| Monday
March 15, 2010 Stuart Island Energy
Initiative
http://www.siei.org/
<http://www.siei.org/>
Welcome to the Stuart Island Energy Initiative Website, a glimpse of our
energy future! We have built a system in which solar power makes hydrogen,
which is then stored for a rainy day and runs a fuel cell to produce
electricity. The system is pollution-free, uses no fossil fuels, and is up
and running.
Mike
============
Subj: Women and Civilization - Aristotle on Sparta
I was shocked, while reading Aristotle's _Politics_,
by his analysis of Sparta (Book Two, Part IX):
[begin quote] Again, the license of the
Lacedaemonian women defeats the intention of the Spartan constitution, and
is adverse to the happiness of the state. For, a husband and wife being
each a part of every family, the state may be considered as about equally
divided into men and women; and, therefore, in those states in which the
condition of the women is bad, half the city may be regarded as having no
laws. And this is what has actually happened at Sparta; the legislator
wanted to make the whole state hardy and temperate, and he has carried out
his intention in the case of the men, but he has neglected the women, who
live in every sort of intemperance and luxury. The consequence is that in
such a state wealth is too highly valued, especially if the citizen fall
under the dominion of their wives, after the manner of most warlike races,
except the Celts and a few others who openly approve of male loves. The
old mythologer would seem to have been right in uniting Ares and
Aphrodite, for all warlike races are prone to the love either of men or of
women. This was exemplified among the Spartans in the days of their
greatness; many things were managed by their women. But what difference
does it make whether women rule, or the rulers are ruled by women? The
result is the same. Even in regard to courage, which is of no use in daily
life, and is needed only in war, the influence of the Lacedaemonian women
has been most mischievous. The evil showed itself in the Theban invasion,
when, unlike the women other cities, they were utterly useless and caused
more confusion than the enemy. This license of the Lacedaemonian women
existed from the earliest times, and was only what might be expected. For,
during the wars of the Lacedaemonians, first against the Argives, and
afterwards against the Arcadians and Messenians, the men were long away
from home, and, on the return of peace, they gave themselves into the
legislator's hand, already prepared by the discipline of a soldier's life
(in which there are many elements of virtue), to receive his enactments.
But, when Lycurgus, as tradition says, wanted to bring the women under his
laws, they resisted, and he gave up the attempt. These then are the causes
of what then happened, and this defect in the constitution is clearly to
be attributed to them. We are not, however, considering what is or is not
to be excused, but what is right or wrong, and the disorder of the women,
as I have already said, not only gives an air of indecorum to the
constitution considered in itself, but tends in a measure to foster
avarice. [end quote]
Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com
I said that women have a civilizing influence.
I'll stand by that one. The rest is a very large discussion I haven't time
for...
===========
The American Soldier summarized in one picture.
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/299366.php
There is a difference between good guys and bad guys,
even if Hollywood can't figure it out.
Graves
============
: Wanat
"Does this qualify as a "beware the fury of
the Legions" moment?
Matt
No."
Thank you.
I do not know all the particulars of the incident at
hand. However, I would remind everyone that heroic actions, done after
incompetent actions, do not, in themselves, negate the consequences of the
incompetency..
I have carried a laminated copy of the following on my
person since I read the passage. The setting of the comment is upon the
inquiry of an officer to member of a court martial as to why the Commanding
Officer was found guilty, when clearly events occurred in the incident that
were beyond the Commanding Officer's control.
Command
“To trust a man with the lives of other is a
grave thing. Only three things make it work. Authority; responsibility;
accountability.
Authority is the root of command. We delegate
it only for a time, only in exercise of an office, only as defined by
custom and law. never as an individual, never for very long, never as if
by right, never without bounds.
Responsibility defines what a man is trusted
with, with the ship, with the conn, whatever. So it's all clear up front,
and everybody understands his duty.
To be accountable means to be subject to
justice. To punishment, if you will. If you fail your trust--are derelict
in your duty, misuse you power, make a professional error--you will pay a
price.
In our profession, this accountability is
absolute. When a naval officers accepts authority, he knows he will answer
for the actions of his ship, whether or not he is directly and personally
responsible in the way a civilian court would understand. For it is his
responsibility to know and govern all that goes on aboard her, her flaws,
her limitations, as well as her strengths.
If error occurs, no matter whose, the fault
is rightfully and inevitably his. Each commander knows this and accepts it
as part of the job. No previous service, however meritorious, can make up
for it. “
-David Poyer, The Circle; 1992
David Couvillon Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps, Retired.;
Former Governor of Wasit Province, Iraq; Righter of Wrongs; Wrong most of
the time; Distinguished Expert, TV remote control; Chef de Hot Dog
Excellance; Collector of Hot Sauce; Avoider of Yard Work
==========
The Secret Origin of Windows
Dear Dr Pournelle,
You might find this article (or memoir) interesting:
<http://technologizer.com/2010/
03/08/the-secret-origin-of-windows/>
Best regards,
Alun
In interesting insider's account.
