| Monday
January 26, 2009 Mostly short shrift.
It's late and I need to get to bed. Greetings from Tyson's Corners
Crime and punishment buffy willow
Dr Pournelle
I hope you enjoy this from News of the Weird <http://www.newsoftheweird.com/>
for the WEEK OF JANUARY 25, 2009 under the heading "Least Competent
Criminals": Wrong Place, Wrong Time: Torvald Alexander, 39, was able to
chase away the unlucky home invader who hit his apartment on Dec. 31 in
Edinburgh, Scotland, according to a BBC News report. The two men
inadvertently came face to face just as Alexander was preparing to leave for
a New Year's party, dressed in full regalia as Thor, the hammer-wielding
Norse god of thunder. Alexander said the burglar took one look at him,
turned and climbed hurriedly out a window, sliding down a sloped roof and
landing on the ground, where he took off running. [BBC News, 1-2-09]
Live long and prosper
h lynn keith
===========
We're Doomed!
> "At 4 °C we could not survive with even
one-tenth of our current population."
I currently live in the Rio Grande Valley. An area
that is quite a bit more than 4 degrees C higher in temperature than the
rest of the US. Winter means that you put on a long sleeve shirt a few days
out of the month and possibly a jacket one day a month. Half the time you
are still in shorts and a t-shirt.
The results of this catastrophe is that this area is
the vegetable and fruit garden of Texas and the farmers grow some crops year
round.
Gene
There is always an ecology...
=========
A paean of sorts....
Just wanted to say that your site is one of the few I
visit that are worthy of being opened in a fresh browser session.
This is mostly because so many of the links are good,
and so many references invite a quick opening of an extra tab to search for
the background on said reference(s) before proceeding.
I swear, it's almost like a plant growing, or a bud
bursting open and flowering.
Happy New Epoch, and may all go as well as we hope,
rather than as poorly as we fear!
Doug Hayden
Thanks
==========
Harry Erwin's Letter from
England
Most of the British I have talked with were gobsmacked
watching the American inauguration. They really don't understand us. The
foreign students, though, did--most of them want to be part of us.
A few definitions of terms I've used:
. bloody-minded--obstructive, not helpful. The bank
clerk who closes his window for a tea break with a long line of customers
waiting.
. jobsworth--a bloody-minded low-ranking official who
does exactly the tasks in their job description and no more. "I can't do
that, it's more than my job's worth". An older term is "Little Hitler".
. gobsmacked or gobstruck--'gob' is a Northern term
for the mouth, related to 'gab', and gobsmacked means caught by surprise,
astounded.
Answer to your query: Antarctica appears to be
melting. The ice shelves are breaking up and retreating. That's not a risk
as long as the break-up is restricted to the floating parts, but becomes a
risk when it affects the grounded ice. See the 22 January issue of Nature
for a paper by Steig et al. that discusses the evidence for warming.
Recession hits here < http://tinyurl.com/be7xcc>,
<http://tinyurl.com/b3xh3m
>
Denis Healey criticises Brown tax plans < http://tinyurl.com/d6hz7r>
I wouldn't mind this happening at all: < http://tinyurl.com/arw2kt>
--
Harry Erwin, PhD, Program Leader, MSc Information
Systems Security, University of Sunderland.
< http://scat-he-g4.sunderland.ac.uk/~harryerw>
Weblog at: < http://scat-he-g4.sunderland.ac.uk/~harryerw/blog/index.php>
==========
C Northcote Parkinson
Hi Jerry,
You recently commented on the connection between your
Iron Law and Parkinson's (1st) Law. Parkinson's Law states that work expands
to fill the time available.
Your Iron Law also coincides with Parkinson's 2nd Law
which he described in his 1960 book "The Law and the Profits". "Expenditures
rise to meet income".
Both books, for all their somewhat tongue in cheek
tone are deadly serious. Parkinson cites a lot of statistics about the
growth of the British Royal as well as Naval bureaucracies. Best quote from
Parkinson's Law is:
"The campaign of Waterloo might have been directed
from poky offices around the Horse Guards Parade. It was, by contrast, in
surroundings of dignity that were approved the plans for attacking the
Dardanelles."
I had found a copy online 6-7 years ago at the
Novogorod University Library and assigned it as a supplemental text in an
MBA class on organizational theory I used to teach. The students loved it.
