Monthly Archives: June 2015

Chaos Manor View, Saturday, June 20, 2015

Friday, June 19, 2015 went out to Costco to get a microphone thing that Bluetooths to my hearing aids. Worked fine in the store, but I can’t make it work at home. Somehow the Bluetooth hookup got lost in taking it home: at least that’s what the troubleshooting guide says. But reestablishing the relationship seems complex, so I suppose I will have to get Michael to drive me out there Monday. It’s a good half hour trip each way. I was hoping that this thing would solve some of my problems. Meanwhile new earpieces and programming have made the things work better.

Saturday: Disappointed that my microphone thingy doesn’t work, and discouraged a bit. Thursday night I actually wrote nearly a thousand words, and thought of some subplots that really improve my asteroid civilization novel.

Also, having studied the Holy Father’s disquisition on Climate, it’s not just a blast about climate change, but it does show that science politics reaches the Vatican. For some of the history of science and the church

Subj: Just what was Galileo accused of, again?

Since the old Church-Hates-Science canard is again (or still) abroad in the Land, perhaps it would be useful to link to Mike Flynn’s “Great Ptolemaic Smackdown”, beginning at

http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown.html

Rod Montgomery

The link leads to an essay by my erudite friend Michael Flynn writing as TOF, The O’Flynn. It is an interesting and somewhat detailed account of why heliocentric theories seemed so absurd prior to Tyco; and an observation on the intelligent view of scientific theory and the evidence. If you have two theories, both of which seem to explain all the evidence, but which are incompatible and cannot be merged, what, exactly, is truth, and what are the rules. (And yes, I understand that this is not a settled question; what is settled is that you cannot ignore valid observations, and you cannot inflate the accuracy of the ones you have in determining the value of your theory.

Lost in the noise of all this debate seems to be the generally agreed fact that simply reducing the US contribution to CO2 growth will have essentially no effect on trends.

As to the weight to be given the encyclical:

Dear Mr. Pournelle:
Your correspondent asserted: ” Ed Morissey, also a Catholic, explains it this way using the quote of a commenter on his site: “cthemfly: “Thus, we as Catholics need to explain that this encyclical cannot be dignified as anything other than an opinion piece one might read in the NYT.”
As a Lutheran, I can’t speak on the import of a papal encyclical with anything like authority. However, I don’t think this assertion is credible. As I understand it, a Papal Encyclical is one step below an Apostolic Constitution, and over the last few centuries several have served as major social statements speaking authoritatively for the Roman Catholic Church. The equivalent of the weekly column from a paid journalist? I think not.
Yours,
Allan E. Johnson

Obviously Papal encyclicals command more attention that a weekly column from a paid journalist; but they stand on their own merits and evidence. They are not ex cathedra. I don’t intend to comment on the doctrine of “infallibility”. For those interested, http://www.catholic.com/tracts/papal-infallibility is readable. But in any event. The encyclical is not under that doctrine. Much of it concerns itself with human choices, and most of that is not new, nor exclusively Roman Catholic, or Orthodox:

http://www.livingasimplelife.com/the-full-quote-by-ralph-waldo-emerson/

Ode, Inscribed to William H. Channing

By Ralph Waldo Emerson

Though loath to grieve

The evil time’s sole patriot,

I cannot leave

My honied thought

For the priest’s cant,

Or statesman’s rant.

If I refuse

My study for their politique,

Which at the best is trick,

The angry Muse

Puts confusion in my brain.

But who is he that prates

Of the culture of mankind,

Of better arts and life?

Go, blindworm, go,

Behold the famous States

Harrying Mexico

With rifle and with knife!

Or who, with accent bolder,

Dare praise the freedom-loving mountaineer?

I found by thee, O rushing Contoocook!

And in thy valleys, Agiochook!

The jackals of the negro-holder.

The God who made New Hampshire

Taunted the lofty land

With little men; —

Small bat and wren

House in the oak: —

If earth-fire cleave

The upheaved land, and bury the folk,

The southern crocodile would grieve.

