| Friday,
January 13, 2006 ========
Subject: intel iMac
Dear JP:
Just this morning as I got confirmation that my new
Intel iMac shipped (6 days early, yay!) word "on the street" is hinting that
this machine, even tho it uses EFI to boot rather than BIOS, may well be
able to run Windows XP after all. Just how is as yet unclear, but two or
three Mac tech sites are reporting the same thing. More when I know more...
Best,
Tim
PS: "Cringely" reports that much more Mac news -
including large screen plasma TV/computers - are due VERY soon, but just
weren't ready for MacWorld. Also says no Vista in 2006 (big surprise). For
more see here:
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20060112.html
See also financial
news in view.
========
Dear Dr Pournelle,
The BBC article referred to by Mark <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4604332.stm>
- has an entertaining subtext which might brighten a few people's day.
Reading the BBC article, one discovers that the research comes from a
researcher at NIWA (where I did thermal pollution calculations for the
Huntly power station on a PDP-11 many years ago):
"The possible implications are set out in Nature by
David Lowe of New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric
Research, who writes: "We now have the spectre that new forests might
increase greenhouse warming through methane emissions rather than decrease
it by sequestering carbon dioxide."
New Zealand is a signatory to the Kyoto protocol. Why
was a Kiwi scientist working on the relative importance of plant emissions?
I'm guessing it's because of something you refer to, the large amounts of
methane produced by cattle. Some months back there was a furious controversy
because of the "fart tax" introduced by the Labour government on cattle
farms. Quite logically, the powers that be decreed that this would assist NZ
in meeting its Kyoto protocol commitments - a sort of carbon tax.
But this country has unbelievable numbers of
ruminants. Such farms are tremendously profitable because, unlike their
European or American equivalents, the climate doesn't require that cattle be
fed corn in winter or be kept in barns. Instead they eat grass, hay, or
silage, all year round. So a methane tax would beyond doubt bankrupt a large
number of the farmers on whom the bureaucrats depend for their taxes.
After due rumination and digestion of the electoral
implications, the proposal for a fart tax was, er, dropped. But of course
the patent hypocrisy was obvious to all. Now a local scientist has pointed
out that growing plants also contribute a huge proportion of methane, the
government has a perfect excuse for jettisoning the idea of a tax on animal
flatulence. I'll bet his research grants are approved next year...
Regards, TC
-- Terry Cole System Administrator, OU Physics tcole@physics.otago.ac.nz
And see below
========
Dear Jerry,
With the continuing loss of manufacturing and
engineering jobs America's creative minority is not being permitted to
create. As Heinlein said, " Whenever this tiny minority is kept from
creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people
then slip back into abject poverty. This is known as "bad luck."".
Hundreds of thousands of American engineers are losing
their jobs and their profession. The IEEE-USA reported in March 2005, that
between the years 2000 and 2004, there was a decline of 23% in the number of
employed EE's and a 24% decline in the number of employed computer
programmers. The placement firm Challenger, Gray, and Christmas reported
last week that there were 140,000 high tech layoffs last year alone. Ford is
going to design their new car lines in San Palo Brazil and is laying off
American engineers. Meanwhile our trade deficit grows ever larger. How can
we ever bring it down if we don't manufacture any products in the US? I fear
America is in for some very "bad luck". I can just imagine how appalled that
Heinlein, who was a mechanical engineer, would be by the current state of
affairs.
J Marino Mesa Arizona
*******
The Death of American Manufacturing By Robert
Morley February 2006
<http://www.thetrumpet.com/images/3px.gif>
Globalization and outsourcing are hammering our
icons of industry.
For over a half century, American manufacturing
has dominated the globe. It turned the tide in World War ii and hastened the
defeat of Nazi Germany; it subsequently helped rebuild Europe and Japan; it
enabled the United States to outlast the Soviet empire in the Cold War. At
the same time, it met all the material needs of the American people.
