View 765 Monday, March 04, 2013

Silicon is cheaper than iron:

Seagate to stop production of 7200RPM laptop drives –

Hi Jerry,

Here’s a break from politics, and back to technology.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/03/seagate-is-done-making-7200rpm-2-5-pure-hard-disk-drives/

I’m not sure I agree with their reasoning, but I did switch to Western Digital a while ago – their 7200 RPM Scorpio Black 750 GB laptop drive is my standard. I’ve dropped those into a dozen or so Mac, without a single issue or failure.

I’d had a number of Seagate drives fail outright, and then tried two of the Momentus XT’s, but my experience was rather poor they are incompatible with many whole-disk encryption solutions, and both the ones I tried were bad out of the box or failed shortly after install. Many folks at my company have had the same issue – particularly with Mac’s. It’s the wrong time of the year, but I’d award the Momentus XT a half-orchid/half-onion. Great idea, poor execution.

Still, it shows the impact of falling SSD prices. Eventually spinning disks may head the way of the dodo for laptops (but for desktop storage, magnetic is still king).

Cheers,

Doug

Way back in S-100 Bus days I said that “Silicon is cheaper than iron,” and predicted that the future of spinning metal as mass storage was limited; it would be taken over by chip-based drives. That turned out to be true, but it took a long time for it to happen. What I had not factored in was that the new computing power – faster CPU’s, faster and cheaper memory – would influence the efficiency of hard drives. Once I saw that new software making use of the new computer power was being used to guide greater accuracy in machining spinning metal, and even more to the point to make for better data separation thus increasing dramatically the amount to be stored on a hard drive, it was clear that spinning metal had a longer future than I had thought.

Moore’s Law is inexorable, though. Exponentials generally are. Of course this is not a true exponential, is an S-curve or ogive, and at some point it will level off – exactly as the hard drive technology was on an S-curve with ever rapid improvements in speed and data storage eventually levels off. We discussed S-curves in The Strategy of Technology, a book which still holds up and is still used in some military planning circles. Although the examples were all drawn from the Cold War and need to be updated, the principles remain true.

My prediction that silicon drives would obsolete spinning metal drives took a long time to come true, but it seems finally to be coming to pass.

Silicon is cheaper than iron. And that has consequences.

What is truth?

Friscos for Scientists I: “Correlation Does Not Imply Causation”

http://bigthink.com/e-pur-si-muove/friscos-for-scientists-i-correlation-does-not-imply-causation

Interesting article on overuse of statistical terminology.

-Dave

It is a well done article which points to another on Slate that I have not read. Of course correlation implies causation. It does not prove causation. It does suggest hypotheses. Hypotheses which can be falsified can make theories increasingly likely to contain truth. That’s the way science works. Of course some correlations generate theories that can’t be tested.

Obama DHS Purchases 2,700 Light-Armored Tanks to Go With Their 1.6 Billion Bullet Stockpile

Posted by Jim Hoft on Sunday, March 3, 2013, 9:55 PM

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/03/obama-dhs-purchases-2700-light-armored-tanks-to-go-with-their-1-6-billion-bullet-stockpile/

Which raises the question of why?  Has the Congress gone mad, or does it not know of these expenditures? Given the cuts due to sequestration, it would seem to me that equipping a Praetorian Guard capable of governing without the consent of the governed might not be so urgent as, say, Air Traffic Controllers or even TSA airport safety officers. According to this article – and I am not at all familiar with the web site –  this is a force more suitable to suppression and intimidation of popular resistance than one designed to overcome any easily foreseen terrorist threat.  Perhaps someone knows more about this?

If you haven’t seen these, they are worth looking at. We don’t know as much about the Earth/space environment as we thought we did.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2013/08jan_sunclimate/

http://www.space.com/20004-earth-radiation-belt-discovery.html

"A student used food to make an inappropriate gesture."

<http://www.ktnv.com/news/watercooler/194673111.html>

Roland Dobbins

You just can’t make this stuff up. Meanwhile, the Secretary of Homeland Security confirms that TSA agent have been cut back because of the sequester. I have not heard whether any bunny inspectors are at risk. 

Jerry,

Sifting through the wave of nonsense on the internet regarding the DHS/ICE MRAP vehicles, I found a few things.

First, the original photos of those seem to date back to 2009.

Second, the MRAP in the photos does not seem to match the exact type of the 2700+ MRAP refurbishment contract Third, there is some stuff about the DHS getting about 60 surplus MRAPs following a source selection contract, and those 60 appear to match the ones seen in the photos.

Fourth, the 2700+ refurb contract was about a year ago and was supposedly for the Army.

