Monthly Archives: March 2015

Chaos Manor View, Friday, March 27, 2015

I’m told we are down a bit on viewers – there are several thousand a day, but fewer than the managing editor likes. I’m getting a bit more energy so things may pick up. Getting that abscessed tooth out is part of it: those things really use up a lot of your immune system resources.

This place is dedicated to rational discourse. I have over the years come to the conclusion that rational discourse is the best way to come to reasonable conclusions, and it does no harm at all to reexamine premises once in a while. Of course that can be done as harassment, example being the chap in undergrad discussions who immediately begins chanting “define your terms” to everything said, generally bringing the seminar to a close as everyone goes to find somewhere more interesting. We don’t allow such things here. We assume that all present are aware of the general principles of General Semantics, The map is not the territory, but we still need maps if we are going to discuss how to get someplace.

Anyway, if you like what we do, you might tell your friends. This is not a “right wing” site, and indeed I did a Ph.D. dissertation showing that right and left do not have any precise meaning and often are confusing when used http://www.baen.com/chapters/axes.htm . The political axes change over time, and left-right sometimes makes sense, but sometimes prevents discussion. This is not a right wing site, but then that term has no real meaning. One of these days I’ll get around to a full essay on this. But if you like this place, tell a friend…

Saga of the Surface Pro

We have been installing Windows 10 with updates on Precious, the Surface 3 Pro, and I think this may turn into the best Windows yet, but there are some glitches, at least one of which may be in the Surface Pro. Precious normally resides in her docking station on the bay window shelf, which is a good place for her except in the mornings since the window faces east, and it’s bright out there.

Wednesday I had medical appointments and was in sort of a hurry on coming back. Precious was asleep. I pushed the button. Nothing happened. I looked at the power cable. The docking station uses a different power supply from the normal one. I took the Surface out of the dock and held the button down a long time. Nothing. I plugged in the usual power supply. Nothing. Eventually I did something else, leaving it not plugged into anything for some time, about an hour. Then I was fooling with it, put it back in the dock, and Alex asked what I was doing. I told him, he pressed the button, and whammo! it came on. Logged in, played with Cortana, the AI that’s in upcoming Windows – so far she’s a very dense girl—and went back to something else. Got a message that massive updates to the Windows 10 Beta were now available, started on them, and forgot the system. Later looked at it. Dead again. Dead, but warm. Interesting.

Left her out of the dock for several hours. Pressed the button. On she came. Said she was resuming downloads of update and would need to reset several times. Complained about wireless, which may me my fault: we have several wireless thingies here and systems do log onto the wrong one sometimes. Put her back in the dock. Worked fine and went on with massive update.

That done she went to sleep. Only once again I couldn’t wake her, but I had a theory. Took her out of the dock and let her cool a bit. On she came. Took her out to LASFS meeting where I logged on to the LASFS wireless. Seemed to work fine except there are too many users so it’s slow, but Precious was working fine. Took her to the after-meeting restaurant. She turned on fine, but said she needed to download something and there was no Internet connection and she was sulky. Put her back in my briefcase, brought her home, put her in the dock, told her never to sleep when she had external power, and so far she’s been fine ever since. Bit hard to see in the mornings because of sun coming in the east window she sit in, but she seems all right.

Next test, I suppose, will be using her portable power supply out of the dock and letting her sleep, and see if she can awake when fully charged (and then some). It may be the dock. Dunno.

Actually I do know. For two or three days in the hospital Precious was the only computer I had and never failed, and of course was using Wi-Fi, and damned slow Wi-Fi at that. Problem testing here is my confusing Wi-Fi nets. I need to get a net adapter – USB to Ethernet so she’s on Ethernet and under power but not docked. I may have one but Roberta won’t let me go upstairs and look for it. Saw Harlan Ellison at LASFS last night. Susan tells me she won’t let Harlan go upstairs either, so I guess we are recovering at about the same rate, only his handwriting is far better than mine. Speech is as good as ever, while I sound like I have hearing aids, which, come to that, I do. Anyway Harlan looks good, so I have hopes.

My Plantronics headset – an old one, but with cans, not buds; the cans work with the hearing aids, I expect they have new ones that are better, but these are pretty good – works nicely with Precious in her dock, and I’m trying to learn to talk with Cortana the AI. More when I know more. Precious the Surface Pro with Windows 10 has the potential to be what I’ve been looking for all my life, and my hands are pretty steady for using the stylus. But I think the dock overfeeds her.

I just networked to her from here. Works perfectly as far as I can tell. But I think I’ll put Dragon speech recognition on another portable until I’ve got this sleep of death thing completely understood. I need it because my typing is pretty slow.

