| Tuesday,
September 5, 2010
Letter from England
The State Department is
preparing a warning for Americans in Europe <http://tinyurl.com/35cqd9t>.
In the past, these have been much more serious--in early 2003, my wife and
I received orders to make preliminary arrangements for evacuation from
England back to the USA.
Two modern parables (all persons
and organisations mentioned are made up);
Many years ago, a young man was
part of a special tiger test team specially made up of system and software
engineers on an aerospace project. There was also at the company a testing
department that coveted the test team. The company reorganised, and the
testing department asked for the tiger team. They got it, but the people
they had acquired very soon moved on to other organisations where they were
more valued, and the team dissolved.
Do not attempt to grasp what you
cannot hold, for you will be left with nothing and less than nothing.
The young man observed and
learned.
Many years later, the no-longer
young man joined a world-class research team that accumulated a nice
collection of kit for its lab. A teaching department at the same place
coveted those things. The research team leader then moved on--as they
do--and the teaching department began to plan how to share out the
unprotected things. One morning, the lab was missing kit as the teaching
department had moved. However, the not-so-young man had learned, and for the
last few years had been the principal investigator for the lab--the research
team leader had just been the co-PI. This came as a surprise to the teaching
department, and the cries of anguish were long and loud.
Do not attempt to grasp what you
cannot hold, for you will be left with nothing and less than nothing, and,
in particular, do not even think about taking kit from a working research
lab!
Thus endeth the parables.
Another story--I track events
and rumours in London. A source who has been accurate in the past has told
me that the UK Government will announce in a few days that it will be
getting out of the business of funding higher education--except for a
limited number of laboratory places in science and engineering. Universities
will be freed to charge whatever fees they want. (The figure quoted Sunday
was £10000 = $16000/year. See <http://tinyurl.com/2ftz7su>.)
Current university fees in the UK are already higher than what most students
in the rest of the world--including America--pay at public colleges and
universities--<http://tinyurl.com/34tk38u>--so
this may produce a student brain drain. The Government intends to invite
North American for-profit institutions (this well-known crew: <http://tinyurl.com/2folelw>)
to come to the UK and compete for students, hopefully holding fees down. The
problems with that idea are the American for-profit sector is dependent on
the more traditional universities to train its teaching staff and it serves
a very specific student community. UK universities have been less active
than American in producing vast numbers of qualified post-graduate
lecturers, so the for-profit sector will have difficulty staffing up.
Currently, a UK visiting lecturer (equivalent to an adjunct in America)
costs more per hour than a senior lecturer at the top of the pay scale!
The Government will also
announce that it is getting out of the business of funding university
research, except for long-term funding of some world-class research groups
in science and technology. (They will have to move fast, since the best
researchers are already leaving the UK. <http://tinyurl.com/3yezxef>
<http://tinyurl.com/335n6ur>
<http://tinyurl.com/2eugu9s>
<http://tinyurl.com/2u5w8pr>)
I think they really have lost track of the ball--what is a university really
for? <http://tinyurl.com/37ypv2s>
Neither you, Jerry, nor I seems to match their model of the graduates they
want universities to produce.
Pensions are safe as long as you
don't stop working: <http://tinyurl.com/33ku5fl>
UK defence budget chaotic <http://tinyurl.com/2cxs2ot>
I prefer the current Government
to that of George Brown, but that doesn't mean I think much of their ideas,
brains, or management skills. <http://tinyurl.com/2vfjnpe>
Despite what the current googoo movement in America is hyperventilating
about, there is an immense difference in professionalism and competence
between UK ministers and American cabinet members.
Financial companies leaving the
UK <http://tinyurl.com/2ujdhd3>
Why am I not surprised?: <http://allafrica.com/stories/201009210101.html>
Just say no to these systems.
--
Harry Erwin, PhD
Maybe some of those leaving
California will go to England...
============
AGW Eco-fascists jump the shark.
http://simon-jester.org/2010/10/pollute-and-die/
Bruce
There is great division over
this satiric video. Some consider it obscene. Some apparently think the
environmentalists made the film clip, but I find that highly unlikely. On
the other hand we have
this.