Virtue palters; Right is hence;

Freedom praised, but hid;

Funeral eloquence

Rattles the coffin-lid.

What boots thy zeal,

O glowing friend,

That would indignant rend

The northland from the south?

Wherefore? to what good end?

Boston Bay and Bunker Hill

Would serve things still; —

Things are of the snake.

The horseman serves the horse,

The neat-herd serves the neat,

The merchant serves the purse,

The eater serves his meat;

‘T is the day of the chattel

Web to weave, and corn to grind;

Things are in the saddle,

And ride mankind.

There are two laws discrete,

Not reconciled,—

Law for man, and law for thing;

The last builds town and fleet,

But it runs wild,

And doth the man unking.

‘T is fit the forest fall,

The steep be graded,

The mountain tunnelled,

The sand shaded,

The orchard planted,

The glebe tilled,

The prairie granted,

The steamer built.

Let man serve law for man;

Live for friendship, live for love,

For truth’s and harmony’s behoof;

The state may follow how it can,

As Olympus follows Jove.

     Yet do not I implore

The wrinkled shopman to my sounding woods,

Nor bid the unwilling senator

Ask votes of thrushes in the solitudes.

Every one to his chosen work; —

Foolish hands may mix and mar;

Wise and sure the issues are.

Round they roll till dark is light,

Sex to sex, and even to odd; —

The over-god

Who marries Right to Might,

Who peoples, unpeoples, —

He who exterminates

Races by stronger races,

Black by white faces, —

Knows to bring honey

Out of the lion;

Grafts gentlest scion

On pirate and Turk.

The Cossack eats Poland,

Like stolen fruit;

Her last noble is ruined,

Her last poet mute;

Straight into double band

The victors divide;

Half for freedom strike and stand; —

The astonished Muse finds thousands at her side.

Until the discovery of penicillin (well possibly sulfa about the same time) physicians could only aid their patients to heal themselves. Do No Harm. Now. With wonder drugs, they have more choices. The same is true with agriculture and production: without modern technology, most of what we think of as international charity – including simply getting there to help after a disaster – would be impossible. Yes, the things of technology are a new temptation, and capable of tempting many more people to put possessions first, if only because so many more can have possessions. His Holiness reminds us that accumulation is not the goal of life. We all understand that, but we often need reminding.

Iraq: Situation Desperate, Send More Kurds

Jerry

This is really about incompetent Iraqi officers:

http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/iraq/articles/20150619.aspx

“After 2003 the American strategy in Iraq was simple; hold elections and get the elected government strong enough so that it could take care of itself without American troops.” Indeed. If you are going to rebuild a country or an army, you have to start from the bottom. Hold municipal elections, select sergeants and begin training lieutenants. Then provincial elections, and in the army let competent NCO’s and officers advance. You ought to have a functioning government and a competent army in about 20 years. Mot willing to make that sort of commitment? Then don’t start the enterprise.

Ed

If you don’t know what you are trying to accomplish…

I was just floored and am nearly speechless over an Arstechnica article

It seems our esteemed (NOT) POTUS’s government including the OPM has subcontracted our national IT security to the Chinese. They didn’t have to hack anything. They had root access from the beginning.

Encryption “would not have helped” at OPM, says DHS official Attackers had valid user credentials and run of network, bypassing security.

http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/06/encryption-would-not-have-helped-at-opm-says-dhs-official/

I’m utterly aghast at this. What does it take to get a POTUS removed for gross utter incompetence? What does it take to get the House to do its job? (What does it take to get the House to never again pull a massive shrink wrap law on us like ObamaCare and the even larger trade agreements?)

{O.O}

One attempts what can be accomplished. I do point out that electing a junior Senator with no other experience in either government or business or military on the basis of one speech in a time of crisis is not usually the optimum move in any political history.

