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Monday  September 24, 2007

Harry Erwin's Letter from England

Parochialism:

 
I decided to get copies of my credit reports. My domicile <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domicile_(law)> is a condo in Virginia, so I meet the residence requirement. I tried to access the web site <www.annualcreditreport.com> and discovered they block non-US ISPs. I thought "I can work around that" and accessed my US ISP via ssh. So far, so good. I kicked off lynx--a text-based browser--praying that they didn't block that, and got into the web site. Brought up the web page, and started filling it in, using my domicile address. At the very end, found the captcha <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captcha>...

 
Now the captcha would be illegal in the EU on that type of web site because they discriminate against the sight-impaired. Bailed out of the web form and downloaded the mail-in form. Noticed that it appeared to be machine-readable and printed it out on A4 paper <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_216>. Filled it out, stuffed it in a DL <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_269> envelope, applied stamps, and mailed it off. Now I wait for a response, figuring that there is at least a 50% chance that the OCR will be jammed by the European paper size. Please wish me luck.

 
The News:

 
Education--the UK is very much into high-stakes exams. So much so that Cambridge and Oxford get many times as many qualified applicants as they have room for. Selection for those two universities is by interview, with the interview panels looking for students who can 'think outside the box'. English public schools (actually privately-funded schools) carefully train their students to do well--something most of the comprehensives (publicly-funded schools) don't--or can't--do.
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7007631.stm>
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7007121.stm>
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7005342.stm>
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7005446.stm>
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/6999182.stm>

 
Politics--
<http://politics.guardian.co.uk/labour2007/story/0,,2174587,00.html> <http://tinyurl.com/346gbm>
<http://business.guardian.co.uk/markets/story/0,,2174589,00.html> <http://tinyurl.com/24gem4>

 
Madeline McCann story continues--
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/crime/article/0,,2174560,00.html> <http://tinyurl.com/36n3ah>
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2507708.ece> <http://tinyurl.com/2k9hkq>
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/21/nmaddy521.xml> <http://tinyurl.com/3xrwbl>
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/21/nmaddy121.xml> <http://tinyurl.com/2dcf4g>
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/20/nmaddy1020.xml> <http://tinyurl.com/2t8f44>
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/20/nmaddy820.xml> <http://tinyurl.com/2tcruq> <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2508052.ece> <http://tinyurl.com/2ty43n>

 
UK police and crime stories--robberies are up--
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/20/ncrime220.xml> <http://tinyurl.com/2yoza7>
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/20/ncrime120.xml> <http://tinyurl.com/2vxm6y>
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/22/ndrown122.xml> <http://tinyurl.com/3b6bp6>
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/21/ndrown121.xml> <http://tinyurl.com/2dv97x>
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2505301.ece> <http://tinyurl.com/ywaxor>
<http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the_web/article2500477.ece> <http://tinyurl.com/2ctlxu>

 
Miscellaneous stories of interest--witch hunts, spies, death and taxes, and bikes--
<http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7003128.stm> <http://tinyurl.com/2fdlwb>
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/secondworldwar/story/0,,2174648,00.html> <http://tinyurl.com/yskb4u>
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/21/ninherit121.xml> <http://tinyurl.com/38qcev>
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/20/nmilk220.xml> <http://tinyurl.com/2w8uou>
<http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/20/npetrol120.xml> <http://tinyurl.com/2eyjdd> <http://politics.guardian.co.uk/publicservices/story/0,,2173999,00.html> <http://tinyurl.com/2eull6>
<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/janice_turner/article2507959.ece> <http://tinyurl.com/2cvx5c>

 
--
Harry Erwin, PhD
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." (Benjamin Franklin, 1755)

========

Poster child for "Think of it as evolution in action"

Hi Jerry,

Have you seen this yet? A college student walks into an airport, holding play-doh connected to wires with flashing lights, then claims it was art.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297593,00.html 

She's damn lucky to be alive - the cops would have been well within their rights to shoot her on the spot. If they had, then she really would have been the poster child for "Think of it as evolution in action". The only thing I suppose we can hope for is that she won't reproduce. You'd think an MIT student would be smarter than that.

Cheers,

Doug

You would think so...

=========

Subject: ultracapacitor

Dr. Pournelle,

Re the ultra-capacitor, your correspondents doing back of the envelope calculations don’t seem to have looked at the patent. US Pat 7,033,406

“FIG. 1 indicates a schematic of 2320 energy storage components 9 hooked up in parallel with a total capacitance of 31 farads. The maximum charge voltage 8 of 3500 V is indicated with the cathode end of the energy storage components 9 hooked to system ground 10.”

The MIT Tech Review piece here http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/18086/page1/?a=f <http://www.technologyreview.com/Biztech/18086/page1/?a=f> gives a better background than the original non technical ref.

The voltages are much higher than had been assumed (energy stored proportional to square of voltage?) and “In a traditional ultracap, that permittivity is given a rating of 20 to 30, while EEStor's claim is 18,500 or more--a phenomenal number by most accounts.” The dielectric constant drops as the electric field strength increases and increasing temperature though, so the usable result may be quite a bit less.

I have no idea whether it will work or not, but have always been nervous about storing energy at that high density. Wish I could remember enough to even do a back of the envelope calc.

Adrian Ashfield

========

Hansen's Big Chill.

http://www.investors.com/editorial/editorialcontent.asp?
secid=1501&status=article&id=275267681833290

---- Roland Dobbins

Hardly astonishing. But I hadn't known Hansen himself was a big chill advocate.

=========

Subject: Evolution and Disease

Dear Dr. Pournelle --

My two cents on dubious psychiatric diseases.

The issue of the persistence of hereditary diseases is one that confuses many people in the context of evolution. That is because the thinking of the average person is linear and does not take into account some trickyaspects of variation and stochastic dynamics.

The fundamental model of evolution is predicated on two things:

- variation - genetic variability (instead of fixity) of traits; - selection - modulation of the variable genetic profile by the environment via adaptive fitness.

The critical thing to remember here is that unless any given trait is so simple as to be expressed with a single gene, even a single step on our DNA helix, it is not possible to make the prediction that if trait X is desirable/undesirable, eventually we all will have it/be rid of it. Most traits are complex in nature, and they can only be expressed through either multi-step genes, or multiple gene loci.