Of course, that’s just the result of an hour of insomniac web browsing. There may be more, but don’t believe anything that doesn’t have a better source then another alarmist "news" site. From what I could tell, this report was a nearly word for word cut-paste from a wave of identical "news" reports from mid-2012. None of which changes the fact that DHS appears to be operating at least 2 mine resistant armored personnel assault vehicles within the united states…

Still, I think people are putting 2 and 2 together and getting impending urban warfare as the sum. I personally don’t see why the DHS/ICE ought to be operating 60 or even 2 of these things, and writing "rescue" on the side is big brother doublespeak straight from Orwell’s 1984. Given the utter absence of land mines and IEDs in the 48 contiguous states and given the current "budget crisis", I figure these things ought to be sold on ebay or at the very least sold for scrap. We don’t need them and they’re expensive to run/maintain. If anyone seriously tells you that we DO need them, look closely for the jackboots and subdued swastika because they’re not in the game for our interests.

Serving officer

I suspected the story was more complicated that that web site said.  Still, it is well to stay informed in matters such as this.  As you say there is no need for security forces to have that sort of gear.  At Waco the Attorney General had to lie to the Army in order to get tanks, and the Army is not at all happy about the outcome. 

View 764 Friday, March 01, 2013

SEQUESTRATION FRIDAY IS HERE

Doom Doom Doom Doom Doom

RE: African-Americans and Education (Feb. 26)

Dear Mr. Pournelle,

I couldn’t agree more with your statements about the importance of literacy. I’m currently a student teacher for mathematics at a predominantly African-American vocational high school in Chicago, and I’ve spent every day of the past month in the same two Sophomore Geometry classes (appx. 18 students per class; about 10 in each have never shown up). For the most part, the kids are intelligent enough to grasp the concepts, and some are quite bright in terms of their calculating abilities and the questions they ask. But they all continue to drastically underperform because they cannot–or will not–interpret and employ precise language. They don’t readily recognize distinctions among different terms; they don’t retain the proper vocabulary and phrasings; they don’t process conditional statements and causal relationships; and they don’t generally display the kind of sustained organized thought that comes primarily from training in literate interpretation and expression. You practically have to squeeze it out of them, but then they go back out into the hallway and receive tons of negative reinforcement. In other words, their own linguistic "culture" is severely handicapping them in all fields.

On a similar note, I’d wager that the "culture" of boy-girl interactions that I’ve seen and had described to me, is also keeping these kids down. My co-operating teacher said he’s seen boys hit and choke girls, and they all treat it like it’s normal. I can’t imagine but that this has significant ramifications for individuals’ sense of self-worth and notions of constructive interpersonal communication.

Of course, no one can come out and say all this without being called a vile racist. Still, even while I don’t want to discount possible bases in physiology/nature, from what I’ve seen of the enormous gap between these kids’ basic intellectual capacity (as determined through several weeks of close conversation and inspection of their work) and their ability to express themselves coherently, I find myself coming down heavily on the side of nurture.

The President has said that preschool is the answer to the nation’s education problems. If so, the District of Columbia is the ideal place to experiment. The Congress has complete authority over the District, granted in the Constitution, and can set up any schools it likes with any rules it likes. Let the Department of Education propose experimental schools, including pre-schools. Let one pre-school concentrate on two factors: learning to read, and instilling some cultural factors involving discipline and learning. Most experiments (including my wife’s years as the reading teacher of last resort in the Los Angeles County Juvenile Justice System) have shown that leaning to read it is fact rewarding, and tends to produce discipline within the class. “Cool it man, we learning something here!” But use whatever system of rewards one like. Try different systems with different schools. The Congress is sovereign in the District and can try any school system it likes, or several of them. Let ten flowers bloom and see which produces results.

Of course that won’t happen.

But if pre-school is to be the answer to the current educational miasma, let it teach reading and try to do something about cultural discipline factors at an early enough age that it can make some changes. Of course that assumes that there is an “American Way” that we are all proud of, and that all children can be assimilated into the Melting Pot.

Note that it isn’t African Americans who should be the target of teaching reading and the American Culture. It should be all kids of whatever origin. The American system of education at one time was the wonder of the world. It could be again. Begin with teaching them to read in pre-school. That can be done for the vast majority of the children. Select teachers who can and will do it, and don’t continue employment of teachers who can’t do the job. That will produce long term benefits for the nation at a pretty efficient cost, even if you end up having to pay the successful teachers a hundred grand a year. Just don’t pay that to those who can’t do the job. And if it can’t be done, then end the project and try another; but we have examples to show that it can be done.

In order to soften the pain of the dreaded sequester monster which will cut 70 billion out of a 35 thousand billion dollar budget this year thus sending kids home from school, closing parks, releasing prisoners, and laying off first responders, the Congress proposed allowing the President to allocate the cuts in any way he deemed desirable. Years ago Mr. Obama said he would go through the budget with laser like precision, removing spending requests for frivolous items. This would be his chance to do it, although the story appears to be that he has rejected the power.

