| Sunday, January
9, 2010
==========
Amazon preps Kindleware for Android, Windows tablets
By Cade Metz in San Francisco <http://forms.theregister.co.uk/mail_author/?
story_url=/2011/01/04/kindle_for_windows_and_android_tablets/>
Posted in Applications <http://www.theregister.co.uk/software/apps/>
, 4th January 2011 19:27 GMT <http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/04/>
Amazon is prepping Kindleware for Android and Windows
tablets.
On Tuesday, the etailer announced that its tailoring
free Kindle apps for new Android- and Windows-based tablets "coming in
2011." The apps will allow tablet users to download and read ebooks from
Amazon's Kindle bookstore – even if they don't own a physical Kindle ereader.
Full Story:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/01/04/
kindle_for_windows_and_android_tablets/
==============
You can do handwriting recognition on the iPad with
the BoxWave capacitive stylus & the WritePad application.
<http://www.boxwave.com/products/
capacitivestylus/apple-ipad-capacitive-stylus_3779.htm>
<http://www.phatware.com/
index.php?q=product/details/writepad>
---- Roland Dobbins
=====================
Attrition: Too Dumb To Fight,
Jerry
A fourth of potential American military recruits who
tried to join failed the written exam:
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htatrit/articles/20110108.aspx
“The main reason for this is that fact that most of
the uneducated high school grads are . . . from urban schools. Those schools
are failure factories . . . While the army can do something about the
overweight applicants (by giving out diet plans and holding physical
training exercises for the willing), there is not much they can do cheaply,
and quickly, for those who learned little in high school. Moreover, the fact
that a quarter of your "educated labor force" really isn't ready to handle
technology (and more learning) means two things. One, employers are either
going to be short of the people they need, and, two, some employers will be
forced to spend more on educating new hires. This isn't easy, because many
of those uneducated high school grads are not keen on more "education,"
having experienced so much failure with it already.” <snip>
The article lays the blame on poor education, but “la
Griffe du Lion” has earlier used proxy test results to suggest that the
average IQ of young people in urban settings is more than a standard
deviation below the norm (
http://www.lagriffedulion.f2s.com/city.htm ). Maybe we are seeing the
results of a society that is so wealthy that people of low abilities are
able to indulge in unfettered procreation. Cyril Kornbluth saw it coming, of
course – in 1951 (!).
For now, though: “As a result of all this, the
recruits who do get in are a very select and motivated group. Thus the
average soldier today is smarter, and in much better physical shape, than
civilians of the same age and gender. But by being this selective, it
requires more money and effort to find the people needed. During World War
II, the percentage of acceptable recruits was more than double what it is
today. Young men and women were in better physical shape, fewer got into
trouble with drugs or crime, and military educational standards were not as
high because there were more non-technical jobs available.”
The purpose of the US education system is to insure
employment of bad teachers. It is well known that the efficiency of the
system as measured by student performance will be about doubled by firing
the 10% worst teachers and apportioning their students out among the rest;
that is overwhelmingly to be preferred to "smaller classroom size", teacher
pay raises, or anything else that might be tried. Of course this won't be
tried because the purpose of the whole system is to see to it that the bad
teachers are not fired and are allowed to go through ruining lives until
they get large pensions.
The second purpose of the system is to insure full
employment for professors of education, many of whom have never done any
actual teaching, but whose imprimatur is needed to get the "merit pay"
advances you can get from "workshops" and various courses in education. Some
education colleges actually prepare teachers to teach, but many somple punch
tickets; a lot of bad teachers who ought to be fired get "merit" pay for
having accumulated credits from education professors. My suspicion is that
firing about half the professors of education would greatly improve the
efficiency of the system but I don't have any studies or numbers to prove
that; but I would bet money that firing the worst 10% would instantly
improve the colleges of education just as firing the worst 10% of classroom
teachers would instantly improve the schools.
The purpose of the schools is to extract money from
taxpayers and pay it in ways that insure that professors of education and
bad teachers get paid. It is not to create citizens, or to teach anything;
it is not to train future Legionnaires. If we are to have Legions, the first
thing we need to do is cut all ties between the Armed Forces school systems
for service dependents from the rest of the education system and run it in a
rational manner as it has been done in the past. Alas the trend is in the
other direction, with more and more of the poison that ruined the US public
school system spreading everywhere else.