That means if a trait involves multiple components among whose combinations is the variant corresponding to the fitness-generating mutation, and if, however, another one of these combinations leads to a deficiency in dealing with, or vulnerability to, a condition or disease, unless the latter's cost (realized as attrition) is not higher than the benefit provided by the former (realized as reproductive success), it will persist.

A very common example is the mutation which when present in *only one* of the parents provides us with immunity to malaria, but which when present in *both* of the parents, leads to sickle-cell anemia.

The thing that is difficult to accept is, evolution's motto is never "only the perfect survives." The criterion is simply "only the good-enough survives." (If would have have been very expensive to have it the other way around anyway as anyone with even a rudimentary experience in industrial production or engineering can figure out.)

Here's a common curiosity: Since beautiful people are more successful in finding mates, why aren't we all beautiful?

One educated guess: Physical attractiveness has been explored under a new light in the recent years, and it seems our features operate on the basis of "truth in advertising." That is, all our deformities are the result of diseases (hereditary or contagious) and deficiencies, and the healthier we are in all respects (especially young and fertile women in their reproductive hormone profile) the better-looking we are.

So, then, why haven't we all become Hollywood stars? Again, the clue is in *variation.* Each variation is a kind of experimentation (sexual reproduction, especially with a species like humans -- i.e. one with a 3-billion-step DNA spectrum --, is key to having a very large set of combinatorial outcomes), and since each variation implies some kind of bargaining with the environment for fitness in this or that regard, our DNA profile is never static and constantly changes. Since new variations are risks that may lead to negative fitness (i.e. disease), and since most critical diseases leave their mark in our looks, it does not seem possible to breed a species of Hollywood stars.

This is speculative, but at least the discussion contains hints on why it is unrealistic to expect "perfection" -- whatever set of traits that may signify -- in a species.

If only we stopped assuming that evolution is a production line for generating supermen.

--

How does all this relate to dubious psychiatric diagnoses?

Well, although the default conservative attitude is an inclination to brush off most of these "disorders" as a cloak to cover up the irresponsibility of pampered brats, I believe that is a bit rash. There's hardly anything in the environment where we have spent the vast part of our evolutionary past -- currently occupied by hyenas, scorpions, anteaters, platipuses, etc. -- that can simulate the stresses we have to deal with these days -- such as those faced by a financial expert dealing with the funds of a company of hundreds of people, or an engineer working on the design of a processor core. Given the "barely-enough is good enough" principle of evolution, we can infer that our brains have only recently been put to the test of such intricate and involved situations, and a few decades or at most a century is absolutely *nothing* in evolutionary terms to sort out the adaptive from the maladaptive. Add to this the fact that our modern legal systems almost completely attenuate the process by sanctioning "discrimination" (selection) of the individual at all costs, and it would have been a miracle if no significant psychological disorders had hit the surface.

Given this, it is quite possible that quite a few of our features that were selected for due to having adaptive value have a "baggage" if you will that has only recently begun to express itself in multiple psychiatric maladies due to the fact that the constraints on sociality are much more stringent nowadays.

We may not be entirely wrong about the excesses and unreliability of the psychiatric-pharmaceutical-industrial complex, but it would be negating the consequent to claim "if psychiatric diseases were valid, we could cure irresponsible behavior; since that is not the case, then diagnoses are obviously used to excuse irresponsible behavior; therefore, modern psychiatric diagnostic schemes are all bunk."

The issue, as I'm sure you, too, have observed, is elsewhere. The issue is, we have practically censored the notion of "biology as the basis of human behavior," and are suffering the consequences.

Regards -- KE

==========

USS Hopper and Adm Grace Hopper

Jerry Pournelle,

My name is E A Hughes and I am a retired FTCM (SS), U. S Navy. I noticed your article on the USS Hopper (DDG 70), and I looked at a comment generated by an individual that indicated computer programming would become unimportant; a program would teach people to read and understand. What I wonder is if a programmer or compiler wrote the program that will accomplish that task?

Back on the intent of the post; I had the honor of working under the direction of Cdr. Grace Hopper on a Navy research and development ship in the late 1960’s. This was my duty station and she had been sent by proper Navy authority to install targeting information on the newly developed Poseidon Missile Fire Control System. She and her team from the Naval Weapons Laboratory were to install and check out the targeting response provided by the Fire Control System. I was the senior enlisted individual responsible for the operation and maintenance of that system. We got underway after she reported onboard and came to the Missile Control Center to do her assigned job. She soon found that the system would not accept the targeting data because the ships speed was more than the 6 knots the program allowed in making missile launch possible. Cdr Hopper finally came to ask me if she should request the Captain of the ship to reduce ships speed to solve the problem. I was by the way unable to observe what she and her team were doing because I did not have the “need to know” but she thought maybe I could help solve the problem. When she told me what the problem was I said “Cdr I do believe I can fix that problem by changing the machine language that saw ships speed as a problem”. Her huge book that was referred to as the “Missile Tactical Program” was annotated in Cobal” and her team was unaware of how to overcome or bypass the problem. The annotation was evidently insufficient to allow a correction to the problem. She asked me how I was aware of the contents of the “Tactical Program” and I told her that in order to teach Sailors how to maintain this Fire Control Computer I had to look a little further than the Navy wanted me to. As it turns out I used my knowledge of machine language to modify the program so it did not recognize ship speed. The Cdr was thankful and recommended me for a medal, which I did receive at a later date.

Adm Grace Hopper was, and still remains a credit to the United States Navy, her efforts no doubt accelerated the use of computers for all of us. And I feel I have correctly attempted to point out that knowing the basics is still and will always be an appropriate point of knowledge. But this is only one small example and having some limited knowledge of Adm Grace Hopper I am certainly glad the Navy Graced a Man-of-War with her name.

Respectfully,

E A Hughes, FTCM (SS)

USN (Retired)

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

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Tuesday,  September 25, 2007

What price Magna Carta?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/25/
nyregion/25magna.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

-- Roland Dobbins

"To none will we sell, to none deny or delay, right or justice."

=========

I got this a few minutes ago:

OSAMA THE GUN--freebie novel portion (not attached)

Norman Spinrad web site: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/normanspinrad    email:normanspinrad@hotmail.com 

Dear Folks: You are getting this because one way or another I think it might be of interest to you, and I'm not spamming you with the actual file of OSAMA THE GUN the freeware portion, which you can look at and download if you like at:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/326098/OSAMA-THE-GUNnovel-portion- 

What this is all about is explained below in the introduction that is part of the file itself.