I might also point out that Parkinson was not just a
humorist, he was a serious writer of business books. He was also a serious
naval historian and wrote history as well as a dozen or so historical novels
of the Royal Navy in the time of the Napoleonic Wars. They were along the
lines of Forrester's Hornblower or O'Brien's Aubrey/Maturin series. Very
entertaining reading.
I've not been able to find much of Parkinson's work
over the years since first reading Parkinson's Law in grad school in the
70's. Books On Tape used to have a few and every now and then I will find
one in a used bookstore. All that I found have been well worth reading.
Wikipedia says he published over 60 books and lists a
number of them but not a complete bibliography.
Be Well
Best,
John R Henry CPP
=============
The tragedy of compassionate conservatism
Jerry,
http://townhall.com/Columnists/
MarvinOlasky/2009/01/23/the_
tragedy_of_compassionate_conservatism
As the Bush administration ended, reporters who
credited or discredited me with developing "compassionate conservatism"
asked for an assessment. Most hoped that I'd dump on Bush, as so many
others have. I didn't oblige, but honesty requires the mention of
disappointment. <snip>
With a few exceptions (the White House
finally set up several voucher programs, including Access to Recovery <http://www.worldmag.com/articles/14465>
for addicts and alcoholics), individuals are not choosing and layers of
government officials are. <snip>Much of the federal effort has
emphasized building capacity in the suites to apply for the next grant.
Too little has affected lives on the streets. <snip>
... Bush staffers have teed up the ball
perfectly for the new administration to send taxpayer dollars to Obama
supporters at liberal religious groups that swing votes but don't change
lives.
J
===========
Of airline interfaces and junior officers
Dear Sir:
You wrote: "It took me about an hour to find out that
when American Airlines asks for the "record location" when you try to
confirm your reservation, what they want is a six letter code that is
associated with the entire trip."
Every other airline calls this the "confirmation
code". They understand a basic principle of software engineering that
American somehow forgot: that no one cares what happens inside the black
box. That the six-letter code is the hash table lookup for your reservation
data in the American computer database is completely irrelevant to you; what
is important is that it proves you to be in possession of the knowledge of
the reservation yourself. (It does NOT prove the reservation to be for you;
that can only be done in person at the airport.) Why would anyone except
American's coders care what the data structures of their computers are?
---
On the importance of junior officers: It has not
escaped my attention, in my self-taught lessons in the history of the
twentieth century, that coup leaders are as often titled "Colonel" as
"General", and that "Generals" are more likely to lead coups in smaller
countries. There is an underlying cause to this pattern.
Orson Scott Card made the same observation you did
(using WWII Japan as his example), but stated that the most critical
individuals are actually the *middle-ranking* officers. The Lts. and
Captains may be the disgruntled members that are the muscle, but
individually they have too few troops and too little experience to pull
anything off. It is the majors, colonels, and brigadiers that actually plan
and execute, or refuse to do so...
--Catfish N. Cod
Roland reminds me that it's "record locator", which
means perhaps even less. Ah well, once learned probably never forgotten. It
all worked and we're here.
=============
: Burnham's "The Machiavellians"
http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?kn=BURNHAM&tn=Machiavellians&x=87&y=7
Bruce Baker
============
Jerry, you can download Burnhams book from the
Internet Archive, here..
http://www.archive.org/details/TheMachiavellians
Best wishes on your continued recovery!
Randy Stallings
I don't know the status of the copyright but in any
event the estate gets no royalties from used book sales. Of course used book
sellers don't survive without business.
============
"Mark," Calculus Ripoff, Friday, Chaos Manor Mail,
January 23, 2009
The truth is that new editions of the more elementary
mathematics textbooks differ mostly in having the problem sets switched
around. This has two purposes-- first to sell more books, of course, and
second, to keep cribbing within bounds. Talking about cribbing is rather
depressing-- one of my favorite old professors used to say "the only person
you cheat is yourself"-- but it does seem to exist as an unpleasant reality.
There is a tendency for new editions to drop material
which there is insufficient time to cover, given the kind of students who
are taking the courses. I think it makes people uncomfortable to have
visible evidence that they aren't covering everything they might cover.
Richard Courant's two-volume, two-year calculus textbook, published 1934-37,
has assorted topics which have dropped out of more modern textbooks, eg.
integral equations and calculus of variations. The textbook author, perhaps,
has a tendency to wishful thinking about what students are capable of, and
this excess gets weeded out in subsequent editions.
