Mail 649 November 8

It seems that if we're going to discuss the unprecedented size of the current presidential retinue, we must also acknowledge the unprecedented level of threat which the president and his caretakers must anticipate. This is of even more concern in areas of the world where the U.S. has avowed enemies and where an attack on a dignitary is perhaps most likely to occur.

I am a grateful reader of your fiction and tech writing and a fan of your TWIT appearances as well. Please continue all in good health.

Rick Fleishman

I do not question that a President going into what is in effect a war zone needs extraordinary security. It is not entirely clear that the size of the entourage is just security; and the question remains, is this the right action for a Republic? The questions are not unrelated. Note that there was discussion on this in View last week starting Friday.

==========

nature vs. nurture

Jerry:

"...scientists studying bees documented how environmental inputs can modify our genetic hardware."

http://www.medicaldaily.com/news/20101103/
3286/bees-reveal-nature-nuture-secrets.htm

Chris C

The interaction of environment to heredity is now an actively studied matter, after the long neglect caused in part because of Lysenko. Mendelian genetics is correct but incomplete. Lamarck was wrong in his mechanisms, but it's clear that environment does affect heritable characteristics: we used to think we knew all about how, but now some of that is up in the air. It is worth knowing how such matters as race affect inheritable characteristics, but before you can study a phenomenon you have to believe the data. If there are ways to raise national IQ as an example, the impact would be enormous. If adding more lecithin or other choline sources to diets has even a small effect that could be important (note the IF in that comment).

============

Home Sale License

Dr. Pournelle,

Re: the last letter in your Sunday Mail section.

Your correspondent asks: " Pretty alarmist. Wonder if it's true?

Ed "

Curious to see myself I loaded up house.gov in Firefox and searched for "hr 2454". Very simple to do. Of the first 4 links shown 3 are PDFs. The first is the CBO report on costs. It is very readable, suprisingly to me. The second is the actual bill as calendared in 2009. This is probably the one Ed will want to look at. Searching for "label" in Foxit Reader we find Section 204 and houses. Took awhile to scroll down, it is page 346 before you get to that Section. Lots of dense text including lots of bureaucratic reports and 2 wonderful big brother residental and commercial building energy efficiency databases. They will also provide funds to bribe the states into implementing this policy at a local level.

Admittedly I have only so far skimmed over Section 204 (which continues on to page 361) but I don't see anything prohibiting house or commercial building sales without a label and/or upgrades. Perhaps a closer reading will find the relevant sub-sections. My eyes are starting to get cross-eyed as it is. The CBO PDF is much more readable and I'm going over it now.

Taking the link that Ed provides, which I should have done first, would have made it easier but Ed's comment seemed so lazy that I just had to go see if I could find out direct from the horse.gov eerrr house.gov's mouth. Checking Section 202, which begins as the end of page 321, does not show that this will be an insidious burden upon all home owners seeking sale of their homes at a later date. I suppose one could read it that way since it does seem that that retrofit programs appear to mandatory, at least in some circumstances. I think that all the powers delegated to the "Admistrator"s of said programs as well as to HHS, EPA, and other acronym agencies, and the states is where the slippery slope may come in. Though perhaps I'm not reading it right or still not in the right Section.

My eyes are even more blurry now so I'm done with it for now. But there are just a few vague bits that were fairly easy to check on by just downloading a PDF of the bill in question.

Sincerely,

Ted

===========

Cap & Trade House

"Pretty alarmist. Wonder if it's true?"

As usual with these things, it isn't. The portion in question is section 304 (starts on page 320) and it is pretty darn clear that it is stating that building codes for new construction should be modified. Also page 338 states that the regs apply to "new and substantially renovated building space" and even then a state is in compliance if 90% of new construction meets the updated codes. You don't even need 100% compliance.

BTW the penalty applies solely to the state, not individuals. And the penalty is reduced funding.

Reading through the bill there are a lot of ideas that actually aren't that bad. I can see why it passed the house. My take is more that the huge bureaucracy, new taxes (ah, I mean fees) and trying to apply Davis-Bacon to everything it can probably more than offset the benefits.

Gene Horr

H.R.2454 Home retrofit

Hi, Jerry. I did a quick fact check on this particular piece of egregious information, and discovered that although the Bill exists, the requirement for old homes to be retrofitted before sale is false. I found information on both Snopes and Urbanlegends, and even read the supposedly offending passages of the bill (Section 202 and 204) and can find nothing requiring anything. Primarily those sections are how states can create programs to get federal money to reward those who retrofit homes for energy efficiency.

--Jerry

But if the Earth is going to be destroyed by the pollution from CO2, shouldn't it be true? Don't we need such laws and licensing? And an even larger enforcement agency?

Given the assumptions of the AGW Believers almost anything is justified. California's CO2 laws are illustrative, and possible portents.

And see below

============

Another Iron Law and Junk Science redux

You should enjoy this one: http://www.davidwarrenonline.com/index.php?id=1206

Mike

===========

Subject: Will It Fly? Virgin Galactic

Jerry,

I recorded this back on the 18th of Oct, but just got around to watching it. It was fun to see the visual account of the process that has been going on. Thanks for updating us on this when you can.

