February 2012 – Page 3 – Chaos Manor

No FTL neutrinos; The Mesa Az debates; Every person’s personal drone

By Jerry Pournelle | Feb 23, 2012 - 1:00 am | Updated: February 23, 2012 - 1:00 am | View

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View 714 Wednesday, February 22, 2012

ALAS:

‘FTL neutrinos’ result caused by inattention to Pournelle’s Law?

<http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/neutrinos-faulty-cable/>

Roland Dobbins

The applicable Pournelle’s Law was one of troubleshooting: 90% of the time it’s a cable. I first formulated that back in S-100 days, and it’s still true. Now it may be that we’re better off without faster than light neutrons, but I for one regret that they’re going away. Of course this was always the way to bet it, but it was a more intereresting universe when everything we thought we understood was fundamentally wrong…

Of course we still have the situation where some large portion of the universe is composed of dark matter which we can’t see or detect, and dark energy which we can’t find but have to believe in on faith. Of course one explanation of the data that forces us to believe in these undetectables is a revised aether theory such as Petr Beckmann’s aether as an entangled gravitational field – see Einstein Plus Two by Beckmann, and that would be interesting. Do note that I’m playing games. I do wonder about the proliferation of hypothetical constructs and intervening variables in physics. I thought those were a monopoly of the social sciences…

The Republican Debates

I watched the CNN-moderated Republican candidate debates that took place this evening in Mesa, Arizona.

The clear winner was Newt Gingrich. The clear loser was Senator Santorum, who was often petulant rather than presidential. It wasn’t a fatal loss, but Santorum must learn to stop taking the bait. The moderator, and others, all tried to get him to jump Romney rather than be presidential, to defend some past record rather than state what he would do now, to be apologetic rather than positive – and Santorum rose to the bait every time. Then he got into a long term slanging match with Romney. Neither of them looked very good in that, and neither came off all that well, but Romney looked more presidential than Santorum. Senator Santorum really has to learn the first rule of campaigning: don’t let the opposition set the agenda. Don’t respond and react. Santorum’s touchiness won’t hurt him as President. He’s sound in principle, and unlike British Prime Ministers, don’t have to engage in debates unless they want to, and being able to debate isn’t terribly important one way or another in actually governing the country. Debate talent is important for campaigning for the office of President, but not for executing that office.

That, of course, is one of the major flaws of democracy. We require those who would be president to spend most of their lives learning how to get the office, and almost none on learning how to be President once they get there.

Incidentally, Newt knows this. Campaigning actually bores him. He prefers to be among smart people discussing possibilities, in a situation in which he doesn’t have to be guarded but can say what he thinks as the ideas spring up. Most fresh and original ideas aren’t all that useful. They can lead to something useful, but we don’t use the phrase ‘half baked” for no reason. Many half-baked ideas do bake out, sometimes into very good things indeed. But of course campaign debates are not the place to spring new concepts; those need discussing in private and among friends who aren’t playing ‘gotcha’. When Newt was an unknown Congressman making speeches about the nature of the Constitution to the empty House chamber after hours, he was quite different from when he was Minority Whip, and when he found that it might be possible to win a Republican Majority for the first time in forty years and he went into campaign mode he had to change once again. Part of that was time, but part was the requirements of campaigns.

His experience at this came across during the debate. He stayed on target, didn’t rise to the bait and use his time on petty denunciations of others or in reacting to some accusation, and he pretty well stayed on point: we’re in big trouble, and it’s going to take some fundamental and profound changes to get out of it. We’re going to need energy independence to break our enthrallment to the Middle East. Breaking our energy dependence is a first requirement for independence and liberty. Fortunately we have the resources; all we need is to get the government out of that way.