WARNING! This is NOT the complete text of the novel OSAMA THE GUN !

This is the first third of the novel

This portion of OSAMA THE GUN is Freeware

Frankly I am making this portion available as freeware as widely as possible because publishers have been rejecting OSAMA THE GUN the completed novel for reasons I dare to suggest are largely political, and for reasons that will I believe be obvious to anyone who reads even this portion, they are the same reasons this novel needs to be published and read.

If you want to know more about what this is all about and why the author of over 20 novels is doing a thing like this, go to my YouTube channel "MeTube" and have a look at the videos OSAMA THE GUN parts 1-5.

The URL is: <http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=normanspinrad

While you are there, you can learn who I am if you don’t know already via the video "Allow Me to Introduce Myself."

As far as I’m concerned, this matter transcends the literary in the era in which we all find ourselves, and the reasons why publishers are frightened of publishing OSAMA THE GUN are the very reasons it should be read, and widely, in the west, and in the Islamic world.

I say no more here. If this doesn’t interest you in reading this portion in itself, or a leastg looking at the videos before you decide, pardon the intrusion. This is, after all, freeware, it’s cost you nothing, toss it.

But for those of you who do end up reading it and want to read the rest of the novel, I’m enlisting your aid.

Redistribute this freeware file.

Email me at: normanspinrad@hotmail.com 

And just say you want to read the novel. I’ll put all those emails in a file and keep a running count.

If you want to castigate me for what I’m doing, email me and I’ll keep those in a file and count them too.

Once again the url: http://www.scribd.com/doc/326098/OSAMA-THE-GUNnovel-portion- 

=========

Eggheads: How bird brains are shaking up science
 http://www.boston.com/news/globe/
ideas/articles/2007/09/16/eggheads  [Linked by Arts & Letters Daily.] 7.9.16 By Jonah Lehrer

THE NEW CALEDONIAN crow is surprisingly smart about its food. Its favorite insects live in tiny crevices that are too narrow for its beak. So the crow takes a barbed leaf and, using its beak and claws, fashions a primitive hook. It then lowers the hook down into the cracks, almost like a man fishing, and draws up a rich meal. Some scientists even suggest that crows are more sophisticated tool builders than chimps, since they can transmit their knowledge on to successive generations and improve the tools over time. These birds have a culture.

The world lost its most famous bird brain this month: Alex, an African gray parrot who lived in a Brandeis laboratory and possessed a vocabulary of nearly 150 words. Yet as remarkable as Alex was - he could identify colors and shapes - he was not alone. The songs of starlings display a sophisticated grammar once thought the sole domain of human thinking. A nutcracker can remember the precise location of hundreds of different food storage spots. And crows in Japan have learned how to get people to crack walnuts for them: They drop them near busy intersections, then retrieve the smashed nuts when the traffic light turns red.

These feats are part of a growing recognition of the genius of birds. Scientists are now studying various birds to explore everything from spatial memory to the grammatical structure of human language. This research is helping to reveal the secrets of the human brain. But it is also overturning the conventional evolutionary story of intelligence, in which all paths lead to the creation of the human cortex. The tree of life, scientists are discovering, has numerous branches of brilliance. <snip>

========

Mike Males: This Is Your (Father's) Brain on Drugs (w. letters) http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/17/
opinion/17males.html?pagewanted=print 

Santa Cruz, Calif.

A SPATE of news reports have breathlessly announced that science can explain why adults have such trouble dealing with teenagers: adolescents possess immature, undeveloped brains that drive them to risky, obnoxious, parent-vexing behaviors. The latest example is a study out of Temple University that found that the temporal gap between puberty, which impels adolescents toward thrill seeking, and the slow maturation of the cognitive-control system, which regulates these impulses, makes adolescence a time of heightened vulnerability for risky behavior.

We know the rest of the script: Commentators brand teenagers as stupid, crazy, reckless, immature, irrational and even alien, then advocate tough curbs on youthful freedoms. Jay Giedd, who heads the brain imaging project at the National Institutes of Health, argues that the voting and drinking ages should be raised to 25. Deborah Yurgelun-Todd, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, asks whether we should allow teenagers to be lifeguards or to enlist in the military. And state legislators around the country have proposed raising driving ages.

But the handful of experts and officials making these claims are themselves guilty of reckless overstatement. More responsible brain researchers like Daniel Siegel of the University of California at Los Angeles and Kurt Fischer at Harvards Mind, Brain and Education Program caution that scientists are just beginning to identify how systems in the brain work.

People naturally want to use brain science to inform policy and practice, but our limited knowledge of the brain places extreme limits on that effort, Dr. Siegel told me. There can be no brain-based education or brain-based parenting at this early point in the history of neuroscience.

Why, then, do many pundits and policy makers rush to denigrate adolescents as brainless? One troubling possibility: youths are being maligned to draw attention from the reality that its actually middle-aged adults the parents whose behavior has worsened.<snip>

==

Scientists say distinct differences in the brain activity of paedophiles have been found using scanning technology.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7006628.stm 

=======

Susan Shepherd on Star Simpson:

Regarding the Fox News article on "hoax bomb" at airport ...

Greetings, Dr. Pournelle.

I would like to clarify the Fox News story about Star Simpson, the MIT sophomore who wore an LED nametag to an airport and was arrested after walking outside with it on.

I have spoken with some of Star's friends and classmates, in addition to reading a number of articles on the subject. I don't expect this letter to be published; it wouldn't do much good anyhow, as most people have already heard the media's version of what happened and don't care to have that view changed. But I hope you can spare a few minutes to read this, so that you, at least, will have a clearer idea of what happened.

Last week was Career Week at MIT. As usually happens during such events, the students turned out in high numbers to speak with company representatives and examine the "free" items that are handed out to students who visit certain booths. Star Simpson, an Electrical Engineering and Computer Science major who enjoys playing around with electronics, wore a bulky handmade nametag to the event. It consisted of a breadboard, LEDs in the shape of a star (for her name), some wires, and a nine-volt battery. She taped it to her sweatshirt to keep it in place, possibly hoping that the company representatives would better be able to remember a student with a flashing nametag.

She also, as is custom, acquired a number of neat little items from the vendors there. I've seen some of what was available - bleach pens for clothing, large foam 'pills' that you could squeeze as a method of stress relief, small containers of Play-Doh. She picked up a canister of Play-Doh and placed it in her pocket.

