attention to all the evidence. Novelists need to be plausible, attorneys need to accumulate evidence, but scientists must account for ALL the data… http://www.jerrypournelle.com/science/voodoo.html

Moon News

This is big news, but not so big when you think about it and I’ll get to that at the end.

<.>

In the new research, published online today in Nature Geoscience, geochemists led by Junjun Zhang at the University of Chicago in Illinois, together with a colleague at the University of Bern in Switzerland, looked at titanium isotopes in 24 separate samples of lunar rock and soil. The proportion of 50Ti to 47Ti is another good indicator of whether a sample came from Earth, and, just as with oxygen, the researchers found the moon’s proportion was effectively the same as Earth’s and different from elsewhere in the solar system. Zhang explains that it’s unlikely Earth could have exchanged titanium gas with the magma disk because titanium has a very high boiling point. "The oxygen isotopic composition would be very easily homogenized because oxygen is much more volatile, but we would expect homogenizing titanium to be very difficult."

So, if the giant impact hypothesis doesn’t explain the moon, how did it get there? One possibility is that a glancing blow from a passing body left Earth spinning so rapidly that it threw some of itself off into space like a shot put, forming the disk that coalesced into the moon. This would explain why the moon seems to be made entirely of Earth material. But there are problems with this model, too, such as the difficulty of explaining where all the extra angular momentum went after the moon formed, and the researchers aren’t claiming to have refuted the giant impact hypothesis.

</>

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/03/findings-cast-doubt-on-moon-orig.html?ref=hp

The models I saw showed a planet hitting the earth in a glancing blow and creating the moon. This theory is not completely inconsistent with the old one.  Something could have hit the Earth, causing the spin that planet may have kept going.  I think we are fine tuning a larger theory here, but this article frames it as if we are going in a whole new direction.  I don’t think the author of this article saw any of the mathematical models or computer models on the subject.  What do you think?

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

I fear I have not thought much about it. I have heard many “exciting new” theories of the origin of the moon over the decades.

Interesting thing the President said overheard

Jerry,

What an interesting thing to say. What positions will change after voter opinion doesn’t matter?

"This is my last election," Obama told Medvedev. "After my election I have more flexibility."

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2012/03/26/open-mic-catches-obama-asking-russian-president-for-space-on-missile-defense/?hpt=hp_t3

Seriously, wow. This is a hell of a lot more than merely asking for negotiating room, but the media is presenting this as a simple request to tone down rhetoric for a while instead of a signal that the President will make some real foreign policy changes as soon as he has no internal political consequences for doing so.

To refresh our memory on the President’s starting position:

http://macsmind.com/wordpress/2008/06/08/obama-wants-to-protect-america/

Is that where policy is going after the election?

Please withhold my name, since Tennyson had it right. Theirs not to wonder why…

As a former troop I can wonder in public…

‘Is the Kindle changing the reading habits of science fiction readers?’

<http://jameswharris.wordpress.com/2012/03/24/what-is-the-kindle-doing-to-the-science-fiction-genre/>

——

Roland Dobbins

The Kindle is changing the reading habits of a very large part of the reading public… I now sell more eBooks than print books.

Live and Let Spy.

<http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php/site/reviewofbooks_preview/12266>

<http://www.amazon.com/Live-Let-Spy-BRIXMIS-ebook/dp/B00724WU2I/>

–

Roland Dobbins

Ornithopter

Dr. Pournelle,

As I’m sure you’ve heard by now, the ornithopter guy did, indeed, fake it.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/aviation/diy-flying/why-its-so-hard-to-build-a-human-powered-winged-aircraft-7539894?click=pm_news

Still nice to dream about, though.

Ben

Ben Barlow

Alas.