Monthly Archives: October 2012

Mail 746 Sunday, October 14, 2012

Machman.

<http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SUPERSONIC_SKYDIVER?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-10-14-11-33-29>

Joe Kittinger’s record held for 51 years . . .

—

Roland Dobbins

I was minorly involved in Manhigh back in the early days. Major Dave Simons taught me the habit of installing seat belts and insisting that everyone used them when I visited one of the balloon launches – I was then in human factors at Boeing and we had contracts on space survival equipment. We didn’t know much about anything in those days.

Subj: Colonel Kittinger’s Heir?

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/330377/giant-leap-man-andrew-stuttaford

Rod Montgomery==monty@starfief.com

Indeed.

China and the west.

Hi Jerry,

Hope your nose is on the mend. Here is a short but interesting article on China and the west from the BBC news site:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19929620

Regards,

Andrew McCann.

Very basic of course. Imagine Greek times when there were Greeks, almost-Greeks and those who might become Greeks in a vague concept of the homonoia. America had some of that concept in its formation before we became enthralled by diversity. Early concepts of homonoia had elements of race in them, as did early concepts of Americanism. Over time Americans came to accept various nationalities and linguistic groups as candidates for the melting pot. It took time to include Asians and Africans in that mix, but it was happening. As Bill Buckley used to say, you could study to become an American. It took work but you could do it, and we were opening that to everyone. That, of course was back before we became enthralled to diversity.

China has always had its concept of civilization vs. barbarians. China was often conquered by barbarians, but managed to survive and civilize her conquerors. Of course one can question whether their current treatment of Tibetans and Uighers fits any model of civilization, but that is for another discussion.

Space Out: NASA Faces More Budget Cuts in 2013 | Observations, Scientific American Blog Network

Not sure if either is really saying anything but at least space is being discussed.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2012/10/12/space-out-nasa-faces-more-budget-cuts-in-2013/=

The question, of course, is what role government ought to play in space development.

I covered much of that in The Strategy of Technology and various other papers and books I have done since. Roughly it is that government ought to put out prizes for technological developments, and fund X-projects, but it should not try to control technological developments through arsenals and centers.

The old NACA helped the development of the aviation industry. NASA strangled the space industry. Given what was spent on space development after Apollo we ought to be halfway to Alpha Centaiuri by now; instead NASA drained off valuable projects to pay its standing army.

We may be on a better path now. The key is not the size of the NASA budget but its structure. Some parts of NASA do some things very well indeed. And the Shuttle Main Engine was a marvel in its time, efficient and reusable if run at below 95% of it’s maximum thrust, which it should have been. NASA came up with some wonders. It also came up with turkeys, such as segmented solid rocket boosters. But that is a matter for another essay.

Space-X is a real step toward commercial space development. And the Commercial Space Act was well drafted and has helped a lot.

We’ll get there…

Why big companies can’t innovate

Dr Pournelle

I thought you might find this <http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/09/why_big_companies_cant_innovate.html> interesting. I think it applies to all large organizations; for instance, NASA.

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

Well, sometimes they can, but in general there are optimum sizes. I have long been a big fan of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and I think it ought to be more vigorously applied. There are banks that are too big to fail and thus too large to allow to exist. It is true of other industries. Buying up one’s competition is not necessarily something we ought to allow when they get above 10% of the market share. Huge trusts do not act in the public interest. Competition ought to be encouraged.

David McCord Wright is no longer as highly regarded as he once was in the field of economics, but in my judgment his analysis of what was wrong with Marx has never been bettered. Marx noted the tendency of capitalism to concentrate more and more power in fewer and fewer hands. Wright pointed out that in the United States we had – for a long time – the trust busters, the anti-trust act to insure that there were competitors in vital industries, and that no one firm controlled too much of the market share. I see very little work on this in modern economics and I think that is regrettable.