Active SETI

Jerry,
To all of those concerned with the hazards of active SETI, I say either relax or panic. Pick one, but don’t bother with worry. Why? We have been a peculiarly bright radio object for over a century now. Our multi-kilowatt to multi-megawatt radio and TV transmissions have been flowing out in vast torrents every minute of every day for that period of time. Our kilowatt to megawatt radar pings have been mixed in for a good portion of that time.
Again, relax or panic. There are 512 known stars within 100 light years of earth. 28 of them are G-type. I do not have a number for the K-type (see an earlier post on the habitability of the universe). Within 50 light years are 34 known stars. Anyone out there with our level of technology could be tuning into I Love Lucy and Father Knows Best right now. They will have already listened to the Golden Age of Radio, heard all of our Big Band and Swing music and suffered through reports from the World War I and World War II battlefields. They will also have been treated to the enormous energy blasts from our nuclear tests.
If they are listening, they should be frightened by what they are hearing. Maybe the Beatles will redeem us? With all of the inadvertent signals we have been sending, it might actually make sense to start broadcasting something on purpose, to let them know we are not quite as crazy and dangerous as we already sound.
Personally, I cannot find a single reason that sticks for an interstellar capable civilization to go from star to star exterminating and enslaving other species. They already have access to and control of huge amounts of inexpensive energy. Being in space, they have better access to most raw materials than a planet-bound civilization. They also have the means to manufacture in space, alleviating the hazard of damaging a biosphere. In fact, living on a planet at all might seem rather wrong to such a civilization, with uncontrollable weather, limited energy, poor waste management, and an extraordinary limitation on living space, why waste your time living at the bottom of a gravity well? So why would a civilization want to travel across the stars to exterminate us?
Perhaps there is one reason. Whenever a more technologically capable civilization meets up with a less capable one, the less capable inevitably gets destroyed, either out-right or through assimilation. If one is dedicated to ensuring the survival of one’s own culture, it would behoove one to exterminate the potential rival cultures while one has the upper hand. Get out there first, wipe the others out.
In the end, that may be a self defeating policy, though, as one’s own civilization will inevitably diversify in culture as it spreads through the galaxy. Then who is the alien culture to be destroyed?

K

The cultural extermination may not be intentional. There are many science fiction novels with that theme. I have no firm conclusions.

GERMAN NEWS REPORT: Co-Pilot of Germanwings Airbus Was MUSLIM CONVERT …’Hero of Islamic State’? | The Gateway Pundit

It’s no longer “cherchez la femme?” Now we have “cherchez le Moor?” It appears the German Wings pilot was a recent (2009?) convert to Islam.

Follow the “found an “item of significance” at the apartment” and the “NOT a suicide note” links. The latter is quite interesting.

{^_^}

——– Forwarded Message ——–

Subject: GERMAN NEWS REPORT: Co-Pilot of Germanwings Airbus Was MUSLIM CONVERT

…’Hero of Islamic State’? | The Gateway Pundit

Date: Fri, 27 Mar 2015 07:03:43 -0700

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/03/breaking-german-news-germanwings-airbus-co-pilot-was-muslim-convert/

Surprise or oh well – another one?

GERMAN NEWS REPORT: Co-Pilot of Germanwings Airbus Was MUSLIM CONVERT …’Hero

of Islamic State’?

Posted by Jim Hoft on Thursday, March 26, 2015, 9:48 PM

<http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/03/breaking-item-of-significance-found-at-germanwing-co-pilots-apartment/>

<http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/03/this-war-is-lost-controversial-sen-ator-harry-reid-will-not-seek-reelection/>

*GERMAN REPORT —HE WAS RADICALIZED!*

GERMAN CO-PILOT WAS MUSLIM CONVERT–

— STAYED AT Bremen Mosque

Police have reportedly found an “item of significance” at the apartment <http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2015/03/breaking-item-of-significance-found-at-germanwing-co-pilots-apartment/>

of the co-pilot who crashed the Germanwing passenger plane into the Alps this week.

The item was NOT a suicide note

<http://israelmatzav.blogspot.com/2015/03/gee-do-you-think-this-is-relevant.html>.

Andreas Lubitz

<http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/Andreas-Lubitz.jpg>

28-year-old German Andreas Lubitz trained in the Phoenix, Arizona and is pictured here in San Francisco.

*A German news website claims Andreas Lubitz was a Muslim convert.* Speisa.com <http://speisa.com/modules/articles/index.php/item.1086/the-co-pilot-of-the-germanwings-airbus-was-a-convert-to-islam.html>

reported:

According to Michael Mannheimer, a writer for German PI-News, Germany now

has its own 9/11, thanks to the convert to Islam, Andreas Lubitz.

Translation from German:

*All evidence indicates that the copilot of Airbus machine in his six-months

break during his training as a pilot in Germanwings, converted to Islam* and

subsequently either by the order of “radical”, i.e.. devout Muslims , or

received the order from the book of terror, the Quran, on his own accord

decided to carry out this mass murder. *As a radical mosque in Bremen is in

the center of the investigation*,*in which the convert was staying often,*

it can be assumed that he – as Mohammed Atta, in the attack against New York

– received his instructions directly from the immediate vicinity of the mosque.