Some time after this - I don't know how long, sorry - she went to the Logan Airport to meet a friend of hers. I can easily see her losing track of time and being too rushed to put her sweatshirt away before leaving. Or perhaps she forgot the breadboard entirely - just as someone with a bandaged wrist will soon ignore its presence. Or perhaps she thought no one would care - she is from MIT, after all, and the culture here does not regard breadboards as weapons of mass destruction. Or perhaps she thought that it wouldn't matter, since she knew that she would not be going through the security checkpoint.

Perhaps it was all of these, or none of these, that resulted in her arriving at the airport waiting area with a breadboard and some harmless electronics taped to her sweatshirt. At least one airport worker asked her about it; according to that article, she responded that it was a piece of art. She was regarded as 'suspicious' for asking what gate her friend's plane would be arriving at.

(Somewhere in here, she may have become bored with waiting and started mashing Play-Doh in one hand. I have never seen any indication that she had it near the wires at all. I can only guess about what happened with the Play-Doh; she apparently had it on her, but most news articles didn't mention it. Perhaps it was found when the police searched her, but not before? I just don't know.)

At some point, the police were called, and they stopped her. She complied with the police and was arrested. It was established in short order that she had no intention of frightening people. The wiring for the LED nametag was slightly more complicated than the wiring in an LED flashlight. (Within 24 hours, at least two MIT students had constructed their own light-up necklaces, although I won't print here the word that they spelled in Morse code.) In short, it became clear that the object was not a bomb and had never been intended to be mistaken for one.

The media, however, quickly inflated the sense of danger. The phrases "hoax bomb" and "fake bomb" were used frequently in news coverage; explanations were given short shrift, and anything Star said was said to be "alleged." "Allegedly" waiting for a friend, an "alleged" MIT student, an "alleged" art piece for an "alleged" career fair. She was portrayed as criminally stupid and attention-seeking, or a malicious youth who ought to be put away.

And the public reaction followed the media's lead. I've seen comments online that ranged from "She should be expelled" to "That girl should have been shot." MIT students have been derided as fools - one local paper printed the headline, "More Idiotic Tricks." Fully 20% of respondents to one online poll said that MIT was at least partly to blame. That Star Simpson intended no harm is apparently inconsequential.

I'm sure most people have accidently brought something to a place they shouldn't have. Nail clippers to an elementary school. A penknife to a county fair. Matches or scissors onto a plane. Permanent markers to a high school. I fail to see any excuse for the public outcry this time - yes, she was careless, and I think the police acted appropriately given what they knew at the time. But to call her stupid or malicious is pushing it, surely?

Again, I don't know that it is my place to speak out for her. I'm no reporter, no photographer. But it does sadden me to see such an inaccurate depiction of events on the site of someone who I hold in such high esteem.

Thoughtfully, Susan Shepherd
 Former CA high school student
 Current MIT freshman, probably Course 7 (Biology)

Regular readers will recall that Susan has been here before, at first anonymously from a California high school.

I can understand how Star Simpson managed to be so egregiously in error; I know Cal Tech students more than capable of doing the same thing. It was a silly thing to do, and I do wonder how anyone can be THAT absent-minded, particularly at Logan Airport; but it's well to see her side of the story.

I would think that a big electronic circuit board and a bunch of Play-Doh is somewhat different from having a pocket knife or a Workman tool in your brief case (I lost my Workman knockoff on my trip to DC because I forgot it was in the Number Nine carry on bag). I had forgotten the Workman, but I think I would not have forgotten a big circuit board taped to my chest.

Of course most of these "security measures" are security theater, and add nothing to actual security. Once the cockpit doors have been secured, it's not going to be possible to take over airplanes and use them as cruise missiles; and there are few readers here who do not know how to destroy an airplane if they don't mind being killed while doing it. If the goal is killing airplane passengers, say those standing in security lines at, say, Washington National on a Friday afternoon, a lot of alternatives occur to me, and I am sure to you. I might even survive some of them.

None of my scenarios for attacking passengers in airports involve flashing lights on open circuit boards. My electronic cameras have plenty of circuitry and I can enclose one heck of a lot of electronics in a small plastic box with a battery. I am sure Star Simpson could design much better.

She doesn't deserve high credit for this particular stunt, but it doesn't need a great deal more attention either. Thanks for setting the record straight. Now don't you go do something silly like that.

And see below

=========

September 24, 2007 Germs Taken to Space Come Back Deadlier By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 9:31 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- It sounds like the plot for a scary B-movie: Germs go into space on a rocket and come back stronger and deadlier than ever. Except, it really happened.

The germ: Salmonella, best known as a culprit of food poisoning. The trip: Space Shuttle STS-115, September 2006. The reason: Scientists wanted to see how space travel affects germs, so they took some along -- carefully wrapped -- for the ride. The result: Mice fed the space germs were three times more likely to get sick and died quicker than others fed identical germs that had remained behind on Earth.

''Wherever humans go, microbes go, you can't sterilize humans. Wherever we go, under the oceans or orbiting the earth, the microbes go with us, and it's important that we understand ... how they're going to change,'' explained Cheryl Nickerson, an associate professor at the Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology at Arizona State University.

Nickerson added, in a telephone interview, that learning more about changes in germs has the potential to lead to novel new countermeasures for infectious disease.

She reports the results of the salmonella study in Tuesday's edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers placed identical strains of salmonella in containers and sent one into space aboard the shuttle, while the second was kept on Earth, under similar temperature conditions to the one in space.<snip>

========

Study Finds Almost 9% of American Children Meet DSM-IV Criteria for ADHD

Jerry

Study Finds Almost 9% of American Children Meet DSM-IV Criteria for ADHD

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/563092  (I don't know how available this is to click to it.)

I am not surprised. One of your correspondents a few months ago talked of how his adopted son responds to being in the woods. That got me thinking.

I work as a jail shrink. About 80-90% of the inmates I see have or have had ADHD, so I have seen a lot of it. Very prominent in their complaints is "racing thoughts" at night - basically ADHD thought-shifting - which delays sleep (they have been taught to it "racing thoughts" by psychiatrists, influenced by drug-company-sponsored free continuing medical education which recharacterizes many symptoms as "bipolar", but that is another diatribe).