As well as
Maybe you have seen this - it left me speechless. It
is one of those things that gives one a genuine feeling of despair about
the direction of humanity - at least it did for me. No amount of apology
can redeem the people behind this in my opinion. Anyway, maybe I am
over-reacting; what do you think, am I?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rKgtWWCGQZ8
Note that the text over the picture is a so-called
apology, clicking on the red annotation-bubble removes it.
Regards - thanks - Lawrence
I thought it obvious that
this was a satire made by Deniers.
=========
I thought this might interest you
http://pogue.blogs.nytimes.com/
2010/09/30/turn-an-ipod-into-an-
iphone/?src=me&ref=general
Dear Dr. Pournelle:
You have mentioned on your website that you have poor
iPhone service. Is this helpful?
Regards, Tim Scott
Probably not. Anyway I am
deep in work and no time to try anything like that. Thanks
==========
Subject: Why this recovery is
different.
It may not be entirely fair to compare the recovery
from this economic crisis with all recent recessions.
According to the economists who wrote the 2009 book
"This Time is Different", the pace of recovery from a recession is dependent
on the cause of the recession. For typical business cycle recessions, the
rebound tends to be quite robust, leading to a fairly short recovery time
(i.e., getting back to even). But when recessions are driven by a financial
system crisis (i.e., when excessive debt couples with the collapse of an
asset bubble to severely stress financial institutions) then the recoveries
tend to be much slower and longer.
You might recall that for a long time after the tech
bubble collapse, we had what many called a 'jobless recovery'. Many believe
that we only got out of that jobless recovery by inflating an even larger
asset bubble (housing).
The Great Recession was the most severe financial
system crisis since the Great Depression, was much worse than the tech
bubble crash, and it was a world wide event. So history (at least as seen by
Rogoff and Reinhart) suggests that the recovery from the Great Recession
will be protracted and slow, even if we make the best policy decisions
possible.
See here for WSJ's review of the book:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001
424052748703298004574459001609215112.html
See here for Rogoff and Reinhart's comments on the
expected pace of recovery:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123362438683541945.html
See here for commentary on why this recovery may be
different than most:
http://seekingalpha.com/article/222600-
book-review-this-time-is-different-remains-relevant
-------excerpt ----
This Time Is Not Different... But It Sort of Is
There is a bit of an inherent contradiction in the
this-time-is-different thesis. I once heard Ken Rogoff discuss it in an
interview and it goes something like this: This time is not different in the
sense that history shows that financial crises happen quite often. But there
is also a tendency for financial and government leaders to fail to recognize
that the economic trajectory after a crisis-induced recession is very
different from the one we might see following a normal business
cycle-induced recession. Therefore, “standard macroeconomic models
calibrated to statistically “normal” growth periods may be of little use.”
-------
CP, Connecticut
I do not really trust economic models,
which never have any provision for Black Swans. My own view is that if you
want economic growth more than regulation, provide cheap energy and most
of all deregulate. So long as you make energy hard to come by and
expensive, all the regulation in the world won't provide prosperity; and
regulated societies don't grow very fast because the regulation prevents
people from taking risks. Rapid growth won't be terribly stable. There may
be accidents, and frauds, and all kinds of difficulties. If you take the
risk out of economics you take the rapid growth out as well.
Few want to live in a totally
free society where you accept the consequences not only of your actions
but of other's legal manipulations, and of the blind hand of faith. If you
get kicked in the teeth, swallow hard. If you can't stand the pain, drown
yourself. Few want that, and thus there is always the tendency to even
things out with a Disabilities Act, with all kinds of safety regulations,
with minimum wages and work rules and --
But the cost of removing risk is slow
growth. The cost of really really reducing risk is generally Depression.
So it goes.
============
ADHD is genetic
Dr Pournelle
Re: Study finds evidence that ADHD is genetic
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/mail/2010/Q3/mail642.html#Friday
Of course it is. It is transmitted by the
Y-chromosome. Have you ever heard of a girl diagnosed with ADHD?