*Converts are the most important weapon of Islam.* Because their resume do

not suggests that they often are particularly violent Muslims. Thus Germany

now has its own 9/11, but in a reduced form. And so it is clear that Islam

is a terrorist organization that are in accordance with §129a of the

Criminal Code to prohibit it and to investigate its followers. But nothing

will happen. One can bet that the apologists (media, politics, “Islamic

Scholars”) will agree to assign this an act of a “mentally unstable” man,

and you can bet that now, once again the mantra of how supposedly peaceful

Islam is will continue. And worse still, the attacks by the left against

those who have always warned against Islam, will be angrier and merciless.

For now the German Islam supporters like never before have their backs

against the wall.

Michael Mannheimer, 26.3.2015

Apparently from the comments

<http://www.pi-news.net/2015/03/german-wings-absturz-kapitaen-aus-cockpit-ausgesperrt-suizid-des-co-piloten/>

at German PI – Andreas Lubitz was Muslim convert from his Facebook page.

*ISLAMIC STATE PRAISES GERMAN CO-PILOT AND MASS MURDERER–* Another Facebook page was set up=> Support for Andrew Lubitz, hero of the Islamic State.

<https://translate.googleusercontent.com/translate_c?depth=1&hl=en&ie=UTF8&prev=_t&rurl=translate.google.com&sl=de&tl=en&u=https://www.facebook.com/pages/Soutien-%25C3%25A0-Andreas-Lubitz-h%25C3%25A9ro-de-lEtat-Islamique/431945353632095&usg=ALkJrhhj_iQrOB1o2HY8t3v8SoZKL69jNw>

(The Facebook page has since been taken down)

But *Pamela Geller* captured a screengrab <http://pamelageller.com/2015/03/germanwings-co-pilot-andreas-lubitz-praised-on-facebook-our-holy-martyr-lubitz-died-for-our-prophet.html/>

of the page before it was removed.

lubitz facebook Muslim page

<http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/wp-content/uploads/lubitz-facebook-muslim-page.png>

A close friend of Andreas Lubitz says he was mentally unstable <https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=de&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pi-news.net%2F2015%2F03%2Fgerman-wings-absturz-kapitaen-aus-cockpit-ausgesperrt-suizid-des-co-piloten%2F&edit-text=>.

88.6K927753110K

I have no great confidence in the sources given here, but if the primary thesis be true, namely that Lubitz was a recent convert and considered himself a soldier of the Caliphate, it is one more reason for war against ISIS to the extermination of that Caliphate as a governing body. On its internal logic it is not the legitimate Caliphate if it rules nothing. ISIS is not just another faction in the IRAQ war. It is a chiliastic power seeking to rule the world, and that is its attraction.

And we have:

Hello, Jerry,
The co-pilot of the Germanwings plane appears to have been diagnosed with a mental illness, although he did not tell Lufthansa / Germanwings. Police have found several notes from several doctors. Perhaps he was searching for a second / third etc. opinion to would clear him to keep flying.
One story is at the NY Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/28/world/europe/germanwings-crash-andreas-lubitz.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news
Washington Post has a similar story.
John

I do note that diagnosis of mental illness doesn’t mean a lot: in the latest DSM it’s pretty hard not to find some disorder you can diagnose.  And the Caliphate has declared war on us.

Snopes is skeptical of claims the Germanwings co-pilot was a convert to Islam:
http://now.snopes.com/2015/03/27/rumor-claims-germanwings-co-pilot-andreas-lubitz-converted-to-islam/
Given that ISIS thrives on attention I suspect they would claim involvement whether he was a convert or not.
The Caliphate is our enemy – it does not help to believe and spread their propaganda.

Bill

As noted I have no great faith in the sources of that story. Alas I have little in Snopes, which also has an agenda. I seldom post breaking news, and this is an example of why.  We don’t know.  And most media are so terrified of appearing  discriminatory that they won’t publish facts.

We can only wait and see.

http://www.businessinsider.com/disposable-income-infographic-2015-3?utm_content=bufferea035&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer

The disposable income of people in every country of the world in one fantastic infographic

The $60 Car Hacking story

Regarding the $60 device that can ‘hack’ your car (in Tuesday’s View https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/more-thin-gruel/ ); a ‘hobbyist’ could also do this with a Raspberry PI 2 (small ARM computer about the size of a deck of cards that costs $35) coupled with a small TFT screen (there is one for the Raspberry) and the open-source software mentioned in the article. That would remove the need for a laptop (with Linux).
A basic Raspberry PI 2 kit (the Pi plus power supply, keyboard, and OS, etc.) for about $70 (here http://preview.tinyurl.com/q9zo55v). Add a TFT touch-display (about $40 here http://preview.tinyurl.com/od32azg) and you’ll have a very small ‘car hacking device’.
The Raspberry PI 2 is a great little computer that can be used for many purposes. I’ve set up one up as a Media Server (and network storage) with a 1TB portable hard disk attached.
I have also seen reports of a Pi-based network testing tool.
Since it does “Python”, plus a kid-oriented visual programming system called “Scratch”, along with a Debian-based Linux OS, there is no limit to what can be done with the Pi. (See www.raspberrypi.org ). Many schools are using the Pi as a teaching tool for kids. Home-schoolers might also find the Pi as an interesting project.
…Rick….

