Monthly Archives: February 2015

View from Chaos Manor, Thursday, February 19, 2015

I continue to recover but typing is slow and frustrating. I find myself hitting two keys at once quite often, and correcting a sentence takes longer than writing it. I must look at the keyboard rather than the screen. Of course that is grousing; I saw in rehab hourly reminders to count my blessings and I must remember that. I can only hope that I continue to improve. After all I started two months ago with one finger and a thumb I could control. I must not forget that.

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

Some articles on the ISIS phenomenon and their theology which may prove of interest.

First, the Atlantic piece:

http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2015/02/what-isis-really-wants/384980/

Second, a rebuttal I find convincing.

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/02/18/3624121/atlantic-gets-dangerously-wrong-isis-islam/

It is true that ISIS justifies itself by a fundamentalist interpretation of the Qu’ran, but it isn’t fair to assume that Islam inevitably leads to violence.  ISIS is not exactly fully literalist, as they will destroy places of worship (forbidden in the Qu’ran) and they have a large obsession with porn
(http://www.meforum.org/5042/why-jihadis-obsessed-with-porn) — which, again, is counter to strict teaching.
So there’s no such thing as a real literalist in this world — neither for Muslims nor for Christians.  Instead, there are people who interpret scripture verses to justify acting on their worst instincts under color of law, and people who interpret scripture to try to build a society.  ISIS , while claiming to be literalist, is in fact as unliteral as the ‘inerrant’ churches of my youth who added prohibitions against drinking and dancing.  So while we have to acknowledge that they are an Islamic offshoot following a violent interpretation of Islam, we shouldn’t assume that it’s the inevitable outcome of Islamic teaching. That would put us at odds with the Jordanians and Kurds who are part of the solution to this problem and also happen to be Muslim.
Now, it is true that, as Mark Steyn puts it eloquently, violent Muslims following this and similar interpretations have caused a lot of grief in the world.
http://www.steynonline.com/6816/who-ya-gonna-believe-us-or-your-own-severed-head
But there are more than one billion Muslims in the world, and most of them aren’t doing this.  The Ottomans built a multicultural empire, once upon a time.  So while we need to recognize the threat of violent Islamic extremism, we have to be chary of assuming this is the inevitable result of Islam or of lumping in all Muslims in with ISIS. Especially when some of those Muslims are fighter pilots being shot down and burned alive on our behalf. 
The path to victory requires the Muslim world to ostracize this terrorism and violence, to cast them out of the Ummah, and then destroy them. We should do all we can to foster that end.   Perhaps providing the Jordanians, Syrians, and Kurds the assistance they need to quash the ‘caliphate’ like a bug. 

Respectfully,

Brian P.

Obviously we do not declare war on a billion people because of their religion. Having said that, the question is, what do we do? The one thing we must not do is allow the Caliphate to exist; so long as it has any territory at all we are at war with it. As to the rest, I suspect – as do the Iranian mullahs – that the weapons of cultural mass destruction will have their usual effect as they have on Western Civilization. What that does to the future of humanity I do not know. We have eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil – that is we have declared man as the measure of all things, and can dispense with the Will of God and all such. Of course this is not new. Protagoras said that man is the measure of all things, and Socrates answered that the dog-faced baboon is the measure of all things.

For more of the dialogue, see http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl201/modules/Philosophers/Protagoras/protagoras_plato_theaetetus.htm and the discussion; it is a debate that has been at the heart of philosophy and religion for more than two thousand years. And see http://praxeology.net/theaetetus.htm

We hope, and modern liberals are sure, that man has no need of rules posited from anyone other than ourselves. We recognize no authority other than 50%+1 of whatever collection of human beings happens to be interested, although we often defer to the loud and raucous.  Where that leads we do not know, John Stuart Mill believed that free speech and rational discussion were the only key to the pursuit of The Good Society, but that liberal philosophy has not led where he envisioned.