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/will-it-fly-5087/Overview

Tracy Walters, CISSP

=============

: China: The Lesson,

Jerry

Nice summary of the hate-hate relationship between China and Japan:

http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/china/articles/20101107.aspx

"Meanwhile, the free press in Japan is playing the nationalist card as well, and the Chinese don't like that. But China has caused the problem by prompting and allowing popular (nationalist) demonstrations against Japan. Now the Japanese are angry, and the media in Japan has picked up on that. The Chinese leadership is upset with this development. That's because the Japanese military is smaller, but much more professional and effective, than their Chinese counterparts. Plus, if this hate race keeps going, it could lead to Japan building nuclear weapons. This prospect frequently comes up in the Japanese media, and Japanese politicians freely admit to how possible this would be."<snip>

"For most of the last few thousand years, China had been more powerful than the West, but too far away for that to make much difference. But now the Westerners had developed new ship designs that allowed them to move large forces to East Asia. China was humbled in several small wars. The westerners, unlike the Mongols, had no interest in conquering China, they just wanted some trade deals, and no interference from China. But a suddenly modernized Japan, 130 years ago, began to threaten, and then defeat, China with its new, Western style military. Until 1945, China could only slow down, but not stop the Japanese. It took Western armies (mainly from the U.S., Russia and Britain) to finally crush the Japanese menace. China resents that as well, and the mediocre performance of Chinese forces in Korea (1950-53), on the Russian border (the 1970s) and against Vietnam (1979) has not helped." <snip>

"China has made claims on disputed islands in the region, bringing it into direct conflict with powerful neighbors like South Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Vietnam. Three of these nations are treaty allies of the United States, which has 70,000 troops stationed in the region. Then there's India, being threatened by China, which still claims the Tibetan border lands (now part of India) that caused the 1962 skirmish. The only major neighbor China makes nice to is Russia, which is also the only neighbor with enough nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles to cripple China. The lesson is not lost on the rest of China's nervous neighbors."

You have made similar points about nukes in the past.

The problem with our allies having nukes is trying to predict just how long they will be our allies.

==========

On the dark night skies

Individual photons, once created, persist until absorbed by an absorbing material.

That said, individual photos are not unchanged by their passage. In particular, there are second (and higher) order quantum electrodynamic processes which contribute to scattering, including the two ultimate limits:

a) the Cosmological Red Shift due to the expansion of the universe

b) Scattering of photon of higher energy by second order interactions with photons of the microwave background. (IIRC, the classic text by Jouch and Rohrlich discusses this; I'm out of town and can't access my copy to double check)

c) equivalent processes with atoms and molecules.

Note that these processes do not destroy photons, but given enough time and distance, will drop all photons into thermal equilibrium with the microwave background at 2.7 K. However, the distance required for photons already above RF (and emitted by molecular and nuclear processes, as well as hot blackbody sources), would be a significant multiple of the Hubble limit. (By significant, without doing the numbers, I mean billions and billions...)

Jim

============

Letter from England

We're watching a slow-motion crash. Or as Colin Powell supposedly said: "You broke it; you bought it." I much prefer the American approach of gridlock until forced to do the right thing. At least you know what's happening and can influence the outcome. Amateur government is like amateur train-driving.

Strongly recommended: <http://tinyurl.com/38zpsel>

"I'm collecting ideas of what the federal government ought and ought not to support in Science in the coming years. I need a list of proposed projects which fit the Adam Smith notion of projects "whose benefit to all is great but whose benefit to individual investors is small." I'm looking for game changer projects with great public benefit. Suggestions welcomed."

Most pure science is not obviously translational. You do it and so have it on the shelf when the engineers realise they actually need it for something practical. (Reminds me of the Reagan era cabinet secretary who wanted six months early warning of research breakthroughs.) You want good science, which is the reason for peer review, but also interesting ideas, which is where peer review falls down. My MiCRAM project had the latter and enough of the former to pass muster with EPSRC. The halving of science funding in the UK seems to have been harder on interesting ideas than good science, which suggests there is a problem of balance. Start with the interesting ideas, because those lead to breakthroughs, and insist on good science, to filter out the quacks. There are lots of quacks.

If you want translational research, fund something with a longer-term payoff than the one to two year planning horizon of congresscritters and businessmen. If you set the funding level on a yearly basis, you get NASA, so you probably need to ring-fence it. Not too much funding, either, or you create a science bureaucracy. (CERN is a notable example. See <https://ert.cern.ch/browse_www/wd_pds?p_web_site_id=1> ) Perhaps control the purse-strings on a grass-roots level, like church missions. (Church missions are known for getting a bang for their buck, mostly because the congregations providing the money won't stand for much overhead--or underfoot.)

OK, the news:

What happens when you don't have separation of powers, the Phil Woolas case: <http://tinyurl.com/3xv7m5h>

Tuition fees discussed in the Economist <http://tinyurl.com/3afkttb> (The Luxury Goods graph is seriously in error. They seem to have generated it by taking the current fee level and dividing by the exchange rate rather than multiplying by it. The real numbers in dollars for fees in the UK are about $5000 in 2007 and $14500 proposed.)

Sharp Schneier comments on D.C. bomb plot revelations <http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/11/did_the_fbi_inv.html>

-- If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it? (Albert Einstein)

Harry Erwin PhD

As we pointed out in Strategy of Technology, technological development is not the same as financing basic research. Science research policies need direction and a strategy. Yes, there needs to be ways to finance bright ideas by bright people, but that's an inexhaustible mine: there needs to be directed technological research intended to develop certain capabiliies. That's what a Strategy of Technology does.

======================d

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Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Subject: Net neutrality

Jerry,

According to wikipedia, net neutrality means this:

"Network neutrality (also net neutrality, Internet neutrality) is a principle proposed for user access networks participating in the Internet that advocates no restrictions by Internet service providers and governments on content, sites, platforms, the kinds of equipment that may be attached, and the modes of communication allowed.[1][2][3]"

But the WSJ have cast this entirely in terms of the government regulating the internet. So that means we will now allow our service providers to regulate it, according to what is in their best financial interest. I assume that the WSJ editorial writers don't worry about this, either because they think that competition in the free market will keep the service providers honest, or because their commitment to unregulated free markets is so deep that they don't worry about the damaging effects of monopolies.