Schools no longer prepare students to be citizens
or to learn the skills to be employed, even in the Legions. They have new
purposes now, and they serve them well.
==
The Legions
Dear Dr. Pournelle,
I thought you would be interested in this column by
Richard Cohen. I find it interesting that someone on the opposite side of
the political spectrum from you -- but of the Vietnam generation -- mirrors
your concerns.
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/
2011/01/04/how_little_the_us_knows_of_war_108425.html
" I sometimes think I am the only person around who
has been in the military. This is because most people I know are
college-educated professionals, many of them writers. But if I throw in
politicians and even the White House staff, nothing much changes. Lots of
people know the expression "lock 'n load" but very few know how to do it.
This distant Army enables us to fight wars about which
the general public is largely indifferent. Had there been a draft, the war
in Iraq might never have been fought - or would have produced the civil
protests of the Vietnam War era. The Iraq debacle was made possible by a
professional military and by going into debt. George W. Bush didn't need
your body or, in the short run, your money. Southerners would fight, and
foreigners would buy the bonds. For understandable reasons, no great songs
have come out of the war in Iraq.
... The Great Afghanistan Reassessment has come and
gone and, outside of certain circles, no one much paid attention. In this
respect, the United States <http://realclearworld.com/topic/around_the_world/
united_states/?utm_source=rcw&utm_
medium=link&utm_campaign=rcwautolink> has become like Rome or the
British Empire, able to fight nonessential wars with a professional military
in places like Iraq. Ultimately, this will drain us financially and, in a
sense, spiritually as well. "War is too important to be left to the
generals," the wise saying goes. Too horrible, too."
------ Welcome to Marius' Rome. Of course, it doesn't
have to end the same way. History doesn't seem to ever repeat itself
exactly. But it is a matter of concern. The solutions I see are either to A)
reinstate the draft and not fight unpopular wars or B) dramatically downsize
the armed forces, check out of the global alliances we have built, and again
become, in the words of a wise man, 'friends of liberty everywhere but
guardians only of our own'.
A problem with that second solution is that the entire
existing international order is based upon American military primacy. Our
withdrawal would cause the collapse of that system. The last time the system
collapsed, it resulted in two world wars. Possibly a more gradual solution
is called for.
Respectfully,
Brian P.
=================
Fire and Ice, and Math, oh my!
Dear Doctor P,
In MAIL for January 7, 2011, Alan Messer commented on
CUTIES -
"Didn't you teach your daughter to check the math?
There simply isn't enough ice to raise sea levels high enough to make the
AGW scenario of rising sea levels a reality even if it does melt. "
Yes, it's important to get the math right, whether the
ice melts or not.
The numbers-
Sixty-one per cent of the fresh water on earth is in
the Antarctic icecap, which is the largest ice mass on this planet.
Antarctica is about fourteen million square kilometers
of land area, and is ninety-eight per cent covered with ice. To compare, the
contiguous lower forty-eight states of these United States cover about nine
and a half million square kilometers. .
The volume of the Antarctic ice cap is about thirty
million cubic kilometers, estimated to be equivalent to seventy meters of
water in the world's oceans.
While it might well take the Inferno's own blast
furnaces to melt even a minor fraction of it, there is enough ice, in
Antarctica to raise sea levels enough to cause problems for the currently
dominant species of the planet.
If it were to all melt.
If.
After all, CUTIES is Science Fiction, and SF is
supposed to explore unlikely and uncomfortable ideas, right?
On the gripping hand, I think it speaks volumes as to
the type of thinking you encouraged in those closest to you that they can
disagree with you. That can't be easy!
Petronius
PS
In fact, the Antarctic ice seems to be growing, See
this interesting site - ICE AGE - NOW
http://www.iceagenow.com/
Antarctic_Ice_Cap_Growing_Thicker.htm
It has been a long time since the Antarctic ice cap
melted, and it is not likely to happen again for another long time. Of
course floating ice does not affect sea level.
=============
Birds and fish are dying all over the world:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/
article-1344913/Animal-death-mystery-
Two-MILLION-dead-fish-wash-Maryland-bay.html
Lots of local explanations, but why so many, so
suddenly, and in such disparate places – all at once?