AMD Laying Off Up To 30 Percent Of Workforce: Reports

http://app.info.ubmchannel.com/e/er?s=1922782676&lid=4529&elq=8ff61fb4afca4a7b9d785e94c3e5c6c3 <http://app.info.ubmchannel.com/e/er?s=1922782676&lid=4529&elq=8ff61fb4afca4a7b9d785e94c3e5c6c3>

space<http://i.cmpnet.com/designcentral/enews/crn_exec_club/images/spacer.gif>

header<http://i.crn.com/misc/newsletters/CRN_news_alerts_header.jpg>

photo<http://i.crn.com/images/layoff185.jpg> SPOTLIGHT

AMD Laying Off Up To 30 Percent Of Workforce: Reports <http://app.info.ubmchannel.com/e/er?s=1922782676&lid=4896&elq=8ff61fb4afca4a7b9d785e94c3e5c6c3>

AMD next week is expected to announce the layoffs of 20 percent to 30 percent of its staff in the wake of a disappointing preliminary third quarter fiscal report.

And the beat goes on

“Our thinking was: how do we make use of the essential essence of Einstein’s theory for velocities above c?”

<http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/10/ftl_special_relativity_mathematics/>

—

Roland Dobbins

Now that is truly interesting. So if we ever have the fact we already have an approach to the theory…

Nice people, these Taliban

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/09/world/asia/pakistan-teen-activist-attack/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

And they have recently said their only regret is that they didn’t kill her, a mistake they will remedy in due time. This is war on civilization. But we don’t have a concept of homonoia.

Top Brain surgeon atheist changes mind

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/9597345/Afterlife-exists-says-top-brain-surgeon.html

Stephanie Osborn

The Emerging Doctrine of the United States | Stratfor

Jerry

An emerging doctrine of the United States – “the United States does not take primary responsibility for events, but which allows regional crises to play out until a new regional balance is reached:”

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/emerging-doctrine-united-states

You have been arguing for this for decades. I guess the guys in suits finally figured out that it is a good idea.

The piece is from Stratfor. It’s a good read.

Ed

The United States should not become involved in the territorial disputes of Europe. On the other hand, we sent the Marines to deal with the Barbary Pirates… We do have interests.

‘As we discussed, there will be consequences for refusal to wear an ID card as we begin to move forward with full implementation.’

<http://rt.com/usa/news/texas-school-id-hernandez-033/>

Roland Dobbins

The Music Industry

Jerry,

The way to make money from popular music, surprisingly, is not to own shares in a record company. Record companies are so profligate and inefficient that in spite of very low input costs and very high product prices they show little or no overall profit.

The actual artists who write and play popular music have found an answer to the record companies historical monopoly. The equipment needed to record, mix, and then press a recording, used to cost as much as a decent sized house. Now, with the rapid improvement in electronics the equipment to do the same job costs about as much as a second hand car, and mum permitting, will fit in the musician’s bedroom. This is half the battle. The record companies still have an incestuous relationship with broadcasters which until recently preserved their monopoly control of exposure. No longer, thanks to YouTube and Facebook. Hurrah. The previously scorned artists now freely post their work for all to download and enjoy. Albeit in necessarily degraded form due to bandwidth limits. Fans who want a full fidelity version email the artist and get a DVD at half the traditional price. The fans are also told of live performances where the artist can hire a venue in a competitive market and keep the profit. Publicity, the other service offered by the record companies has also been bypassed because of the ease with which fans can post on the band’s FaceBook page. I predict that the traditional monopolistic record companies will soon die and that few will attend the funeral.

There have been similar developments in book publishing although it is regrettable that the author faces many more difficulties than the musician.

John Edwards

The world changes. But as I said when I built my first Ezekial way back in CP/M days, small computers are potentially great equalizers…

I rarely – though sometimes – recommend books to my friends. So it must be unbridled hubris to recommend a book to a successful author. Nevertheless, I will rise (stoop?) to the occasion. The Sovereign Individual, written in 1997 by James Dale Davidson and William Rees-Mogg, has much to say about the impact and likely effects of the Information Age on the state, economies, the ‘returns to violence’ – by which they mean the payoff of employing violence – and much else. Given that you and Niven have written considerably about a future that bears more resemblance to a past than it does to our present, what Davidson and Rees-Mogg have to say may provide you with a wealth of ideas for additional books, though of a very different kind of future.

Or not. Oath of Fealty is not far from what the authors predict.

Just sayin’.

Richard White

Austin, Texas

Oath of Fealty was the second novel Niven and I planned. Paer way through it Larry realized that between us we could do Inferno and he had wanted to do a book guided by Dante since he encountered it in school. OATH did in fact become a best seller, and part of it remain prophetic. If we wrote it today it would be very different, of course, but I do not think it’s main theme is impossible. I find Oath surprisingly readable even now.