Unfortunately, out here in the real world, where most of us buy our internet sevices, there is little or no competition in a lot of areas, and consumer choice often comes down to either paying the toll to the only available provider, or not using the internet. So voting down net neutrality may actually be a vote to empower those who have a near monopoly on the services you want and need. As a consumer, I do not celibrate that outcome.

If there was robust competition for access to the internet, via 3 or 4 viable competitors in most markets, then fine, let them compete and keep the government out. But if my choice is Comcast or nothing, then it probably needs to be regulated as a public utility.

Ubiquitous, high speed internet access would seem to create a wonderful playing field for a lot of entrepreneurial business activity. It would be a shame if the entry points to that playing field were limited to a couple of gatekeepers who can charge what they like for admission. (You want access to www.jerrypournelle.com? Well, we've decided to move that web site to our premium content internet package; it is only $19.95/month more than our $39.95/month standard package. Of course, if you sign up for our $49.95/month HBO and Showtime Package, we will give you a 50% discount on access to those premium web sites...)

CP, Connecticut.

If you believe that handing this to the Federal Government to regulate will result in more Internet Freedom, I have a bridge to sell you. The Wikipedia definition is meaningless, and is not likely to be changed. Net Neutrality means regulation. Once that principle is established the rest will follow.

Most monopolies are local. The remedy to that is wireless. Regulating wireless will of course keep monopolies. Capitalism always seeks to use government to restrict competition. Always. Sometimes regulations are needed; unrestricted capitalism generally leads to unacceptable outcomes. But regulation always restricts new entries to the market. There are remedies for your local monopolies and in any event the Wikipedia definition of net neutrality would not help you with that.

==============

Subject: Strategy of Technology

I dug out my copy of Strategy of Technology and reread the chapter. I knew Kane professionally, and most of my research has been investigating questions originally posed to me back then. That was 'soft-touch' guidance--I already had some idea of the potential applications when people suggested that I explore an area further.

Interestingly, I know the Soviets had an intelligence officer in D.C. tasked to identify promising technological and scientific research opportunities that America had decided not to explore for political reasons. I met him once at a dinner, and we had an interesting discussion. I have encountered others, too, from time to time--Russia is still active in this role. These people are more scientists than spooks, very similar to our people in the same role.

The problem with curiosity-driven research is that unless the researcher understands the global context of their work, they tend to focus on the scientific hot topic of the day. The corresponding problem with translational research is it tends to respond to managerial or political hot topics--again with a planning threshold of about one year. You need to plan for the longer term, but there are few people with the long-term horizon needed. Ask your question of senior people in each area. Ideally, they understand the long-term trajectory of their field and where it might lead.

In neuroscience, there are a number of big questions that seem to me to be worth answering--how is behaviour generated, how are plans simulated in the brain, how does the brain develop, how is the world represented, how are neural circuits switched, what is trace memory, what is the role of cortical columns? Answer those and you can create a true artificial intelligence. You may also have an alternative model of computing to the Turing Machine, and you may be able to upload a brain to a machine.

-- Harry Erwin

R&D is an important factor in a strategy of technology. Strategy of Technology by Possony, Pournelle, and Kane was primarily a Cold War book, and most of the examples are drawn from that era, but the principles remain true. I keep hoping one day to revise it with modern examples. Perhaps I will be able to. Meanwhile, Patron Subscribers get a free e-copy of Strategy of Technology when they sign up.

============

Preserving science: what data do we keep? What do we discard?

<http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2010/11/
preserving-science-choosing-what-data-to-discard.ars>

===========

Re: ebook piracy "low"

Seems that the linked article is suggesting that the motivation for most piracy is that the media in question simply isn't available AT ALL. Setting aside wonky questions of DRM, format, pricing schemes; most people steal media because that's literally the only way to get it.

In a way, this says more about the media-distribution business than about the pirates. How did we get into a situation where a company can find that it costs more to *sell* something than they lose when people *steal* it?

-- Mike T. Powers

Wait until the regulators get involved. You'll see more. Reports to file, etc.

============

Linotype: The Film

Linotype: The Film About half a lifetime ago I worked at a book bindery which used an old linotype to put book titles on a type stick for embossing the new covers. Wondrously complex, and fonts could be changed with a hoist, Tim Harness.

http://linotypefilm.com/

Tim

==========

"Books LLC"

I've started to see a lot of things "published" by a company calling itself "Books LLC". Turns out that these are nothing but the Wikipedia page, printed out on someone's laser printer (or turned into a Kindle or Mobi file, or whatever).

As usual, be careful about deals that look too good to be true!

http://www.teleread.com/chris-meadows/
fake-books-crowd-out-john-scalzis-real-books
-on-barnes-and-nobles-search-results

-- Mike T. Powers

============

Re: Legally Prevented from Selling Your Home

Actually, this isn't anything new. Anyone with a house built before the 1980s that has a basement can tell you about radon-mitigation systems.

And even that isn't the only example. Back when I was shopping for my first house, there was a sudden problem that not only prevented me from buying when ready, but prevented a great many people from doing so.

See, the county decided that it was time to change the building codes. And in the new code they declared that any "finished basement" must have "full-size emergency exits".

I'm sure you can see where this is going.

Because the code didn't bother to define "finished", "basement", "full-size", or "exit", one code-enforcement officer declared it illegal to sell a house with a basement anywhere in the county, and for two weeks there were almost no real-estate transactions as people tried to figure out what was going on. Finally, an emergency session modified the law to allow houses built before the change to be left as-is. (Hard lines for anyone currently building a house with a basement, as "finished" was defined to mean "lights, rugs, and drywall", so unless your basement had cinderblock walls and a concrete floor it was "finished".)

