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August 18, 2008
DC/X Reunion Posted Sunday night Survival with style video A whole new generation would enjoy "survival with style" if the video made it to youtube. Your video canon is limited to a mutual appearance with Durk Pearson... I still HAVE a dog-eared copy of "A step farther out", sitting in my storage unit in Scotts Valley, Ca. I just broke down and bought the pdf, as I can't remember it well. I have been writing about energy issues a lot, lately. In the face of the defeatism that runs rampant today, your book always cheered me up. -- Mike Taht I try. But is is a little discouraging to have to make all the old arguments again after 30 years. Still, I think we are making progress. and there is more awareness now. Perhaps. ========== "Blowback From Bear-Baiting" Dear Jerry, Patrick J. Buchanan writes, "Blowback From Bear-Baiting." <
http://townhall.com/Columnists/PatrickJBuchanan/ While I don't agree with everything Buchanan says, I think listening to what he has to say is often worth it. "American charges of Russian aggression ring hollow. Georgia started this fight -- Russia finished it. People who start wars don't get to decide how and when they end. " The only thing here is the last sentence, and while I understand his point, no battle plan survives contact with the enemy, I think his isolationist sentiments are a little strongly stated in this one. "Russia's response was "disproportionate" and "brutal," wailed Bush. True. But did we not authorize Israel to bomb Lebanon for 35 days in response to a border skirmish where several Israel soldiers were killed and two captured? Was that not many times more "disproportionate"? " I have no problem with asymmetrical response at times when appropriate, why should the Russians have a problem with it. "When the Soviet Union broke into 15 nations, we celebrated. When Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Kosovo broke from Serbia, we rejoiced. Why, then, the indignation when two provinces, whose peoples are ethnically separate from Georgians and who fought for their independence, should succeed in breaking away? " I think we went a bit further than rejoice. I have long agreed with you on our Serbian adventure during the previous administration. "Bush, Cheney and McCain have pushed to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. This would require the United States to go to war with Russia over Stalin's birthplace and who has sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula and Sebastopol, traditional home of Russia's Black Sea fleet. When did these become U.S. vital interests, justifying war with Russia? " A number of years ago, I saw the potential friendship with Russia as a large check on the positive side, have we destroyed this opportunity? As to the political conundrum...... So where do we go from here? Neocons will call folks apologists for the Russians, and Liberals will think they reflect the feelings of many conservatives and will loudly proclaim so in the near future I'm sure. I just can't think of a way out of this pickle without conservatives losing face if they don't continue with the hollow rhetoric and liberals capitalizing on it successfully. Hopefully at a minimum, Rice, behind the scenes, is keeping the rhetoric to a minimum and expressing a grasp of the reality of the situation. Sincerely Curt It is hard to think of anything much more disproportionate than the invasion of Iraq. ========== Letter from Oregon (and England) I've spent the last week at a conference on animal communication in Corvallis Oregon. I saw many good presentations and re-established connections with colleagues. Perhaps I'll be moving back in a few years. A lot of American researchers were complaining about grants-- apparently success rates in America have dropped to 15%, and *no* grant proposal is approved on the first submission. Not a good situation for the Strategy of Technology, which we will probably need to use fairly shortly. The grants being approved appear to be mostly very short-term, too. See: <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4547883.ece > <http://tinyurl.com/6em6cq> . I doubt China and Russia have addressed the problems that led to the success of the Strategy of Technology. Problems with the UK approach to universal health coverage. The target culture: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/7565509.stm> Age discrimination: <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2561294/Over-50s-being-neglected-in-hospital.html > <http://tinyurl.com/6p3rl4> Corporate response to drug rationing: <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article4538256.ece > <http://tinyurl.com/63bbg7> -- "an academic who listens to pleas of convenience before publishing his research risks calling into doubt the whole of his determination to find the truth." (Russell 1993) Harry Erwin =========== Subject: Spengler on Sufis >" America remains so committed to the myth of moderate Islam that it is prepared to invent it. Kosovo, like the Turkey of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, supposedly embodies a moderate, Sufi-derived brand of Islam that will foster an American partnership with the Muslim world. The US intelligence community knows perfectly well that the networks that traffic prostitutes through Albania into Italy and the rest of Europe also move narcotics, weapons and terrorists from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia to Grozny in Chechnya to Tirana in Albania and Pristina in Kosovo." (He comments on Sufism and pederasty here: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JH12Ak03.html.) Spengler can be interesting and provocative, but his derogatory attack on Sufis was over the top. One might mount a similar attack on the Catholic Church by focusing only upon the recent crisis of pederasty there, or an attack on Italians based on the history of some of the Popes. If his purpose was to defame, he has done a good job. We need to place some responsibility on the fathers of democracy. "According to Herodotus, the Persians learned paiderastia from the Greeks" http://www.iranian.com/Shirazi/2005/December/Homosexuality/index.html The cite continues to point out that homosexuality and pederasty were ingrained in the Persian culture from the fifth century BCE, obviously pre-dating Islam. So much for the proclivity being an Islamic or Sufi peculiarity. Spengler insinuates a superiority of western culture in his article by focusing on this aspect of middle eastern culture. However, in his quest to be king of the hill by innuendo and ad hom attack, and spread the Holy American Neo-Religion of "Don't trust those buggerers," Spengler conveniently forgets that it wasn't Charlie Wilson who did the actual defeating of the Soviets in Afghanistan for the U.S., it was the Sufis doing the legwork. Spengler appears to have never read "Kara Kush" or any of the books by Idries Shah. In "The Sufis" Shah, who was a Sufi spiritual leader by any standard, points out that many, if not most, sects of Sufi (including some Spengler mentions) are decaying remnants of Sufi lines of thought designed to help a particular group of people at a particular time, in a particular situation. As such, they are Sufi in name but not in values. Shah also makes it abundantly clear that Sufi use of language is heavily steeped in metaphor and hidden meaning, often on a par with Kabbalistic interpretations of words and phrases. Attempting to take Sufi writings at face value can be similar to attempting to discern the value of a book by the color of its cover. Is it possible that the concept of the "child" was used as a metaphor by Sufis? Perhaps like this? Matthew 18:1 At the same time came the disciples unto Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? 