“Don’t Shoot!—I’m Che!” (A Glorious Anniversary)

http://townhall.com/columnists/humbertofontova/2012/10/06/dont_shootim_che_a_glorious_anniversary/page/full/

""When you saw the beaming look on Che’s face as his victims were tied to the stake and blasted apart by the firing squad," said a former Cuban political prisoner to this writer, "you saw there was something seriously, seriously wrong with Che Guevara." "

He executed thousands without trial, and yet is still a chic image to wear on shirts to prove you are hip and with it. If we had learning in our halls of learning, this would be laughed off of the campus.

Graves

Approaching the Eye (sort of)

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2012/10/08/jaw-dropping-rotating-3d-nebula/

Environmentalist Air Pollution

Hi Dr. Pournelle,

I’m glad to hear that the MOHS procedures are going to take care of your latest brush with cancer. I doesn’t surprise me that you felt more scared this time. I think that’s only natural. I’ve never been diagnosed with cancer, but I’ve lost dear friends and family to it and the thought that I could get it scares the bejeebers out of me. I’m very glad that your little corner of sense and rationality is going to be with us for a while yet.

I found what I consider a very nice article over at the "Watt’s Up With That" website that looks at 6 tenets (if you will) of the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming cause and (I think) debunks them all. This is a guest post from Dr. Ira Glickstein (bio at the end of his post). The lede:

What’s the difference between a whimsical fable and an environmental fallacy?

* On the outside, fables are light-hearted fibs. But oh so true on the inside.

* Environmental fallacies are just the opposite, plausible on the outside but hiding ugly realities on the inside.

Environmentalists have promoted the theory that human civilization is the main cause of global warming. They argue that Governments worldwide must take immediate drastic action to prevent a catastrophe. The chain of proof in their human-caused climate catastrophe theory is broken in at least six places. (All formatting above is from the post.)

Here’s the link: Environmentalist Air Pollution <http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/10/11/environmentalist-air-pollution/>

Jay Smith

The evidence piles up that we don’t know enough to have a good theory of climate. We do know that in historical times the Earth has been both colder and warmer than it is now. We don’t even know which way it is going: it warmed from the Little Ice Age until sometime in the Twentieth Century, but the trend isn’

Mail 745 Monday, October 08, 2012

SAVABLE

Now THIS is how to do it right: SpaceX confirms Falcon rocket suffered engine flame-out

Jerry

SpaceX confirms Falcon rocket suffered engine flame-out:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/10/08/spacex_falco_flameout/print.html

And still made it to orbit. THIS is how to do it right.

Ed

The objectives of the SSX (a scale model of which became the DC/X) were: Savable. Reusable. Then fly higher and faster. Savable was the first criterion. Clearly SpaceX took such matters seriously. As you say, do it right.

I recall this discussion in about 1988 when the Citizens Advisory Council discussed what the next major X Project in space should be. Max Hunter was a big advocate of SAVABILITY. Plan for something going wrong and be able to continue.

Mohs

Dear Jerry,

Best of luck with the Mohs procedure. I have had it done twice: once on my right ear about 30 years ago (I was considered rather young to have a basil cell carcinoma at that time), and once on my right upper lip back in 2003.

Both times were followed by reconstructive surgery; so, if they haven’t scheduled you for that, you’re probably going to be OK. No problem with any recurrence; they cut until they get it all! I had some difficulty getting the surgeon back in the ’80s to tell me on average how many times he had to cut during the procedure. He was suspicious that I was asking for a guarantee of the number. I had to prove to him that I understood what an average was before he answered "twice". When he came back to cut for the fourth time, I knew I was in trouble!

My right ear is flattened as a result, but not unlike Steven Colbert’s, so I can’t blame my lack of media fame on that aspect of my looks. But, even in the worst case, you could adopt a noble lineage by emulating Tycho Brahe!

Gordon Sollars

Let’s hope mine is average… Thanks. I have to say that knowing they’re going to chop cancer out of your nose is distracting, and makes it hard to concentrate. I think I got more work done back when they were using xrays on my head to get the Lump out than I have in the last week. Of course I had less reason to believe that the brain cancer would end with a good outcome; I have every reason to believe that the Mohs Job will be successful and I’ll still have a nose when it’s done. Thanks.