-- Mike T. Powers

EPA and housing

Dr. Pournelle:

Although the 'license to sell' concept turned out to be false, it's instructive to read the Federal mandate regarding replacing windows on houses built before the ban on lead paint went into effect.

It used to be that a couple of workers in work clothes would take out the old, put in the new, sweep up any mess, leave the bill, and depart.

Now, plastic has to be laid out to a specific distance from the window, CAUTION tape has to be put up, the inside of the room has to be protected from dust, and the workers have to wear specialized protective gear, all in the name of preventing lead contamination. The plastic has to be wrapped up in other plastic and transported to an approved disposal site. Further, at least one of the contractor's employees must have specialized training in all this. (There was an article about this in, IIRC, Popular Mechanics.)

Absurd? Probably. Required? Definitely. Check this with replacement window contractors.

It's also been the law for some years that if someone is Medicare-eligible, even if that person has independent means and doesn't participate in Medicare, and a physician performs a procedure not on the 'approved' list, that physician can be barred from handling Medicare patients for two years.

This one seemed so absurd I asked a practicing physician. It's true, he said. I have no idea why this policy was made, since Medicare wouldn't be paying for the procedure anyway.

jomath

ouch

HR 2454

Jerry,

I haven't made an intensive study of HR 2454 and its mandatory "green" construction requirements for "new and substantially renovated building space", as it seems extremely unlikely to pass the Senate in the remainder of this Congress. That said, those who assume that if casual skimming shows no overt requirement for all old houses to be retrofitted before sale, we're safe, are unduly optimistic. Who gets to define "substantially renovated" could matter a lot here, and that's just one of many ways to obscure such a requirement.

Whether or not the bill would affect all house sales, it seems to me its imposition of arbitrarily large new "green" costs on all newly constructed and "substantially renovated" homes is bad enough. The former will certainly drive up the price of new housing; the latter will tend to make renovation and rental/resale of older homes prohibitively expensive - much existing housing stock will become uneconomic and subject to demolition much sooner than the market would otherwise dictate, hardly a "green" outcome if you factor in energy costs of producing whole new houses. The overall effect will be to force a major long-term reduction in availability of cheaper housing. "Cash for clunkers" for housing, only without the cash...

There are inherent tradeoffs between the cost to build/repair a home and the cost to operate it - energy-efficient features that cost less tend to be already standard practice; those remaining tend to cost more than the alternatives, often a lot more. Those tradeoffs should in general be decided by the market, not by government fiat. I can see the government having a role in making sure the information to make sensible decisions is available, but it's a drastic step from that to the government making the decisions, a step into a morass of unintended consequences.

Henry

"Pretty Alarmist". Except when it IS true

After things like the 1099 Rule, I can't blame anyone for giving credibility to stuff like "cap-and-trade bans house sales".

-- Mike T. Powers

All True.

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For a PDF copy of A Step Farther Out:

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Wednesday, November 10, 2010

I had appointments and other duties today.

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Thursday, November 11, 2010

Missile Launch?

This web-post (about a supposed missile on New Year's Day) has been extended to discuss the vapor trail over California last Monday.

http://uncinus.wordpress.com/2010/11/09/4/

In brief: it's a jet contrail; it extended to the horizon because the Pacific was clear for hundreds of miles; the sun lit it; and there was a relatively still layer of air which did not break up the contrail. This has happened before, and those who are looking at it from the side see it as a contrail; those directly underneath are subject to the illusion produced by the human inability to tell distance directly for phenomena some miles off.

Paul MacLean Anderson

Which sums it all up rather nicely, and should be the last word on this. It was interesting while it was happening, and I love a good flying saucer story, but eventually observation and data prevail. Now if we could turn similar attention to asking questions of the Global Warming people, and looking harder at the data and the mechanisms of data gathering.

==============w

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Friday, November 12, 2010

Absolutely nothing

Okay, this one's easy. I'll play.

> to what are the needy entitled

Absolutely nothing.

> and what must the able give?

Absolutely nothing.

> what is the basis for the obligation of those who must give?

Absolutely nothing.

-- Robert Bruce Thompson

Which is one answer, and Constitutionally perhaps the only answer. Although the States may or may not have some kind of Common Law obligations (at least that can be argued) from the powers inherited from the Crown, the federal government is one of enumerated powers, and there ain't no welfare in them. By design and intent.

The real question is, how much of our income are we obligated to turn over to the unproductive? How much would people willingly turn over? Charities have some notion, I suppose. But it requires an armed tax collector to get all that is claimed now.

===========

Research priorities for the long-term

Dr Pournelle:

A spacefaring civilization will have to have mastered two related topics: human nutrition and industrial agriculture.

I do not believe industrial agriculture is the great evil that greens claim, but I am increasingly concerned that it is flawed as currently practiced. The issue is largely framed as an environmental one, which tends to polarize the debate; the very real and pressing issues of human dietary needs and the effects of soil erosion on a civilization's longevity are lost in the fray.

The best attempt to address this in a rational and non-alarmist way is Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma. Despite clearly having a lot of sympathy for the environmental arguments, he doesn't hesitate to call out flaws in the green position. In one exchange with a grower he asks how the organic and local food movements could ever hope to feed New York City. The response: "Why do we have to have a New York?" There is a huge cognitive disconnect in play here.