2 And Jesus called a little child unto him, and set him in the midst of them, 3 And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. 4 Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven. The issue of haughtiness in the orient is not a new one. Spiritual teachers have constantly had to push followers to abandon material concepts to follow a more enlightened path. The metaphor of the child as the tabula rasa is ancient, and as anyone who has been around children knows, their ability to absorb teachings and understand radical new concepts seems to peak in the early teens, when comprehension is deepening, and fixed ideas have not yet blinded them to freely examining other methods of thought. Could the Sufis NOT have picked up on this concept and incorporated it into their teachings? I think that highly unlikely. Were some Sufis homosexuals and pederasts? Probably so. Rumi's followers were disgusted enough with his mooning over his muse that they stuffed the object of his affections down a well. I guess since this Rumi is now so offensive to our sensibilities, we should also burn our copies of "The Importance of Being Earnest" and "The Picture of Dorian Gray." After all Oscar "Wilde himself felt he belonged to a culture of male love inspired by the Greek paederastic tradition" - Maynard, A Companion to Victorian Poetry. Personal lives and value to society sometimes aren't as confluent as we would like. The point that seems to fly over Spengler's head is that Sufi and Sufi based traditions already infuse our culture, and that a fusion of the west and Sufis was already wildly successful in Afghanistan, and that future collaboration holds considerably more potential than attempting to convert the Wahabi. As you pointed out, we already messed up relationships with the Baath party, which was an obvious link to westernization. Jerry I haven't time to comment. When I get home, perhaps. But I have little knowledge of Sufi. ========= Obama Nation http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/08/021248.php "With events in Georgia over the past week, it is time to revisit Barack Obama's stated views on America's defense needs." A short youtube clip of Obama stating defense thoughts. Mark ========= Bolting Through The Fifth Dimension The Swiss are good at timing things, but even they can't devise a femtosecond stop-watch fast enough to detect any delay in quantum communication between entangled particle pairs The answer ? There are more than four dimensions, Get used to it. <http://adamant.typepad.com/seitz/2008/08/bolting-though-the-fifth-dimension.html> -- Russell Seitz www.adamant.typepad.com ========= sea ice extent comparison This site allows side by side comparison of arctic sea ice for any date since 1979 from satellite imaging . More ice and thicker in 2008 than 2007 for most date but 2007 appears to be a modern minimum. pictures of sea ice in Arctic sea
http://igloo.atmos.uiuc.edu/cgi-bin/test/ Thomas Weaver Radioactivity Decays, Ignorance Propagates. ========= Subject: regarding the Black Light Power press release Jerry, In their May 28th press release, Blacklight power proclaimed the development of a "50,000 kW prototype that produces thermal power on demand". A check of their web site shows that they have since posted a paper with the title: "Commercializable Power Source from Forming New States of Hydrogen". From reading this paper, it appears that the 50,000 kW prototype does not operate in a continuous fashion. Rather, it is a batch reactor that is placed in a water jacketed calorimeter. According to the paper: "The reactor and chamber system were designed to safely absorb a thermal power pulse of 50,000 kW with a one minute duration." The demonstration of the prototype consists of charging fuel into this batch reactor, heating the contents with electrical energy, and then observing a temperature excursion of a magnitude sufficient to indicate heat releases in excess of the measured heat input, and in excess of what would be expected from the known chemistry of the charged fuels. They cite at least one experiment in which an excess energy output of 50,000 kW was achieved (Figures 21 and 22). In that particular experiment, the output power was 1.5x's the electrical power input. (Unfortunately, for that particular experiment, they do not appear to offer much in the way of evidence to rule out conventional chemical reactions as the source of this excess energy. That seems to be an odd omission given the case they are trying to make. Perhaps this proof was buried in the discussion of the spectroscopic data, which I don't understand.) While these results may be interesting, the paper is disappointing if you thought the term "prototype" meant a continuously operating power unit. In a recent CNN/Money interview, Mills says that the
company has $60 million in funding, and is not currently seeking new
investors. Furthermore, they are planning to have a demonstration power
plant ready to show by the fall of 2009. (Ref:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/01/smallbusiness/ Based on that, I'd say it is getting close to "put up or shut up" time for Blacklight Power. However, Mills has previously promised that demonstration units would be available 'real soon now', and then apparently failed to deliver those demonstration units. For example, in a 1999 interview, he said that the company had raised $25 million in funding, and was no longer seeking new investors. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter was also supposedly considering a stock IPO in 2000, pending a licensing agreement with a major company and more substantial academic validation of the technologies. Mills was also talking at that time about a prototype that existed in his laboratory. (Ref: http://www.villagevoice.com/1999-12-21/news/quantum-leap/ ) Going further back to 1993, when the company operated under a different name, Mills supposedly testified at a congressional hearing on hot and cold fusion technologies, and made the following statement: "Hydrocatlysis Power Corporation (HPC) has an extensive theoretical and experimental research program of producing energy from light-water electrolytic cells. HPC and Thermacore, Inc., Lancaster, PA are cooperating in developing a commercial product. (Thermacore is a well-respected defense contractor and its expertise is in the field of heat transfer.) Presently, all of the demonstration cells of HPC and Thermacore produce excess power immediately and continuously. Cells producing 50 watts of excess power and greater have been in operation for more than one year. Some cells can produce 10 times more heat power than the total electrical power input to the cell." "A steam-producing prototype cell has been successfully tested ... The [original] experiment has been scaled up by a factor of one thousand, and the scaled-up heat cell results have been independently confirmed by Thermacore, Inc. Patents covering the compositions of matter, structures, and methods of the HydroCatlysis process have been filed by HPC worldwide with a priority date of April 21, 1989. HPC and Thermacore are presently fabricating a steam-producing demonstration cell." (Ref:
http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/ As Yogi Berra would say: This is like deja vu all over again..... CP, Connecticut. Thanks. Anything that delivers energy in a reliable yet mysterious way is of interest including to the Swedish Academy... ================ Jerry Spengler has an interesting take on why Russia is behaving as it is: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/JH19Ag04.html
Well, there is a lot more that is very interesting. But I find that I excerpted most of the article. Ed == The Real World Order, Jerry As if to back up Spengler, Stratfor sends us this: http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/real_world_order "From the Russian point of view, the strategic break point was Ukraine. When the Orange Revolution came to Ukraine, the American and European impression was that this was a spontaneous democratic rising. The Russian perception was that it was a well-financed CIA operation to foment an anti-Russian and pro-American uprising in Ukraine. When the United States quickly began discussing the inclusion of Ukraine in NATO, the Russians came to the conclusion that the United States intended to surround and crush the Russian Federation. In their view, if NATO expanded into Ukraine, the Western military alliance would place Russia in a strategically untenable position. Russia would be indefensible. The American response was that it had no intention of threatening Russia. The Russian question was returned: Then why are you trying to take control of Ukraine? What other purpose would you have? The United States dismissed these Russian concerns as absurd. The Russians, not regarding them as absurd at all, began planning on the assumption of a hostile United States." <snip> "[T]he Russians are capable of more direct action, and they will not let this chance slip away. This is their chance to redefine their sphere of influence. They will not get another." Ed I say again thank God Georgia is not a member of NATO ============================
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August 19, 2008 In El Paso; will post this when I get home tonight. Wind Power For The American Yeoman Dear Jerry, Here's a starting point for those too impatient to wait for Sam's Club to stock Chinese-made import wind turbines: http://www.otherpower.com/otherpower_wind.html There's a wealth of information about it and examples of small'uns and middlin' size ones up to 5 Kw, all built with widely available materials and construction equipment. Want something more aerodynamically efficient than hand carved wood blades, and more durable than injection molded plastic? Foam core composites aren't just for Stealth bombers any more. Burt Rutan pioneered the use of do it yourself composites in the early 1970s with his homebuilt experimental aircraft designs. Time marched on, techniques improved and costs dropped. Scaled Composites itself graduated to using multi-axis CNC machines to cut their foam. The determined American Yeoman can follow Burt's lead in both places with suitable low cost equipment: http://www.solsylva.com/ Best Wishes, Mark =========== re: Vocational Schooling Murray asserts in his WSJ article that the information technology community has broken free of requiring 4 year college degrees. While that might have been true to some extent in the 1970s and 1980s, even small companies now look for software engineer and systems analyst job applicants to have 4 year degrees. In support of this trend, even small state colleges support computer science programs. For example, there are at least six CS programs in the relatively small state of Utah. Being a skilled hacker is no longer a primary job qualification. Obtaining a degree increasingly is. Tony Evans
For a PDF copy of A Step Farther Out:
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Wednesday,
August 20, 2008 Tymoshenko wants to change the signboard at the President's office to "#6 ward" : Ukraine News by UNIAN Dear Jerry, http://www.unian.net/eng/news/news-268268.html "Prime Minister of Ukraine Yulia Tymoshenko refutes statements of the President’s office that accused her of high treason." That's this week in the Ukraine, post-South Ossetia. Headlines like these are routine in all the former USSR countries. This is an average example of the standard of political stability we're now urged to induct into NATO. i.e., extend to such unstable governments the power to commit the USA to go to war in their cause. Best Wishes, Mark Entangling alliances. Territorial Disputes of Europe. We are the friends of liberty everywhere but the guardians only of our own. Etc. ========== rockets outside of NASA Dr. Pournelle, Aviation Week recently ran an article on the X-37A/B and X-40 program currently being run by DARPA for the USAF. NASA bowed out of managing it after it was determined that the civilian utility was limited, so now it’s DARPA with NASA support and US Space Command. It’s a winged orbiter (smaller/simpler than the shuttle but similar in shape) that can be lofted by any number of expendable boosters including an air-launch option. The concept includes an internal payload bay (required for reliably returning items from orbit), mission durations up to 1 year, and a 72 hour turnaround time. Best of all, instead of starting by trying to build the final product and giving up because one part or another requires unobtanium or muchtooexpensivium, they started with subscale drop models and have been working their way up towards tossing a prototype into space. I assume that the project requires NASA collaboration to shorten the learning curve, but its survival may also depend on NASA remaining a project collaborator and not the program manager. Whether or not the USAF needs a winged orbiter is another question entirely. The reported program freeze for AF Cyber Command is evidence that USAF force structure and missions are getting a fresh look under the new management... Sean Not commercial, of course, but interesting programs. Reusable ship with expendable booster is another route, We may, some day, be a spacefaring nation; but those programs are under heavy fire from the arms controllers and anti-technology forces. I do not expect them to survive Obama. ========== non-NASA orbiters - Jerry, Fact is, as much as we may want to discuss the possibility, I conclude (with great sadness) that the bureaucracy that is NASA will exert whatever pressure necessary to stop credible participants from, well, participating. Enter the competition and suddenly NASA won't want the high performance widget you supplied for other NASA projects. And the parts supplier next door who incorporates another of your parts in their assembly will suddenly find it difficult to deal with NASA procurement.. on and on.... Hell yes I'm bitter. <grin> Clint Ellis Bennington, KS As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be... Which is why Newt wants to abolish NASA regardless of prizes. =============== True or urban myth???