So we will lay off first responders and close Head Start programs while continuing to pay the Bunny Inspectors. For those who don’t know, there exist Department of Agriculture Inspectors whose job it is to attend stage magician performances to see if any pet rabbits are used in the performance; and if there are to inspect the Federal License required for keeping pet rabbits for public display. (Note that if the rabbit is killed in the act no Federal license is required; it applies only to rabbits kept as pets but displayed publicly.) Another task for the Bunny Inspectors is to see that anyone in the US keeping rabbits as pets has a Federal License if any of those rabbits are sold. The penalties for keeping rabbits for sale without a Federal License is quite severe. You can raise them for food and kill and eat them, and if you sell rabbits for food the matter is of state or local concern; it’s only the sale of pet rabbits that has to have a Federal License issued by the Department of Agriculture.

There are other activities of the Federal Government which may or may not be desirable, but surely are less urgent or valuable than some of the activities which are now to be closed by the Dread Sequester; it is not clear why the President does not want the authority to use his laser inspection to find and eradicate those expenditures.

Bunny Inspectors on Public Radio’s "The Takeaway"

FYI, I just heard a commercial for the Public Radio program "The Takeaway" stating that they will be using Federal "Bunny Inspectors" as an example of Federal spending.

John Bresnahan

Orlando, FL

John Bresnahan

Apparently others are beginning to wonder about the priorities of the activities to be ended by sequestration.

There may be other ways to save money.

‘But the GAO review found the jets were used only used about 40 percent of the time for counterterrorism since 2007, with their primary function becoming executive travel.’

<http://www.washingtonguardian.com/taken-ride-0>

Roland Dobbins

It would seem to me that the sequester would be a splendid opportunity to end some practices that were perhaps desirable during boom times, but which are now a bit expensive and no longer quite so vital?

Once that is done we can discuss the priorities of FBI agents vs. Head Start teachers.

The march of technology:

Pretty amazing aircraft

A liquid-hydrogen-powered unmanned spy plane from Boeing’s Phantom Works had a very successful test flight earlier this week, climbing a mile and a half into the sky.

<http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2013/03/01/boeing-phantom-eye-completes-2nd-flight/?intcmp=features#ixzz2MJ0IfnOW>

We are approaching a time when keeping up with technology through X projects is more important than inventory. The “R&D Deterrent” is an important factor in the Strategy of Technology. It is probably time for me to do a new Preface to Strategy of Technology and get the book into Kindle format. It was a Cold War book, but the principles remain true and important; perhaps more so now than when it was written in the 1960’s.

View 764 Thursday, February 28, 2013

SEQUESTRATION FRIDAY IS COMING

Doom Doom Doom Doom Doom

It is a common axiom in political economics that investments that produce no revenue can lead to disaster. Examples are big stadiums, desert land developments, and the like. The history of Spanish economics is instructive. Under Franco, Spain had a long period of economic growth, including periods in which Spain led the world in economic growth rates. After Franco died the new government indulged in a frenzy of development, producing a bubble and economic collapse. Examples (1) (2). Another example is China, which has managed state capitalism extraordinarily well, but has also indulged in showcase projects: :

The authors cite the city of Loudi, in Hunan Province, which has used CDB’s loans to build a costly 30,000-seat "Olympic" stadium, adorned with the trademark rings, even though the city lacks a professional sports team. Infrastructure loans that produce no cash flows, such as Loudi’s, create the potential for a banking crisis in China. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324445904578286913921668472.html

State capitalism can be effective. Mussolini demonstrated that and garnered the admiration of a good part of the world including that of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and did so while remaining a committed Socialist. Some of his projects were for show and glamour, others were genuine infrastructure investments. As von Mises points out, opulence can have economic value, an example being the various cultural institutions of Vienna which made Austria a far more important country than her actual wealth would warrant. Proponents of free enterprise argue that over time state capitalism doesn’t win against freedom, but history shows that it can do pretty well and last generations. The key is the intention of the investments, and the management of cash flow.

Turn now to education. Would anyone argue that spending on education is not an infrastructure investment? Its purpose is to increase economic efficiency, lower the cost of government, and such like. The return on that investment takes a while, but the ultimate intent is to increase the national cash flow.

Infrastructure investments that produce no economic return can be disastrous. You can make a good case for the proposition that the most important infrastructure investment made by any State of this Union is in the education system.

“If a foreign government had imposed this system of education on the United States, we would consider it an act of war,” said Nobel laureate Glenn T. Seaborg in 1983. The system has since received huge investments. It has not improved. The quality of education appears to be independent of the investments made in it, at least to a first approximation. Increases in spending on education don’t produce consistent improvements, and cuts in the system don’t seem to matter much either. Other factors govern.