Needs of the battlefield

http://warontherocks.com/2015/06/the-future-of-close-air-support-is-not-what-the-air-force-thinks/

Pay particular attention to the section entitled, “Two Dangerous Assumptions about Future War” 

This is critical to ALL military thinking and planning on future battlefields.  Failure respect your enemy will ultimately result in your defeat, or withdrawal from the field without advancing your political goals.

Oh, by the way.  KEEP THE DAMNED A-10 in our inventory!

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

= =

Why not build a new A10?

The A10 started production in 1975 or so. It’s 40 years old. We should be able to build an even better one today. If congress would force the army and air force to renegotiate their agreement of who owns what, we could let Army build a replacement A10. How about a modern A10 with a rail gun? Now that would make the troops happy!

—

Phil Tharp

Well, yes, but we already have some. We could use Stukas for that matter. USAF can protect the ground support aircraft.

Ptolemy

One thing that is missing is that Ptolemy’s model show the moon to sometimes be twice as close to the earth as other times.

Yet the moon never appears twice as big.

http://tofspot.blogspot.com/2013/08/the-great-ptolemaic-smackdown.html

B

I don’t think I ever heard that.  Surely someone would have noticed? Really all the actual details I know (as opposed to general concepts – come from TOF, who has proved so far to be a very good scholar of the history of science.

Just so you will know…

I really enjoy your columns!

Thanks. Charles

I also have pretty good mail.  I just wish I could type faster

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

Chaos Manor View, Thursday, June 18, 2015

Chaos Manor View, Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Steve Barnes couldn’t make it for our weekly conference on the book. Larry and I managed to dream up some material that will go in it. We’ll be back on schedule next week. Come Friday I’ll get my new hearing gadget that may help a lot. I’m still having trouble getting Skype to work properly. They improved the interface so I can’t understand it now. Likely me, but it’s annoying. Why do they keep doing this? Bureaucracy has crept into the electronic industry, perhaps.

We had a good lunch. The rest of the day was devoured by locusts.

Chaos Manor View, Thursday, June 18, 2015

I keep letting myself be distracted by irrelevancies. I need to work on focus. And now it’s time for exercise, but it’s also time for lunch. I’m trying Tai Chi; so far I haven’t gotten through the warmups, which do seem useful. Some of the moves require more balance than I have, so I do twice as many, one hand lightly on my walker. That does improve overall stability, or seems to, and is not frightening. I got through 17 of the 28 or so warmups today. Plus the usual exercises. We’ll see if that helps. I still can’t type. Keep hitting d for s and w2 for w and all that. The autotype catches many of them but that’s just on this machine.

1612: Internet failure.  Time Warner can’t publish my blog. I sure wish there were competition. Doubtless some kid down the block needs a porn fix.  The joys of internet equality. Now I can’t even access the site. Turns out it was Blue Host who decided to blacklist me from my site, although not from elsewhere. It seems to be fixed.

I think the computers have a conspiracy to drive me crazy.

Pope’s leaked encyclical on climate change

On Tue, Jun 16, 2015 at 9:50 AM, Brian Pendell <brianpendell@gmail.com> wrote:

Dear Dr. Pournelle,
First of all, a happy birthday to Roberta! I hope it was a wonderful day for  you both!
To business. Today’s Washington Post has a leaked draft of the Pope’s new encyclical which will discuss climate change. Key line: “The poor and the earth are shouting”.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/an-italian-draft-of-pope-francis-environmental-paper-leaks–setting-off-scurry-to-google-translate/2015/06/15/89af0012-1379-11e5-9ddc-e3353542100c_story.html
Being a Protestant, this gives me no new reason to cross the Tiber.  We’ve already discussed here at length how the models are not producing reproducible results, how the observations are questionable, and other issues with what I view as a largely manufactured ‘consensus’. Having the Pope step in to declare a theory of climate change to be religious orthodoxy is not helpful for the cause of actual science.  When was the last time that happened…? Galileo, was it? 
Also, I note that , assuming for the sake of argument that the AGW is absolutely correct, than the greatest inputs to climate change would be the human population and the animals such as cattle required to support them.  De-industrialization will actually make emissions worse instead of better because this population would then be less efficient.
It therefore follows that if the Pope is serious about climate change, he also has to be serious about human overpopulation. Which would require the church to liberalize its teachings on population control measures such as birth control.
Is this very likely?   HA. 
As a Catholic, how does this effect you? Isn’t an encyclical the Pope speaking Ex Cathedra, and therefore infallibly?
Respectfully,

Brian P.