But we can agree that a liberal Republic cannot tolerate the existence of a viable and growing Caliphate, and the Caliphate is the first to agree. Nothing outside it can legitimately exist except in dhimmitude.

We have the means to extirpate ISIS just now. How long that will be true is not certain. But one thing is; there is no peace with the Caliphate; the Koran makes that very clear. There can only temporary truces, and not with all the enemies of Allah at once. So says the prophet, and that view cannot be changed. It is war to the knife, and ISIS grows daily.

Yes, we may ally with Muslims, as we have in the past; but understand that to the Caliphate those are not Muslims at all.

I that you are mistaken in your reading of the Koran. The commands are explicit, not interpreted into it.

Dr Pournelle

https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/how-we-must-deal-with-the-caliphate-and-more/

‘[T] need new technology “to enable extended operation at Mach 0.8/0.9 and 500 ft,” exactly the A-10’s workspace today.’

I doubt very much that Mach 0.8/0.9 is in the Warthog’s workspace, because the Hog has a never-exceed-speed that is less than 0.7 Mach. In my experience, the only bird that regularly flew in that ‘workspace’ was recce (RF4c), but the Air Force does not fly those anymore.

But I take Ed’s point. The Air Force has no need for the F35. Nor does the Navy. The Marines may have. They bought the AV8 on their own nickel. Let ’em buy this bird, if they want it.

If the Air Force wants to retire its Hogs, give ’em to the Marines. I am sure the Grunts will find a home for ’em.

Or give ’em to the Army and let the fixed-wing/rotary-wing division go hang.

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

The entire purpose of a military is to win wars. It should go to the War Department. Support of the ground force is the reason for existence of the Air Force. Now, true enough, it cannot support the ground force until it first wins air superiority, and much of the ground army command will not understand how to achieve that; but keeping a monopoly on close support and then not having the force to do it with is not the way. The Air Force and the Department of Defense were experiments which in my judgment have failed; bring back the War Department and USAAF. War is too important to be left to pilots.

Since the Europeans obviously don’t care about their own self-defense, we should finally exit NATO and withdraw all our forces from Europe.

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2015/02/19/germanys-army-is-so-under-equipped-that-it-used-broomsticks-instead-of-machine-guns/>

Roland Dobbins

Certainly NATO is an entangling alliance, and has accomplished its mission. Europe can defend itself against Russia, and encircling Russia does not protect US interests. And the Balkans disaster indicates it should have been abolished long ago. We keep it at our peril, for it assumes we all have common interests – which we do not, particularly as NATO expands. It was a great alliance, but the Cold War is done.

: Heinlein Sestina published

My poem on Heinlein was just published…on line, in a pop culture magazine.

Mondo Cult: Poetry by John DeChancie

We add for the record:

Dr. Pournelle,
Some of your sources of F-35 information are guilty of the same type of deliberate obfuscation as the anthropogenic global warming crowd. Just FYI, the low-level flight restrictions are based on F-35 training range noise levels, not combat capability. Thermal efficiency through AETD is sought so that training can proceed in current civilian F-16/F-15 training ranges. It also doesn’t apply to VTOL modes (if those models of F35 are ever actually developed) which may also be used for anti-armor missions.
Noise (audible kind) management is an important quality in low-level, subsonic stealth, however, and it wouldn’t surprise me if some of the high-level stealth requirements were skipped in first gen, non-VTOL models. But I also have to tell you from frequent and recent experience that A-10 is far from silent.
While leading the project, the USAF isn’t the only buyer of the F35, and many of the other customers are mostly interested in developing close air support capabilities.
Don’t get me wrong: I agree with the conclusion that F35 is a pig in a poke and its acquisition is one more indicator that DOD needs a reboot. The cause just isn’t helped by spurious arguments.
-d

Note that I do not know a lot about the current aircraft, but I do know principles, If an aircraft is too expensive we will not have enough: numbers count.