================
DSM any number and health care
Forgive me but I would rather you do not use my name
with this if you decide to post it.
I am an emergency physician and have been privileged
to care for patients for over 30 years. I am not a psychiatrist but do see
psych patients on a daily basis in addition to many other types of problems.
As usual in any discussion it is important to "follow
the money."
There is a long standing game that is played by
physicians and hospitals on one side and the various payers including the
government and insurers on the other side. Each year some new, arcane, and
often rather foolish rules are created by the payers to deny the providers
payment for services to save the payers money. This of course is not
confined to the psych arena but extends throughout the house of medicine.
And each year the providers figure out and invent ways around the new rules.
As an example here is the following. Some years ago
when thee and me were young if you were a teenager and got out of control
and cursed your family and threw things and broke windows in the house the
police would be called and you were defined as a juvenile delinquent and
sent to juvenile detention.
As more and more young children and adolescents were
defined as psych patients by the various DSM's they are now brought to the
emergency room for any bad behavior whatsoever whether or not it might have
any relation to previous psych diagnosis and we admit them to psych wards.
And basically anyone under the age of 18 winds up in the ED for any bad
behavior. This is a lot of kids as you might well imagine.
This happens whether or not they use the magic words;
which as every ED physician knows are, "I AM GOING TO KILL MYSELF."
These are the words you use if you are looking for
three hots and a cot in the hospital if you are an adult.
These days the equation is:
Underage + bad behavior = emergency room evaluation.
The police are often complicit in this because it is a
lot easier to drop them off in the ED than to do the paperwork to charge
them as delinquents and have to go to court later for the hearing. The
parents are complicit because it is a lot easier to consider your child as
disturbed than as a violent criminal. The state is complicit because if you
are in a psych ward your parents and health care pay for your keep rather
than the state having to run more jails for kids. The physicians are
complicit because we get paid.
The ED physicians are complicit specifically because
once their feet touch the floor in the ED we are responsible for these
children's future bad behavior under our country's curious and arcane
malpractice case law. In spite of such law ED doctors have no special talent
for correcting your teenagers bad behavior and in fact if a lifetime of your
parenting did not make them into delightful and dutiful children we are
unlikely to achieve the goal in an hour or a day in the emergency room.
But the insurance companies seem to think this is a
bad deal.
This is where DSM "whatever number" comes in.
When we first started this nonsense the diagnosis for
this kids was Oppositional Defiant Disorder which meant basically they were
behaving badly. After a while the insurance companies created a new rule
which was basically NO FURTHER PAYMENT FOR OPPOSITIONAL DEFIANT DISORDER.
You would think that might have brought some sanity
back into the world.
You would be wrong. You might also notice that exactly
at that time all these children were diagnosed or re-diagnosed as bipolar
disorder in one or another of it's variants as defined by DSM. And if you
read DSM you would be able to apply the rules and in fact make the
diagnosis.
Bipolar disorder you get paid for if you are a shrink.
This used to be called manic depression. Oppositional defiant disorder you
do not get paid for.
Go figure.
Now here's the thing that bothers me. There is a real
problem in the world which used to be called manic depression. Actually if
you have ever seen it you probably will not miss it again even if you are a
layman and not a psychiatrist or ED doctor. These people have a real
treatable problem. You probably have more readers than you might think who
have this problem because they tend to be rather smart and amusing people
correctly treated. The diagnosis is obvious when they are either in their
manic or depressed phase. When they are manic they are fun to be around.
They usually have their ED physician laughing as he goes out of the room.
When they are correctly diagnosed and treated they are normal if you can
call people who tend to have high IQ's normal.
But calling a generation of juvenile delinquents
bipolar to get paid is nuts. And this is made possible by DSM defining the
illness in nebulous enough terms to allow such foolishness.
And drugging them up is at best nonproductive and
possibly harmful. We have no idea what the long term effects of long term
psychotropic medicines starting in childhood is likely to do to over the
lifetime of these children. Surely the old way of corporal punishment or
even the new ways of behavior modification are preferable to this nonsense.
But when you write DSM in a way that allows these
children to meet the diagnostic criteria for bipolar, and you create a
system where these children inevitably enter the medical system rather than
the criminal justice system, and pay people to make these diagnoses, then
you wind up with these children on medications.
Cool huh?
When I was in medical school I was taught that for
children with emotional problems or physical problems it was even more
important than for so called normal children to enforce discipline. The
rational was that these children were starting out from behind and the last
thing they needed was bad behavior on top of their problems to make their
lives even worse. Such common sense ideas are long since outdated.