http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/ Julie I have no idea and no way to find out... ========== Demonstration of Earth's Shadow during the Lunar Eclipse 8/16/08 Jerry, A composite of the lunar eclipse that shows the Earth's shadow quite well. Also a time lapse showing lunation Enjoy! Shadow: <http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080820.html> Lunation: <http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap051113.html> Regards, Charles Adams ============ Subject: Nice review of Exile -- and Glory Dr. Pournelle: I am sure you are no stranger to nice reviews, but this one is by John Walker, one of the founders of Autodesk. http://www.fourmilab.ch/fourmilog/archives/2008-08/001040.html - Rob -- Rob Campbell Thanks. =========== AFP: Georgia 'will join NATO': Merkel Dear Jerry, http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5irjdfQdHqnS5LyXe2laHu-TxW8zQ Mass hysteria is spreading. I dread the day when any government in that area possesses the power to decide war or peace for the USA. Best Wishes, Mark ps. If after Iraq any Patriots still feel the need to spread "Democracy" and "Freedom" by force of arms, I suggest two projects that could contribute to domestic security at the same time. 1. Invade Northern Mexico, suppress the emerging narco-states and also reestablish an effective border. 2. Declare war on Canada, invade it, overthrow its government and annex it. This regime is increasingly engaged in persecuting Christians publicly practicing their religion, as well as anyone criticizing regime policies such as immigration. It'll be easier to secure Canadian oil and oil sands field Entangling Alliances. Territorial Disputes of Europe. I find myself in an increasing state of terror. =========== Anthrax Investigation http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/08/19/anthrax.investigation/ Looks like they are back-tracking on some of their initial reports. I'd swear that in the initial news conference they said Ivans was the only one who had access to that strain of Anthrax, as well as making a point that he had access and knowledge as to how to weaponize it. Now they are saying 100 people had access to it and the Anthrax that was distributed was not weaponized. And they wonder how conspiracy theories get started? I hop your recovery continues to go well, keep up the good work. Brian =========== Strategy Dr. Pournelle: So NASA doesn't expect to get back to the moon anytime soon. And they don't want us to go, either. On the one hand, NASA expects to retire the shuttles in 2010. On the other hand, NASA will not have any man-rated launchers available between 2010 and 2015 (if you're a cock-eyed optimist!), and the US will have to depend upon Russian equipment (and good will) to transport any astronauts to the ISS or any other space-based activity. On the gripping hand, the US is poking an angry bear with a small stick in Georgia. Anyone wanna buy a used space station? Available immediately; former occupants have departed. And we're spending time antagonizing a country that could easily develop the technology necessary to drop rocks on us, while we're burning the ladder that would let us escape the bottom of the well. Alas for our times. jomath =========== bruce schneier on privacy Dr. Pournelle, This article puts into words what almost everyone *feels* about privacy, but often can’t properly express.
http://www.wired.com/politics/security/ We shouldn’t make it easy for the security hounds to take away our freedoms and privacy with simple-minded bleating about the necessity to choose between security and freedom/privacy. Privacy doesn’t equal freedom, but I am convinced that losing the right to privacy is a reliable indicator of a loss of freedom. Sean ============ Warning: Education in Action Hi Jerry, Thought you might find this interesting... <http://thelawdogfiles.blogspot.com/ Beam me up Scotty, there is no intelligent life here. - Paul =========== Accusations of Disproportionate Response I can't for the life of me figure out what Bush and the other various Western handwringers are on a bout here. Whether or not invading Georgia was the right thing to do, if you're going to make war, you're going to do it to win (one would hope). I have no idea why anyone would expect Russia to tie one or both hands behind their backs just because Georgia has a small military. Maybe that was the principle by which the US thought control of Iraq could be achieved after the invasion, and we know how well that's gone off. All in all, Russia seems to have done what one would expect. It had a clear objective, used the force necessary to not only achieve the short term goal of wrenching control of South Ossetia from Georgia, but also the long-term goal of making sure that Georgia won't at any point in the foresseable future be able to pull such a stunt again. This was a very economical, targeted military action, and one has to think that a much bigger message than just Russia beating on a former satellite has been sent. It's now very clear to the entire world that the rot has stopped, Russia is back and it simply isn't going to allow the other Powers to act with impunity in its back yard. The really pathetic thing here is that it genuinely seems to be the case that the Administration and State Department were surprised that Russia responded. -- Aaron Clausen ========== Subject: regarding the Black Light Power press release Jerry, In their May 28th press release, Blacklight power proclaimed the development of a "50,000 kW prototype that produces thermal power on demand". A check of their web site shows that they have since posted a paper with the title: "Commercializable Power Source from Forming New States of Hydrogen". From reading this paper, it appears that the 50,000 kW prototype does not operate in a continuous fashion. Rather, it is a batch reactor that is placed in a water jacketed calorimeter. According to the paper: "The reactor and chamber system were designed to safely absorb a thermal power pulse of 50,000 kW with a one minute duration." The demonstration of the prototype consists of charging fuel into this batch reactor, heating the contents with electrical energy, and then observing a temperature excursion of a magnitude sufficient to indicate heat releases in excess of the measured heat input, and in excess of what would be expected from the known chemistry of the charged fuels. They cite at least one experiment in which an excess energy output of 50,000 kW was achieved (Figures 21 and 22). In that particular experiment, the output power was 1.5x's the electrical power input. (Unfortunately, for that particular experiment, they do not appear to offer much in the way of evidence to rule out conventional chemical reactions as the source of this excess energy. That seems to be an odd omission given the case they are trying to make. Perhaps this proof was buried in the discussion of the spectroscopic data, which I don't understand.) While these results may be interesting, the paper is disappointing if you thought the term "prototype" meant a continuously operating power unit. In a recent CNN/Money interview, Mills says that the
company has $60 million in funding, and is not currently seeking new
investors. Furthermore, they are planning to have a demonstration power