An aircraft good at ground support of a field army will likely be inferior at air tin air combat; and  good good air to air combat planes are often inferior against SAM defenses. These principles have not changed since TFX days,

Just saying…

Google employee posts horrifying video that will convince you to never buy a Nest smoke alarm

It’s a safe bet that Nest CEO Tony Fadell is not too happy with Google staff engineer Brad Fitzpatrick right now. Fitzpatrick last week posted a video that showed Nest’s Nest Protect smoke alarms badly misbehaving in his home. In fact, despite the fact that his house was not on fire, the alarms kept going off and he was unable to find a way to get them to shut up. Fitzpatrick says he posted the video for one reason: To warn people away from buying Nest Protect.

RELATED: Nest now has 15 more ways to rule your home

“Do NOT buy a Nest smoke alarm,” he writes bluntly. “They false alarm and are unhushable pieces of crap… This went off in my house all day, annoying my neighbors. When I got the Android notification that my house was burning down I immediately assumed it was false, since my Nests had already cried wolf before.  I also checked video cameras and saw my house wasn’t actually burning down, so I stayed at work. My poor neighbors, though.”

Generalizing from one case…

One gram of DNA can potentially hold up to 455 exabytes of data, according to the New Scientist. For reference: There are one billion gigabytes in an exabyte, and 1,000 exabytes in a zettabyte. The cloud computing company EMC estimated that there were 1.8 zettabytes of data in the world in 2011, which means we would need only about 4 grams (about a teaspoon) of DNA to hold everything from Plato through the complete works of Shakespeare to Beyonce’s latest album (not to mention every brunch photo ever posted on Instagram).

There are four types of molecules that make up DNA, which form pairs. To encode information on DNA, scientists program the pairs into 1s and os—the same binary language that encodes digital data. This is not a new concept—scientists at Harvard University encoded a book onto DNA in 2012—but up to now, it had been difficult to retrieve the information stored on the DNA.

Past tests have seen gaps in retrieved information, as DNA reacts with its environment and degrades at room temperature. Robert Grass, the leader of the project at the Federal Institute, has found a new way to preserve the information: treat it like a fossil. His team encased their DNA sample in a shell made from silica—similar in structure to fossilized bones and one of the main components of glass—and stored the sample at about 140°F for a few weeks to test its durability.

When researchers recovered the sample, they were still able to read the encoded data, and Grass told the Institute’s blog that had the DNA been stored at subzero temperatures, it could potentially be read in over a million years. CDs and DVDs only have shelf lives of about 25 years, according to the US National Archives, so this would be quite an improvement on our current data storage techniques.

For now, the process remains expensive. The DNA sample created for the Institute’s test—the Swiss federal charter and the Archimedes Palimpsest—was about 83 kilobytes of data and cost £1,000 ($1,500) to produce, Grass told the New Scientist. That means encoding anything worth saving—Wikipedia, for example, or the first four seasons of The Wire—would be prohibitively expensive right now.

As with any new technology, the cost of DNA storage is likely to drop as it advances. So there may come a time when a future being venturing out into the nuclear winter finds a DNA data store and will be able to peruse the greatest achievements of humanity up until the turn of the 20th century.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

View from Chaos Manor, Wednesday, February 18, 2015

Apologies for being invisible. I wasn’t inactive, but I have been under the weather, getting physical therapy, and working on two books – that is I plot and others write because I don’t type fast. Alas. Autocorrect helps a lot because the most common error is hitting more than one key at once.

More I hope tomorrow.

This will serve as an intro ;

Re: Terror Inc.: How the Islamic State became a branding behemoth

Jerry,

This morning there is a somewhat lengthy article on Yahoo News about the very VERY tech-savvy and local cultural-savvy marketing efforts of ISIS. To be blunt, these people have their shit together. The combination of breadth and depth is impressive. Obama branding them as junior varsity is beyond merely ignorant. These people are dangerous.