Ron Paul came off well. When asked what single word best described him, he said “consistency” and he’s right. He doesn’t have plans and programs for education because the Constitution doesn’t give the government any rights or powers over education. It’s not a matter for either Congress or the President. He applies this principle to most of the matters brought up. He’s also keenly aware that we are spending money we don’t have, much of it on matters the Federal Government has no Constitutional power to spend it on. His return to the first principles of Constitutionalism seems absolute, and as the campaign goes on you begin to realize that he really means it. Whether that’s possible – whether the American people even want such a thing – isn’t clear to me, and I suspect it is not clear to him; but that’s his position, and he’s going to stick to it. Ron Paul reminds me of John Quincy Adams. We are the friends of liberty everywhere, but we are the guardians only of our own. We do not go abroad seeking dragons to slay. We have enough to do preserving our own liberty.

Santorum said little I disagreed with, and many things I liked, but I found myself shouting at him when he took the bait and went off on another silly tirade either attacking someone else, or defending his record in the Senate. I know why he does it, but I would far rather he showed himself being presidential rather than reacting as if — but no, I’m not going to frame that image. Let’s just say that he’s capable of looking presidential, and has done so, notably the night he won in Iowa but at other times as well. His positions are consistent and generally defer to the constitution. He’d do better if he displayed them rather than apologizing for voting for No Child Left Behind.

Day of the Drone

The two links below point to something astounding.

There was a time when I was the world’s most informed authority on inertial guidance. This wasn’t because of my expertise, it was because I was editor of Project 75, the USAF comprehensive survey of ballistic missile technology, and I had both the clearance and the access authority – need to know – for all of that. The result was a report that I wrote or edited every page of, but which was classified at a need to know level above mine – which makes sense because it literally had everything we knew about our missiles and everything we thought we knew about everyone else’s. Naturally I could get at every part of the document, but not all of it at once, because the number of copies was limited for very good reasons. Anyway, in those days inertial guidance depended on mechanical gyroscopes, and electronics to get the gyroscopic data. We were developing and hoped soon to deploy gyros which used lasers to pick off the spin rates and other pertinent data, which would increase accuracy because reading the data wouldn’t affect the gyroscope as much as the current electronic means would.

But for all that, an inertial guidance platform with three axis gyroscopes and three axis accelerometers was a fairly large and terribly expensive thing. Moreover, the computer that this had to feed was large too. Our other analyses indicated that the major improvement we needed in the ICBM force was not number of warheads or large yields, but accuracies at intercontinental range; and that required on-board guidance computers. (Obviously you couldn’t use any kind of midcourse correction system: no ICBM could be allowed to accept instructions from the outside because that would instantly become the major one point vulnerability of the missile. But that’s another story for another time.)

On board guidance computers had to be made smaller and more powerful and one result was a recommendation for major investments in large scale integrated circuits.

Once all that was done – we had smaller and lighter gyros and accelerometers, and much more powerful and smaller computers with kilobytes of memory, we still ended up with guidance packages that were large, heavy, and expensive,

Now go look here: http://invensense.com/mems/gyro/mpu9150.html

What’s described is a gyro and accelerometer system. In chips. Micromachines. You can buy it to put into your game controller. You can add GPS if that’s not already in it; it’s just another chip. And for about $1700 you can get a quadricopter, a four motor helicopter, complete with control system, GPS, battery life of more than ten minutes, payload of more than a pound. It will fly to where you send it, to an accuracy of a couple of meters, using GPS to find it. It can be given altitude constraints. Such as stay more than 20 and fewer than 30 meters above the local ground level (there’s a camera so you can see obstacles to go over or around).

I will leave it as an exercise for the reader to think of the sort of things a geeky kid who has decided he really hates his school and those bullies who make his life miserable might come up with in a week of thought. I can think of things I might have done with something like that on a particularly lousy day. They’d probably involve sprayers and agar agar, or perhaps inorganic chemicals. Fortunately my geeky kid being bullied experiences were all when I was too young to do anything; by the time I was able to make nitroglycerine I didn’t have any such motives. I didn’t get bullied in high school because my friend was a very large guy who really really wanted to pass Latin…

But I do leave you with the thought for the day. Also I point out that guidance systems for drones don’t cost much. They’ll control fixed wing “model” aircraft of sizes up to tens of kilograms just as easily as they’ll control a small one pound payload quadricopter. The day when any geek can have his own personal drone is not only coming, it’s pretty well here.