Dear Dr. Pournelle, 
If you wish, I have found an answer to my question, and can thus spare you some typing. Ed Morissey, also a Catholic, explains it this way using the quote of a commenter on his site:
“cthemfly: “Thus, we as Catholics need to explain that this encyclical cannot be dignified as anything other than an opinion piece one might read in the NYT.” We should at least explain that this is not doctrine, or even teaching in the sense of the Magisterium in the context of climate change, but a personal reflection and appeal from Francis.”
From this larger dissection of the encyclical.
http://hotair.com/archives/2015/06/18/pope-francis-time-for-a-bold-cultural-revolution-to-confront-climate-change-and-compulsive-consumerism/
Respectfully,

Brian P.

Thank you. You have indeed saved me some typing and that is appreciated. So far His Holiness is speaking – I guess will be speaking – for himself as an informed religious who is not as well informed as he should be. It has happened before.

Will Your Job Be Done By A Machine?

Thought you would be interested in this from NPR given recent conversations:

Will Your Job Be Done By A Machine?

Machines can do some surprising things. But what you really want to know is this: Will your job be around in the future?

We have the “definitive” guide.

They do have the caveat, “The researchers admit that these estimates are rough and likely to be wrong. But consider this a snapshot of what some smart people think the future might look like. If it says your job will likely be replaced by a machine, you’ve been warned.”

Chuck Ruthroff  

We’ve speculated on this before. My observation is that by 2020 a good half the jobs people have today can be done by a robot (or several robots) costing about as much as a year’s salary and benefits of the worker replaced; with a useful life of about ten years, and may require a supervisor who can attend ten and possibly more robots (a guess from Spinning Jenny days). This requires an economic decision by the employer; it’s not a slam dunk. Yet. But Moore’s Law is inexorable, and yes, I know I am generalizing; I know what chips are. I am about to give up on gotcha mail.

The Tsar Continues to Act in the Tsar’s Interest

Jerry,

Continuing on…

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

<http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/06/16/us-russia-nuclear-putin-idUSKBN0OW17X20150616>

Putin says Russia beefing up nuclear arsenal, NATO denounces ‘saber-rattling’

by Maria Tsvetkova Jun 16

“President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that Russia was concerned about an anti-missile defense system near its borders, after announcing that Russia would add more than 40 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) to its nuclear arsenal this year.

‘We will be forced to aim our armed forces … at those territories from where the threat comes,’ Putin said….”

And

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/russia-to-increase-nuclear-arsenal-as-us-plans-more-firepower-in-europe/2015/06/16/2e81d4f4-1445-11e5-8457-4b431bf7ed4c_story.html>

Russia to increase nuclear arsenal as U.S. plans more firepower in Europe

By Karoun Demirjian June 16

“….Secretary of State John F. Kerry called the announcement concerning, even if Putin ‘could well be posturing.’

‘Nobody wants to see us step backwards,’ Kerry said Tuesday. ‘Nobody should hear that kind of announcement from the leader of a powerful country and not be concerned about what the implications are.’

Several Eastern European nations have asked the United States and NATO to deploy troops and materiel to deter Russia from advancing on territories that were once part of the Soviet sphere.

Those nations became wary of Russia’s intentions after Moscow annexed the Crimean Peninsula in March 2014 and supported pro-Russian rebels opposing Kiev’s authority in eastern Ukraine.

Col. Steve Warren, a Pentagon spokesman, said Monday that plans to store more heavy weapons in Eastern Europe had nothing to do with Russia but are ‘purely positioning of equipment to better facilitate our ability to conduct training.’