Terror Inc.: How the Islamic State became a branding behemoth

http://news.yahoo.com/terror-inc—how-the-islamic-state-became-a-branding-behemoth-034732792.html

Regards,

George

It is a very good introduction to the reality of dealing with the Caliphate.

And their weakness is that unlike al Qaeda ISIS cannot fade into invisibility: you are not Caliph if you do not have territory in which to impose Islamic law, including slavery, beheadings, and cutting off hands. If you do not impose these things you are not, according to the Caliphate Muslims, a Muslim, and can and indeed must be corrected or deposed. So it goes.

Which means, just now, that a division of US regulars and all the warthogs, with some Marine air, and USAF anti-missile air superiority planes, could in a year destroy the Caliphate. We give North Iraq to the Kurds. Central Iraq to whomever we select among the factions. Syria – not clear, but possibly to the dictatorship, with what conditions we choose to impose. It doesn’t matter because it’s fantasy: Obama will do no such thing. But we could do it if we had a President.

Is the word “not” missing?

               not

“If you do ^ impose these things you are not, according to the Caliphate Muslims, a Muslim, and can and indeed must be corrected or deposed.”

Charles Brumbelow

It was and I fixed it. Thank you

F-35 limit cannot replace the A-10,

Jerry

We have been told the F-35 will replace the A-10. Well, I found this in an article in AvWeek on GE’s plans for its adaptive cycle engine technology:

http://awin.aviationweek.com/ArticlesStory.aspx?keyWord=sixth%20generation&id=7d660728-a9e7-42bc-86a4-3f853a4e9f3d#

It is behind a paywall, so I’ll extract the relevant paragraph:

The AETP-based engine design “is more aggressive than today’s standard F-35 requirements but not to the level of [powering] directed energy weapons,” comments McCormick. Instead, the potential benefits of the third stream would be aimed at opening up the low-altitude/high-speed corner of the F-35’s flight envelope to enable extended operation at Mach 0.8/0.9 and 500 ft. “Today, the F-35 has flight restrictions at lower altitudes because of thermal management. You just can’t get heat off the airplane,” he adds. “The program we have laid out says you could be in the F-35 before mid-2020s. It depends on funding profiles and how big AETP is, but it’s early in the 2022-24.”

So, they need new technology “to enable extended operation at Mach 0.8/0.9 and 500 ft,” exactly the A-10’s workspace today. And the Air Force plans to retire the A-10.

The Air Force brass want the F-35 so badly they are willing to trash the mission of supporting the Army to get their toy. What a surprise.

Ed

QED

China’s Military

http://warontherocks.com/2015/02/ten-reasons-why-china-will-have-trouble-fighting-a-modern-war/

(#3 afflicts the US military as well).

s/f

Couv

David Couvillon
Colonel, U.S. Marine Corps Reserve, Retired.; 
Former Governor of Wasit Province, Iraq; 
Righter of Wrongs; Wrong most of the time; 
Distinguished Expert, TV remote control; 
Chef de Hot Dog Excellance;  Avoider of Yard Work

More to think about.