I do a lot of counseling on coping with ADHD-related issues, in lieu of providing these adults with treatment for it (try to imagine giving people stimulant medications in the context of an institution full of drug addicts). Your correspondent helped me with my task.

People with ADHD are highly distractible. That means they are constantly aware of small stimuli occurring. Imagine being in the woods as a primitive hunter. These stimuli - which would be extraneous for a civilized person - might give clues to the presence of potential prey, or actual predators.

People with ADHD usually can become totally engrossed in something they find interesting. It is difficult to get their attention in such circumstances. Imagine a big cat as it creeps up on his prey. It's just like that.

In essence, I see ADHD as a set of adaptations for successful hunting - and avoiding being hunted.

The thinking at night that ADHD people do is a way to sort through the day's events. When people are not anxious about getting to sleep and searching for chemical means to get that sleep, lying awake at night is actually useful. And before we had artificial lighting, people had long nights - long enough to stay awake a long time and still get a good night's sleep.

As I see it, ADHD is one end of a bell curve, I do not think of it as a disease, a separate entity. The more we lower the threshold for detection, the more we make schools unforgiving for people who need to wiggle, the more single mothers we have who cannot accompany their children to the park to run around (Lord knows it is too dangerous in many places to allow children outside without adult overwatch), the larger the number of kids diagnosed with ADHD. They are simply climbing up that big slope toward the mean.

I am not at all surprised at the 8.7% figure they found for children diagnosable with ADHD. I have been privately estimating 10%.

I think that figure says more about our society and the institutions to which we condemn our children than it does about the kids themselves.

Ed Hume

I am quite certain that I would have been drugged as ADD while at Capleville School in 4 - 8 grades, if the modern thinking prevailed. As it was, Ms. Morton really didn't like me after I got on the Whiz Kids radio show, although fortunately the librarian used to feed me books to read, and most teachers would just put up with my reading outside stuff -- novels, mostly, like Jack London and Meader and Henty --  in class (with two grades to a room there was considerable reading time).

I am sure glad there were no drug companies pushing Ritalin back in them there days.

========

Sea Green  

Dear Jerry,

>>Interesting brief article in the Economist on using ocean fertilization to fight climate change with a twist, the algae is harvested to produce biofuel. Gee, this sounds similar to some ideas in one of your books from 30 years ago ....<<

The Department of Energy/National Renewable Energy Laboratory supported a similarly innovative algae to biodiesel fuel program for 17 years. That one focused on using the heat in power plant cooling water ponds for fast algae culture. The program even assembled over 3,000 species of algae for study and development. Hazel O'Leary killed that off in the mid-1990s, along with everything else (waste biomass to methanol, ablative fast pyrolysis) that threatened to produce meaningful amounts of fuels from existing inedible plant sources.

Best Wishes,

Mark

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Wednesday, September 26, 2007

This was a day to work on fiction.

Andrew Sullivan piece on Bush/Clinton/Bush/Clinton monarchy

Sir,

Did you see this?

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/
the_daily_dish/2007/09/queen-hillary-i.html 

" The conservative Washington Establishment is swooning for Hillary for a reason. The reason is an accommodation with what they see as the next source of power (surprise!); and the desire to see George W. Bush's invasion and occupation of Iraq legitimated and extended by a Democratic president (genuine surprise). Hillary is Bush's ticket to posterity. On Iraq, she will be his legacy. They are not that dissimilar after all: both come from royal families, who have divvied up the White House for the past couple of decades. They may oppose one another; but they respect each other as equals in the neo-monarchy that is the current presidency. And so elite conservatives are falling over themselves to embrace a new Queen Hillary, with an empire reaching across Mesopotamia, a recently deposed court just waiting to return to the salons of DC, a consort happy to be co-president for another four years, and a back-channel to the other royal family. She'll even have more powers than Clinton I, because Cheney has given her back various royal prerogatives: arrests without charges, torture, wire-tapping, and spy-ware on your Expedia account. Only the coronation awaits. Vivat! Vivat! Vivat Regina! Unless, of course, the coronation is happening just a little too soon."

When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,’ it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less.’

‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you can make words mean so many different things.’

‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master - that’s all.’

Alice in Wonderland

Well, maybe not...

=========

Hansen's Biig Chill - Explaining His Conversion

"How many people, for instance, know that James Hansen, a man billed as a lonely "NASA whistleblower" standing up to the mighty U.S. government, was really funded by Soros' Open Society Institute , which gave him "legal and media advice"?

That's right, Hansen was packaged for the media by Soros' flagship "philanthropy," by as much as $720,000, most likely under the OSI's "politicization of science" program.

That may have meant that Hansen had media flacks help him get on the evening news to push his agenda and lawyers pressuring officials to let him spout his supposedly "censored" spiel for weeks in the name of advancing the global warming agenda.

Hansen even succeeded, with public pressure from his nightly news performances, in forcing NASA to change its media policies to his advantage. Had Hansen's OSI-funding been known, the public might have viewed the whole production differently. The outcome could have been different."

http://ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=275526219598836 

Ron Mullane

=========

Ultracapacitor / electric car 

Taking the figures from the earlier e-mail, of 31 farads at 3500 volts, the capacitor could store about 52 kilowatt hours (which is computed from the capacitance / operating voltage, and was mentioned in the patent application.)

The dimensions of this capacitor are 13.5 inches x 13.5 inches x 11 inches, and it would weigh 336 pounds.

One gallon of gasoline delivers approx 14 kWh of usable power (36 kWh of chemical energy, engine about 40% efficient.)

So, this delivers an energy density of about 3.7 gallons of gasoline. Which would weigh about 23 pounds.

336 pounds versus 23 pounds. However, if you used wheel mounted electric motors, and regenerative breaking, they would compensate for the weight difference, as gasoline engines and drive trains are heavy.

Now on to charging this capacitor. You'd have to have 52000 watts of power capacity to charge it in one hour. This would be 52 amps (average) at 1,000 volts.

Using a charge controller to handle the inrush current (capacitors are greedy when discharged), and possibly not discharging 100% (which you couldn't anyway, to be practical). So, say you're getting 80% duty cycle out of the capacitor. That's only about 3 gallons of gasoline equivalent.

Most compact cars today have at least 10 gallons of fuel capacity. At 40 MPG, that's a 400 mile range. To get this, we'd have to have three of those ultra capacitors, weighing 1,000 pounds. Not impractical, considering that an average engine / drive train / full fuel system would be similar in weight. Of course, this doesn't account for the weight of the electric motors, power cabling, and power controller. So the electric car will likely be a bit heavier.