Putin said Tuesday that plans to store arms in Eastern Europe worry him less than an increase in European missile defenses.

But Russian authorities warned Monday that if the United States starts deploying more heavy weapons, Russia would meet them tit for tat with additional troops, tanks, planes and missile upgrades, according to Russian Gen. Yury Yakubov’s comments to the Interfax news agency….”

Surely you are not astonished? Of course Putin will continue to act in what he perceives as Russia’s interest. It would be astonishing if he did not. There is an easy way to de-escalate the rising conflict over there. We are not going to answer Russian border aggression with a land war in Europe over territorial disputes – or I hope to heaven we are not.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/raspberry-pi-releases-an-official-pc-case-that-costs-less-than-10/

Raspberry Pi releases an official PC case that costs less than $10 (ZD)

For a little more than $50, you can now put together a tiny PC based on Raspberry Pi parts — though you’ll still need to pay for keyboard, mouse, and other accessories .

By Sean Portnoy for Laptops & Desktops | June 18, 2015 — 00:45 GMT (17:45 PDT) |

The Raspberry Pi project — making a dirt-cheap diminutive Linux PC based on an ARM processor (though now capable of running a custom version of Windows 10, too) — has been a runaway success, with sales topping 5 million and an entire cottage industry popping up around the Pi and its rivals. While the Raspberry Pi foundation has built a few other parts to round out the Pi experience, it has never offered a case to house the Pi innards. Until now.

Like the components it’s been built to encompass, the official Raspberry Pi case is small and budget friendly. In fact, the Raspberry Pi store sells it for just 6 British pounds (or $9.50 for us Yanks), which means you can purchase the Pi and its case for a little over $50 and have a complete computer that is easily portable. Of course, you still need to purchase input devices and the like, as ZDNet’s own Ken Hess notably put in his piece, “Raspberry Pi: How I spent almost $150 on a $35 computer.”

The case is made from red and white injection-moulded plastic that clips together, making assembly a literal snap. It provides access to the Pi’s microSD card slot, four USB ports and its Ethernet jack, and the removable side panel allows you to reach the GPIO (general purpose input/output) pins that let the Pi function in so many different ways.

In addition to being available from the Raspberry Pi official store, the case will be sold via a few partner stores, including a few in the U.S. If you want to find out that list, or see the whole process of how the case came to be, head over to the Raspberry Pi blog for the complete backstory.

So for less than a carton of cigarettes, you can have a better computer than I had in the 90’s.

Just ordered a 3rd Raspberry PI 2 kit via Amazon: the pi, wireless dongle, power supply, MicroSD card with the OS on it, HDMI cable, and a case via Amazon. Total cost $69.99 here http://amzn.to/1H1OlJr .

This one will also become a Media Server and Network Server. The first two were for that, and given to two daughter’s families. This last one is for me.

Very easy to set up, found a great tutorial at https://melgrubb.wordpress.com/ . Starts at the ‘unboxing’ then all the things to do to load and configure the software.

Added a 1TB external hard drive and a powered USB-3 port (not enough power via the Pi to run the external hard drive), and stuck it all in a nice wooden box I got from the Michaels’ craft store.

Fun project…

…Rick…

A Robotic Dog’s Mortality    (nyt)

By THE NEW YORK TIMESJUNE 17, 2015

The Family Dog

When Sony stopped manufacturing replacement parts for its Aibo pet robot, owners scrambled to save the robot-dogs that had become part of their families.

By Zackary Canepari, Drea Cooper on Publish Date June 17, 2015. Photo by Zackary Canepari for The New York Times.

This is the final episode in a Bits video series, called Robotica, examining how robots are poised to change the way we do business and conduct our daily lives.

TOKYO — They didn’t shed, chew the sofa or bite the postman, but for thousands of people Sony’s Aibo robotic dog was the closest thing to a real canine companion. So when the Japanese company stopped servicing the robots last year, eight years after it ended production, owners faced a wrenching prospect: that their aging “pets” would break down for good.

