| Friday,
January 22, 2010 Orion Battleship
I saw your comment: "It's not quite what I had
imagined, but it's very like something they might have made in the years
after Footfall. (That is, Michael was a much cruder affair. But I sure like
this.)"
I built the master parts for the Orion model...
designed in CAD, grown via stereolithograhy and hand-finished. The
"Battleship" is based on actual General Atomics designs from 1963. It is a
"real" design, though the weapons details are a bit speculative. It's
smaller than the Michael by a good amount, as can be seen in the scale
rendering here:
http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=3432
Scott Lowther
Thank you!
==
A better "Michael" from Footfall
Dr. Pournelle,
Subject: A better "Michael" from Footfall
While reading your current mail I followed the link to
see how the "Michael" from Footfall would look. What is shown is not the
"Michael" but there was a link to a conceptual CAD version of "Michael". The
link is
http://up-ship.com/blog/?p=3432 , look at the far right on the bottom of
the image. Now that's a battleship! Thanks for all you do!
Randy Christilles
Great pictures. For those interested in models, I
can also refer you to a page
here about INSS Macarthur.
While searching my recent mail for "Michael" I
found this:
Michael Crichton on science and scientists
Hello Jerry,
Michael Crichton 'belabors the obvious':
http://www.michaelcrichton.net/
speech-alienscauseglobalwarming.html
Since I agree with him, I am all charged up to have
you spread the Gospel far and wide.
You, of course, may 'beg to differ'. And act
accordingly.
On another note, you often mention the fact that there
is not much in the way of testable science going on in the climate science
community and suggest that it may be a good idea to do some before
committing trillions of dollars and the personal freedom of everyone on the
planet to stopping and/or reversing Global Warming.
The central theorem of Global Warming is that humans
are injecting large quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere as a byproduct of
Western Civilization, the anthropogenic CO2 is causing the temperature of
the Earth to rise precipitously, the rate of rise is increasing, and the
results of the rising temperature will be catastrophic.
To avoid the calamity, it is proposed that an
international body be created with worldwide authority to severely regulate
any human activity that releases CO2 into the atmosphere and to impose hard
limits as to the amount that can be produced. Current suggestions are that
an 80% reduction relative to today's production would be appropriate. It is
also suggested that in addition to limiting our production of CO2, active
measures be taken to remove CO2 from the atmosphere and sequester it.
Permanently. These are articles of faith.
Testable science, i. e. ACTUAL science may still have
a place at the table, at least potentially. (And NO, I DON'T think that
there is ANY chance that the science will be done. But I can suggest it
anyway.) So, here we go.
We KNOW (not suspect) that atmospheric CO2 is
essential for plant life, and by extension, OUR life. We also KNOW that
under controlled conditions, plants do better in atmospheres richer in CO2
than current world ambient. We also KNOW that the climate science community
considers the current ambient level too high and proposes that
political/technological action be taken--immediately--to stop the rise and
if possible reduce the level. We also know (if THOSE books haven't been
cooked along with the temperature data) that the current level is around 385
ppm.
Now for the 'testable science'. I propose that a dozen
large greenhouses be constructed. Large enough to house a large variety of
plants important to the human food chain. The environment in the greenhouses
should be controlled to be as identical as feasible, with the exception that
each greenhouse would have a different level of CO2, starting at 100 ppm and
going up to 650 ppm in 50 ppm steps. 100 ppm is below the level that is
achievable through strict limits on human production and/or sequestering and
650 ppm is above any level that we are likely to produce through our
'unrestricted race to dump CO2 into the atmosphere', at least in the
immediate future.
Plants would be planted and growth rates monitored.
Data would be compiled and reports written. Conclusions would be drawn as to
how our efforts to reduce CO2 would affect our food supply, should we be
successful. And how our food supply would be affected if we continue our
'unrestricted dumping of CO2'. The experiment would be cheap. And yes, I DO
understand that cheap is not necessarily a selling point when it comes to
establishing a government program. Of course the experiment would also be
cheap enough that a large number of private individuals could conduct it
with little financial strain and no government input whatsoever. Except for
the inevitable permits that would be required before it could be attempted,
naturally.
Just to confirm where I stand on the matter, I think
that a curtailed food supply is a FAR greater threat than a rise in sea
level of a foot or two, distributed over the next century.
Bob Ludwick
==
Update, re Climate data hack
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/
<http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2009/11/the-cru-hack/>
saying it doesn't show much at all
Michael Zawistowski
==
Global Cooling a Myth
An article that I read with teeth gritted:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/26/tech/main5423035.shtml
The AP gives global temperature data from the last
thirty years to four statisticians (without identifying it), and asks if
there has been cooling in the last ten. There hasn’t, at least not with
statistical significance.