This is a debate that needs to be re-framed out of a save-the-planet context and into one of the health of human individuals and civilizations. We have New York. Hopefully we will continue to have New York, and hopefully we will one day have self-contained outposts in space. These will need to be fed, and that means agriculture will continue to be a specialized industry.

Pollan relays a story of farmers in the early days of synthetic fertilizers who saw increased disease in their livestock and were convinced that synthetically fertilized crops were producing less healthy feed. I have heard similar stories from my own great-uncle, the last subsistence farmer in my family. In both cases greater yields won the argument, but today we know that there is in fact more to plant nutrition than NPK, just as there is more to human nutrition than carbohydrates, protein, fat, and calories.

There are non-green concerns about the brittleness of industrial agriculture -- as practiced. If you wished to develop new diseases to cause widespread crop collapse, you couldn't ask for a better breeding ground than horizon-to-horizon plots of genetically identical corn. Pest problems arise as there is no habitat for predators; this requires chemical pesticides, to which pests begin developing resistance. Soil exhaustion requires amendments, and while we aren't exactly running out of limestone (for example) the supply is not infinite -- and to the best of my knowledge nickel-iron asteroids are not rich in calcium. Finally, the almost daily discovery of new micronutrients doesn't reassure me that we're close to solving the problem, it convinces me that the problem is larger than we know.

Large agribusiness concerns are not evil, but have become too-large-to-fail, do not look more than two quarters into the future, and have a serious vested interest in the status quo. The organic and local food movements are currently producing a lot of new (or lost!) knowledge and are working on closed-loop systems, but these are ideologically aligned with the "small is beautiful" movement. Solutions are not likely to come directly from either quarter, and currently these are the only two players in the game.

These areas need serious study with a long-term focus on that green-hijacked word: sustainability. Unfortunately I have no thoughts on policy recommendations, as government interference (corn subsidies, concealing the true price of imported petroleum in the DoD budget, applying patent-protection to wind-borne pollen, etc.) seems to be a large piece of the problem.

Regards, Chris Hamilton

===========

Paper plane takes photos from space

<http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/
20101111/sc_yblog_upshot/paper-plane-takes-
photos-from-space>

****

Being intelligent is not a felony. But most societies evaluate it as at least a misdemeanor.

-Robert A. Heinlein

==========

Suggestion for a game changer

Hi Jerry, I've written to you before about thorium, molten salt reactors, and specifically the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR), and so has some others, so I don't want to be boorish/repetitive. However, I do see it as an electricity game changer: it is small, compact (I think a 1000 MW reactor vessel is 10' x 20') which means a small facility; it runs at atmospheric pressure therefore containment building is not needed; it runs at high temperatures of 700C - 800C which can use a Brayton cycle --- a supercritical CO2 turbine would be @ 42% - 48% efficient AND very small with a diameter of 1 meter. After an initial start-up charge (roughly 1000 kg of fissile for 1000 MW), the LFTR would breed its own fuel, converting Thorium to U233. Using U233 as fuel leads to extremely low amounts of transuranic wastes, most waste will be familar fission products like cesium and strontium. This reactor also does not have to worry about xenon transients since it would be bubbled out of solution at the pump bowl.

Another valuable feature is that it is scalable, say 100 MW to several gigawatts. Its small size lends itself to manufacture in a factory and shipped by semi or rail to location. And it can be an arid location, it is possible to air cool the salt if necessary. I should add that Oak Ridge has built and run molten salt reactors in the '50s and '60s and this is not a paper reactor there is actual data and experience.

I'm not sure how much time you would want to invest in LFTR, but the very best site is www.energyfromthorium.com run by Kirk Sorenson. He has an extensive discussion forum, a document repository with dozens of reports, and several videos of various advocates (I like his the best) giving speeches about LFTR to audiences at Google Tech Talks and I think the Naval Academy.

I completely agree with you about cheap energy, so this is why I'm suggesting/reminding you about it. The LFTR is a bit of a hobby of mine and there is even a Facebook page Energy From Thorium that is a topical advocacy page. If you already know all these things about LFTR, I hope I did not waste too much of your time - but I believe in this energy tehnology deeply.

Sincerely, Jim L.

Thorium is fairly common, and the U333 Thorium fuel breeder when perfected will certainly be important in fuel generation. New reactor designs may also be important, but none of this is needed: we have reactor designs, and the French have tested them. We know how to build nuclear power. We lack the will to do it.

===========

The return of SMERSH?

<http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/
20101111/wl_nm/us_russia_usa_spies>

--- Roland Dobbins

============

Back on Track (Global Warming)

Hi Jerry,

I am sure lots of people will send you this, but just in case:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/11/12/global_warming_good_for_rainforests/

The alarmists seem to be in danger of losing all credibility, I think.

Regards,

Dave Checkley

You'd think that at least we could have a full debate on just what we are afraid of, wouldn't you?

==============w

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Saturday, November 13, 2010

==============w

the-555000-student-loan

"When Michelle Bisutti, a 41-year-old family practitioner in Columbus, Ohio, finished medical school in 2003, her student-loan debt amounted to roughly $250,000. Since then, it has ballooned to $555,000.

It is the result of her deferring loan payments while she completed her residency, default charges and relentlessly compounding interest rates. Among the charges: a single $53,870 fee for when her loan was turned over to a collection agency."

http://finance.yahoo.com/college-education/
article/108846/the-555000-student-loan-burden?
mod=edu-continuing_education

The suckers may be beginning to catch wise.

Petronius

When the entire middle class is in bondage, politics will become a great deal simpler. Of course if the entire middle class is in bondage, it is not what was generally though of as a middle class. Democracy is, roughly, the rule of the middle class, the middle class being "those who possess the goods of fortune in moderation." I leave the conclusion as an exercise for the reader.