By discipline I do not mean striking children;
although I have no personal objection to corporal punishment.
I will tell you a personal story. At one time in my
young married life as a parent we lived in a house where my daughter's
bedroom was about ten feet from my easy chair on the same floor. When my
daughter misbehaved and I told her to go to her room she had about 3 seconds
to get there or I would get out of my easy chair and escort her there. I
want to be clear about this. There was no spanking or anything physical
except simply ushering her into her room. She learned dad meant it when he
said "Go to your room." A couple of years later we moved to a much nicer
house where her bedroom was about 90 feet and up a flight of steps and down
a hallway from my easy chair. It took my daughter about 2 weeks to figure
out that dad no longer meant it when he said, "Go to your room." Dad was not
near as likely to get out of his easy chair and walk all that distance. And
her behavior became correspondingly worse till dad got the discipline to get
back out of his chair and re-establish the understanding that "Go to your
room" really meant go to your room. The discipline needed was in the parent
not the child.
Most of these children would be much better off with a
little more discipline in their parents and a little more vigorous
definition of psychiatric disorders in the DSM.
But the real problem is even more basic of course.
What are we to do as a society with these children with behavior problems.
Most children are relatively decent and will be our future. But those who
are disruptive have learned they can with impunity disrupt our schools and
our homes.
It is all fine and well for me to tell the story above
but I have met the parents of these children who have just torn up their
house and threatened the parents and other children in the house. These
parents are desperate and do not know what to do. If one of you is reading
this I will gladly see your child in my ER at any time and do anything I can
to help.
But I have no confidence in psychiatry as a means to
change your child. Most of you and many other readers already know this
because you have been through the system many times and spit back out. And
the mush called DSM has made this serious problem of society worse not
better.
Thank you.
===============
War by Avatar..
I have been thinking about this for a few weeks, as my
subconscious melded Avatar the movie with what I'd read of drones and
army-types with their 6 or 8 hour shifts flying drones half a world away.
What about robots? How about virtual reality control
of robots - not airplane like levers, but VR control of one or more robots
simultaneously in a battlefield. As you near the end of shift the next guy
seamlessly takes over. The robot "soldier" becomes a 24/7 soldier, and thus
2 or 3 of your "17-year olds on the ground with a rifle". A power source
might be problematic, but that's just an engineering problem.
Rob
=============
The electric zambonis
The media takes great delight in observing that the
"green" technology broke down, as if it was the fault of the technology
being "green" and something new invented for the games. At least one of the
articles to which you linked has this to say:
"After a replacement machine was shipped from Calgary,
the venue’s general manager, Magnus Enfeldt, said the Olympia machines had
been working properly for more than a year before this week’s glitches."
So.. some machines failed after a year of use. This is
an indictment of the manufacturer, and possibly maintenance, not the fact
that they are "green"...
We've had nigh on a hundred years to learn to make
internal combustion machines work close to perfectly. And yet only in the
last 30 years or so have automobiles become truly reliable.
I'm willing to give new technologies a bit of a break.
Rob
Perhaps so, but I think I would have used some
other event as the showpiece demonstration. And while I am sure the
venue's general manager would never speak less than the truth as he knew
it, perhaps his definition of "working properly" is not quite that of the
skaters who have to trust that the ice is suitable for the speeds they go
at.
Giving new technologies a break is clearly
desirable; but what kind of break can be debated.
============
Interesting articles from Ars Technica and a book
Dr. Pournelle,
I urge you to read the following two articles from Ars
Technica. The URLs identify the topics which are related:
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/
010/01/keeping-computers-from-
ending-sciences-reproducibility.ars
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/
2010/03/were-so-good-at-medical-studies
-that-most-of-them-are-wrong.ars
Both articles refer to medical/biological research.
However, I think that the issues they raise may relate directly to the AGW
debate. Their possible effect on the AGW fracas could work for either side.
Finally, I don’t know how interested you are in the
history of science. If you are interested, I am currently reading “The Age
of Wonder: The Romantic Generation and the Discovery of the Beauty and
Terror of Science” by Richard Holmes. The title smacks of hyperbole but the
book is quite accessible and fascinating. He charts the development of
science starting with Joseph Banks and the H.M.S. Endeavor and moves on
through Davy , Herschel and many other famous and infamous scientists of the
romantic era. Holmes’ principal work has been the Romantic poets. As a
consequence of research for biographies of Coleridge and Shelley led him to
their continuing interest in the scientific endeavors of their time.
Coleridge was a good friend to some of the more famous scientists of his
era.
Richard York
I read the books in question but not the
articles. Science demands replication. Anything that happens at the 5%
level of significance will happen by chance one time in 20...
=================d
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