And they get smaller, and cheaper, and smarter all the time. And yes. Pi may be a great tool for good schools and home classes. Along, of course, with the California reader… http://www.amazon.com/California-Sixth-Grade-Reader-Pournelle-ebook/dp/B00LZ7PB7E

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

Chaos Manor View, Thursday, March 26, 2015

0915 Niven will be here shortly to take me to Pasadena and JPL where we will spend the day.

I have a note from a reader: NASA is being cautious because some think reactionless drive does in fact work. We can hope, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof…

Meanwhile I vamp until Larry gets here.

My Surface Pro won’t turn on.  It got a bunch of updates yesterday, and died.  Nothing I can do causes it to turn on: it was that went when I went to bed, and still is.  I have held the button down for a count of 100 both in the docking station and out. More when I know more…

1530:  I left the Surface out of the dock and not plugged to power.  When I got home a few minutes ago I pushed the button.  It turned on.  I’ll experiment more but it appears to be all right. Precious accepted my user name and password and is welcoming me.  Larry is here and we’ll go to LASFS. More tomorrow.

Re: NASA refutes Mann and Rahmstorf – Finds Atlantic ‘Conveyor Belt’ Not Slowing

Jerry,

Further to the Science Daily story that you were forwarded, from that article linked in “Thin Gruel”,

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150323132746.htm

“The gradual but accelerating melting of the Greenland ice-sheet, caused by human-made global warming, is a possible major contributor to the slowdown. Further weakening could impact marine ecosystems and sea level as well as weather systems in the US and Europe.”

But this from 2010:

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/atlantic20100325.html

“PASADENA, Calif. – New NASA measurements of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, part of the global ocean conveyor belt that helps regulate climate around the North Atlantic, show no significant slowing over the past 15 years. The data suggest the circulation may have even sped up slightly in the recent past.”

And this article pulling in research on the issue from different sources:

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/24/michael-mann-and-stefan-rahmstorf-claim-the-gulf-stream-is-slowing-due-to-greenland-ice-melt-except-reality-says-otherwise/

Notice that the there is not any “accelerating melting of the Greenland ice-sheet” as claimed in the Science Daily article.

http://www.dmi.dk/uploads/tx_dmidatastore/webservice/b/m/s/d/e/accumulatedsmb.png

If anything, it appears that seasonal melting is slowing and there is a small increase in year to year ice mass. That chart, referenced in the article mentioned above, is from

http://www.dmi.dk/en/groenland/maalinger/greenland-ice-sheet-surface-mass-budget/

Regards,

George

https://techpinions.com/its-a-different-microsoft-and-it-matters/39351

Back in the days of Microsoft’s glories, the company lived on one simple approach to the world: Every decision the company made was to promote Windows. In a period when PCs were the only thing that mattered and Windows’ control was close to absolute, this was a simple formula to building market and profits.

The nature of the industry began changing quite a while ago, but business stayed pretty good for Microsoft and there was little reason to redo things. But having finally been hit by huge changes–especially the realization that the PC, Windows or otherwise, no longer completely dominated the market–Microsoft is going through a major rearrangement that finds Apple and Android as important as Windows.

Looked interesting to me.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbloomberg/2015/03/24/digital-cloud-modern-and-cost-effective-surprise-its-the-mainframe/

Digital? Cloud? Modern And Cost-Effective? Surprise! It’s The Mainframe

Comment Now

Follow Comments

What’s up with IBM IBM +0.88%? On the one hand, IBM is betting the company on the cloud, yet on the other, they are doubling down on the mainframe – sinking over a billion dollars into their new IBM z13 model in their z Systems mainframe line.

Furthermore, the explosion of mobile traffic is throwing a wrench into the works as digital transformation becomes the driving factor in enterprise technology purchasing decisions. Do these apparently competing forces spell trouble for Big Blue?

On the contrary – there’s method to IBM’s madness. The z13 mainframe is in fact one of the most powerful digital transaction platforms available – and in many ways also supports enterprise cloud efforts.

http://www.wired.com/2015/03/60-gadget-thatll-make-car-hacking-easier-ever/

A $60 Gadget That Makes Car Hacking Far Easier

The average automobile today isn’t necessarily secured against hackers, so much as obscured from them: Digitally controlling a car’s electronics remains an arcane, specialized skill among security researchers. But that’s changing fast. And soon, it could take as little as $60 and a laptop to begin messing around with a car’s digital innards.

: white roof –

Hi Jerry,

Just one data point for your white roof theory. Our house used to be pale blue, and now it’s dark brown. Our utility bills dropped by about 10% in the winter – and went up by about 20% in the summer (the greater amount is because the social engineers artificially raise the price of electricity in the summer beyond market rates). The net is still a cost savings to me. So what I need is chameleon paint that changes color with the season!