Meanwhile:

The $85 billion in spending that will eventually be cut after the sequester kicks in amounts to around two cents on the dollar in the overall federal budget. That hasn’t kept Mr. Obama and his team from trying to scare the bejesus out of Americans about the spending reductions.

On Friday, Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said he’d have to furlough 5,000 air-traffic controllers. On Saturday, the president warned in his weekly radio address that thousands of teachers "will be laid off," and "tens of thousands of parents will have to scramble to find child care."

On Sunday, the White House released a report for each state detailing how many unsafe bridges would be left unrepaired. On Monday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar threatened to close all National Park campgrounds. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said she’d have to sideline 5,000 border agents. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced it would release from detention several hundred illegal immigrants.

This is all hogwash. After the sequester, this fiscal year’s federal budget ($3.553 trillion) will still be larger than last year’s ($3.538 trillion). Last year, the border was patrolled, emergency responders arrived when called, and airplanes left on time and landed safely.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324662404578329862541820272.html

The largest single item in most state budgets is education. Instead of thrashing around with concerns about the dire effects of sequestration, perhaps we ought to turn some intention on education that produces a future revenue flow? But in California the governor proposes to take money from the successful schools and put it into the poor schools that need it so much. And there we are.

The plain consequence is (and it is a general maxim worthy of our attention), ‘That no testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind, that its falsehood would be more miraculous, than the fact, which it endeavours to establish….’ When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion.

David Hume, An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding

I found this in another place in a discussion of the origin of Carl Sagan’s aphorism that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. I have also heard the idea attributed to LaPlace and Descartes. In ESCAPE FROM HELL we have Sylvia Plath comment to Carl Sagan “Descartes, surely?” when he makes his famous claim.

Education

My boss, when I returned to lab work after three years of clinical medicine in 1976, was German, Jewish and had got out of Munich to Britain in 1937. Having lived through hyper inflation, persecution and the rest, one of his aphorisms was "There is only one thing worth investing in and that is the education of your children". Advice that I took to heart without regret.

Robert Forrest

Well said. It refers to my short disquisition on education and the importance of learning to read before going into the school system (yesterday’s View).

"They were something we thought we mostly understood by now, the first discovery of the Space Age."

<http://www.space.com/20004-earth-radiation-belt-discovery.html>

Roland Dobbins

We continue to learn how much we do not know yet. Few theories on Earth’s interaction with space are certain.

Dr. Pournelle:

A warning to your readers that may have Hotmail accounts…..Reset your password now!

This is a widespread attack, and lots of Hotmail accounts appear to have been compromised. The result is that ‘you’ will send out a message to all of your contacts, the message will probably have malware attached, or a link to malware. Exploits to Hotmail accounts are widely available.

An article about this attack is here http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2012/04/27/microsoft-rushes-out-fix-after-hackers-change-passwords-to-hack-hotmail-accounts/ .

If your account has been hacked, then you should

1) Reset passwords on all of your accounts . Don’t use the same password everywhere.

2) Check your computer for malware by doing a full anti-virus scan. Make sure your antivirus is current. If you don’t have an antivirus, the free Microsoft Security Essentials is a good start.

3) Watch your financial accounts for suspicious activity. Change your PIN and passwords to all financial accounts

4) Ensure you have the latest Microsoft updates. Install them now.

5) Remove Java (not Javascript) from your computer. If you must use Java for a legitimate purpose, use Firefox, which will automatically disable Java and require you to manually enable for applications that need it.

6) Ensure all of your software is current. A really good tool is the free-for-personal-use Personal Software Inspector from Secunia (www.secunia.com )

7) Do this for any computer you access.

8) If your Hotmail account is compromised, send a notice to all of your contacts (use BCC, not CC or To; that hides your contact list from others). Suggest they follow the above steps on their computer.

9) Consider an on-line backup solution for your personal and critical files. The cost is affordable; I use Carbonite (www.carbonite.com) which automatically backs up my computer data.

Be careful out there!

Rick Hellewell, a computer security guy.

  This was an old message but one of my advisors who is fairly careful was hit with an attack last night. It’s going around again. 

Major Comet Impact On Mars Possible Next Year

Jerry,

Via Instapundit, this story on a recently discovered large comet that will be doing a close pass by Mars in October 2014. The comet’s diameter and course are still not precisely known – it could hit Mars, and if it does it’ll be a major impact, what would be an "extinction-level event" if it happened on Earth. Even if it does miss, it should be spectacular, at least as observed by the various Mars probes.

http://astronomyaggregator.com/solar-system/large-comet-to-buzz-mars-impact-possible/

Henry