Sleep tight.

https://store.diydrones.com/APM_2_0_Kit_p/br-ardupilotmega-03.htm

http://invensense.com/mems/gyro/mpu9150.html

Newt makes his case

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M415AGqnVrg&feature=player_embedded# !

If he would just keep this up.

Phil

Well, it does make his positions quite clear. I can say from personal experience that Newt talks like this and has done so since the 1980’s. He’s being interviewed so it’s not an interactive conversation, but he is paying attention to the questions. I’ve had conversations like this with him many times.

If you’re wondering about Newt, he directly answers the questions about his temperament. And as my reader says, he states his case quite well.

Slow recovery

By Jerry Pournelle | Feb 21, 2012 - 5:06 pm | Updated: February 22, 2012 - 12:07 am | View

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View 714 Tuesday, February 21, 2012

I’ve managed to get up the energy to work on the novella LEGEND OF BLACK SHIP ISLAND by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes, and get the final off to our agent. This will probably be published by our agent as an eBook. It’s about the size that novels were back in the Laser Books days, but it’s far to short for today’s print market. It still has to be formatted and the formatted copy has to be proof read so it will be a while.

I also used up all my energy. We have the opera tonight and I think we are sufficiently recovered that we can go out in public without endangering everyone although I will be careful to carry lots of handkerchiefs in case of coughing fit, and not to breathe on anyone.

I have several essays to write. The world goes on. I’ll try to be back on schedule tomorrow. We can hope.

The opera was Simone Boccanegra, one of Verdi’s early political operas written during the Risorgimento, but then revised two decades later. I had never seen it before. The soprano, Ana Maria Martinez, was great in some scenes and a bit soft in others. Since she’s sung major romantic leads – Mimi, Violetta among them – in the big and cavernous Los Angeles opera house, she knows what’s needed, and the reviews I’ve seen of this production have mostly praised her, I conclude she probably had an off night. It wasn’t our regular night either: we had to exchange our tickets (for nowhere near as good seats, alas) because we’ve been sick. Pity.

Of course the big star was Placido Domingo, who has been an opera great for more than fifty years. He still has the voice, and the acting ability. He sings baritone now and doesn’t have to reach high notes, which would probably be tough at his age. but in fact the age doesn’t show. It wasn’t difficult to believe him as a young mercenary captain from Pisa in the prologue (the rest of the opera takes place 25 years later). Boccanegra was an historic character, the first elected doge of Genoa. One presumes the Genoese adopted this office from Venice, which had been a Republic for centuries. The opera plot is twisted and complex and not always easy to follow; one presumes that Verdi’s contemporaries were able to follow the allusions to contemporary Italian politics better than we moderns can. Of course Italy was never really united until Mussolini negotiated his Concordat with the Pope. One wonders what Verdi would have made of that.

In any event, we much enjoyed the opera. I confess that I think I could have staged some of the scenes, particularly fight scenes, better, but I often think that. It has actually been many decades since I directed a stage production, and I’ve never directed the action in an opera, where the goal is not so much to emphasize dramatic action as to give the singers a chance to sound off properly.

And now it’s late and well past bed time.

Mostly babbling

By Jerry Pournelle | Feb 20, 2012 - 10:14 am | Updated: February 20, 2012 - 10:14 am | View

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View 714 Sunday, February 19, 2012

I am slowly recovering. Now to try to catch up. I may have some energy for working tomorrow.

I never did get this posted Sunday night, and it’s probably no great loss, but I’ll get it out now so it’s out of the way. I seem to be babbling. It’s hard to think when your head is entirely stopped up.

UN fails to act on Syria. Iranian cargo ship loaded to the gunwales docks in Syrian Mediterranean port along with Iranian frigate. Iran declares that the alliance with Syria is historic and sound. Syrian army continues to assault rebels. Iranian Republican Guard units land in Damascus and many more reported to be on the way.

The first year of Arab Spring has produced – what? We don’t know.

It will soon be Arab Spring year two. We are asked to take part, now in Syria.