Note the exquisite care used throughout the article:
They never ask the statisticians if there has been warming. A couple of them
note that one might perhaps find slight warming, but none says that it has
statistical significance. It’s clear that they weren’t asked. The Null
Hypothesis was, No cooling, and the article repeats it a number of times.
The only reason this came up was that a couple of
sources like Super-Freakonomics have mentioned that there has been cooling,
not warming, in the last decade. And of course, what they meant is that the
Alternate Hypothesis of – significant warming - has not been confirmed. Only
Jerry Pournelle cares about Global Cooling these days.
Michael
K R
Well, I still worry about it. I think the odds are
greater for warming than cooling, but there's a significant chance that it's
cooling -- and ice is a lot harder to adjust to than warming and longer
growing seasons.
==
And from a year ago:
http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/2009/Q3/view581.html#health
Home safely and all is well. Sable was
glad to see us. The house sitters took Sable for walks so she's not
too frantic about it.
You may find this interesting:
Who Will Tell Michael J. Fox to Die? <http://newsletter.spectator.org/t/y/l/kjlltl/ddjjpiul/r>
The points it raises are obvious but
perhaps personalizing them is the right way to get attention. The only
way we can have what amounts to free health care for all is to ration
it. Of course once that is done there will be gaming of the system.
Meanwhile they contemplate fat taxes.
Recall Lippidleggin' from my anthology Survival of Freedom...
Flippantly:
So if we give everyone food, we have to starve some of
them?
More seriously:
Health Care Will Not Reform Itself by Halvorson sets a
brilliant framework for the current debate. He presents a very convincing
case that quality improvements alone, which do require that doctors conform
to set protocols, will produce enough savings to pay for covering the
uninsured. BTW, Halvorson is CEO of Kaiser Permanente.
Regards,
Charlie
==
Health care reform:
“The demand for a free good is infinite”.
It is being trumpeted that the United States spends
nearly a sixth of its Gross Domestic Product on health care, much more than
any other developed country. That’s the problem. But I wonder - is it
necessarily a problem at all? We spend a vast amount of money on computers
and software, a far larger fraction of our Domestic Product than we did in
1980; probably dozens or hundreds of times as much. Is that a problem? Or
does it mean that computers have been enormously successful, so that a lot
of products are available that meet a lot of people’s needs in a way that
you couldn’t do in 1980? We buy ‘em because we want ‘em.
Why can’t that be true for health care as well? There
is obviously a very high commercial demand for products that improve our
health; for expensive lab tests, for expensive medical procedures, for
expensive drugs. Why is that bad? Doesn’t that mean that medical technology
has been tremendously successful and is producing a lot of ways to help
people that didn’t exist until recently? What - we can’t all afford
everything? Twice this last year I refused to buy prescribed drugs because
of the price. Does that mean I would rather that the drug companies can’t
afford to develop them at all?
I value good software, but I think that all of us
value good health even more. We are willing to pay a big chunk of our income
for it.
It is hard to quantify this kind of thing. There is a
tendency to compare life expectancies in various developed countries and
thereby conclude that the US has poor health care. But that isn’t very
helpful; maybe Sweden doesn’t have as many crack addicts dying of gunshot
wounds or something, or as many unwed mothers not getting proper prenatal
care. I believe that if you look at some specific treatment, like five-year
survival rates for prostrate cancer, the US is always near the top. It tends
to have available any treatment available in the world, plus some available
nowhere else. Certainly the lab where I work is continually upgrading its
instruments, its tests – and its prices.
American health care spending has roughly doubled in
the last ten years (
http://blog.american.com/?p=2991 ). Ask your local doctor: Is this
because you or your colleagues are ordering lots of tests you don’t need (as
President Obama said recently)? Or is it (also, partly, largely) because
there are tests, drugs, and techniques available now which you feel do a
clearly superior job?
Doesn’t necessarily mean that we shouldn’t set up some
kind of national system. As Mitt Romney pointed out when he set up
Massachusetts’ system (whatever its faults), we already pay to take care of
everyone, in emergency rooms. That’s ridiculous; if we’re going to require
that everything must be treated, it makes sense to try to do it more
sensibly. But turning the rest of the system upside down because of that
group will, I think, kill a lot of people. So will “cutting costs”, if that
means placing a cap on what the industry can earn.
Best regards,
mkr
I agree with the last paragraph but the basic
publicly paid system has to be limited to essentials; and that will not
happen.
===========
'Now picture her expression as
the TSA employee started to smile.'
<http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/
20100121_Daniel_Rubin__It_was_no_joke
_at_security_gate.html>
-- Roland Dobbins
Kabuki Theater in action.
==========
Subject: No New Taxes!