During this period, many American icons were
born. Companies like General Motors, Ford, Boeing, Maytag and Levi Strauss
became household names. American manufacturing became synonymous with
quality and ingenuity.
On the back of this industrial output rose
America’s middle class. High-paying manufacturing jobs, in turn, helped spur
a robust and growing economy that depended little on foreign nations for
manufactured goods and armaments.
However, manufacturing as a share of the
economy has been plummeting. In 1965, manufacturing accounted for 53 percent
of the economy. By 1988 it only accounted for 39 percent, and in 2004, it
accounted for just 9 percent.
Considering the stupendous list of America’s
manufacturing achievements and the vulnerabilities associated with foreign
dependence when a nation lacks strong domestic manufacturing, it is alarming
when economists are warning that the U.S. is facing the “gutting, hollowing
out and closing down of American manufacturing forever” (Benson’s Economic &
Market Trends, Feb. 27, 2004).
Job Losses
The loss of the manufacturing industry
manifests itself most clearly in job losses. According to the Economist,
“For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, fewer than 10 percent
of American workers are now employed in manufacturing” (Oct. 1, 2005). But
even this figure is probably double the actual percentage, because many
workers in a typical manufacturing firm have service-type jobs. In
comparison, during the 1970s, approximately 25 percent of American workers
were employed in manufacturing. From 1990 to present, manufacturing jobs
have decreased every single year; since 1996, they have plummeted by almost
one fifth.
Most recently, these job losses and the
hollowing out of American manufacturing have been evidenced in the auto
industry.
On Nov. 21, 2005, General Motors Corporation
(gm) announced plans to cut 30,000 jobs and close nine manufacturing plants
across North America. According to its ceo, the decision represented an
attempt to “get its costs in line with major global competitors” and “return
North American operations to profitability as soon as possible” (Associated
Press, Nov. 21, 2005). Following these cuts, gm will have laid off 40
percent of its white-collar staff since 2000.
In a reflection of the resultant loss of
confidence in the company, last May gm’s debt (sold as bonds) was downgraded
by s&p from investment grade to the highest level of junk status; in
September, it was downgraded even further. Now it is five steps below
investment grade. Analysts even recommend selling gm stock, with one Bank of
America Securities analyst saying it was “inevitable” that gm would
eventually seek bankruptcy protection (cnn/Money, Dec. 16, 2005).
gm’s layoffs exclude the cuts announced by
former gm-owned auto parts maker Delphi, which filed for bankruptcy
protection last October. In 1999, Delphi laid off 18,000 workers. Now it is
reportedly seeking to cut two thirds of its 34,000 hourly workers and slash
hourly wages from as much as $30 per hour to as little as $10.
Ford, another American icon, has been slashing
jobs too. According to Forbes, Ford could cut up to 30,000 jobs and close 10
plants (Dec. 7, 2005).
Egan-Jones Ratings Co., an independent firm, is
predicting that “[t]his is the beginning of the end of the U.S. auto
industry as most people have come to know it” (TheStreet.com, May 5, 2005).
However, the auto industry is just one example
of the overall decline in American industrial might over the past couple of
decades.<snip>
We have three things to fear, and our
government is on the wrong side of every one of the issues. We sow the wind.
The issues are: American public schools
which are horrible and more concerned with political correctness and
pretense of equality than with teaching, which subject everyone to a
needless and often useless "college prep" curriculum instead of preparing
students for the work they will probably do in life; unlimited immigration
coupled with expanding welfare, so that Americans learn you do not have to
work, while at the same time learn that all the entry level jobs are taken
up by people who will work for a pittance compared to what you can get on
welfare (being "in poverty" becomes a highly desirable state in which to
be); and the export of all the vital manufacturing jobs so that we are
dependent for the very weapons of war on imports and the willingness of
foreigners to sell to us. We no longer have Willow Run and Detroit and the
Saginaw Wheel Division and Kenworth and the other industries which were
quickly converted to building the weapons that smashed the Wehrmacht. Hitler
wanted to destroy Detroit. We have done that for him.