Cheers,

Doug=

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

Chaos Manor View, Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Most of the day was devoured by medical appointments, and the rest was pleasurably enjoyed in lunch and dinner with Roberta two of our sons. Frank, who lives in Texas, came out for the day and actually joined us going out to Kaiser in Panorama City, and when we had lunch on the way back we were joined by Alex, who lives in the Valley. Then we all four went out to dinner.

In other words I didn’t write much, for this journal, for the SFWA Bulletin, on my novels, or anything else. Tomorrow Larry Niven and I will go out to JPL to have lunch with Richard, my youngest son, who lives in DC but operates out of Houston a good part of the time; after which he has a presentation at JPL, doubtless about NanoRacks and the satellite launching business. And after that my old friend Harlan Ellison will come to a LASFS meeting, and Niven and I can’t miss that, and ==

So it’s thin gruel today and probably less tomorrow. Ah well.

A little more on reactionless drives:

OK, this is most likely my last on this subject, having foolishly gotten myself into it…
Housekeeping first:
1) No, I did not dig more for further information than the popular science bits that were first presented. My research time these days is used for other things (mostly economic and social evolution, military history, and one rather nasty astrometric project.) I would submit, though, that this is precisely why the Doctor invites many different people to the Manor.
2) I stand by my opinion of Chinese research. When all things are subordinated to the State, there is a far steeper cliff of verification needed. There are Chinese researchers that I have on the trust but verify list (a very few), ones that I’ll take a look at but approach with a great deal of skepticism (the majority), and ones that I automatically dismiss (once again, a very few). By the way, I hope that nobody confuses the institution at which these researchers work with the American university – Northwestern PolytechnicAL Institute is in Xi’an, Shaanxi, China; *not* Fremont, California, USA. This paper fell under the majority rule – but on checking, looks like a fairly reliable description of a beginning research effort.
The preceding being out of the way – now to the meat…
Reviewing the links for all three published pieces (sorry, not the YouTube clips – time, again) *not* one of them is claiming a reactionless drive. (See page 2 of the Shawyer IAC presentation, abstract of the Chinese paper – NASA does not say it so simply, but “momentum transfer” is action/reaction, whether momentum is being transferred by “normal” kinetic processes or through the virtual quantum plasma.) Sorry, no breaking of the current “laws” of physics here…
Probably the best way to (vastly) simplify the Shawyer and Chinese work is to describe it as putting a nozzle on your “traditional” engine’s combustion chamber, thus turning a relatively low thrust into a far higher one. Shawyer describes a NASA test device that is quite like his own, and that of the Chinese. All of them apparently produce thrusts at a rough order of magnitude of 0.2 Newtons / kilowatt. (That’s one kilogram, accelerated at 1 meter/second/second with an input of 5 kilowatts of power – which is *extremely* good).
Where Shawyer and the Chinese part company is in what they see as the *potential* of the technology. Shawyer is, in the best Western tradition, looking at the speculative endpoint of a huge amount of further research and engineering advancement – it is a long way from 1 Newton for 5 kilowatts to a SSTO lifting large masses against a 1G field. Note that there is nothing *wrong* with that, and everything *right* with it – how does anyone think the West gained its preeminence in the first place? In any case, this is the very long view.
The Chinese, on the other hand, are seeing this technology as solving in the near term a very practical, but important problem. That is the problem with the fact that any kind of “traditional” thruster that throws mass is certain to cause interference with delicate instrumentation on your spacecraft – or, even worse, deposit that mass onto things like camera lenses, communication antennas, solar cells, etc. To them, this is a way to get small thrusts without the inevitable “pollution” of the immediate environment. It would not surprise me to see this showing up in PRC surveillance satellites, planetary probes, and the like in the near future.
The NASA link is to an engineering paper. You might think it is simply a more sophisticated version of the Shawyer/Chinese devices – but the apparatus described is *very* different, as is their description of the physical principles involved. They also measured the thrust of their apparatus at a mean of 40 *micro* Newtons – which, unless someone did something very wrong, is not in the same region as the other two, not by a very long shot. I think that, despite the superficial similarities (no propellant mass and involving microwaves), the NASA paper is describing a completely different line of approach to achieving thrust. (Apparently not an overly efficient one, either, which does not surprise if the momentum transfer is through the virtual particle plasma – it is called the “vacuum energy” for a very good reason.)

Richard Skinner

I don’t have time to analyze that. I can only repeat, any reactionless drive – any thrust without a propellant – is impossible under the Standard Theory. It blows up Relativity so far as I can tell; certainly makes it complex beyond understanding. It requires serious adjustment to Newton, much more than Beckmann’s postulating a finite speed of propagation to gravity. It makes the quantum structure more important, and certainly changes what we think we know about it. Magnitude isn’t important here. Any propellantless thrust changes our understanding of the universe.

And that’s wonderful. It’s also unlikely. Sagan was fond of Descartes’ dictum, “extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof.” Existence of a device that can produce thrust without a propellant is a very extraordinary claim.