I don't know whether it would be economically
practical, but one could write computer programs to generate problem sets in
many instances. For example, one could write a program to generate
polynomials of degree five to nine, and of two to four terms, with varying
coefficients. and then add instructions to the student to differentiate or
integrate them. Perhaps a couple of hundred such programs would cover the
scope of a freshman calculus textbook. I suppose that such a collection of
programs could be built into a tutor program, which would generate new
problems on the fly, present them on a screen, and grade them. The advantage
of such a system would be that it would be more or less uncribbable.
The last time I checked, I found that Walter Rudin's
_Principles of Mathematical Analysis_, used for junior-level Advanced
Calculus courses, is still in the third edition of 1976, the first edition
being that of 1953. I was surprised to find that the copy I bought about
twenty-five years ago is still the current edition. Of course, the problems
for this book consist primarily of proving the assertions glossed over in
the text, and changing them would involve a substantial rewrite job. More to
the point, however, is that no one who is not a math major, or the
equivalent, is likely to encounter this book. People like that are not
associated with the fraternities which maintain files of old examination
papers. However, I understand that with the advent of the internet, Rudin,
v.3 is showing its age. People can privately google for solved problems.
Andrew D. Todd
I am unsure of the motivation for cribbing on
distance learning where the goal is to learn and not to get grades. But
credentialism certainly encourages cheating. If you can call getting past
stupid regulations cheating. There is more than one essay in this
subject.
==========
A subscriber explains:
PNR
Jerry,
A bit of truly useless information. Internally,
AA-speak refers to a reservation as the PNR, Passenger Name Record. Hence
the phrase "record locator." And yes, even for employees the system is truly
the most user-hostile interface imaginable.
In the last few years, they have been doing a full
upgrade from the old Unix VAX system at Tulsa. Of course this would be a
great opportunity to rationalize the system. Nope. There are so many people
who have learned to use the old one that they are duplicating it. Sigh.
Alan Biddle
AAer, retired
I concluded they don't really want passengers. I'm
used to dealing with the really bright young ladies in the Admiral's Club in
which I got a life membership by turning in a half million mile club card
many long years ago...
============
People are waking up to the flaws in carbon
trading schemes
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090125/
ap_on_re_as/china_s_golden_dams/print
China dams reveal flaws in climate-change weapon
By JOE McDONALD and CHARLES J. HANLEY, Associated
Press Writers Joe Mcdonald And Charles J. Hanley, Associated Press
Writers 12 mins ago XIAOXI, China –
The hydroelectric dam, a low wall of concrete
slicing across an old farming valley, is supposed to help a power
company in distant Germany contribute to saving the climate — while
putting lucrative "carbon credits" into the pockets of Chinese
developers. But in the end the new Xiaoxi dam may do nothing to lower
global-warming emissions as advertised. And many of the 7,500 people
displaced by the project still seethe over losing their homes and
farmland. "Nobody asked if we wanted to move," said a 38-year-old man
whose family lost a small brick house. "The government just posted a
notice that said, 'Your home will be demolished.'"
The dam will shortchange German consumers, Chinese
villagers and the climate itself, if critics are right. And Xiaoxi is
not alone. Similar stories are repeated across China and elsewhere
around the world, as hundreds of hydro projects line up for carbon
credits, at a potential cost of billions to Europeans, Japanese and soon
perhaps Americans, in a trading system a new U.S. government review
concludes has "uncertain effects" on greenhouse-gas emissions.
One American expert is more blunt. "The CDM" — the
4-year-old, U.N.-managed Clean Development Mechanism — "is an excessive
subsidy that represents a massive waste of developed world resources,"
says Stanford University's Michael Wara.<snip>
Unintended consequences, or "don't cafre"
consequences...
==========
Flat Earth
Dear Jerry,
More to the “flat earth” tale:
“The first known world map in the classical world
appeared in 5th century Athens. Borrowing from Alexandrian models, the
Romans with their imperial responsibilities, recognized the practical value
of cartography. A world map was commissioned by Julius Caesar, probably as
part of a triumphal monument he built on the Capitol in Rome, which showed
him in a chariot with the world, in the form of a globe, at his feet.
Augustus commissioned his deputy Agrippa, to work on a more detailed world
map, the Orbis Terrarum (“globe of the earth”.) This showed hundreds of
cities linked by Rome’s network of roads.”