plant ready to show by the fall of 2009. (Ref:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/01/smallbusiness/ Based on that, I'd say it is getting close to "put up or shut up" time for Blacklight Power. However, Mills has previously promised that demonstration units would be available 'real soon now', and then apparently failed to deliver those demonstration units. For example, in a 1999 interview, he said that the company had raised $25 million in funding, and was no longer seeking new investors. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter was also supposedly considering a stock IPO in 2000, pending a licensing agreement with a major company and more substantial academic validation of the technologies. Mills was also talking at that time about a prototype that existed in his laboratory. (Ref: http://www.villagevoice.com/1999-12-21/news/quantum-leap/ ) Going further back to 1993, when the company operated under a different name, Mills supposedly testified at a congressional hearing on hot and cold fusion technologies, and made the following statement: "Hydrocatlysis Power Corporation (HPC) has an extensive theoretical and experimental research program of producing energy from light-water electrolytic cells. HPC and Thermacore, Inc., Lancaster, PA are cooperating in developing a commercial product. (Thermacore is a well-respected defense contractor and its expertise is in the field of heat transfer.) Presently, all of the demonstration cells of HPC and Thermacore produce excess power immediately and continuously. Cells producing 50 watts of excess power and greater have been in operation for more than one year. Some cells can produce 10 times more heat power than the total electrical power input to the cell." "A steam-producing prototype cell has been successfully tested ... The [original] experiment has been scaled up by a factor of one thousand, and the scaled-up heat cell results have been independently confirmed by Thermacore, Inc. Patents covering the compositions of matter, structures, and methods of the HydroCatlysis process have been filed by HPC worldwide with a priority date of April 21, 1989. HPC and Thermacore are presently fabricating a steam-producing demonstration cell." (Ref: http://www.virtualschool.edu/mon/SocialConstruction/ColdFusionPrimer.html) As Yogi Berra would say: This is like deja vu all over again..... CP, Connecticut. When they can show it works they'll get a Nobel. But they have to show it works. ========= And Roberta suggests you read: Barry the Unready and Putin the
Poisoner -
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August 21, 2008 A Trained Eye Finally Solved the Anthrax Puzzle - NYTimes.com, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/science/21anthrax.html The plot thickens and unravels all at once. Sue A fascinating story, and one that probably has not ended. But does this mean that the persecution of Hatfill was a deliberate ruse? ========== Stossel Jerry, I think Stossel has lost it.
http://townhall.com/Columnists/JohnStossel/ IMHO, it's the worst-researched (and worst-presented) column he's ever done. It's a rant against energy independence on the basis that the playing field is already level (ignoring all the hampering regulation on both petroleum exploration and nuclear) and foreign sources are more cost efficient and always will be. He also inexplicably rants against the use of prizes to stimulate entrepreneurial development (as opposed to government subsidies which mostly go to the National Labs and never lead to solutions, because a solved problem doesn't generate any future funding). Jim I met Stossel once. I generally admire his work. This seems anomalous. With energy the devil really is in the details. Technology can get complex, and understanding some of the principles is important. At the same time, it is clear that for what the Iraq War cost we could have if not total energy independence, at lest North American energy independence. It would require work to convert electric energy into transportation, but we know the paths to that. ========== Fallen Angels Lives! Jerry, Here is a scientist predicting that the earth will enter a “little ice age” starting in 2010 due to decreased solar activity. Fallen Angels Lives! By the way I’m glad to see that you are recovering your strength. The world would be a much poorer place with out you. Best Regards, James Marino
http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2 I truly hope that Fallen Angels is not prophetic; but alas... =========== Subject: The stars are out of reach Jerry, Ironic that you are celebrating the DC/X anniversary while this hits the news wire: "Rocket Scientists Say We Will Never Reach the Stars" ( http://www.wired.com/science/space/news/2008/08/space_limits ) CP, Connecticut Well the stars are far away, but if we have a spacefaring civilization, generation ships are certainly possible. It might take a hundred years to reach another star system with an inhabited planet, but we know how (in principle) to build a ship that would take several hundred people to it. ========== Talking to Pirates. <http://www.positech.co.uk/talkingtopirates.html> - Roland Dobbins Interesting and important. Thanks. =========== '. . . if we stay outside NASA . . .' Given the current level of NASA/FAA/DoT interference with the various nascent private suborbital programs (see Burt Rutan's rant about the turtles on the airstrip at Mojave), I'm unsure whether it's actually possible to stay outside NASA, as it were. --- Roland Dobbins If this country prefers bureaucracy to going to the planets, then someone else will do it. =========== Subj: ARTILLERY: Son Of FireFinder Works http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htart/articles/20080820.aspx >>The US Army has successfully tested its new EQ-36 artillery and mortar finding radar. ...<< Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com ============ If What You Believe is True Jerry, If your belief of the cost to get to orbit and the cost to operate is reasonably correct, I would think that D.D. Harriman is now alive. Who would you pick? Paul Allen? Richard Branson? Or another? Even if you are off an order of magnitude in cost, it is still well within the reach of some individuals, many companies, and/or consortiums. Regards, Charles Adams, == Funding an Orbital X-Prize If we can have orbit for $1 billion-$750 million then there are folk other than the US government able to put that up. Assuming a target range of about 4 years that means setting aside $200 million a year. which compares pretty favourably with an awful lot of public projects. It would certainly be well within the resources of California or Texas. If Arnie is constitutionally debarred from becoming President, having funded the orbital X-Prize would be a pretty good epitaph, in fact an epitaph better than many presidents have. Alternately could it go to popular vote as a citizen's initiative? A variant on that would be for California to guarantee to match, $ for $ any donations to a California Orbital X-Prize up to $1 billion. That only costs the state $125M a year. There are quite a few local billionaires & indeed lesser mortals who could contribute to that. Texas isn't short of billionaires either. Or, just as states have negotiated water sharing treaties a number of them could get together to share a prize with money put in proportionately to GNP (with perhaps a slight loading for states nearer the equator). A foundation for the Confederate Space Force (probably not its official name) would appeal to some states & should end up costing less than $20m per state per year. This is 70 times the salary of Mrs Obama, a diversity inspector for the Chicago health service. I suspect New Mexico would then consider itself eligible to be in the Confederacy, I think there is a high chance that some state outside the USA might put up such a prize. $200M is less than 0.1% of GNP to countries down to the size of Denmark or Singapore. Singapore, having already become the home of Space Adventures, being generally innovative & being almost exactly on the equator looks like a very likely candidate. Again running it as a purely commercial treaty between nations would, I think, be feasible so long as it is kept simple. And as long as a good enforceable legal definition of what is a Californian or Texan or Singaporean company, or how the mixtures work without hiving off much of the work to states outside the agreement. I suspect most economists would calculate that the extent to which such a prize would get brains to move to the states organising it would make it financially viable even if getting into space wasn't going to make money. This applies to having world class museums, opera, baseball teams, "iconic" architecture, etc. in the neighbourhood & should work the same way, or better, for engineers. If it was done as an international commercial treaty I know somebody who should, if he wished, be able to persuade the Scottish government to chip in 5%. Neil Craig You may be interested in my political blog http://a-place-to-stand.blogspot.com/