Sony introduced the Aibo in 1999, at a price of 250,000 yen (about $2,000 at current exchange rates). The beaglelike robots could move around, bark and perform simple tricks. Sony sold 150,000 units through 2006; the fifth and final generation was said to be able to express 60 emotional states.

Robot pets didn’t became the ubiquitous accessories that the Aibo’s developers had imagined, however, and the Aibo was never much more than a side project for Sony. The company was used to selling consumer products in the tens of millions, not the thousands. And by the mid-2000s Sony was losing money, its mainstay television business eroded by competition from cheaper South Korean rivals.

The Aibo fell victim to company restructuring, as Sony sought to refocus on more profitable businesses. Still, Sony continued to repair Aibos until March of last year. But by then spare parts were becoming too scarce, the company said, forcing it to end the service and turn owners away. —Jonathan Soble

Fall in love with your robot at your own risk; they are not immortal.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/innovations/wp/2015/06/17/inside-an-mit-researchers-grand-plan-to-create-the-personal-food-computer/

Inside an MIT researcher’s grand plan to create the personal food computer (WP)

By Matt McFarland June 17 at 8:45 AM

In a Cambridge, Mass. building, under the glow of LED lights, Caleb Harper is working to literally plant the seeds for a movement that could change the way we eat and live.

Harper, the founder of the CityFarm research group at the MIT Media Lab, wants to bring the open source spirit to the nascent field of vertical farming. With knowledge being shared freely, anyone could have access to the world’s best recipe for tomatoes, or whatever plant they want to grow.

“Everyone in the world wants to know more about where our food is coming from and how they’re going to keep getting it,” Harper said. “There is a groundswell of consumers and young innovators that would like to make a big difference. All we need is the tools. My focus is on getting the tools out there.”

This spring Harper made the first prototype for his “personal food computer,” which is essentially a climate-controlled box. It’s small enough to sit on a coffee table, and includes an array of sensors to monitor conditions, such as carbon dioxide levels, humidity, light intensity and pH. There’s no soil. The plants get their nutrients through a mist which has crucial minerals added in.

By using digital technologies to identify and recreate the optimal conditions for a plant, his platform for making climate recipes has the potential to one day provide optimized foods around the world, no matter the season.

Harper plans to donate the personal food computers to select schools this September, when he formally launches his open agriculture movement.

Music is free now – and the industry only has itself to blame

How Music Got Free: What Happens When an Entire Generation Commits the Same Crime?
Stephen Witt
Bodley Head, 296pp, £20

Cowboys and Indies: the Epic History of the Record Industry
Gareth Murphy
Serpent’s Tail, 400pp, £14.99

Cowboys and Indies describes a growing industry where any chink in a company’s armour was punished by the opposition and boldness was rewarded. When the Original Dixieland Jazz Band came to Britain in 1919, they “took London by storm and were commissioned by Columbia’s British company to record no less than 30 sides”, a brave move for something that could have been a week-long novelty. But it paid off. Eight decades on, How Music Got Free portrays a business too bloated and greedy to understand that suing your customers is not the best way to sell your product.

Now it’s the book publishing industry’s turn

: Wines from Nova Scotia

Dr. Pournelle,

I read with some amusement your doubt whether they plant grapes in Nova Scotia. While it’s a small amount of acreage planted (only 550 acres) it is a growing industry. http://winesofnovascotia.ca/ is a website to promote the wineries.

Regards,

Bill Grigg

: Vinland is where you find it

As to wine in Vinland proper, nothing more tropical than barley grows where they wintered in Newfoundland, but  since you mentioned Nova Scotia  I googled and got a shock: – i bolded the text :

THE WINERIES OF NOVA SCOTIA

When you walk through Nova Scotia Wine Country’s lush vineyards,
you’re never more than 20 kilometers from the ocean.

Situated on one of the cooler climate limits for vines, Nova Scotia’s soil and mesoclimates create some of the most distinctive premium-quality grapes in North America.