Subject: Private Xombie rocket aces NASA landing test

A private suborbital rocket passed a landing test for NASA with flying colors this month in a succesful trial run of technology that could help future spacecraft touch down on other planets or moons.

On Feb. 2, Masten Space Systems <http://www.space.com/12197-commercial-suborbital-spacecraft-science-research.html> ‘ Xombie rocket rose 164 feet (50 meters) off a launch pad in the California desert, moved sideways the same distance, and then landed softly on another pad. The entire flight lasted just 67 seconds

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/02/18/private-xombie-rocket-aces-nasa-landing-test/?intcmp=features#ixzz1mqTm1mBN <http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/02/18/private-xombie-rocket-aces-nasa-landing-test/?intcmp=features#ixzz1mqTm1mBN>

Tracy

There is a ferment of activity in space research by private companies. This would be a good time to add some prizes to the mix of incentives.

We’ve all heard the story. Here’s the best coverage I have found:

http://christopherdiarmani.com/4544/self-defense-liberty/her-husband-died-on-christmas-day-and-she-had-to-kill-a-home-invader-on-new-years-eve/

Education, ADHD, zinc, David Friedman, and other matters

By Jerry Pournelle | Feb 19, 2012 - 2:49 pm | Updated: February 19, 2012 - 2:49 pm | Mail

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Mail 713 Saturday, February 18, 2012

Sacking Bad Teachers.

Jerry,

There was an account in the New York Times of an education authority that was sacking bad teachers with the full approval of their union. Let us hope this spreads. It will, if the number of teachers who really want to teach exceeds the number of teachers who want an unexacting and well paid career with guaranteed job security. <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/opinion/kristof-the-new-haven-experiment.html> <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/opinion/kristof-the-new-haven-experiment.html>

Glad you’re feeling better.

John Edwards.

In Los Angeles the teachers unions have so constipated the system that it is nearly impossible to fire even a flagrantly bad teacher – and any teacher who is about to be fired is given the opportunity to resign thus keeping an retirement and sometimes other benefits. That was the case with the teacher photographed feeding cookies with his male body fluids as frosting to 3^rd grade girls. He was removed from the classroom a year ago, but was allowed to resign. He’s now under arrest by the police – but even had he been arrested and convicted before he left the district he would have been able to resign before being axed. In his case he’s likely to be getting pension in prison, but he’ll still get it.

There needs to be some way to change all this, but the courts don’t approve of laws that reform the system. It may take something more drastic than that, because the system can’t continue to support this: there just isn’t enough money no matter how you raise the taxes. Paying more to retired than to working teachers is not likely to be a successful policy.

No one wants to discuss this because the unions are powerful, particularly in Los Angeles, and they all stand together. Solidarity and all that.

The American school system is one of the major reasons for continued unemployment. It fails the bright students in favor of the just below average, and it doesn’t teach much of any use at all to the way below average. The whole system needs rethinking, beginning with abolition of big unified districts in favor of smaller districts with their own school boards, and some education of those who want to be on school boards. It’s a nightmare in much of the country and the feds make it worse.

and the iron law always applies

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204059804577227542171881120.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEFTTopNews

Phil

Video Game Novelizations

They actually date back to the 80s. Alan Dean Foster did I think the first one, for a game called Shadowkeep, and the Zork games has some as well, as did The Bard’s Tale (Mercedes Lackey wrote a couple, I believe for one your publishers, Baen) and Might & Magic. George Alec Effinger wrote one of the Zork novels. His wasn’t so much a novelization of the game as a sequel, but a few of the others were more faithful to the games themselves.

It kind of disappeared when Japanese video games became dominant over PC ones, but now that has reversed (Western games are far more popular), so you are seeing it once again.

Jeremy Reaban

Yes, I was an early Zork player and was once asked to write a novel set in the Flathead kingdom; but by then I was successful in my own work and didn’t need to. All long ago. It is an interesting development. But as I said earlier, I don’t dare pay much attention to games developments now; I like them too much…

Food Police

Fwiw, the Little Village Academy in Chicago (part of Chicago Public Schools, CPS) bans children from bringing lunches from home and mandates that they eat the school lunch. This was reported in the Chicago Tribune in April 2011.