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Subj: Peggy Noonan: "They're paying attention now" http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121935481067161515.html As you've said many times, Noonan is always worth reading. But *this* part sent a shiver down my spine: >>Mr. McCain provided, in 2004, one of the most exciting and certainly the most charged moment of the Republican Convention, when he looked up at Michael Moore in the press stands and said, "Our choice wasn't between a benign status quo and the bloodshed of war, it was between war and a greater threat. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. . . . And certainly not a disingenuous filmmaker who would have us believe that Saddam's Iraq was an oasis of peace." It blew the roof off. And the smile he gave Mr. Moore was one of pure, delighted malice. When Mr. McCain comes to play, he comes to play.<< I'm sorry I missed that speech. Now I know you don't agree that the choice "was between war and a greater threat." But isn't it at least *somewhat* reassuring, that McCain is capable of speaking with *that* kind of power? That there's at least a *chance* that he'll be able to break the Spell of the Voice of Saruman, which Obama seems to have inherited from Bill Clinton? Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com As Peggy Noonan says, we know who McCain is. As to Iraq, of course it was no oasis of peace; but I can name dozens of other places, including Tibet, for which that is true. Terror and slaughter return to many places in this vale of tears, but God has not given the United States of America either the means or the resolve for correcting all those ills. Fortunately, the Iraq adventure seems to have convinced all but a very few fanatics that it is not "isolationism" to avoid involvement in territorial disputes in Europe and other distant places where we can take control only by expending gallons of blood and trillions in treasure. As to the election, if Obama goes to election day with less than a 5 point advantage, he is not going to win. =========== It could support a Saturn V stack, but can't support this thing?! <
http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/ -- Roland Dobbins The purpose of NASA is to spend its budget. The Iron Law has long prevailed. ========= Prizes Jerry, Even from a purely local view I cannot see the deterrent effect of a competent company in active pursuit of a prize is of importance. If the company succeeds, we the prizegivers, have what we wanted. If they do not succeed, they have only lost their own money and another company now has a cadre of unemployed experienced engineers to draw on and a lot of data on what not to do. I draw a parallel with the De Haviland Comet versus Boeing 707 competition to produce the first cheap, fast, airliner. Boeing won which was good for the United States, but Britain and the rest of the World also got what they really needed, cheap fast air travel. Of course the real benefit of prizes is that for once Pournelle's Iron Law does not apply. NASA could probably reach the Moon by nothing more complicated than building a pyramid of their existing paperwork. Mr Rutan could not. He does not obey the Iron Law. John Edwards That has always been my analysis; yet if the goal is to build an industry, a second place prize makes a very great deal of sense. The question is whether "a great deal of sense" is enough. The problem with private space development has always been that there are both technical and market risks, and the two combined do not make a financially attractive investment. Prizes mitigate the market risk. == Newt Gingrich, Prizes, $10Billion Dr. Pournelle: You asked for repeats from last week: When did you start ghost-writing for Newt Gingrich? Originally publsished in the WSJ: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121841486321728547.html I don't know how long that link will work. The article is repeated on Newt Gingrich's site: http://newt.org/tabid/102/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/3623/Default.asp x Thank you, Richard Micko ========= How your printer tricks you into buying ink and toner when you don't need it. <http://www.slate.com/id/2198316/> Mike =========== Re: AFP: Georgia 'will join NATO': Merkel 2. Declare war on Canada, invade it, overthrow its government and annex it. This regime is increasingly engaged in persecuting Christians publicly practicing their religion, as well as anyone criticizing regime policies such as immigration. It'll be easier to secure Canadian oil and oil sands field --Im not to sure if this person is being sarcastic or not, but as a member of the currently ruling Conservative party, I have a few notes. --Last time I went to a party fundraiser, we had a cabinet minister, and we all said grace and the lords prayer, along with with singing the national anthem. --Not the sort of actions that a Christian hating government, would likely tolerate at one of their dinners I would think. DM David March ========== re: Barry The Unready & Putin The Poisoner Dear Jerry, I read James Lewis' piece in the American Thinker. Comparing Vladimir Putin to Michael Corleone is rough but fair. Lewis' main failing was not developing his Godfather analogy to its logical conclusion. This story has other Dramatis Personae. It's worthwhile considering some of them before deciding whether we want to take sides here. First is Alexander Litvinenko, Muslim convert and Polonium 210 victim. He's most reasonably compared to Virgil Sollozo, a/k/a "The Turk". Litivenko found his service with the domestic KGB secret police very agreeable before, during and after the Soviet period. In comparison to this, former foreign intelligence officer Putin turned in his resignation on August 20, 1991. This was during the attempted hardliner putsch. More ominous are Litivnenko's surviving London playmates. Prominent among these are Akhmed Khalidovich Zakayev, Chechen separatist and ostensible member of a Chechen government in exile in London. Between the First and Second Chechen Wars in the later 1990s his "government" distinguished itself by turning Chechnya into the drug trafficking, ransom kidnapping and child slavery emporium of the Caucausus. These abductions were carried out all through the Volga River valley in Russia proper. I particularly remember one case from Saratov involving the child of a wealthy Jewish merchant. Sadder still are the unremembered cases of disappeared poor Russian children who were sold on into slavery deeper in Muslim Central Asia. Zakayev is well cast as the pimp Phillip Tattalgia. Lastly we have Boris Berezovsky, who is also an open close associate of Akhmed Zakayev's in London. According to Boris' own hagiography he rose from a simple Soviet mathematics teacher to a billionaire Russian oligarch by dint of hard work selling used cars. And he did it without breaking one law during a period when contract assassinations over business deals were a daily event in early 1990s Russia. We are therefore left with two choices. The first is to nominate Boris to replace Mother Teresa. The second option is to cast him as Emilio Barzini, who was the true mastermind of the Sollozo-Tattaglia war against the Corleones. Best Wishes, Mark =========== Iowa "Gore" Curriculum Dr. Pournelle, My wife and I are about to have our first child (“Due Date” is September 1st). I find that I am now more interested in certain issues than I had been at this time last year. Shame on me, it seems. I attended Iowa public schools in the 1970’s and 1980’s and the University of Iowa in the early 1990’s. I had assumed that the public schools would be more or less the same as I remembered from my childhood; Perhaps more computers, perhaps some other differences, but I expected to find good teachers teaching sound curriculum. Red Alert-Red Alert I just finished reading this guest opinion, published August 17th in the Iowa City Press Citizen.