OK. We’re leading up to 2012. The Mayans knew it all
along, right? The next Ice Age starts next year, right? I guess we should be
mining more coal and spreading it on the glaciers . . .
Or maybe the aliens gave up on the Screwfly Solution
and are trying something else to clear out the ecosystem?
Ed
==============
: Moon has liquid core just like
Earth reveal sensors left on lunar surface by astronauts 40 YEARS ago,
Jerry
Sensors left on lunar surface by astronauts 40 years
ago now reveal that the Moon has liquid core just like Earth:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1344980
Fundamental science. Fundamental discovery. Amazing.
Ed
==
'Signals from seismic sensors left on the lunar
surface by Apollo astronauts in 1971 have revealed that the Moon has a
liquid core similar to Earth's.'
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/
sciencetech/article-1344980/
Moon-liquid-core-just-like-Earth-reveal-
sensors-left-lunar-surface-astronauts-
40-YEARS-ago.html>
-- Roland Dobbins
Most software today is very much like an Egyptian
pyramid, with millions of bricks piled on top of each other, with no
structural integrity, but just done by brute force and thousands of slaves.
-- Alan Kay
==
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/
article-1344980/Moon-liquid-core-just-like-
Earth-reveal-sensors-left-lunar-surface-
astronauts-40-YEARS-ago.html
The title is a little misleading -- this is not new
data, but a new analysis of the old data using modern seismographic analysis
techniques.
Jim
Amazing if true. I remain -- not precisely
skeptical, but looking for confirmations.
============
ADHD
ADHD, as expressed in that New York TImes article, is
an artifact of our need to label and categorize. There is a broad spectrum
of ways that people create and then attempt to perceive and support their
realities. Couple that with the broad spectrum of the ways that people
attempt to relate to each other, and you begin to sense the scope of the
chaos that is humanity.
I tend towards fairly linear IF- THEN - ELSE thought,
coupled with fleeting intuitions. My wife, OTOH, is able to sense things in
people that I cannot, no matter how hard I try. She has clued me in to the
different learning styles of people, and how kinesthetic learners NEED to
fidget and move to learn. Life has a tendency to explore different
strategies, and while the IF- THEN - ELSE strategy may be successful in our
society and times, I wonder if in other situations folks with different
styles might come to the forefront.
Taking it a step further, we posit that dolphins and
whales are significantly intelligent, but have limited access to tool making
or use. If we were transported into such bodies, would our mental process be
superior to that of an animal that evolved to cope with such an environment?
Perhaps those with ADHD might actually have an advantage in such situations.
We do well to minimize our hubris and recognize our good fortune.
different subject- Lucifer's Hammer. I'm enjoying the
re-read of this after having it sitting on the shelf for a number of years.
One thing I have noticed this time around is a "feel" of similar plot
development to "Atlas Shrugged," something I did not recognize on the first
reading. Specifically the Senator's ranch seems similar (as of about page
150) to the retreat in Atlas, the climb to the peak or ridge felt like
something that Galt (or Roark) would be doing, and the upcoming tribulations
have a similar almost Russian heaviness. Was the writing somehow influenced
by Rand's style?
Jerry Chase
I do not see the similarity between the books,
myself. One is a disaster science fiction novel, the other is build on
social premises.
============
SUBJECT: Rapid change in the
publishing industry.
Hi Jerry.
Kristine Kathryn Rusch in her weekly on-line column
comments upon the huge spike in ebooks bought during the holidays, plus
problems at Borders:
http://kriswrites.com/2011/01/05/the-
business-rusch-rapid-change-changing-times-part-twelve/
Cheers,
Mike Casey
As she says, many of us have seen this coming, but
the rate is astonishing.
===========
Prizes in the US Code
Jerry,
Considering the discussion of prizes offered by the
US, here is one of the sections on prizes
Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE
42 USC 259f-1:
§ 2459f-1. Prize authority
(a) In general The Administration may carry out a
program to competitively award cash prizes to stimulate innovation in basic
and applied research, technology development, and prototype demonstration
that have the potential for application to the performance of the space and
aeronautical activities of the Administration. The Administration may carry
out a program to award prizes only in conformity with this section.