Jerry,

For whatever it’s worth, coming from one who consistently flunked high school math, but, having looked at the number of stars in our galaxy, and the number of galaxies in “our” known portion of the universe — and said to himself, “wow, that’s a lot of stars…” I have to ask: If a reactionless drive is indeed possible, then it would seem to my mathematically challenged mind that the upper limit of velocity, given sufficient time, would approach an impressive fraction of the speed of light.

If so, then, given the equally impressive number of stars in the sky, how unlikely is it for us to be “visited” by others?

The more I ponder the questions, the more important the warnings from Hawking et al seem — and the more idiotic any form of “active” SETI (AKA “Here we are, come and get us!”) seem.

Anon

Many years ago Freeman Dyson pointed out the mathematics point strongly to there being but one intelligent species per galaxy. The logic summarizes thus: assume a thousand years in transit in a generation ship to get to the next inhabitable planet. Assume a thousand years for the resulting colony to achieve an industrial technology to build two more star ships. How many millions of years does it take to fill the galaxy? But we have billions. The only variable is how long it takes to evolve the first star crossing industrial civilization…

I have drastically summarized a brilliant analysis, but you may now play with the assumptions, and you will find the conclusion compelling. One per galaxy.

One way or another.

Gulf conveyor slowing

From (admittedly alarmist) articles and television programs I saw at least a decade ago, I know that interruptions of the Gulf stream are likely to have played a part in historic periods of cooling in the Northern Hemisphere. Now comes this:
-Gulf Stream system: Atlantic Ocean overturning, responsible for mild climate in northwestern Europe, is slowing
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150323132746.htm
This seems to match some of your speculation.
-d

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/9edfa07c-ceaa-11e4-900c-00144feab7de.html?siteedition=intl#axzz3VFLx03DX

Apple puts clinical research tool in your pocket

Bloomberg

Tapping an iPhone’s touchscreen to take a photograph or make a phone call is as familiar as the traditional cameras and mobile phones that it displaced. Medical researchers hope to use the same simple interactions to study diseases from Parkinson’s to asthma.

Apple began its move into the digital health industry last summer when it unveiled Healthkit, a software platform that developers can use to pool data about workouts, caloric intake and weight. Apple touted its potential to alert doctors about changes to the user’s wellbeing, and several US hospitals have begun to pilot the system.

Less than a year later, almost 1,000 fitness apps are plugging in to Healthkit, giving Apple a strong base upon which to launch its health-centric Watch device.

Apple’s longer-term plans became clearer with the launch earlier this month of ResearchKit, a way for medical researchers to transform the iPhone into a tool for conducting clinical research.

“All you have to do is stick the iPhone in your pocket, walk out 20 steps and back, and the iPhone’s accelerometer and gyroscope precisely measure gait,” said Jeff Williams, senior vice-president for operations, of an app studying Parkinson’s, at this month’s launch.

Apple is not planning to make money directly from these apps, which also track diabetes and cardiovascular health. But ReserachKit is building goodwill with the medical community that could help to sell more iPhones or Watches.

“Having a common platform is a godsend to researchers at the university, hospital, clinical and government level,” says Richard Doherty, research director at Envisioneering, a technology consultancy.

Guaranteeing users’ data security and privacy will be essential. Mr Williams has said that customers will opt into any ReserachKit programmes and promised that Apple “will not see your data”.

“Apple has always believed that amazing things can happen when you put technology in the hands of the many,” Mr Williams concluded.

Force fields could be the next big battlefield innovation (WP)

By Dominic Basulto March 25 at 7:00 AM

America’s military-industrial complex keeps coming up with innovative ideas for how to win asymmetric wars in far-flung locations around the world. As if insect-like drones and Terminator bots were not enough, Boeing recently filed a patent that describes how to create a “force field” capable of shielding soldiers and military vehicles – including tanks and armored personnel carriers – from the shockwaves of IEDs.

While Boeing doesn’t actually call it a “force field patent,” that’s essentially what it is. You can see how Boeing’s “method and system for shockwave attenuation via electromagnetic arc” works in the figure below. Here, a sensor (10A) mounted on the top of a military humvee would detect an explosion and its resulting shockwave (24) in the immediate area. The sensor system would then almost instantaneously send a signal to a power source (38) to superheat the surrounding ambient atmosphere (26) around the vehicle, producing a heated, plasma-like medium (30) between the target and the explosion that would act as a buffer and shield from any shockwave.

Although some have referred to this innovation as a Star Wars or Star Trek-like shield for repelling enemy attacks, that’s not exactly the purpose of the patent. As Boeing points out in patent no. 8981261, such a system would act to “attenuate” any shockwave by a combination of means that might include “reflection, refraction, dispersion, absorption and momentum transfer.” The goal, then, is not to knock down an incoming projectile or missile, but to deploy an intermediate medium that would reduce the collateral damage from such an attack.

Unlike previous attempts at creating a similar type of shield, this Boeing patent – if it ever gets commercialized — would be a dynamic system, rather than a stationary system, relying on sensors to activate a shield in real-time. This would differentiate it from previous patents, which focused more on how a specific substance – such as an aqueous foam, gas emulsion or gel – could somehow absorb the blow of an incoming object when placed inside a barrier. In other words, the force field would be highly mobile and be capable of activating at a moment’s notice, rather than being erected in front of a structure hours, days, or months ahead of time.