http://www.press-citizen.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article? I have not verified each claim, but a few phone calls to parents of current students and a handful of current teachers leads me to believe that Thornton, the author, is not a loony alarmist. State mandated curriculum? A curriculum which de-emphasizes learning in favor of promulgating propaganda? Requiring high school students to write letters to politicians aping that propaganda and demanding action? I am stunned. Shame on me for not paying attention. In any case, I thought you might be interested in a nexus of global warming, public education and Iowa City. I have enjoyed your fiction and your Chaos Manor columns for many years. Thank you. I offer my best wishes for your continued recovery of strength and energy. Sincerely, Todd Bowers =========== Jerry, I don't know what the source of Jack Kinsella's information is but this is what he said about McCain's houses on his daily message at the www.omegaletter.com ...When McCain was unable to answer the question, "How many houses do you own?", Obama's campaign strung the two answers together as evidence of McCain's elitism. "If you're like me, and you've got one house, or you are like the millions of people who are struggling right now to keep up with their mortgage so they don't lose their home, you might have different perspective," Obama said. Not smart. Obama got his mortgage with the help of convicted money-launderer Tony Rezko. For the record, McCain's wife's family owns eight homes. (Cindy McCain's family is worth $100 million) But the McCain's have a pre-nup that separates their property. So the reason John McCain doesn't know how many houses he owns is because he doesn't own any! Dave ==========
Of course now we have 8 planets, 4 dwarf planets (so far) 166 moons (at last count), 499,999 asteroids (Ceres graduated to dwarf planet status), the Kuiper Belt, the Oort Cloud and one large thermonuclear generator we call the Sun. And the possible second star Nemesis. Larry Bayern So we have learned a little in 30 years. I do wish we'd gone out to look for ourselves... ============= Jerry: This link contains charts of sunspot quantity and 10.7 cm radio flux. The correspondence between the two is startling: <http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SolarCycle/> We will know by the end of the year, if the predicted upswing in solar flux is happening. This is the noaa space weather prediction center: http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/SWN/index.html the solar wind is a gentle 350 km/sec, as I write this. The noaa space weather prediction center was linked to by this bbc article: <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7574603.stm> "The principal thing is to look at the long-term trend," said Dr Kennedy. When that suits your purposes, apparently. Chris C ==============g
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August 23, 2008 Subject: Gore's Palace Roberta wonders if all the houses and condos McCain owns would add up to the square footage of Gore's palace? It does not matter, for Al Gore never hid his personal wealth, never in denied he lived in the palace, and never attempted to pass himself off as a simple man of the people. It was McCain who stated last weekend that his definition of being wealthy was “making over 5 million per year,” further proving his is completely out of touch with those “ordinary Americans” he attempts to identify with. Can’t you agree with the objective reality, that the Republicans, after 8 years of feasting at the public expense and building up a massive deficit even without the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, are totally out of touch. The last 8 years of Republican majority in the house and Senate have seen new records in earmarks, special projects and fiscal mismanagement. So how can Americans ever trust them again? The house that Ronald Reagan (who I voted for) built has been demolished, and in its place is a luxury high rise with a sign out front: “No income under $5 million allowed.” In closing, I am not a fuzzy headed, tree hugging liberal. I am a middle class American who has seen our quality of life steadily eroded, gains of the past lost and an uncertain future ahead. Robert Not sure what to say. McCain has not denied marrying wealth; and of course Kerry married even more wealth. Gore won a Nobel prize for a position which I don't consider very viable, but whatever the truth of man made global warming, Gore is hardly practicing what he tells the middle class it must do: conserve energy, do without, burden the economy with Kyoto-style regulations, etc., etc. I think he's fair game. If your unhappiness is with what the country club wing did to the Republican Party, I suspect I have been harder on those rascals than you are. I make no secret that I believe the departure of Newt Gingrich as the stern taskmaster of the Republican gang was a great disaster not merely to the party but to the nation, and that the country club republicans who took over after he left went on an insane spree of war and spending, guns and butter. It was awful. But Gore is fair game. The entire incident is silly: many wealthy people, especially those who invest in real estate and have their assets under management, have no notion of what properties they own. In McCain's case, where by prenuptial his wife's assets are not community property to begin with, it's hardly surprising. As to who is wealthy, neither you nor I are compared to almost any of the Members of Congress or Senators; and that seems to be ordained now and forever, world without end. They do not live the same as you and me; nor will anyone elected President ever again live even as you and me. George Washington retired to Mount Vernon to manage his ( not inconsiderable) estate, largely to the end that he could free all his slaves on his death; but that sort of honorable retirement after holding high office is never going to happen again. =========== Credit Card nastiness Jerry, SOP for the credit card industry these days... a. Card X regularly schedules payments on the 23rd of the month for several months b. Card X issues a "payment due in 6-7 days reminder." Reminder arrives on 16th of the month. Review subject line ("due in 6-7 days") and add 7 to 16, concluding that nothing's changed. Go about business. c. On 21st, log in to make payment. Discover at 11 PM local time that payment is due 11:59 PM Pacific Coast Time on the 21st. In panic, make express payment and pay $14.95 premium to avoid late fees and