"(principal Elsa Carmona), to my surprise, confirmed that she does indeed prohibit home lunches because she believes the school lunch is healthier than what she has seen kids bring on field trips"

http://newsblogs.chicagotribune.com/tribnation/2011/04/q-a-do-chicago-schools-really-ban-kids-from-bringing-lunch-to-school.html

Original Article:

"Any school that bans homemade lunches also puts more money <http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-04-11/news/ct-met-school-lunch-restrictions-041120110410_1_lunch-food-provider-public-school#> in the pockets of the district’s food provider, Chartwells-Thompson. The federal government pays the district for each free or reduced-price lunch taken, and the caterer receives a set fee from the district per lunch. At Little Village, most students must take the meals served in the cafeteria or go hungry or both. During a recent visit to the school, dozens of students took the lunch but threw most of it in the garbage uneaten."

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2011-04-11/news/ct-met-school-lunch-restrictions-041120110410_1_lunch-food-provider-public-school

-R

Follow the money…

Interstate Highways

You wrote:

"When Eisenhower proposed the Interstate Highway system, it was largely proposed as part of a national defense system, and although it is forgotten now, part of the justification was the this would make it possible to build a large number of civil defense shelters…"

I don’t doubt it, and I’ve also seen it said — though honestly, the latest "authority" I’ve seen discuss it might be Lee Child in a Jack Reacher novel — that Eisenhower advocated the highways to allow large mobile army units to move rapidly within the US in the event of a war here, avoiding transportation problems he’d confronted in Europe. It’s a thought that might cross the mind of anybody familiar with the famous armored maneuvers in Louisiana before WWII, the ones where legend holds that Patton paid service station owners out of his own pocket for extra gas for his tanks.

–Mike Glyer

The Army during the 1920’s and 30’s had enormous difficulties getting units from one coast to the other, and this was imprinted deeply in most of the officers of that time. Eisenhower, an operations specialist, was very much one of them.

Highway bill

I’m willing to keep the currant federal gas tax if the federal government took over the interstate highway system from the states and used the federal gas tax solely to fund the system. An argument can be made that the interstate highway system is a federal issue.

And we can make Alaska and Hawaii happy and not charge the tax there since there are no "real" interstates in either state. Hawaii can keep and and maintain H1, H2, and H3 on its own. Same with Puerto Rico and the other unconnected islands.

Fredrik Coulter

In theory the gas taxes go into a Trust Fund that can only be spent on highways, but of course it never works quite as promised.

Real Reason For "Free" Contraception? buffy willow

Jerry,

Paul Rahe analyzes the politics of the Administration decision forcing Catholic institutions to provide contraception, agrees with your conclusion that it makes little practical sense, but goes on to say:

"This suggests that there can be only one reason why Sebelius, Pelosi, and Obama decided to proceed. They wanted to show the bishops and the Catholic laity who is boss. They wanted to make those who think contraception wrong and abortion a species of murder complicit in both.

They wanted to rub the noses of their opponents in it. They wanted to marginalize them. Humiliation was, in fact, their only aim, and malice, their motive."

Given the facts, it’s a disturbingly plausible argument. Interesting times…

Full Rahe column at

http://ricochet.com/main-feed/More-Than-a-Touch-of-Malice

sign me

Porkypine

subject: Election Coverage

Hi, Doc.

You know, it’s just occurred to me that Leftists talk about conservatism as much as atheists talk about God– i.e., more than anybody else does.

And for the same reason. They’re not engaged in disbelief– just denial.

Matthew Joseph Harrington

e pur si muove (the motto of consensus deniers since 1633)

We have a full consensus of astronomers that they Earth does not move. Stop being ridiculous.

SUBJ: David Friedman’s web site

Dear Jerry,

I suspect you already know David Friedman. However here goes anyway.

I have recently discovered the web site and associated blog of David Friedman (a/k/a "Cariadoc of the Bow" in olden SCA times – I have been using his medieval recipes cookbook for 25 years) son of Milton Friedman. His views rather remind me of yours – which is high praise indeed.