With three capacitors, you'd need 150 amps at 1,000 volts to charge it in one hour (or 750 amps to charge in 12 minutes), and would use 125 kilowatt hours to charge it (using the 80% duty cycle), at a cost of $17.50 (14 cents a kWh, current California prices). For 10 gallons equivalent, that's only $1.75 a gallon (without road taxes, which would add about 50 cents a gallon.) So, $2.25 a gallon equivalent for electricity, definitely competitive.

Getting closer (much closer than batteries), but still quite a distance from being as practical as petroleum. Pretty steep up front costs from an infrastructure standpoint, and we'd still need the power stations to generate all that electricity (nuclear, or solar power satellites?)

Howard

========

Real options analysis for space projects.

http://unenumerated.blogspot.com/2007/09/
real-options-analysis-for-deep-space.html

- Roland Dobbins

========

NYT takes aim at Blackwater; hits self

http://monkeytenniscentre.blogspot.com/
2007/09/nyt-takes-aim-at-blackwater-hits-self.html 

"So DynCorp's 'shoot rate' was around one mission in a hundred in 2005, and around one mission in 150 in 2006. Blackwater's shoot rate was about twice as high, so if we average the shoot rate for DynCorp over the two years (one incident per 125 missions) then double it and round down for good measure, that gives Blackwater a shoot rate of one incident per 60 missions.

I don't know about you, but I find those figures – both for Blackwater and DynCorp – staggering, even allowing for the fact that there must be other incidents where convoys come under attack, but keep going without returning fire.

I was under the impression that every time a convoy left the Green Zone it was like the scene in Mad Max II <http://youtube.com/watch?v=khffg8xUbYQ>  where the fuel tanker (no spoilers in case you haven't seen it) driven by Max leaves the good guys' compound. I pictured insurgents leaping off buildings on to the roofs of SUVs, IEDs going off left, right and centre, and suicide car bombs and RPGs coming from every direction.

Where did I get this impression? From watching the TV news and reading the mainstream news websites. It's almost as if… as if… the media is exaggerating how bad things are in Iraq!"

Yep, sounds much like "mad-dog killers" taking advantage of the opportunity to grease a few ragheads whenever they go outside the wire.

========

Bait and shoot.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/
article/2007/09/25/AR2007092502136.html

-- Roland Dobbins

 

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Thursday, September 27, 2007

Star Simpson

So let me get this straight: Star isn't willfully fractious, she's just absent-mindedly incompetent. That's...better?

-- Mike T. Powers

AND SEE BELOW

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

I do seem to have put Thursday's mail in Wednesday...

 

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Friday,  September 28, 2007

All good things...

Must eventually come to an end...

Fred on Everything is hanging up his sword and shield for at least a month.

http://www.fredoneverything.net/Hiatus.shtml 

Charles Brumbelow

I hope all is well with Fred. His views and mine are not congruent, but there is considerable overlap.

Fred is discouraged:

A few examples to make a point: The schools are terrible, we know they are terrible, we have known it for decades, and yet they only get worse. The universities are become dumbed-down propaganda chutes, and we know it, yet they only get worse. The War on Drugs is an ineffective farce continued for the benefit of drug lords, and we know it, yet we continue. The racial situation is both grim and stagnant. We have no military enemies, yet spend ever more on “defense.” None of these foolishnesses can be changed. If they could be, by now they would have been.

A train wreck once started goes to completion.

I've been around longer than he has. I remember that in 1983 the National Commission on Education, Glenn T. Seaborg, Chairman, concluded that "If a foreign power had imposed this system of education on the United States, we would rightly consider it an act of war."

Since then things have got worse. We have a Department of Education that can't be curbed, much less abolished. We have No Child Gets Ahead enacted into law.

But we also have a large home school movement, and a lot of our brighter kids are no longer in the hands of the bureaucrats.

The Internet has made it possible for a lot of people to know the truth -- if they care to know it. We are running an experiment: the Founding Fathers would have been overjoyed to have something like the Internet when they formed their Committees of Correspondence. It's the equivalent of a printing press in every kitchen. What will we do with these tools?

In any event, I don't intend to quit. I will remind you that if you've been thinking of subscribing this is a good time to do it.

=========

Afghan farmers find alternative to opium 

Well, it IS indisputably "progress"!

Afghan farmers find alternative to opium

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070927/wl_nm/afghan_drugs_dc <http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070927/wl_nm/afghan_drugs_dc>

Balkh province in the north was trumpeted as a success story -- from 7,000 hectares of poppies cultivated in 2006, it was declared opium-free in 2007 after strong local government action.

But around the ancient citadel of Balkh, in fields where pink poppy flowers stood last year, jagged green marijuana stalks poke above other crops and in places whole cannabis fields produce a pungent aroma strong enough to be picked by passing motorists.

Up The Empire!

Petronius

========

Response to Powers' Email

Mike said: "So let me get this straight: Star isn't willfully fractious, she's just absent-mindedly incompetent. That's...better?"

In response:

Not at all. She is a technical student in a society which says it values liberty highly. Thus, claims our societal ideals, we don't need to be overly concerned with what we wear, speak, write, or think. The problem here is in the ignorance of the security theatre at the airports and in the reactive and fearful mores currently being promoted. A breadboard with LEDs is unusual as a garment but of greater concern is our propensity to say "unusal = dangerous." Her case, just like the Moonies advertising last year in Boston is an example of the authorities just not getting it. The confiscation of *some* exposed circuits (when I travelled to London with a large trunk with exposed circuit boards, drill motors, and all kinds of odd and unexplainable devices inside, it wasn't even inspected. Apparently I don't look like a terrorist.) and the reactions of our airport security apparat should be of great concern. Ms. Simpson is not incompetent, she just didn't perceive that her clothing could be considered a threat. As I teach at a fairly prestigious college of Technology, I'm fairly well acquainted with that mindset. It would be to our society's great disadvantage if she didn't have that mindset, because then she wouldn't be concentrating on technical problems.

The real problem is when technologists as a whole can't devote our whole attention to technical problems. The IT infrastructure is amazingly vulnerable to simple neglect and accident. A cadre of dedicated and determined techs could bring it to its knees and our society, in incidents like this, seems to be bound and determined to alienate technologists and to eliminate what we consider to be liberties.