============

Your recent piece "Who is entitled to what, and why?"

This is very well addressed in the 38th of the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion of the Church of England ( http://www.tudorplace.com.ar/
Documents/the_39_articles.htm ), dating back to the 16th century:-

XXXVIII. Of Christian men's Goods, which are not common

The Riches and Goods of Christians are not common, as touching the right, title, and possession of the same, as certain Anabaptists do falsely boast. Notwithstanding, every man ought, of such things as he possesseth, liberally to give alms to the poor, according to his ability.

It's easy to forget the second sentence.

That addresses the moral/ethical issue, but there is a practical and political one as well, heading off unrest from widespread poverty, which is value-free, or almost. That was a serious problem in the Tudor period, largely because the peace dividend of the Wars of the Roses led to landowners raising sheep for wool for the export market and to their driving off peasants they no longer needed for military manpower. That agitation probably led to the moral issue being addressed in the Thirty-Nine Articles, but the practical side was addressed differently, by importing value adding skills to bring jobs on shore (mercantilism!) and by the Elizabethan Poor Laws ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabethan_Poor_Law ).

These are the very same pragmatic reasons behind the hard-headed Bismarck's introduction of welfare state measures. It's just that too many people lose the plot these days and try to analyse and deal with welfare as an entitlement issue, not a practical or charitable one. But that boat sailed when people's ancestors first had their independent private resources expropriated, often centuries ago - and some never had any to begin with.

That's getting into the economic material I promised to send you, about how this area works these days and what can be done about it. Sorry for the delay (we just had the Australian tax return season, among other things), but I will get onto it.

Yours sincerely,

P.M.Lawrence

The theory of public support for education is that it is an investment: but in fact it is operated as an entitlement, largely entitlement to teachers, and particularly to bad teachers. It is a massive subsidy to teachers colleges, which control the credentials that entitle you to take money from the tax payers for the rest of your life. I have not seen education justtified as an investment in a long time: that would require looking at the effectiveness, and the unions will not allow that. And after all, it's for the kids, and you can balance the budget on the backs of the children, and

Incidentally I knew an Anglican scholar priest who used to say, back in the days when the Book of Common Prayer contained the Thirty Nine Articles in the back of the book, and was in every pew, "In churches where the congregants are familiar with the 39 Articles, there's usually a lot of bad preaching going on."

You give, of course, the conservative view of government. It is easy for that to slip over to the Liberal and thence to the Socialist. It is very important that libertarianism be persuasive in inducing conservatives to follow the libertarian vector or at least be aware of it. In the ideal (ideal to me) world, conservatives and libertarians would contend in locally enabled governments, while the national government would be one of enumerated powers only this time we really mean it.

============

Entitlements

Hi Jerry,

You asked "If you are born crippled and stupid and incapable of making a living, does that entitle you to someone else's income?"

I'd respond: I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I shall live for no man's sake, nor ask any man to live for mine.

He's entitled (i.e owed/has claim to) to absolutely nothing of mine, for any claim another has to the product of my work, without compensation, condemns me to slavery and servitude.

Now, if you want to talk about Christian charity, that's a completely different topic. If I wish to help my unfortunate neighbor, that's my decision, by my free choice, out of human kindness. And my neighbor, while he shouldn't feel guilty, certainly should feel grateful.

American's are the most generous people in the world - when they get to do it themselves. If you want to solve the social welfare program in the country, eliminate government programs, and give a tax credit (versus a tax deduction) for charitable donations. Watch them explode, and do far far more good, with far less money, and massively less overhead, than any federal program ever did.

Cheers,

Doug

That is certainly one view. It's probably the constitutional view so far as the national government be concerned. It was not the view of either Virginia or Massachusetts, but that's another story.

===========

Thorium power

Hello Jerry,

The letter from Jim L re thorium reactors was very interesting and more than likely technically accurate. Your answer explains why the points that it made are moot: "Thorium is fairly common, and the U333 Thorium fuel breeder when perfected will certainly be important in fuel generation. New reactor designs may also be important, but none of this is needed: we have reactor designs, and the French have tested them. We know how to build nuclear power. We lack the will to do it."

Actually, you understate the problem. It is not a lack of will, per se, that is stopping us. It is the vehement opposition from our current masters to ANY source of cheap, plentiful energy, nuclear or otherwise. As you often point out, cheap plentiful energy is the key to widespread freedom and prosperity. Both are anathema to those who are presently managing what used to be Western Civilization and who are doing everything in their power to ensure that both are obtainable only through the sale of political indulgences.

Bob Ludwick

My main point was that while the Thorium U-233 reaction will be important in future, it is not clear that federally funded research is needed now in order to get to a better future. In inventing the future we are looking for (1) visions, and (2) necessary projects that must be done to get us there.

============

Proof that Communism works?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_upshot/
20101112/bs_yblog_upshot/chinese-workers-
build-15-story-hotel-in-just-six-days

Heh

============

Will the Pilots Save Us?

airline pilots and TSA

Jerry,

Some thoughts on the airline pilots associations recommending that their pilots refuse full body scans. First, the basis of the objection is rational - repeated exposure to even very low radiation doses is undeniably dangerous, and those pilots are already bumping up against limits of human radiation tolerance due to repeated exposure to high altitude flying. Yes there is radiation shielding in aircraft, but it isn't perfect and some degree of radiation is going to come through the windows, so the cumulative repetitive dosage is already high without having to get nuked whenever going through airport security. Second, the recommendation of the pilots association makes a very clear implication about how much good the TSA inspectors are doing - the recommendation is to request a private screening with a witness. This request is legit and it will take 2 screeners off of the line so they can't harass passengers during the time it takes to do the private screening.