(b) Topics In selecting topics for prize competitions,
the Administrator shall consult widely both within and outside the Federal
Government, and may empanel advisory committees. The Administrator shall
give consideration to prize goals such as the demonstration of the ability
to provide energy to the lunar surface from space-based solar power systems,
demonstration of innovative near-Earth object survey and deflection
strategies, and innovative approaches to improving the safety and efficiency
of aviation systems.....
(i) Funding
(1) Prizes under this section may consist of Federal
appropriated funds and funds provided by the private sector for such cash
prizes. The Administrator may accept funds from other Federal agencies for
such cash prizes. The Administrator may not give any special consideration
to any private sector entity in return for a donation.
(2) Notwithstanding any other provision of law, funds
appropriated for prize awards under this section shall remain available
until expended, and may be transferred, reprogrammed, or expended for other
purposes only after the expiration of 10 fiscal years after the fiscal year
for which the funds were originally appropriated. No provision in this
section permits obligation or payment of funds in violation of the
Anti-Deficiency Act (31 U.S.C. 1341).
(3) No prize may be announced under subsection (d) of
this section until all the funds needed to pay out the announced amount of
the prize have been appropriated or committed in writing by a private
source. The Administrator may increase the amount of a prize after an
initial announcement is made under subsection (d) of this section if-
(A) notice of the increase is provided in the same
manner as the initial notice of the prize; and
(B) the funds needed to pay out the announced amount
of the increase have been appropriated or committed in writing by a private
source.
(4) No prize competition under this section may offer
a prize in an amount greater than $50,000,000 unless 30 days have elapsed
after written notice has been transmitted to the Committee on Science of the
House of Representatives and the Committee on Commerce, Science, and
Transportation of the Senate.
(5) No prize competition under this section may result
in the award of more than $1,000,000 in cash prizes without the approval of
the Administrator.
==============
'They say it is in thrall to a
belief that temperatures will rise in the long term, and so has neglected
its focus on accurate short and medium term forecasts.'
In other words, the forecast wasn't made public
because it directly contradicted all the hysteria about so-called 'global
warming':
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/
article-1343863/Met-Office-knew-
Decembers-big-freeze-coming-hushed-up.html>
--- Roland Dobbins
==
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/02/
do-solar-scientists-still-think-that-recent-
warming-is-too-large-to-explain-by-solar-activity/
"Money" graphic. Taken at face value, if the trends
continue, it going to get about a degree (Celsius) cooler FAST -- like about
one year fast. <http://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com
/2010/12/lagged-solar-cycle-length-and-temp-
stephen-strum-frontier-weather-inc.png>
I would bet money we do not get a degree of warming
in the next year or even five years, unless there is a radical revision in
how averages are computed or how the data are massaged. Alas, I would not
bet against that happening.
==========
Autism and MMR Vaccine Study an 'Elaborate Fraud,'
Charges BMJ
Jerry
The British Medical Journal says the Autism and MMR
Vaccine Study was an 'Elaborate Fraud:'
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/
735354?sssdmh=dm1.658496&src=nl_newsalert
Sometimes it seems like people just want to believe
something.
Ed
==
"Retracted autism study an 'elaborate fraud,' British
journal finds":
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/
01/05/autism.vaccines/index.html?hpt=T1&iref=BN1
Excerpt:
"It's always hard to explain fraud and where it
affects people to lie in science," Godlee said. "But it does seem a
financial motive was underlying this, both in terms of payments by lawyers
and through legal aid grants that he received but also through financial
schemes that he hoped would benefit him through diagnostic and other tests
for autism and MMR-related issues."
=========
Food Problem
Jerry,
I hope you are enjoying Vegas now. To get to the
point, my wife and I kept our eyes on food prices for a while. We am not
alone. Something interesting is going on with food prices:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news
/2011-01-05/
global-food-prices-climb-to-record-on-
cereal-sugar-costs-un-agency-says.html
Of particular concern to me are the increasing prices,
which are at record level. These record breaking prices are happening in a
completely different context than the last crisis that occurred in June
2008. It is a crisis because, in some parts of the world, these increases
cause people to not get food. Now the article offers this information
concerning the present context:
>New York-traded crude was last at $88.44 a barrel,
compared with $140 at the end of June 2008. Bulk urea pellets, used in
fertilizer as a source of nitrogen, were at $320 a ton in the last week of
December, >against $460 in June 2008.