I thank God I was schooled in the
politically-incorrect days of 'Boys will be boys', and the teachers applied
physical methods to suppress unwanted behavior. Otherwise I would have been
medicated into a lethargic zombie.
God save us from those who would do us good.
Live long and prosper h lynn keith
==
MORE ADHD?
Jerry
On Friday 2010-10-01 you asked "But why is there so
much MORE ADHD now?"
The answer: there isn't. I have been asking a standard
set of screening questions for ADHD at jails for years. I get a consistent
response level - 85%, 90%, 95% - that varies for the jail, but not over
time. The people coming to jail have shown a consistent pattern across
decades of birthdates. My hypothesis is that ADHD represents one end of a
bell curve, like being tall. Like tallness, it is also hereditary.
What there is, is more ADHD diagnosed. Why? Simple:
because drug companies are making products to "treat" ADHD. They "detail"
(make sales calls to) psychiatrists more, so psychiatrists dutifully
prescribe more, just as they did for "bipolar disorder."
There's your epidemic.
Ed Jailhouse shrink
I suspect there is more to it
than the simple greed of drug companies, but certainly that plays its
part. When I took graduate abnormal psychology in the 1950's there was
about one page on autism and essentially nothing on ADHD. Now a quarter of
the boys seem to have ADHD, the lawyer down the street has found himself,
abandoned his family, and lives in his mother's basement with a girl
friend while suing his working wife for support since he is disabled --
adult onset ADHD apparently -- and deserves support. I know of other such
cases.
===========
The membership drive continues. This
place cannot stay open without subscribers.
If you haven't subscribed or renewed, this is a great time to do that.
Consider this a nag.
=========
Sadly, all too true.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
science/the-lay-scientist/2010/sep/24/1
Ken
You will find much of this in
the social sciences. See my papers
on the Voodoo Scienes. What is said there remains relevant today.
============
Interesting Nut Strategy
Jerry,
I found this article interesting, it says a lot that
you might read in a lot of separate articles:
http://thehill.com/opinion/columnists/
dick-morris/121487-obliterating-a-generation
Put simply, the Democrats have put nothing on the
table. Once again, their reforms led to consequences that they did not
expect, and they do not know how to deal with these. Now that Democratic
candidates face a failure of their policies -- or lack thereof in some cases
-- and the same candidates have no fresh ideas, popular alternatives, etc
they will use negative campaign adds. Many of these adds are moralistic in
nature, and seem designed to garner emotional outbursts from other social
idealists.
When I traveled, I came to understand this mentality.
It seems prevalent among people who exist on the lower socioeconomic strata
and it seems pervasive -- I noted this mentality in every country I've ever
lived in among the aforementioned strata. I do not seem to note this
mentality in other strata, save for the devices usefulness in condescending
to speak to certain sections of people where this device works. The device,
quite simply put, equates to "if you ain't so good, then I ain't so bad".
But, it's still too soon to pull out the violin -- in
my humble opinion. Maybe we will -- as a Republic -- come to our senses? It
seems that we may do so. Once we get through this election, successfully, we
will need to get through the next congressional election. These two
elections seem crucial to me if we are going to take back what we lost --
our Republic.
--------
BDAB, Joshua Jordan, KSC Percussa Resurgo
“The opinion of ten thousand men is of no value if
none of them know anything about the subject.” —Marcus Aurelius
“You have have no interest in politics, but that
emphatically does not insure that politics has no interest in you; you
ignore it at your peril.” —Jerry Pournelle
Despair is a sin.
==========
'Climate change' comes to New
Zealand.
<http://www.meattradenewsdaily.co.uk/
news/051010/nz___snow_hits_farmers_
big_time_.aspx>
- Roland Dobbins
==
And to Russia:
'According to them, when the stream is completely
stopped, a new Ice Age will begin in Europe.'
<http://rt.com/prime-time/2010-10-04/
coldest-winter-emergency-measures.html?fullstory>
- Roland Dobbins
===================
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