Our schools in action

I am certainly relieved public education is focusing on how much candy and energy drinks the students consume instead of trying to actually teach them stuff.

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/mint-suspended-school-161637649.html

B

The best thing that could happen to American education would be the abolition of the Department of Education and repeal of all Federal Aid to Education grants and laws and the rest of it; with the single exception that the Congress can do as it will with the District of Columbia school system. But it cannot order, bribe, or compel the states. Let the states compete. It worked for a long time: the Russians destroyed the American school system with Sputnik. They didn’t even mean to do it…

Steyn: Sesame Street Nation

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/329585/sesame-nation-mark-steyn

Or as J. Scott Gration, the president’s special envoy to Sudan, said in 2009, in the most explicit Sesamization of American foreign policy: “We’ve got to think about giving out cookies. Kids, countries — they react to gold stars, smiley faces, handshakes . . . ” The butchers of Darfur aren’t blood-drenched machete-wielding genocidal killers but just Cookie Monsters whom we haven’t given enough cookies. I’m not saying there’s a direct line between Bert & Ernie and Barack & Hillary . . . well, actually I am.

And Big Bird?

A New Kind of Novel.

This is precisely the sort of thing you’ve been talking about with regards to the new possibilities e-books open up:

<http://www.wired.com/design/2012/07/russell-quinn-the-worlds-most-wired-storyteller>

<http://www.kqed.org/arts/literature/article.jsp?essid=108660>

<http://www.thesilenthistory.com/>

<http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/the-silent-history/id527403914?ls=1&mt=8>

—

Roland Dobbins

Luck is the residue of opportunity and design.

— John Milton

I expect that ‘enhanced’ digital works, a term I used thirty years ago, will be common one day. That doesn’t mean that the old words on screen or paper won’t continue to be popular, but at some point most eBooks will include a lot more maps, charts, virtual walkthroughs… It all seems inevitable to me.

Humans in space

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

I thought you would appreciate this little short story.

http://365tomorrows.com/10/02/humans-dont-belong-in-space/

I don’t see much SF like that any more. Hard science, sweet, to the point, a zinger at the end. I’ll have to see if there isn’t more of it around.

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Not ‘The Cold Equations’ but logical…

Thank you for your service, jerk:

<.>

Johnny Ramsey, the 79-year-old Korean War veteran who collected and sold junk to pay for medications for his ailing wife, said just minutes before court Thursday evening: “If I have to go to jail, I guess I am ready.”

An hour later, Ramsey left a Clover courtroom in shackles – sentenced to 30 days in the York County jail for not cleaning up his yard eight months after a judge ordered him to get rid of the junk.

Clover Town Judge Melvin Howell ruled after a contempt of court hearing Thursday that Ramsey had refused to comply with court orders to both clean up his property and pay a fine for contempt.

The sentence will be served on weekends, but it started immediately after court was finished Thursday night.

Clover Police officers handcuffed Ramsey – whose nephew is a sheriff’s deputy, whose son is in Afghanistan on his fourth deployment to war – and walked him outside the court building and put him in a police car.

</>

http://www.heraldonline.com/2012/10/04/4315205/clover-korean-war-vet-gets-30.html

I’m sick of seeing veterans get treated like crap by a system that would not exist without our service. Takes that whole "god and country" nonsense out of serving, doesn’t it? My recruiter told me "god and country" are the wrong reasons to serve and if you sign up for those reasons you will be severely disappointed. He had a more pragmatic approach to national service; I will pass that approach on to my son.

—–

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

No comment required. Or rather a great deal more than I have time or room for. Machiavelli has appropriate commentary.

: Entitlements

The whole thing about the entitlement discussion that bothers me is that if you look at it in the “big” picture, the amount of money spent on pure entitlements is fairly small compared to the amount of money spent elsewhere. I know you know this, but I’d suggest that the focus on bunny inspectors diffuses your message. I’ve been reading you for 20+ years now (I think its been 20+ years…I think we first corresponded pre-Compuserve).

Compare military budget and Medicare/Medicaid vs the various “entitlement” programs. When the US is spending more than the next 20 nations spend on the military there is something amiss. We refuse to do something meaningful about Medicare/Medicaid spending and I watch Romney and Obama “debate” and I say “This is the best we can do?”, holy shit.