Your statement indicates that both you find that the student is at fault and that you want to make a false dichotomy using straw-man arguments (defining for us the two possible explanations of Ms. Simpsons' behavior and setting them up to be extreme and negative.) I wish to submit a different claim: namely, as stated above, that the problem of the situation lies not with this talented technical student (a star of LEDs on a breadboard is actually somewhat tricky, if you want it to do anything more interesting than simply shine) but in the official response and the media characterization of the incident.

I'd actually like to submit the letter about Ms. Simpson to digg, as I think it provides a needed alternative viewpoint.

Respectfully, -Brian

p.s. Jerry, if you could put the aforementioned letter on a more persistent page ( i.e. not something simply anchored in the middle of a column) I really would like to submit it to the various social news sites.

I have bookmarked this thread (beginning with Shepherd's report) and linked the threads; that should make it reasonably permanent. My advisors keep telling me I ought to get involved with Digg, but my experience has been that anything not politically correct gets denounced in floods, and I have no desire to be part of the slash/dot phenomenon.

I am not sure you have correctly inferred my views here. Readers will understand that I have little use for security theater; in any sane world, this young lady would have been questioned -- wandering around with silly putty and breadboarded electronics is not common -- and everyone would have had a laugh. Her laughter would have been embarrassed laughter (assuming she really did forget she was wearing that thing) but more likely what we used to call a stuff-eating grin because she knew what she was doing, hoped to provoke a reaction, and got more reaction than she had bargained for.

It was still a silly thing to do, but I certainly did lots of silly things when I was young. Including making truly dangerous substances in high school chemistry labs. Young people ought to be aware when they do silly things. Read Richard Feynman's biographies, particularly the first one. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman...

And see below

==========

A thin reed for nuclear power

Jerry,

From the American Spectator:

<http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=12079
"The Nation's Pulse The Nuclear Renaissance Begins By William Tucker

Published 9/27/2007 12:08:15 AM

If you're tracking the nuclear power revival in America, last Tuesday, September 25, was a milestone. For the first time since 1973, a new application for building a reactor was placed before the federal government.

The applicant was NRG Energy, Inc., an 18-year-old "merchant" corporation headquartered in New Jersey's Princeton Corridor. A one-story steel-and-glass structure in the Carnegie Industrial Park, NRG has the look of a West Coast firm. The 300-or-so employees work in one vast room sectioned by neat rows of parallel workstations. The place could be a fine arts classroom, with employees casually strolling past each other's computer screens and kibitzing over their work. "This place has a collegial atmosphere," says Lori Neuman, communications manager at NRG. "It's very conductive to getting things done."

Regards,

Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

=========

Subj: Oil from Algae - Solix

http://www.solixbiofuels.com/html/company.html 

>>Solix Biofuels is a direct intellectual descendant of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Aquatic Species Program started in 1978 to explore ways to produce biodiesel from algae. When the program concluded in 1996 at the National Renewable Energy Lab in Golden, Colorado, the final program close-out report concluded that, in spite of many impressive accomplishments — especially in the biological sciences — “the high cost of algae production remains an obstacle”. The key barriers in 1996 were:

* Low cost of conventional fuel (diesel prices were hovering around $1.10 per gallon). * No monetary value for carbon mitigation capability of biodiesel. * Higher than expected cost of the production system. * Lower than expected productivity of outdoor open pond system. <<

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

=========

Energy from Dowsing

Jerry,

You will recall that some days back there was a news item - commented on in your site - regarding an invention from a British concern called EcoWatts. The 'Thermo Energy Cell' is alleged to produce 1 1/2 to 2 times the amount of energy put into it, and surely will revolutionize life as we know it, blah blah blah. You may also recall that an independent scientist, Jim Lyons at the University of York, verified the claims, citing that the device produced something like 150% of the energy put into it.

In listening to a podcast from the New England Skeptical Society called The Skeptics Guide to the Universe, I just learned a bit about the 'independent scientist'. They do not have the information in type on their web site, but you can find the podcast at http://www.theskepticsguide.org/  if you are interested in listening for yourself.

Jim Lyons does indeed have degrees in physics, engineering, and post-graduate work in aeronautics. He is also a member of the British Society of Dowsers. He undertakes research into the "geo and biophysics of earth energy". His special research topic is the "mechanism of dowsing based on quantum ideas in consciousness studies".

I predict that if other scientists are unable to replicate the results obtained, that deficiency will surely be due to their failure to hold hands and chant while performing the tests.

Regards,
 George

Are we astonished?

 

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Saturday,

Star - competent or is that missing the picture? 

Hi Dr. Pournelle,

Someone commented:

"So let me get this straight: Star isn't willfully fractious, she's just absent-mindedly incompetent. That's...better?"

I think the broader point is - she should be able to be able to be absent minded in the manner she was. But, fitting in with today's ordung! climate, this unusual but non-threatening behavior receives a response not appropriate to nor living up to the ideals upon which this country was founded.

Sincerely,

Bruce

In the world I grew up in, she'd have got some unwelcome attention, but not much. In today's world, real terrorists can in fact pose as absent-minded geeks. In a world without threats one ought to be able to play big bad wolf with minimal consequences, In this world there are tigers, and posing as a tiger should draw some attention. The result ought to be educational, not life altering. She doesn't deserve much punishment.

Having said that, what she did was dangerous. Police officers and security people have terrible jobs: mostly it's boring, and they are hated by their customers who resent the intrusions. But mostly it's dull, dull, dull. Then comes something unusual, and you don't have a lot of time to respond to what may be a threat.

For some security people this won't matter because it's just a job. But some take their responsibilities seriously.

What Star deserved was a lecture on responsibility and learning to act in accordance with her age and intellectual capabilities. What might have happened, but didn't, is a great deal worse. We may all be thankful that the worst didn't happen.

But in this world there are tigers.

=========

You People Have Some Serious Problems

If anyone in the world thinks that this poor girl should have been "shot on the spot" for having this on her

http://www.foxnews.com/photoessay/0,4644,2378,00.html#3_0 

which is nothing more than a breadboard with LED's and resistors and a nine volt battery plugged into it than you need to go live in the Middle East with the Arabs. We live in an electronic society over here. The whole goal of our society is to be as technically advanced as possible. If every ignorant law enforcement officer shot everyone who had electronics on them we would lose half our population in a day. Electronics are only going to get MORE abundant NOT less. These cops need to get an education.