The map reached from Britannica to Taprobane (Sri
Lanka)
“The First Emperor,” Anthony Everitt, pg. 276
Larry May
Ireland
=============
GateHouse Media case against
NYTimes goes to trial (AP) by AP: Yahoo! Tech
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090125/
ap_on_hi_te/gatehouse_new_york_times_2
Dear Jerry:
A followup: I've read Gatehouse's complaint and from
my own adventures in the Copyright Wars, can offer the following. 1),
Copyright cases are always about the money. and 2). You can't call it "Fair
Use" if you make money on the deal, especially if you damage someone else's
profits or brand. Again, in the interests of fair disclosure, I do own stock
in Gatehouse Media.
Sincerely,
Francis Hamit
==
NYT, Gatehouse release settlement details - Daily
Business Update - The Boston Globe
http://www.boston.com/business/ticker/2009/01/nyt_gatehouse_r.html
Dear Jerry:
The New York Times caved...or did they? The basic
issue is unresolved and they can continue to link to other sites. As I said,
the Federal Courts hate copyright cases. A Magistrate Judge headed this one
off at the pass and settled the case. Copyright law has not kept pace with
the realties and needs another revision.
Sincerely,
Francis Hamit
==========
Obama calls for 'space weapons ban'.
<http://www.reuters.com/article/news
One/idUSTRE50O15X20090125?sp=true>
- Roland Dobbins
I have no idea what that means, but I'd
rather compete on technology than with real bullets. See Strategy of
Technology...
===========
Solar Energy Company CEO: Economy Bad, Washington
Good, Solar Prospects Good for the Coming Year
Dr. Pournelle:
The link contains statements from Dean Marks, CEO of
Premier Power, a supplier of solar energy systems.
If I may, his perspective seems to be that the economy
might be terrible, but that lowers the cost of materials to make solar
systems, and since the new administration will subsidize solar power,
business is going to be great!
http://www.solardaily.com/reports/
Premier_Power_CEO_Issues_Statement
_Regarding_Solar_Industry_In_2009_999.html
Jeff Larson
Webster, Texas
============
Parkinson's books
Jerry,
On the dubious grounds that I have just paid $350 for
some new books perhaps you would tell John R Henry CPP about ABE books. I
recently upgraded my collection of Parkinsons to hardback for a modest cost.
The ABE advanced search url is:-
http://www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/SearchEntry
John Edwards
============
Antarctic warming?
Maybe not
http://is.gd/hiOg
It may be another case of Mann-made global warming.
Steve Chu
==
Regarding the Antarctic Claims of Steig et al.
Dr. Pournelle,
The Telegraph is not a scientific journal of course,
so this article
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/
4332784/Despite-the-hot-air-the-
Antarctic-is-not-warming-up.html may be so much hot air, but
I thought you might find it worth glancing at in light of Harry Irwin's
citation of Steig's paper in _Science_.
Best wishes.
Jason Bontrager -- "Lose" has only one "O".
==========
Harry Erwin's Letter from England
He wrote "the British... really don't understand us".
It's worth recalling one of Homer Simpson's immortal
lines to Lisa: "Just because I don't care doesn't mean I don't understand".
As far back as the 19th century the Trollopes, mother and son, described the
US tendency towards parades and towards asserting that the USA was the best
place on earth. We understand, oh we understand that everybody would feel
that way about his own - it's just that we wouldn't make such a big deal
about it or feel the need to demonstrate it, British understatement and so
forth. Actually, I think there was a line in the Mote in God's Eye that came
over a bit like that, talking about how it was worth having a parade because
of how parades always impressed people so much. For us, that only works well
when there's something of substance there too - some of which the recent
inauguration had for USAians (although hey, it's every few years, not once
in a lifetime) but not really for anybody else. That's not anti-Americanism,
I feel the same way about the Olympics: it's all rather a bore.
Yours sincerely,
P.M.Lawrence
===========
Re: Space Weapons Ban
If you look at what's actually being said, you'll see
that this is yet another case of "It's Only Different Because It's Obama
Doing It". The only substantive statement in the position is that
interference with the operation of satellites shouldn't be allowed. This has
been the position of the US Government for the past fifty years, although
policy-makers are always coy about whether or not such interference would
constitute a strategic attack (which implies a strategic response.)
So, really, Obama is just making comforting noises
about bad things that are scary. Bush refused to do this, which is why
everyone called him a bastard warmonger.
-- Mike T. Powers
================w
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