Regarding The Ongoing Geopolitical Upheaval

Jerry,

For one, I must say I love how accessible you are to the world. I’ve not read a great deal of your works, but my father has read every book of yours he’s found; along with most other Mil-Sci Fiction from ‘your orbit’. With that said, I will say I very much respect your intellect and the contributions to thought (in my opinion) you have made over the years, and clearly continue to do today.
I was reading your thoughts on the Western Imperial Adventure in Ukraine, and Putin’s fairly justifiable positions. It’s refreshing to hear SOMEONE, from your era, not propagating the ever deafening falsehood of the infallible Atlanticist world view. Your recent comment, “…social decay under crony capitalism/liberal progressivism” really struck a chord in my mind. That decay and the ongoing ambitions by Western Oligarchy Inc. et. al. to dominate Eurasia has become my most fervent subjects of my intellectual life, i.e., what I read, and ponder while not working.
If I speak too much, just tell me. I’m guessing your email wouldn’t be available if you weren’t interested in discussion. So, I’ll tell you a little regarding myself, just for perspective, even if not relevant to the subject matter.
I’m a 29 Industrial Electrical/Instrumentation Technician and I’m also a Louisiana native (Baton Rouge area). I’m of American/German/Japanese origin on a genetic level. Both grandmothers remember hearing the bombs falling during the war (Germany and Japan). My entire life I’ve been a prodigious reader; my interests and areas of research/study are highly eclectic: Chemistry, Human Origins, Economics/High Finance/Central Banking, Ponerology, Covert Sociopolitical Organizations/Secret Societies/Jacobism, Military Technology, and that eternal past time of Man, WAR. I’m an avid practitioner of the 2nd amendment. I’ve always delved deeply into new subjects that interest me with an Autistic degree of focus, or even obsession at times. The word Polymath intrigued me when I first learned it, and in a child-like way I’ve pursued such as an ideal ever since. Eternal love and pursuit of the truth, even if fatalistic, appeals greatly to my soul. And so I’ll cease telling you about myself, as I am aware you are a busy man.
I’m curious whether you take a conspiratorial view of the ongoing geopolitical chessgame being played by Earth’s (alleged) preponderant powers. It seems that something much greater is going on below the surface than just the Geopolitical/strategic/economic machinations that logically drive current events. Studying ancient historical mythologies and cosmologies has lead me to believe that there certainly exists some type of 5th column nudging our progress to various desired outcomes. Something of a supernatural/supertechnological nature clearly. It seems to me that something has been operating from behind/within the veils of our physical universe for some time and continues still. I am of the position that these forces are not from a monolithic power structure, and perhaps are in direct conflict with one another in a sort of Good vs. Evil dichotomy. Perhaps I’ve read too much into various Gnostic interpretations of history, and their so called ‘Archons’ (or Nephilim/Annunaki), I can’t say.
But, If you’d prefer not to take a position on what to many is a ‘conspiracy theory’ type subject, direct me to a book of your or even another that you feel would lead me to greater understanding of this matter.
I’ve come to you with this because I know you are a man with great knowledge, and are beyond ‘well read’. Obviously, these kinds of things aren’t generally as easy to apply the Scientific Method to as there is little evidence that can be weighed beyond the simple empirical data contained in historical texts/books/petroglyphs/archaeological sites/current events. Nonetheless, something doesn’t add up to me. The saying, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” comes to mind. I want to temper my enthusiasm for any outcome, and maintain an open mind.
Thank you for your time sir, and look forward to hearing back from you in time.
Sincerely,
Aaron Middleton

Thank you. It is good to hear that people are listening.

I am accessible so long as the subscriptions come in. Hate to put it that way, but it’s work to maintain this place.

As to conspiracy, the rejection of Western values without any self consistent and workable replacement is very open; never ascribe to malice..

We have sown the wind and shall reap the whirlwind. Hang On.

‘The most fundamental reason America’s huge military can’t win wars is that it doesn’t need to.’

<http://www.pieria.co.uk/articles/why_the_worlds_biggest_military_keeps_losing_wars>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

I do not entirely agree, but much of is true. A strike force of 3 divisions with air support can defeat any power or combination of them, but we never follow it up. We won Viet Nam, but allowed the North to invade; won that; and then did not oppose the second invasion. Saigon accordingly fell. We are unreliable allies.

And we gave Iraq to Bremer, who dismantled it. Anyone could see what would happen then, as all know what will happen to Afghanistan. We sow the wind.

We must defeat the Caliphate, grind it out of existence; and we can do it with what we have. We don’t need any allies. If they want to help they can, but it’s our war. And we must win it before they are a real threat.