Senator Palpatine, err I mean president Bush and Darth Vader, err I mean Dick Cheney are mainly to blame for this state of affairs as are all the people who are so afraid of dying that they will give up any liberty or freedom that they think they need to to protect themselves from the bad bad terrorists.

DP

===========

Jerry Was A Man

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Was_a_Man)

RAH was obviously a crackpot. In Stranger in a Strange Land he wrote about a First Lady who relied on an astrologer (http://www.presidentialufo.com/sydney_omarr,_reagan,_and_astrology.htm) ; and in a short story wrote about a lawyer trying to get a Chimp recognized as a person. ( http://www.cbc.ca/cp/Oddities/070927/K092704AU.html

Oh, the RAH archivers are now online; anyone with a credit card can download his papers - apparently even the stinkeroos are available. http://www.heinleinarchives.net/upload/ 

DAP

I presume you mean the first part in irony. As to the second, I have no say in the trust. Robert once asked if I wanted to be his literary executor; whether he would actually have done so isn't known to me, because the discussion didn't go any further. I declined as I have my own life to lead.

=========

I'd recommend to ANYBODY to try to make the time to watch the following video, if you are able:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?
docid=-5700431505846055184&q
=randy+pausch&total=19&start=
10&num=10&so=0&type=search
&plindex=6 

This guy is an inspiration -- in how he has lived his life up to this point, and in how he is dealing with its end ... we should all display such ... humility and childlike wonder at the privilege of being granted a bit of illumination from the fire of life ...

(reverend) JOE

=========

Lind: A Seam to Exploit?

This is an insightful and potentially important observation:

http://www.d-n-i.net/lind/lind_9_04_07.htm

-- Roland Dobbins

=========

MIT Halo 3 prank.

http://www-tech.mit.edu/V127/N41/graphics/halo3.html

-- Roland Dobbins

=========

Germs Taken to Space Come Back Deadlier

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,297902,00.html 

"The result: Mice fed the space germs [Salmonella] were three times more likely to get sick and died quicker than others fed identical germs that had remained behind on Earth."

Charles Brumbelow

Think of it as evolution in action.

=========

DHS Sues to Overturn State Privacy Law.

http://www.techliberation.com/archives/042813.php

-- Roland Dobbins

=========

Subject: So what's your problem?

From the LA Times article: "To avoid congestion, we bounced over traffic medians, ran through a police checkpoint and used an offramp to enter the Doura Expressway, which rings eastern and southern Baghdad. As we sped down the wrong side of the freeway, a DynCorp guard tethered to the helicopter warned approaching traffic to get out of the way by throwing plastic water bottles at cars.

The return trip was much the same, save for the Iraqi one of our cars clipped when he walked into the road from between two parked cars.

Back inside the Green Zone, I told several colleagues about not stopping after hitting a pedestrian and then asked if I should report DynCorp's behavior to the U.S. Embassy. "You got back safely, didn't you?" came the response. "So what's your problem?"

GC

========

Subject: Deflecting the wrath of the legions

http://www.newswithviews.com/Pratt/larry81.htm 

As you so colorfully put it, I wonder how the legions will see legislation like this?

Mike

========

Bent Spear.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/
content/article/2007/09/22/AR2007092201447_pf.html

-- Roland Dobbins

========

Subj: The Smiley turned 25 this year

http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070923 

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

=========

Hello Jerry,

I was actually researching who was linking to my blog (weak attempt to increase traffic!), well here you pop up from the year 2000. You must have mentioned both of my search strings in a certain time period, but I couldn't find the post.

If you do speak to the topic of bipolar disorder, please stop by, I would love to mention you!

Thanks, Beth

"Dr. Spock's Kid wasn't Bipolar!" (link below)

Elizabeth W. Schott
 www.ewschott-fineart.com
 http://ewschott.blogspot.com

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

More on school spending

Scatter plots of state per-student instructional spending versus performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). The NAEP "report card" has its critics, but it is reasonably reliable and uniform. (Click on the small pictures to see larger plots, and click the links at the end of the article for more information).

http://setzer.blogspot.com/2007/09/
more-school-spending-wont-help-your.html 

I will probably post a table of data later. You can probably guess which jurisdiction is the leftmost (lowest performing) on both charts.

Steve Setzer

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

Books in the Heinlein Archive 

Heinlein's manuscripts are available to download in pdf format for about $3.00/300 pages. I purchased "Space Cadet" for $3.00, but "Stranger" would have cost me $37.00. These are not text versions of the books like you get at Baen. They are scanned images of the manuscripts as he typed them along with his changes penciled in. They also been defaced with a photograph and a large copyright notice in the background. This makes them impossible to read for pleasure (at least by me), but I'm sure the manuscripts will be of interest to researchers.

Click on Archives at http://www.heinleinarchives.net/ 

Tim Boettcher

I have not followed this. Thanks.

=========

'He said the idea is minimal disruption for immigrant Latinos.'

http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_091907
_education_mexican_curriculum_.ede64566.html

-- Roland Dobbins

==========w

f

g

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Sunday,       

I spent the day at the West Hollywood Book Faire

 

 

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CURRENT VIEW     Sunday

The current page will always have the name currentmail.html and may be bookmarked. For previous weeks, go to the MAIL HOME PAGE.

FOR THE CURRENT VIEW PAGE CLICK HERE

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IF YOU SEND MAIL it may be published; if you want it private SAY SO AT THE TOP of the mail. I try to respect confidences, but there is only me, and this is Chaos Manor. If you want a mail address other than the one from which you sent the mail to appear, PUT THAT AT THE END OF THE LETTER as a signature. In general, put the name you want at the end of the letter: if you put no address there none will be posted, but I do want some kind of name, or explicitly to say (name withheld).

Note that if you don't put a name in the bottom of the letter I have to get one from the header. This takes time I don't have, and may end up with a name and address you didn't want on the letter. Do us both a favor: sign your letters to me with the name and address (or no address) as you want them posted. Also, repeat the subject as the first line of the mail. That also saves me time.

I try to answer mail, but mostly I can't get to all of it. I read it all, although not always the instant it comes in. I do have books to write too...  I am reminded of H. P. Lovecraft who slowly starved to death while answering fan mail. 

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Entire Site Copyright, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 by Jerry E. Pournelle. All rights reserved.

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