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/

http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/

Two items I found immediately interesting are

"Why We are Getting Smarter: A Conjectural Explanation"

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Miscellaneous/why_getting_smarter.htm

which is reminiscent of your piece on how the Ashkenazim improved their IQ.

and the following which I’m working through now and seems an excellent read. Witty and wisdom in shirt-sleeve English.

_The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism_ (2nd edn)

PDF file

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom_.pdf

E-book format

http://www.daviddfriedman.com/The_Machinery_of_Freedom.prc

My sincere best wishes for a speedy recovery for you and Roberta.

Cordially,

John

Long time readers will recall that David is a very old friend whom I still see although not as often as either of us would prefer. I used to quote him often in the old BYTE column.

We’re both pretty busy. David’s Machinery of Freedom tries to give practical libertarian solutions to a number of social and economic questions. It may be about the best book on that subject in existence; David is very logical and very consistent. He remains libertarian and I conservative; both our positions are more vectors than immediate policies. He writes pretty good, too.

ADHD –

Essay in Taki’s Mag that echos many of the views expressed here. Both amusing and likely spot on. I think you’ll like it.

So I’m not convinced that “ADD” and “ADHD” are anything more than ideas. At least that’s how it seems to me at the moment. I can be persuaded otherwise, but you’ll have to be very, you know, persuasive. I suspect that what is often misdiagnosed as Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder is actually Teacher Charisma Deficit Disorder.

After ignoring these so-called attention disorders for years, I did a little research and was surprised to discover that there are no blood or DNA tests needed for a diagnosis. A standard ADHD questionnaire <http://www.simonepstein.org/questionnaire_may06.htm> is chillingly vague. You can just fidget a lot, talk a lot, maybe act a little bored, then WHAM!—they’re scrubbing your brain with amphetamines.

http://takimag.com/article/losing_interest_in_attention_deficit_disorder

Dave

I am familiar with a very real case of autism. I think autism and Aspergers are overdiagnosed, but they are very real. As to ADD and ADHD, they were pretty well unknown when I was in graduate school in psychology, and in the short period when I had a psychology practice (in connection with a pediatrician) my specialty, indeed the only thing I did, was work with bright kids who were not doing well in school. I suppose they might have “had” ADD or ADHD, but even in the 1970’s that was not a usual diagnosis, and I found all my patients more easily treated by simply helping them find things they found interesting. Most were simply bored stiff with school; when I showed how their school work might provide some foundation for much more interesting endeavors, and how they could quickly move past what was being taught to other and more interesting things, they were “cured”. I never recommended drugs (couldn’t prescribe them but the pediatrician who owned the practice certainly could) because I never saw any need for them. I also taught some techniques for self discipline which had helped with me when I was in school bored stiff.

ADD and ADHD have created big industries and there are “specialists” with a big interest in keeping them going. The psychological DSM defines them and insurance companies will pay. It may be that there are real cases of a real disorder; I haven’t made a strong systematic study; but I have never seen anything I could call a “disorder” of that kind. I did see bright bored kids. But that is all we were looking for, so that’s not science…

The DSM defines ‘disorders’ that used to be considered fairly normal but unpleasant behavior.

do not track plus

You really want this.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/donottrackplus/?src=search

Phil

I will repeat this in another issue of mail. Firefox users take note. You want this.

Subject: Apple vs Amazon in ereader format smackdown

“Format wars are a mixed blessing for consumers. Whether it’s Betamax versus VHS or Blu-Ray versus HD-DVD, the consumer ultimately wins because companies have to advance superior technologies. But problems arise if the format you backed loses the war – and your device becomes next year’s expensive doorstop.

A new fight is emerging in epublishing between Apple iBooks and Amazon Kindle, with skirmishes between Barnes & Noble, Kobo and others. But the real battle is between the underlying formats: EPUB 3 and KF8”

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/02/06/ereader_format_wars/

It will be interesting to see how this plays out. I love my Kindle, but I really don’t care what format it uses. What I do care about is having one or the other of these companies gaining market share control and owning the most popular format, then jacking up the price. So far, I’ve not seen that kind of attitude from Amazon, but we’ve definitely seen it from Apple at the iTunes store.