penalties. d. Review e-mail received on 16th. On the inside it actually gives the due date as August 21, which is NOT "6 or 7 days" after the e-mail was received. e. If you get trapped and call them on their inconsistency, you can usually talk them out of the interest penalties, but not the late payment fees. However, if you let it ride, your interest rates go up to 29% and, after reporting the late payment to the credit bureau, half of your other cards follow suit. (We'll leave the issue of how I ended up with enough credit card debt to make this an issue, much less a potential crisis, as a longer and sadder story. In the meantime, just accept the following advice: never marry a pedophile's alcoholic ex-wife.) J. ========= "Now, we seem to have lost the dots." The reasons government's stonewalling on the 'terrorism' watch-list become clearer; they don't actually *know* who's on the watchlist or why, because the datbase can't be queried for that information. They can always add more data, but can't search and/or delete. Government by database. <http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB121937117186362585.html> - Roland Dobbins How truly good.
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August 24, 2008
Portrait of the Narcissist as a Young Man. He makes some good observations, but utterly misunderstands causes, effects, and appropriate remedies. Note that the word 'book' is nowhere to be found: http://virtualwayfarer.com/educating-millennials-why-were-doing-it-wrong/ - Roland Dobbins Thank you for calling my attention to this. It is stated articulately, which I cannot say for most essays that try to make this point. It does make me wonder how we all survived when I was a student, and how we managed an eduvation for anyone. I agree with his opening paragraph. I also believe that we can revise education techniques to make use of modern technology. For the rest, much of it is familiar: the fight between the Progressive Education people centered largely at Columbia, and the traditionalists, such as those who set up the curriculum at the State University of Iowa with its core courses and requirement for a full year of the history of western civilization. I am very grateful to Iowa for my years there. Since that time the Progressives have won, and there is no core course and required Western Civ. One problem is that one can become familiar with the web and a useful web technician/programmer without any formal education at all. There are web skills much like skills in plumbing, carpentry, electrician work, and an lot of other jobs/careers that were the road to middle class status when I was a lad. Now we require college educations for almost anything. One reason for creeping credentialism is ADA, and other anti-discriminati0n laws: it is easier for personnel department people to downcheck someone if they don't have a degree. The fact that a degree isn't especially useful for the job isn't really important. Another is the emphasis by people such as Bill Gates who has said that every kid deserves a world class university prep education in K-12. That's nonsense. It's not only impossible, it's undesirable. I don't need or want my plumber to have a world class university prep education; I want him to know about pipes and plumbing and be familiar enough with the web and other sources to find out what he must know so my washing machine works and my toilet doesn't overflow. If he wants to know about Hamlet and Polonius that's fine and dandy, and I may even be willing to discuss it with him, but it's not why I sent for him. We do not live in Lake Wobegon, nor do we want either to kill off the left side of the bell curve or put all out educational resources into training the left side. We don't need a world class university prep education for even a full half of our students, although it could be argued that our assessment instruments are sufficiently imprecise that it might be better to extend college prep that far. On the other hand, think of the IQ 105 student who had been trained to world class university prep, discovers that he really isn't going to get much from the University -- and hasn't any notion of that to do next. Any education program must take account of such cases. Changing education methods is worth looking at: one reader is even now enrolled in on-line calculus and other university level classes, and is keeping a careful log; I'll try to work with him to come up with a full report later. We can make use of modern technology; but we have to be careful. We need to pay attention to what we're doing, and "interactive" classes, while useful, are hardly the only key to solving what is probably the most pressing problem for future American generations. If we cannot manage to educate the right side of the bell curve we cannot sustain a First World civilization; and if we can't teach the left side how to do First World work the alternative is both obvious and unpleasant. =============== "We live by both the mountain and the water, but we cannot use either." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/22/AR2008082202696_pf.html - Roland Dobbins The joys of socialism. Chinese style. ==============g
The current page will always have the name currentmail.html and may be bookmarked. For previous weeks, go to the MAIL HOME PAGE. FOR THE CURRENT VIEW PAGE CLICK HERE If you are not paying for this place, click here... IF YOU SEND MAIL it may be published; if you want it private SAY SO AT THE TOP of the mail. I try to respect confidences, but there is only me, and this is Chaos Manor. If you want a mail address other than the one from which you sent the mail to appear, PUT THAT AT THE END OF THE LETTER as a signature. In general, put the name you want at the end of the letter: if you put no address there none will be posted, but I do want some kind of name, or explicitly to say (name withheld). Note that if you don't put a name in the bottom of the letter I have to get one from the header. This takes time I don't have, and may end up with a name and address you didn't want on the letter. Do us both a favor: sign your letters to me with the name and address (or no address) as you want them posted. Also, repeat the subject as the first line of the mail. That also saves me time. I try to answer mail, but mostly I can't get to all of it. I read it all, although not always the instant it comes in. I do have books to write too... I am reminded of H. P. Lovecraft who slowly starved to death while answering fan mail. Search engine:
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