Gosh Jerry - you seem to be buying into the "Tea
Party" line a lot lately. Brown's election is more a symbol of what is right
about the Tea Party line than anything else I can think of, but that is
still precious little. Nor does it say much of anything about the Democrats.
In general, this Tea Party line is nothing more than
the Neocons coming up with another way to scare and agitate the public.
Anger *always* comes from fear, and so the Tea Party, obedient to their
neocon masters, agitates it's membership to produce fear. The end result? A
lot of Fox friendly snarling and snapping, and a lot of yapping. In this
case, enough to get Brown elected. Personally, I think that is a good thing,
not because of the Tea Party line, but because it defangs the Senate a bit.
I would have been just as happy if the parties had been reversed. (i.e.
Republican control lost to a Democrat.)
I still fear we are going to have another Civil War,
and this time, it will so throughly wreck the country that we may never
recover. Or the end result might more resemble Russia than the U.S. It won't
be between the North and the South this time, but between those who side
with the Tea Party, and those who just want to be left alone - which is most
everybody I suppose.
Do not forget, in a Republican controlled U.S., you
either support the Republican agenda or you are "un-Americun." And lord
forbid you want to exercise any personal rights, or rail against some kind
of unfair discrimination.
Of course, objectively, Democrats may not be much
better - and have their own "tea party" group. But, Democrats are not as
unified as the Republicans as a group; they agree on fewer things, and as a
consequence, appear to be far more tolerant of odd or fringe behavior than
Republicans. This is not a bad thing, in my opinion.
-Paul
That is not my view. The nation is very much
divided, but not to civil war levels. In the War Between the States the
conflict had some geographical limits. This time it would be Bleeding
Kansas, more similar to Lebanon than Bull Run and Cold Harbor. God save us
from that.
==
Tea Party
Doctor Pournelle,
A response by one of your contributors has me in a
quandary.
Quoting "Paul",
"Gosh Jerry - you seem to be buying into the "Tea
Party" line a lot lately. Brown's election is more a symbol of what is right
about the Tea Party line than anything else I can think of, but that is
still precious little. Nor does it say much of anything about the Democrats.
In general, this Tea Party line is nothing more than
the Neocons coming up with another way to scare and agitate the public.
Anger *always* comes from fear, and so the Tea Party, obedient to their
neocon masters, agitates its membership to produce fear."
I've followed the Tea Party fairly closely. I even
attended part of the demonstration in Washington City. Where, and who, are
these neo-cons Paul speaks of? There is quite a bit of resistance in the
movement towards accepting or allowing, nominally "conservative",
Politicians like Newt to speak at Tea Party events. From what I see and hear
there is no tolerance at all for RINOs (republicans in name only) at any of
the events (not that the RINOs haven't tried to co-op us). The people I know
in the Party equate "neo-con" with Liberal and wish nothing to do with them.
Thank you for what you do.
Best Regards,
Paul T.
Your observations are fairly close to mine. I
published the note because it was startling, not because I agree.
I think it is a mistake to make ideologies out of
party politics. What is needed is a consensus that there is too much
government and too little subsidiarity and transparency. What I want is a
time when I don't have to be frightened if my party loses. I haven't had
that assurance since the liberals decided that the tigers are gone and we
can get on with progressivism. But then I never felt very assured when my
party won the elections either. I do not believe the United States should
roam the world looking for dragons to slay, or that Washington ought to be
more important to my life than my own city.
=========================
Report: Boots Back Home: Haiti,
piece by piece...
Jerry, FYI.
---- To my family, friends and friends of friends -
First of all, I am humbled by the outpouring of
support that Carla and I have received since last Friday when I received the
offer to jump on a medical supply plane to fly to Haiti.
The details of our journey would challenge even the
most interested of you to endure, so I won't belabor that. I would like to
distill my experience down as best I can and share what I've learned from my
time on the ground among the Haitian folks I was blessed to encounter.
The Haitians are an amazing culture. I found them
friendly, patient, appreciative and incredibly resilient. They are, for a
variety of reasons, thoroughly impoverished, and most in the country lack
what we would consider even the most basic of daily needs. The average per
capita income is $300.
Per year.
The damage resulting from last week's earthquake is
devastating. As I watched CNN coverage this afternoon, and replayed the
events of the last few days in my head, I can assure you that the images are
every bit as tragic as they seem. The damage is beyond belief. The suffering
is palpable. The smells are real. But the people are not broken in spirit.
One Haitian told me that his advice to those around
him is "patience". He said they have a saying in Haiti, "Piz a piz"
(phonetically) which translates to "piece by piece".
There are amazing missionaries representing Christ
throughout the country. Most of the guys and girls I met are pouring their
energy into the children, either through childrens' homes, orphanages or
support centers. Two in Jacmel I would direct your support to are "Hands and
Feet" and "Joy in Hope". I've rarely seen people "walk the walk" like these
people. They are changing lives every day.