Tracy

I agree. But I suspect technology will take care of this. Microsoft got rich setting standards. I expect Amazon will discover that secret. Amazon loses money on sales of the physical Kindle, so I would presume encourages apps that let Kindle books be read on other devices.

Volcanoes, rather than the Maunder Minimum, may have triggered the Little Ice Age?

New evidence (followed by modeling verification) on the origin and development of the Little Ice Age..

http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2012/02/eruptions-not-quiet-sun-may-have-triggered-little-ice-age.ars

Best,

Jon

And the battle of the models continues. We know that volcanoes can have dramatic climate effects.

Subject: Prevention and treatment of colds-zinc seems to work based on the Cochran reports (contains link to full Cochran report)

Dear Jerry,

You seem to be suffering from too many colds (one is too many for me). I read the Cochran analysis of Zinc for prevention and treatment of colds and they concluded that it seems to work to either fend off a cold and to reduce the duration and symptoms of a cold. The possible mechanism may be somehow affecting the ability of the virus to spread to other cells. Cochran did comment that the exact dose and frequency is not known as different studies used different doses. See information below.

However, Zicam and Cold-EEze have sprays, lozenges etc. CVS and Rite-Aid have generics. I have not had a cold in a year despite frequent travel and the last cold I had was very short and mild. This is not dispositive but it does seem to work.

One drawback is the zinc gluconate changes your sensation of taste for about 30 minutes to an hour after using and some people are more sensitive to this than others. I just avoid taking it before eating.

I hope this helps.

—

Kind regards,

Michael

Michael Montgomery, MD

Zinc for the common cold http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD001364.pub3/abstract;jsessionid=04E9C275F5D2808A2CDD6E3594406413.d02t02

I haven’t done this and I should. I hadn’t heard that these zinc based potions were useful for shortening symptoms after you already have the cold; and I didn’t see this when it first came in because, well, because I wasn’t up to reading my mail as closely as I should have been.

I’m getting over this mess, and I’m about to go out and buy a lock for the barn door for future… Thanks. I gather the CVS generic will do?

Education?

Dr. Pournelle,

I tried calling in to Sec. Bennett’s morning talk show some time ago. The subject was the benefit and correctness of "No Child Left Behind", more aptly teach to the lowest common denominator. He and his guest really did think that all children could utilize a college prep education. Maybe something to do with his education business, but I couldn’t believe that someone as intelligent as Bill Bennett didn’t believe that there was a distribution of talents and native intellect, and that some people were better as well as happier in "menial" jobs. I don’t know about you, but when my car is not working correctly or my A/C is on the fritz during a Texas summer I value the skills of a good technician at least as much as someone with a college education in sociology or Poli. Sci. How is it that we have lost the vision that our society necessarily contains a spectrum of jobs, skills, interests, and abilities that are not always tied to a college education? How is it that people that hold these "lesser" jobs get patronized by "upper" classes? I don’t want to go back to an agrarian/skilled labor economy of the 18th/19th century but I sure wish people still carried a similar mindset. How do we best protect economic mobility (beside cheap energy and reduced governmental interference) and individual liberty? I would be curious to know who you would consider a good read on this. Von Mises seems a good starting point, but who else do you think is authoritative on true capitalism?

Get over your cold soon. I need you to finish last installment of Janissaries as well as getting ‘Anvil’ published.

Douglas Lewis

A nation that has no use for half its citizens cannot survive. A great number of the ‘services’ now done by bureaucracies were taken care of by volunteer – what Tocqueville called ‘the associations’ through most of the life of the Republic.

That was one way to allow citizens in boring jobs and dull occupations to feel valuable to the community – there WERE valuable to the community. That is one reason for chopping back on government. Paying people to be unionized stupid is probably not a good thing for a Republic.

Making productive people more productive is an honorable job. That means helping them. We need to change our views about domestic service. I note that the TV sitcoms are beginning to do that.