Global Warming Propaganda

The propagandists are hard at work again:

<.>

Words are everything, even in the global warming debate. TV personality Bill Nye the “Science Guy” told MSNBC’s Joy Reidto use the phrase climate change, not global warming, when it’s so cold out.

“Let’s not confuse or interchange climate change with global warming,”

Nye told Reid on Monday. “Global warming – The world is getting warmer. There is more carbon [dioxide] holding in more heat.”

“So when the climate changes, some places get colder,” Nye added. “And the thing that’s really consistent with climate change models is this variance where it’s cold, it’s warm, it’s cold, it’s warm… So what I would hope for, my dream, Joy, is that you all, you and the news business would just say the word climate change.”

</>

http://dailycaller.com/2015/02/17/bill-nye-tells-msnbc-to-say-climate-change-not-global-warming-when-its-cold-out/

This is nothing new; the shift from “global warming” to “climate change” existed in the buzz for some time and this hack — Billy Nye

— isn’t the first one to push for a change in the narrative. Over successive generations, any climate change will be asserted as cause for alarm and we continue to move steadily back to the Corn Laws of the 1400s.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

But it is 0.03 degrees warmer out there!

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

View from Chaos Manor, Thursday, February 12, 2015

Was scheduled to meet with Niven and Barnes to discuss the new Avalon novel. In which we incorporate Grendels and Cthulhu’s with a number of other new aliens. If that makes no sense, read The Secret of Blackship Island, only it won’t make sense unless you have read Legacy of Heorot and its sequel Beowulf’s Children. And if you don’t know about those you ought to: they’re part of a series about the first interstellar colony in slower than light, with new aliens, and lots of adventures: the kind of science fiction I like to read as well as write. Good stuff.

Anyway, Niven will be here shortly and we’ll lunch while working on concepts and characters. I’ll post this before we go.

There is a flood of concern over the latest territorial dispute in Europe, and everyone seems to want to make it our business. Exactly why the eastern Ukraine is our business is not known to me. Putin has Imperial ambitions, but that is no surprise nor is it much of our concern. I remember in Cold War days my friend Rolfe, a science administrator and grant progress monitor, said he felt as safe in Moscow in the 70’s as in Washington. He wondered why I was so concerned with the Cold War. I didn’t agree, then; Russia was exporting Communism. But it no longer does. It’s now an imperial republic run by a bureaucracy like most of Europe; why is it our concern? Russia and the US have common objectives: why do we ring it with NATO? I have sentimental concerns about the Baltic Republics, but they are mot threatened, and NATO without us can handle their problems.

NTO is an entangling alliance. More later, and we will also tackle the declaration of we don’t like ISIS that the commander in chief sent to Congress

If I can’t have it, neither can you!

Harvard and M.I.T. Sued Over Failing to Caption Online Courses      nyt

By TAMAR LEWINFEB. 12, 2015

Advocates for the deaf on Thursday filed a federal class action against Harvard and M.I.T., saying both universities violate antidiscrimination laws by failing to provide closed captioning in their online lectures, courses, podcasts and other educational materials.

“Much of Harvard’s online content is either not captioned or is inaccurately or unintelligibly captioned, making it inaccessible for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing,” the complaint said, echoing language used in the M.I.T. complaint. “Just as buildings without ramps bar people who use wheelchairs, online content without captions excludes individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing.”

Otherwise known as the dog in the manger position.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.

View from Chaos Manor, Tuesday, February 10, 2015

My hand is healing nicely, and my only problem is that I still cannot type as fast as I used to, so everything takes longer. I see that Word 2010 has restored the autocorrect access option, making it easy to add frequent mistypes into autocorrect: right click on a red-underlined word, see the options, and if you like, rather than merely correct the word, left-click “autocorrect” in the menu that appeared when you right-clicked, then choose the relevant word in the list that appears when you do that. But—sometimes the correction is not proper at all, but is the correction for another misspelling entirely. I don’t know why, and it does not happen often. If it does you must retype the word – either the original misspelling or the correct spelling. You will find that the autocorrect table has that correction now, as it should, and does not incorrectly autocorrect the original misspelling. I have not been able to make sense of this, and since it is not repeatable I can’t report it to Microsoft.