Given the nature of modern asymmetric warfare, such a dynamic “force field” is greatly needed. Over the past decade, the “roadside bomb” has fundamentally changed the way the military operates as well as how it innovates. Consider the number of IED attacks in a war zone such as Iraq or Afghanistan, where over 3,100 deaths and 33,000 injuries have been sustained over the past decade. Clearly, the U.S. military needs some way to counter the ability of a terrorist or insurgent group to inflict maximum damage on unsuspecting U.S. soldiers with minimal risk.

As researchers are now finding out, even the shockwave from a detonated IED can cause internal injuries that may not be detected for years afterwards. Unlike the Hollywood movies, where heroes walk away from impressive-looking detonations and blasts as if they were nothing, researchers now say that IED shockwaves are tantamount to being hit multiple times by a ferocious NFL middle linebacker, resulting in potential head concussions each time.

There’s a huge potential market for this type of technology and that means it’s not just the U.S. military that could become buyers of such a battlefield innovation. The British Army is also working on the creation of supercharged electromagnetic fields to deflect anything up to the size of a small missile. And the Israeli Army is also working on a system to knock down incoming projectiles.

Real force fields would be a major development and require new theories…

If you haven’t got your California Sixth Grade Reader (1914) you should do so: https://www.google.com/search?q=california+6th+grade+reader&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

http://www.jerrypournelle.com/reports/jerryp/Sixthgradesample.html

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

Chaos Manor View, Tuesday, March 24, 2015

Took a long – for me and the walker – walk this morning, discovering after we were well out of the house that I had two-pound ankle weights from doing exercises.  I can tell you if you want to induce fatigue in the legs, walk with ankle weights. It works – at least if you are as old as I am.

Spent the rest of the  day at the dentist getting a broken off abscessed tooth out. I should feel better now if I survive. Clots are dangerous.

It’s dinner (poached eggs) time. I may have more later. Meanwhile:

: Reactionless drives

Hello Jerry,

A bit more on reactionless drives:

First of all, the EmDrive, real or not, has nothing to do with the ‘Dean Drive’, which was a mechanical device. 

The guy who started this whole flap is a British aerospace engineer named Roger Shawyer.

He was a payload engineer who apparently specialized in stationkeeping and (supposedly) noticed that the spacecraft were moving around more than could be explained by ‘the usual suspects’. 

He came up with the idea and asked his bosses for a research budget to investigate it and was turned down firmly:  “Your idea is impossible; get back to work.”.

He quit his job, started his own company, got funding from the British government, and built and tested a thruster based on his idea.  It supposedly produced thrust.  His mathematical theory as to how it works is apparently bogus; I can’t do his math OR the math that reportedly proves his to be wrong.  I don’t care about the math; does it produce thrust or not?  He says it does.  So (at least for now) does NASA.  And the Chinese

Here is a link to his web site: http://emdrive.com .  He presented a paper at IAC2014 in Toronto that your son addressed re cubsats.  His IAC paper:  http://www.emdrive.com/iac2014presentation.pdf

is linked on his site along with test data from several iterations of his thruster.

This is a 14 minute YouTube presentation by Shawyer explaining the history of his idea and how it works.  It includes several pictures of various EmDrive designs and a demo of a thruster (supposedly) causing a test rig weighing around 100kg to rotate on an air bearing:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGTjy6atKMs

This is Part 2 (15 min) of the above lecture:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmfPNuhy0mc

and Part 3 (23 min) of the lecture:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l2dwC5Am42Q

This is a link to the NASA Eagleworks test report. 

http://www.libertariannews.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/AnomalousThrustProductionFromanRFTestDevice-BradyEtAl.pdf

Contrary to the comment on your blog today they in fact DID do a null test, substituting a 50 ohm load for the thruster.  The load produced no thrust. 

The Chinese team at Northwestern Polytechnical University, College of Astronautics built a frustum thruster similar to Shawyer’s, tested it, and produced this report in 2011:

http://www.emdrive.com/yang-juan-paper-2012.pdf

about which Richard Skinner made the following comment:

“Having a third-hand popular science account gives me really nothing – except to note that a measurement in thousandths of grams is not particularly a good “proof.” (I treat Chinese releases of “science” for popular consumption in just about the same way as I used to treat Soviet releases of such – i.e., with a thirty pound block of pasture salt.)”

Without taking sides re the reality of the EmDrive effect, I think that Mr. Skinner may be a bit cavalier in characterizing a paper, with experimental data, by six researchers, including at least on PhD,  from the Northwestern Polytechnical University, College of Astronautics as a ‘Chinese release of science for popular consumption’.  I suspect that he never read the paper.   Also, if he is actually interested in the papers, rather than third hand popular science accounts, you could pass him some of the links here, which include Shawyer’s work, NASA’s report, and the Chinese report.