Machiavelli pointed out that if you depend
on foreign mercenaries for your protection you will not survive: either they
will lose your battles, or they will turn to rob the paymaster. Selling off
all the potential for building the weapons of war and depending on borrowed
money so that we can continue to import not just "stuff" but the very vital
necessities, is much the same thing.
And neither political party cares.
We sow the wind.
=========
Subject: Washington Post
education column: college prep vs. vocational ed
Jerry,
I've been reading your work long enough to know you
have an interest in the tension between college prep tracks in high school
and the need of many students for better vocational preparation. Here's a
Washington Post column (Jay Mathews) on the topic. It is a discussion with
an educator in California with strong opinions on the need for vocational
training for the many students who are not college material.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/10/AR2006011000721.html
Jay is a strong advocate of the "college prep" for
everyone, and AP/IB for many. Chris Peters, on the other hand, reports that
"most of the kids I see every day are literally having their time wasted by
a curriculum that is at least 80 percent college preparatory." He would like
to see vocational training that is not a dumping ground for poor or
unmotivated students.
Interesting discussion.
Regards, Richard Clark
P.S. My wife has been trying to convince her
(left-leaning) ladies book club that they need to read your _Lucifer's
Hammer_. That should open some minds - or at least blow them ...
The way to see that no child is left
behind is to see that no child gets ahead. Gates gives money to assure "a
world class university prep education for every student." These are signs of
profound ignorance, of believing n Lake Woebegon. HALF THE CHILDREN IN
AMERICA ARE BELOW AVERAGE. A good high school education is sufficient
education for at least half the population and more likely for 70% of the
population but it must be the proper high school education.
It is madness or theft to say that
everyone should go to college. When I began in the aerospace industry it was
a tossup whether, 15 years after high school, you would have made more money
by going to college then going to work for aerospace, or if you simply went
to an aerospace industrial job right out of high school and thus earned
during what would have been college years, and saved the expenses of
college.
Of course if your grade and high school
educations are worthless, going to work right after high school makes no
sense. Thus the academicians continue to ensure their full employment
by turning out teachers who cannot in 12 years teach much, so the students
have to continue to pay the eggheads more and more each year as they go to
college to learn not much more than we used to learn in high school.
AND THE SUCKERS NEVER CATCH WISE.
And see below
===========
Early man hunted by birds?
More and more of Burning City/Burning Tower turns out
to be accurate . . .
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2006-01-12-human-ancestors-birds_x.htm
Roland Dobbins
==========
Subject: Global warming is a
matter of plants
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/08423a00-83da-11da-9017-0000779e2340.html
You've probably received many copies of this story by
now. It certainly confirms the point you've made many times that those with
an agenda are too eager to leap into solution space rather than fund proper
studies. Having an agenda and the loudest bullhorn seems to be the order of
the day for the debaters in this contest. It's as if it is no longer
important to be correct in the policy decision taken; all that matters is
that one side loses and the "our side" wins. See also the logging industry
and much of America's manufacturing, refining, and power plant capacity.
Losing in the global market to better, smarter, faster competitors is one
thing; losing because of ham-stringing, progress-stopping, agenda-pandering
regulation and lawsuits is another.
If the Gaea-worshipers have their way, the
industrialized nations will cease to be industrialized. Then we'll really
learn about the effects of unintentional consequences.
Best regards,
Jim Floyd
We are already learning about the effects
of unintentional consequences.
And we know how to solve most of the
problems. We just don't do them. And we don't really believe in science. The
friends of science would rather natter about prohibit9ing a three line
sticker in a textbook than do anything about actually applying scientific
method to world problems. But then the purpose is to make them feel good
about themselves without having actually to know anything.
We cannot do anything about global warming
(or cooling) until we know more about what drives climate changes; but that
is hard work and doesn't make a lot of people rich running about doing
things. Better to fund lots of free trips to Rio and Kyoto for middle grade
intellectuals to go confer with each other and pass resolutions.
TOP
CURRENT
VIEW Friday
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