In general, though, autocorrect works as it should, and since my most common mistake is hitting more than one key, using autocorrect saves me a great deal of time. This whole exposition came about when I typed everythiong instead of everything in the first sentence; I right clicked it, chose everything as the correction – who would ever want that misspelling – and autocorrect changed the word to especially. I don’t know why. I then looked into the autocorrect table – file > options > proofing > autocorrect scroll down the table to find the misspelling, see that it is set to make the proper correction – and all is well. I have no idea what happened. Now I always get the proper autocorrection of the misspelling, and to get the misspelled word I have to type it, let it autocorrect, backspace into it and misspell it again, and voila! as above.

Complex as this seems, it turns out to save a lot of time, and I use it. Alas the autocorrect option on right click does not appear in Word 2013, which is a shame and very much a Microsoft error; one I hope they correct soon.

I’m late and John is here to discuss a new novel. I’ll post this, more later today.

Back from a very productive lunch with John DeChancie; we will have a finished novel by summer. Themes are interplanetary commerce, Artificial Intelligence, and social decay under crony capitalism/liberal progressivism. What my late friend called anarcho-tyranny, which seems as likely as anything. Smart robots and oligarchs.

Yet another assault on the complexity of General Relativity:

No Big Bang, no ‘dark matter’, no ‘dark energy’ – and gravitonic aether?

<http://phys.org/news/2015-02-big-quantum-equation-universe.html>

Roland Dobbins

Note there are some similarities to Petr Beckmann’s Newtonian alternative to Einstein, which makes local gravity the aether.  The theory of relativity predictions can be derived from Newton – see Beckmann – but perhaps not all of them; this is disputed. More later.

But then:

…If they are finding it in other galaxies, I would expect it to be in ours as well. There’s nothing particularly different about ours; we even have at least three satellite galaxies, have experienced several galactic collisions, and there is a SMBH at the core. So…yeah.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/02/150209113046.htm
Stephanie Osborn

Interstellar Woman of Mystery
http://www.Stephanie-Osborn.com

Of course dark matter and dark energy are only solutions to equations: no one has ever seen either.  Perhaps they are like the little man who wasn’t there.

Dark matter and dark energy

Hello Jerry,

“Of course dark matter and dark energy are only solutions to equations: no one has ever seen either.  Perhaps they are like the little man who wasn’t there.”

As you point out, the scientific method has been changing over the last few decades. 

Formerly, scientists made observations and devised theories to explain them.  When observational data called the theories into question, the theories were modified, or replaced with new ones that explained the observations better.

Now the theory is sacrosanct, particularly GR.  When observations contradict GR, the universe is modified to preserve GR.  In this case, the physicists, noting that matter, as observed, was not behaving as GR predicts, simply added a bunch of undetectable matter/energy until they had enough, with the proper distribution, to make the universe behave as decreed by GR. 

For what it is worth, Dr. Mike McCulloch, a physicist who teaches at a British university, has devised a theory under which the universe behaves as observed, but requires no unseen/unseeable matter/energy.  He has a blog, here:

http://physicsfromtheedge.blogspot.com

for those who are interested.  As a side note, he claims that his theory also predicts thrust from EmDrives and the magnitude and sign of the ‘Pioneer Anomaly’, although Cal Tech has already said that it was explained by the pattern of heat radiation from the spacecraft.  I have no idea if Dr. McCulloch is right or not, but I am very predisposed to WANT to believe someone who tells me that the universe is actually made up of stuff that we can see/detect, rather than being >95% invisible/undetectable (other than being ‘detected’ by being necessary to make our sacred equations match observations).