We also had the opportunity to interact with various
military personnel on a daily basis.
We joined with a Canadian expeditionary force on
Monday in Jacmel to assess the injured people in that town. Jacmel was cut
off from any possible ground support from Port au Prince (as if there was
any to share, right?), though greatly effected by the quake as well. The
Canadians have chosen to direct their efforts into that town, and should
have a field hospital up and running by Friday. They will ease the suffering
quickly when that is done. They were very professional and clearly motivated
to help.
After we arrived at the airfield in Port au Prince, we
connected with the US military medical personnel as well. These guys are
working hard and doing great work. We also met several other civilian
orthopedic surgeons and medical personnel that were trying to get more
supplies flown in. The docs in the local hospitals had lots of patients, but
few beds and were either out of medical supplies or medications.
The way Port au Prince is currently managed, the UN
has responsibility for the city and the US military has control over the
airspace and the airfield and is managing the huge amounts of material being
brought in for distribution. This is an air field that typically sees 5-15
flights a day. It is a single runway. They are now coordinating up to 280
flights a day! Every incoming flight has a specific time slot assigned. It
is not negotiable. Every flight and its contribution is carefully and
specifically assessed with regard to its need and time/space available.
I have chosen to address this specifically, because
reports through the media have - either out of frustration or the need for
even higher drama - continued to highlight the lack of supplies, portraying
it as some sort of dereliction. I spoke with a Major in charge of assigning
flight slots about this specifically, since I had been in contact directly
with a major orthopedic trauma supplier that was having trouble getting to
the island.
What we all need to understand is that the one
airstrip that is available must supply 2 million people a day with food and
water. The number of flights necessary to make that happen is enormous,
maybe more than they can handle. So they are always playing catch-up just
supplying the necessities. Add to that the influx of military personnel,
both US and UN, and you have a logistical nightmare. If they are able to
restore the port to a usable state, the supply side of the equation will
quickly be solved.
In the meantime, decisions have to be made with regard
to what is essential at that time, based on best information, and I'm
personally glad that someone else is making those incredibly hard decisions.
They care, deeply, about what they are doing, and they are doing their best.
I've never met a finer, more dedicated group of young men and women in my
life, and I am proud of what they are doing in this crisis in the name of
our country.
Medically, all around Haiti, the problem appears
purely logistical as well. Every health care provider I spoke with said the
same thing: the problem is not personnel. Doctors, nurses and the rest are
in the country and ready and willing to work. There are no facilities that
anyone could identify that needed more help at this time. Remember, mounting
injuries do not necessarily equate to an increased need for providers. The
rate-limiting step in this arena is access; access to facilities, beds, OR's
and supplies.
As an illustration, The Methodist Hospital has 900
beds; Ben Taub, 650. There are 30 "hospitals" in the entire Port au Prince
metropolitan area on a good day. Three have over 100 beds. Total beds, all
institutions, 3.5 million people: around 1600. And that was before the
earthquake.
There are an estimated 250,000 injured to a variable
degree.
Do the math.
They need more beds and more supplies (from a medical
perspective) more than anything, regardless of what Anderson Cooper tells
you. It broke my heart when messages starting pouring in about how "doctors
were desperately needed" in Port au Prince, according to the media. I knew
that surgeons all over the country would be thinking about doing what we did
- jumping the first flight to Haiti to try and ease the need.
What they need are more hospital beds and OR's, and
that is exactly what is happening day by day. The arrival of the USNS
Comfort today adds 1000 patient beds, 80 intensive care unit beds, 950 naval
hospital staff and 12 operating rooms.
So what do YOU do?
My family will be praying - for the broken folks, for
the hungry, for the thirsty, for our soldiers, for the pilots and drivers,
for the medical staff. They need wisdom, discernment, faith, safety,
protection, hope, courage and patience.
My family will be giving - to the orphanages, to the
suppliers (like World Food Program), to the Red Cross, to anyone else that I
think needs it more than we do.
My family will be planning - on how we can contribute
with our "hands and feet", walking the walk, as it were. I want to go back
soon. I will plan better next time. I will connect with an organization that
can best direct my skills, perhaps to a facility where the staff needs a
break or a respite of sorts. And I want to take my family to Jacmel, to meet
these folks that have given their lives to love children that no one else
would love.
I'll close saying thanks again for your prayers for me
and my family. I felt every one. Through God, they gave me the courage to do
things that were beyond what I could do alone.
Let's not waste this earthquake. Let's be both
persistent and patient. Let's make life better for these wonderful people in
the end and show them more of what the love of our Saviour looks like.
Blessings,
Dave
<http://clk.atdmt.com/GBL/go/196390709/direct/01/>
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