I do understand that one gets spending creep with bunny inspectors leading to and then leading to and then leading to….and I get that you’d like to make this a “state” responsibility (I shudder at California, btw).

But why not push to have 12% cut from military spending and 9% from health programs and so on down the line.

Did you see this clip making the rounds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=16K6m3Ua2nw&feature=player_embedded

Apparently, it is from some TV show or another. Some truth there….my God, we are better than this….

Mark.

Actually the focus on bunny inspectors is intended to point out the futility of trying to do a piecemeal job on entitlements. They need to be returned entirely to the states and taken out of the Federal pork picture. If we can’t eliminate bunny inspectors, we can’t eliminate anything – and we can’t eliminate the bunny inspectors.

The size of the military budget is entirely dependent on the missions we expect the military to accomplish. If the job is to assure energy at a reasonable price is available to the people of the United States, then we need only protect our energy sources – and it’s often cheaper to develop them here and defend them here rather than become involved in territorial disputes in the Arabian peninsula or Southeast Asia. Or Europe.

If we limit the Federal government to Federal matters, the States can compete on entitlements, and we may have a chance to limit government.

Declassified at Last — Air Force’s Supersonic Flying Saucer Schematics:

http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/10/the-airforce/?pid=1498&viewall=true

One wonders about the prototypes.

Ed

Actually I saw something like that – perhaps those very pictures – when I was editing Project 75. They were included in the Project Forecast report on the future of air systems. Like flying wings, saucers do not seem to have a predictable future in aerospace technology without real breakthroughs in propulsion technology…

First it was the Hubble Ultra Deep Field, not it’s the Hubble eXtreme Deep Field!

Jerry,

Another picture to relieve us of the silly season.

The Hubble team that did the Ultra Deep Field has added another 2 million seconds to the field picture and they have imaged an additional 5,500 galaxies.

Pictures: <http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/pr2012037a/>

Press Release: <http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/37/image/a/>

"….The youngest galaxy found in the XDF existed just 450 million years after the universe’s birth in the big bang.

Before Hubble was launched in 1990, astronomers could barely see normal galaxies to 7 billion light-years away, about halfway across the universe…."

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

‘As I’m fond of saying, Edwin Land was both Steve Jobs *and* Steve Wozniak.’

<http://www.wired.com/design/2012/10/instant-the-story-of-polaroid/>

Roland Dobbins

Ancient Rome on Google Maps.

<http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/2012/10/ancient-rome-on-google-maps.html>

Roland Dobbins

Tell me again…why are K-12 teachers no longer respected?

http://articles.philly.com/2012-10-04/news/34240191_1_t-shirt-republican-shirt-teacher

"[During an approved uniform free dress-down day] Samantha Pawlucy, a sophomore at Carroll High, said her geometry teacher publicly humiliated her by asking why she was wearing a Romney/Ryan T-shirt and going into the hallway to urge other teachers and students to mock her."

"During the incident, Samantha Pawlucy said the teacher told her that Carroll High is a “Democratic school” and wearing a Republican shirt is akin to the teacher, who is black, wearing a KKK shirt."

"The teacher then allegedly called a non-teaching assistant into the room who tried to write on the t-shirt with a marker. She allegedly told to remove her shirt and she would be given another one."

Directing a non-teacher (or anyone for that matter) to write on a person’s shirt sounds remarkably like assault to me.

Charles Brumbelow

Yet one suspects that there will be no real consequences.

Roman Han

Your link:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/sns-rt-us-climate-romansbre892120-20121003,0,1510687.story

Ice cores in Greenland indicate an increase in greenhouse gases (methane) corresponding with the heyday of the Roman Empire and the Han Dynasty.

Of course, one also thinks of the social conditions which resulted in a return to normal…

I have not seen enough evidence to quantify the human contributions here: what is cause and what is effect? Warming is generally economically desirable, or at least that’s an acceptable argument. Perhaps not, but perhaps a warmer Earth is more productive, meaning surplus food, disposable income, investments…

‘Despite that, Congress is unlikely to pull the plug. That’s because, whether or not it stops terrorists, the program means politically important money for state and local governments.’

<http://apnews.myway.com/article/20121003/DA1LTPN80.html>

Roland Dobbins