Bob Ludwick

I remain (1) convinced that the universe is observable and comprehensible, and (2) that GR and String Theory are neither; but then I am not a physicist. I have examined the evidence for dark matter and it assumes a constancy in the speed of light and no aether. I see no experimental proof. So far as I know Beckmann’s entangled local gravity explains all observed evidence more simply. And it does not need Dark Matter.

Just to end this:

“Comments from a Marine in Afghanistan”

Dr Pournelle,
Confirm that this article has been going around since at least 2005 in various forms.  It also plays on the old stories of the AR15/M16 style direct impingement gas system rifles being fundamentally flawed, along with the 5.56mm round. This has long since been proven untrue. You will find many many articles and publications that bash it, but they can all be debunked.
It’s a not a perfect weapon/caliber, but when used properly it is very effective. In my own experience, the more experienced/well trained/elite troops tend to like it the most. When properly maintained, its advantages far outweigh its shortfalls.
It isn’t the most popular rifle in America for nothing.
Matt Kirchner
Houston, TX
Formerly Captain, IN, USA

I would not say “proven”; the debate over optimum rifle for infantry continues. For general socking around in scrub I find the old thirty-thirty more handy, but I grew up in a different era and in scrub you get few long shots.

Dear Dr. Pournelle, 
It appears that the climate debate is difficult, in part, because the temperature data is willfully falsified.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/globalwarming/11395516/The-fiddling-with-temperature-data-is-the-biggest-science-scandal-ever.html

Respectfully,

Brian P.

There are many “refutations” or defenses of climate data adjustment, but few encourage me to believe that it yields accuracy of 0,02 degrees. The error bars are greater than the differences. http://arstechnica.com/staff/2015/02/temperature-data-is-not-the-biggest-scientific-scandal-ever/ states their case, but only repeats the reasoning behind the adjustments. They must decrease the accuracy; how could they not?

The earth is warming and has been since about 1800. How much is due to CO2 is the question, and the answer to that is we don’t know,

Not in front of the telly: Warning over ‘listening’ TV

9 February 2015 Last updated at 06:20 ET

Samsung said personal information could be scooped up by the Smart TV

Samsung is warning customers to avoid discussing personal information in front of their smart television set.

The warning applies to TV viewers who control their Samsung Smart TV using its voice activation feature.

Such TV sets “listen” to every conversation held in front of them and may share any details they hear with Samsung or third parties, it said.

Privacy campaigners said the technology smacked of the telescreens, in George Orwell’s 1984, which spied on citizens.

Data sharing

The warning came to light via a story in online news magazine the Daily Beast which published an excerpt of a section of Samsung’s privacy policy for its net-connected Smart TV sets.

I don’t have a smart TV

I found this a fascinating story:

https://medium.com/backchannel/how-a-lone-hacker-shredded-the-myth-of-crowdsourcing-d9d0534f1731

I think you will also.

Net Neutrality

I had HughesNet service for several years after moving to a rural area. So far as I could tell they followed your description of net neutrality and truth in advertising:

“We can agree on that: you must deliver what you promise. If you are going to slow down high volume users, you must tell them that if you exceed some limit your download speed will be reduced. I don’t care what you are downloading,”

I must say though, that my downloads never included movies or other large files. My weakness was lots of browsing an many small downloads.

Charles Brumbelow=

House to Probe White House Role in FCC’s ‘Net Neutrality’ Proposal – WSJ

Posted on February 8, 2015

Panel launches investigation into whether the White House improperly influenced the agency on its new rules for how broadband providers treat internet traffic.

https://muzaffaruddin.wordpress.com/2015/02/08/house-to-probe-white-house-role-in-fccs-net-neutrality-proposal-wsj/

And more. The FCC is determined to have control of the Net, and build a big regulatory agency to do it. It then will find plenty to do, to justify its existence. The administration is determined.  If you like your telephone you will enjoy FCC Net regulation.

Freedom is not free. Free men are not equal. Equal men are not free.