So we still have room to increase the prices beyond
the current record levels. The prices of pellets and oil correlate
positively with the price of food. As there is more room for a spike on
these commodities, there is more room for a spike in the prices of food. Oil
will continue to increase in my estimation. I would not be surprised if we
saw 150-200 USD per barrel oil in the not-too-distant future--however that
remains speculation at this point. Did you notice most OPEC countries want
it around 100 USD per barrel?
-------- BDAB, Joshua Jordan, KSC Percussa Resurgo
==
Preparedness
Jerry,
Have you thought of an essay on what every America
should do for his/her personal/family preparedness?
My lead item is a military caliber rifle and two units
of fire. That and water.
Have you ever looked at the
http://beprepared.com/article.asp?ai=903& online food storage
calculator? It analyzes how many days of food storage you have and it’s
nutritional content. It also makes to easy to order more from them. J
I don't really have time to revive Survive Magazine
(Col Brown's companion to Soldier of Fortune of which I was a columnist and
contributing editor). I gather there is an on line community doing much of
this.
==========
Further to Tom Brosz's recent letter
Tom Brosz wrote "The only place I've ever seen nations
run by corporate tyrannies is in science fiction".
Well, the British East India Company ran India and the
Dutch East India Company ran the East Indies for a long time. Also,
companies were heavily involved in colonialism in Africa, North Borneo and
the Pacific (Robert Louis Stevenson mentioned the German "long handled
firm", I think he called it, that tried to penetrate Samoa in his day). And,
technically, the Teutonic Order of Knights that operated and ruled lands in
Eastern Europe was a corporation too, just as the City of London was when it
transformed a city in Ulster from Derry to Londonderry. At least some of
those were tyrannies - I think the Congo Free State was structured as a
corporation, and that was definitely tyrannous.
Yours sincerely,
P.M.Lawrence
===========
: Photos of TSA t work
Jerry,
The photos and videos on this anonymous blog of TSA
patdowns are incredible, and probably illegal to take. What possible
justification can the TSA have for gloved pat-downs of two year old children
and 90-year old grannies in wheelchairs?
One page of this anonymous blog is sufficient:
Your daily dose of security theater.
http://thedailypatdown.com/
Henry Barth Ireland
============
China J20 strike fighter
Jerry,
Take a peek at China's new J20 strike fighter, now
entering ground checkouts prior to first flight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu_J-20
Sexy bird, almost a hybrid of an F-22 and the plane in
the old movie firefox. Inlets look almost identical to the F-35 inlets, nose
like the F-22 and F-35, as big as the old F-111, probable internal weapons
carriage, and non-stealthy exhausts like the F-35, sounds like a stealthy
deep penetration fighter.
Good thing we have a fleet of predators ready to hunt
these things down especially since the F-22 production line can't be
restarted and the F-35 isn't a very good air superiority platform. Maybe we
can lease back some new-build F-15s from Korea or Singapore if things get
tough.
Sean
Aircraft carrier and this, just before the US
SECDEF goes to China. Shocking! A leak? Really? Taxied around in broad
daylight...
===========
'Some estimates put the number of empty homes at as
many as 64 million, with up to 20 new cities being built every year in the
country's vast swathes of free land.'
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/
article-1339536/Ghost-towns-China-
Satellite-images-cities-lying-completely-deserted.html>
-- Roland Dobbins
=============
FBI Releases Hate Crime Report
IMPORTANT POINT BEFORE YOU READ THIS:
The FBI consideres Hispanics to be "white" when they
commit hate crimes. That is their offenses are thrown in with ours and
ethnic whites look like they commit a lot of hate crimes when they don't.
But when hate crimes get committed against them, they are regarded as
Hispanic. So, they are only counted when they are victims and not when they
victimize others. Keep this in mind when forming important opinions about
this issue. There is some serious distortion of the records going on here.
Also bear in mind that these figures are for a country of over 320,000,000
population. 7,789 "offenses" represent roughly one per every 411,000
citizens--hardly a national crisis. As crimes go (robbery, drug killings,
rape, bankster fraud, gang shootings) this is barely at a nuisance level
[LW]
FBI Releases 2009 Hate Crime Statistics
http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/
press-releases/2009hatecrimestats_112210
==============d
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