As far as I know, the Chinese have not published anything on the technology since.  There are several possible explanations including:  “Oops!  We screwed up; lets just keep our mouths shut and hope no one notices what suckers we were and hope it goes away.” and “Holy Crap!  Do the idiots who published that report realize how important this is and what an advantage it will give us if we just keep our mouths shut and hope everybody blows it off as test error or something?”  I have no idea which, if either applies, but apparently the outfit which built and tested the device is a bit like China’s version of JPL.  They may be wrong (I suspect that even JPL may have been wrong a time or two in the past.), but the report was NOT a ‘Chinese release of science for popular consumption’.

There is a hot forum going on (since last September) over on one of the NASA blogs with a bunch of folks, including several highly qualified PhD’s, busting their humps trying to figure out if or how it works.  The first thread ran a couple hundred pages (the usual is less than 10 for a given topic), before things got so rancorous that the moderator pulled the thread.  This is the original thread:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=29276.0

which was cut back to 183 pages after the moderator threw out the last 50 pages or so because it was degenerating into a food fight.

The moderator started a new thread:

http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=36313.0

which is now up to 76 pages and counting. 

A related subject is a cosmological theory, Modified inertia by a Hubble scale Casmir effect (MiHsC) by a British (or Scottish, not sure) PhD Physics professor, Mike McCulloch, who claims that his theory requires neither dark matter or dark energy to explain such various observations as the rotation rates of galaxies which, to preserve GR, requires that 90+ % of the universe consist of unobservable dark matter and dark energy, the Pioneer Anomalies (which JPL explained by an EXTREMELY complicated analysis of the thermal radiation from the spacecraft), the observed motion of Proxima Centauri, which is double the speed predicted by Newton/GR and which dark matter/dark energy cannot explain…….and also predicts thrust from frustum shaped cavities the same order of magnitude as that observed by Shawyer, the Chinese, and by NASA’s Eagleworks in Houston.

Dr. McCulloch’s blog is here:   http://physicsfromtheedge.blogspot.com

and includes at least three posts addressing EmDrive theory.

At any rate, there are (at least) three different entities who have built and tested EmDrive frustums, all of whom detected thrust far above (orders of magnitude) anything that could be produced by the same power in a microwave beam.

The experimenters have been accused of everything from incompetence to outright fraud, but to date, except for ex cathedra proclamations by a variety of self-proclaimed experts who took no part in the experiments that the measured results are impossible, no one has actually driven a stake through the heart of ANY of the experiments by Shawyer, the Chinese, or NASA’s Eagleworks.

As for me, I am not a ‘true believer’, but I am very definitely a ‘true hoper’.

Bob Ludwick

Dark matter is straining belief in the Standard Theory. First we assume that we don’t live in a unique part of the universe; then it turns out we must live somewhere unusual, and more and more hypotheses about dark matter, which we can’t see, and dark energy which we can’t detect are generated. They pile up.

The late Petr Beckmann’s book, Einstein Plus Two http://www.amazon.com/Einstein-Plus-Two-Petr-Beckmann/dp/0911762396 and the popularization by Beckmann’s friend Tom Bethell Is Einstein Necessary? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0971484597/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_2?pf_rd_p=1944687642&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0911762396&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0Y3RQTK11P7KKPB85ZR1 claim that every crucial experiment supporting Relativity can be explained in a much more simple way by Newton if you assume a finite propagation speed – probably c – for gravity. It is not that Einstein’s Relativity, Special and General, are wrong: but they are very much more complicated, taking pages of tensor calculus with Einstein, while two or three equations comprehensible to anyone who knows Maxwell’s Equations.

This doesn’t mean that Beckmann was right or wrong; but it does give a reason for asking if he is necessary. Beckmann’s theory assumes an aether, as did Newton. Beckmann’s aether is the system gravitational field which is entailed by Earth as it moves in its orbit. For more read bethel, or Beckmann. Bethel manages without equations. Beckmann assumes standard university calculus, but not more.

Relativist friends tell me there are phenomena better explained by Relativity; Beckmann’s champions say there are not. Those who question Einstein point to spectroscopic binaries, which you would think could not exist were Special Relativity true. I haven’t the expertise to have an opinion. Obviously the consensus opinion held by a vast number of physicists is Einstein. Not so obviously, most of those physicists have never looked at the question since graduate school, nor have needed to, or wanted to. There are only a few hundred to a few thousand people with the math training to participate in the argument. I am certainly not one of them. I do admit the spectroscopic binary phenomenon seems crucial, and the Relativist argument seems lame, but that is my layman’s view.

A data point like reactionless drive – action without equal reaction —  is not an argument; facts are stubborn things. If a real reactionless drive exists, Newton must be modified; it is difficult to see how Relativity will survive.

Greg Benford is convinced that the NASA data are incorrect. He and most Western physicists think an attempt to duplicate the Chinese results should be tried but he does not believe it will work.

I continue to root for the data. Facts are real, and theories are expendable, The NASA data seem much more serious than I first believed.

One thing is certain: the existence of a working reactionless drive – mechanical or quantum – will change the world.

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