Note how ingenious this is - not only is increased screening of an airline pilot a criminally stupid and pointless thing to do in the first place, each pointless private screening may keep the TSA from ruining another passenger's day, which ought to make life easier for the flight crew. Bravo.

Finally, it occurs to me that I risk my life every time I get into an aircraft as part of my job, and I'm forced to wonder why the heck I would submit to letting people take pictures of me without my clothes on or a full body pat-down.

The bottom line is that as a nation we are split fairly evenly with people who are comforted by security theater (I call them the sheep) and people who are utterly incompetent (I usually call them the comm squadron but they have other names). The fact that the smartest people in the nation are unable to come up with a method of identifying trusted travelers is simply not very comforting to anyone who actually thinks about the problem, and the fact that the sheep bitterly protest any attempt at "unequal" screening (and that politicians give in to their idiotic bleating) makes me think rather unflattering thoughts about many of my fellow Americans. In the meantime, I travel via airline only under duress (someone in the family dying, perhaps) or when required to do so in order to fulfill my military obligations.

In the meantime, my personal suggestion in addition to the airline pilots association's recommendation is that every airline pilot who is subjected to additional screening should fill out a fraud waste and abuse complaint. There is no other official description for the practice of doing any security procedure for pilots beyond an identity confirmation check.

Pilot

: TSA Backlash Grows

Jerry,

And then there were lawsuits... Did you know that Federal Stimulus is paying for these porno scanners? So TSA is a jobs program, well, readers of Chaos Manor already knew that. ;) Let's not forget that Chertoff -- who has a stake in the prono scanners -- ordered the machines while he was DHS Secretary, so its a stimulus for his pocket book.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-
31921_3-20022477-281.html

http://www.reuters.com/
article/idUSTRE6AA55S20101111?ref=nf

http://www.prisonplanet.com/
drudge-stirs-national-debate-on-tsa-abuse.html

--------

BDAB,
Joshua Jordan, KSC Percussa Resurgo

scanner backlash

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

I thought you might appreciate this article on the growing backlash against the new digital scanners, which as you know can be quite revealing:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-31921
_3-20022477-281.html

I personally will opt for 'strict civil obedience'. Security is one thing, strip-search another.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

My views of TSA and its kabuki security theater are too well known for me to repeat them. There are thousands of people who can figure out how to bring down an airplane if they don't mind getting killed doing it. They are not likely to be found by the measures being taken by TSA.

But the purpose of TSA is not security, it is to convince the American people they are subjects, n0t citizens. Salve, Sclave!

===========

IOUs

Dr. Pournelle,

As a red state resident, I have been reading about California and the implications of the most recent election with a kind of horrified fascination. Perhaps you would answer a question for me.

Can people refuse California state IOUs and demand to be paid in legal currency? If not, this seems to be an assertion that the IOUs and currency are equivalent, which I believe is a violation of federal law.

Steve Chu

This apparently is taken to court at periodic intervals. Demanding to be paid in legal tender can't work if there is no money. We'd rather owe it to you than beat you out of it...

============

Geert Wilders Case

This case keeps getting stranger. The reason the left is prosecuting Wilders is not because hes a dangerous radical, but it's because he didn�t get a degree from their equivalent of Harvard!

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/
pretentiousness-kills_516687.html

David March

===========

Buliding the Future

Wells said it well � or was it a character in a movie based on his works? I don�t recall.

�It is the universe or nothing; which shall it be?� Sooner or later, resources are going to run out or at least become prohibitively expensive.

Perhaps we need to get the environmentalists on our side. There are two points here; one is that industrial operations inevitably create mess and pollution of some sort. It�s better to get your iron by mining an uninhabited rock, not even visible to the naked eye, than by removing entire mountains � as is being done in one part of Australia, for example. Similarly, clean power from space is better than burning coal and oil � and doesn�t create waste that will persist for millennia, either. (Not that I think the latter is actually a problem, but remember who we are trying to convince.)

The other is that having a large-scale presence in space is the only way to preserve Earth�s present environment. Sooner or later, there is going to be another asteroid strike. The last one almost destroyed the entire biosphere, and certainly spelled doom for the species present then. If we can prevent it happening again�

I remember an old story from Asimov (I think � it might have been Clarke) whose last line was �Earth is free! Free at last!�. The scenario was that all of humanity left and left the plants and animals to themselves. One way of reducing Earth�s human population to zero, while avoiding the methods favoured by the deepest of deep ecologists.

The other point is that we need a reason to go. In my opinion, SPS is the best for this at least at first. Material resources from space should, at least largely, be used in space. After all, to use the stuff on Earth one has to get it down here, and that has the potential for some really nasty accidents. Exotic materials only possible to make in space are of course another matter.

As for the methodology � well, O�Neill explained it all first. But there is one proviso; the first requirement for the USA to become part of the vanguard of the outward push is to disband NASA. (Need Another Slew of Accountants.)

Regards

Ian Campbell

Blackpool

England

===========

Veterans Day

On Some who died early in the Day of Battle

Went the day well?
We died and never knew
But, well or ill.
Freedom, we died for you.

Went the day well?

John Maxwell Edmonds

==========

contrail

Jerry: Just in case you wanted to know what the 'real' story is about that rocket contrail:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=7UAeSsvHhTg&feature=player_embedded

With apologies,

==========

Re: Printing Money

In the present situation, it's not that bad an idea: the main problem of developed countries today is deindustrialization: we're making less and less stuff because it's cheaper to make it in China and ship it here. Printing money generates inflation which devalues your currency on the international market which makes it less profitable to import stuff rather that make it locally.

For an industrial society, exports are only really useful for buying raw materials.

Jean-Louis Beaufils, Paris

There are other views of using inflation to pay off debts. Inflation is effectively an enormous tax on thrift. The effects tend to be long lasting.

===============

Navy energy czar: Wringing out every barrel of oil -

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/
2010/nov/08/navy-energy-czar-
wringing-out-every-barrel-oil/

For every 24 fuel convoys in the war zone, one Marine is wounded or killed while guarding them.

While I am very much aware that the "hidden" costs to foreign oil are much greater, even in terms of the lives of our military, this one, very personal number, brings it home in a new way. I have known some of those marines. Many others were injured--often with life-changing maiming.

One can still hope for the nuclear power plants, but at least this is going the right way.

I do have one question: Will substitutes such as the algae-generated oil still create air-pollution?

R, Rose

there are costs other than money. Thanks.

=============

I guess we know now what China are doing with all the money their undervalued currency nets them.

<http://www.informationdissemination.net/
2010/11/2010-is-start-of-plans-
second-building.html>

---- Roland Dobbins

==============w

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Sunday, November 14, 2010

Flash Mob Sings Hallelujah Chorus at Macy's

Hi Jerry,

Thought you might enjoy this. A flash mob singing the Hallelujah Chorus at Macy's: http://www.philly.com/philly/video/
106492678.html?cmpid=15585797

Bob Parker

==============

A thought on qualifying TSA employees

Jerry, now that I'm traveling quite a lot these days, I had a thought....

Every TSA employee, after 1 year of service and as a condition of continued employment, must immediately enlist in the US Army or Marine Corps for a minimum of three years in a combat rifleman MOS. During their enlistment, they must serve at least 18 months with a front line unit in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Somalia. Suitable accommodation can be made for COs (medic, driver, etc) but their service must also be with a front line unit for the same amount of time.

After receiving an Honorable Discharge, the now suitably trained and enlightened TSA employee would be allowed to reclaim their previous position.

Something simply has got to be done about the mindless adherence to and performance of kabuki theater that we have at our nations airports.

And yes, I'm typing this from a departure gate after spending 45 minutes practicing every calming mantra I've ever learned.

I'm glad to read that you are well and back to your old self after the cancer of two years ago. Reading your journal and (hopefully) The Mask on the Wall resonates nicely with my own experience with a similar cancer in 1997-1998. 10+ years later I'm still looking inward and trying to determine if what I perceive as loss is a result of the cancer and treatment or just the natural byproduct of being 50+.

Here's to Patriots and Veterans and the lessons they have learned and can teach many of us, not enough of either these days.......

Chuck Kuhlman (now of Minneapolis, formerly of Boston, West Berlin, 7th Army, 5th Army, 8th Army, various Naval Vessels, and shoveler of freshly fallen snow)

============

The Great Cyberheist,

Jerry

This is the story of Alberto Gonzalez, the brilliant hacker who double-crossed the Feds, stole millions and millions of dollars, and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damages:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/14/magazine
/14Hacker-t.html?emc=eta1&pagewanted=all

It is fascinating that this man did his most voracious stealing when he was working as an informant, roping in, betraying and getting the Shadow Crew arrested. And he can't code a lick.

It's a long piece. The whole thing is worth reading.

Whew! He's the reason USAA sent me a new credit card - twice!

============

But we were born free: TSA encounter at SAN

Somebody who opted out of security theater, and got harrassed anyway:

http://johnnyedge.blogspot.com/2010/11/
these-events-took-place-roughly-between.html

I read some of his other posts, and he seems like a reasonable guy, although seriously annoyed at some of the governments' (all of their...) idiocies.

Doug Hayden

=============

One-dog policy.

<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-
1329273/For-30-years-Chinese-allowed-
1-child-theyre-allowed-1-dog.html>

- Roland Dobbins

Logical

==========

It's to protect the children, you see.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TCHSGvNwRY>

- Roland Dobbins

========

Hybrid storage melds battery, ultracapacitor

Energy storage company Ioxus on Monday plans to announce a hybrid storage device that combines the attributes of an ultracapacitor with a lithium-ion battery.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-20022639-54.html

Bill Shields

Storage is the long pole in the tent for green power...

============

Galactic Core Spews Weird Radiation Bubbles,

Jerry

Our Galactic Core Spews Weird Radiation Bubbles - 25,000 light year bubbles, above and below the galactic plane:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/
2010/11/gamma-ray-bubbles-milky-way/

Completely unexpected. I love this stuff.

===========

On the plus side

Jerry,

On the plus side:

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/
2010/11/08/carbon-trading-grinds-
halt/?test=latestnews

<snip> The only national carbon trading market in the U.S. will close its doors next month, due to stalled legislation in Congress and Republican gains in the midterm elections -- a major setback in efforts to regulate so-called greenhouse gases, which environmentalists argue contribute to global warming. <snip>

Jim

=============

This may or may not have been posted when it was sent; I found it misplaced. It does no harm to repeat:

Strongly recommended: <http://tinyurl.com/38zpsel> (

"I'm collecting ideas of what the federal government ought and ought not to support in Science in the coming years. I need a list of proposed projects which fit the Adam Smith notion of projects "whose benefit to all is great but whose benefit to individual investors is small." I'm looking for game changer projects with great public benefit. Suggestions welcomed."

OK, the news:

What happens when you don't have separation of powers, the Phil Woolas case: <http://tinyurl.com/3xv7m5h>

Sharp Schneier comments on D.C. bomb plot revelations <http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2010/11/did_the_fbi_inv.html>

-- If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it? (Albert Einstein)

Harry Erwin PhD

=============w

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