Our wineries have garnered international acclaim for their efforts and genuine passion. There are over 70 grape growers and more than 720 acres under vine in seven different regions across the province.

We have a long and rich tradition for growing grapes for wine dating back to the 1600s, when this was one of the first areas to cultivate grapes in North America.

                         Russell Seitz

Drat. There goes an example. I do not think there are enough wild grapes that anyone would call it Vinland, but perhaps for Vikings from Iceland the bar was pretty low…

On a practical level, we are probably within the error bar of being about as warm now as we were in Viking times before the Little Ice Age. Are we not lucky?

Global Warming Since The Little Ice Age

Jerry,

I came across the following bit of military trivia:

” On the frigid morning of 23 Jan 1795 a Lt. Col. Lahure of the French Army, led a squadron of hussars, with a company of infantry riding double, across thick sea ice at the Texel in Holland to successfully capture the entire Dutch Navy.”

http://www.strategypage.com/cic/docs/cic123a.asp

The Earth has indeed warmed, and well before the Anthropogenic Global Warming alarmists say it did…

Best,

Rodger Morris

I don’t see how there can be any controversy over how cold it was in 1776 and after, up to 1810. It is how fast it warmed after that, and what caused that warming, that’s in question. Believer advocates try to ignore the Viking and Medieval Warm, and the Roman Warm periods with their contrived hockey stick, but I think all but the True Believers have given that up.  And while we can track 19th Century warming to 5 degrees or so, we can’t be more accurate than that; we’re fortunate to have that much.  Sea temperatures could only be taken with a bucket and a mercury thermometer, and sea keeping duties made those more rare than we’d like.  Anyone who has actually looked at a tree ring, then says we can 1/10th degree accuracies from that, is probably a likely investor in the Brooklyn Bridge.

Needs of the battlefield

http://warontherocks.com/2015/06/the-future-of-close-air-support-is-not-what-the-air-force-thinks/

Pay particular attention to the section entitled, “Two Dangerous Assumptions about Future War” 

This is critical to ALL military thinking and planning on future battlefields.  Failure respect your enemy will ultimately result in your defeat, or withdrawal from the field without advancing your political goals.

Oh, by the way.  KEEP THE DAMNED A-10 in our inventory!

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

I’ll have a commentary another time. And the new release of Strategy of Technology will have a section on modern air war.

: Econo-dysphoria, a critique

    Kaitlyn Jenner transgresses gender boundaries, Rachel Dolezal transgresses race boundaries, and gender and race are big deals in America; but our nation’s big-daddy-o injustice centers on class.

    Therefore I wish to share with you my own identity dysphoria. It is an issue that I have struggled with my entire life, but only now can identify; and so I come out now, to you.
    You see, I am a billionaire in a thousandaire’s body.
    Inwardly, I am monstrously rich, but the banks only acknowledge one millionth of what is rightfully my own. That’s their fault, not mine. It’s how the Man conspires to keep me down.
    If only I could access the money that I feel I should have, then I would be buying legislatures and financing brilliant cultural innovations and re-engineering entire economies. I would be making a much bigger difference in the world than I do now.
    Please do not make light of my misfortune. It has caused real suffering for myself and for those I love. I would gladly make the transition, despite the trouble of doing so, but alas there are no effective therapies, or competent specialists, addressing my condition.
    I have long struggled with this privately, but I suspect that I am far from alone in this. If you also suffer from econo-dysphoria, then please come out too. In solidarity there is strength.
    What’s that? You say that I’m joking? That I’m not really that rich? So is gender negotiable, and race is almost negotiable, but class is not negotiable at all? Is the thickness of one’s wallet more genuine than the color of one’s skin, the shape of one’s genitalia, or the contents of one’s character?
    Well then, that goes to show what this culture really thinks is real!

Long time contributor

Why Mathematicians Are Hoarding This Special Type of Japanese Chalk

http://gizmodo.com/why-mathematicians-are-hoarding-this-special-type-of-ja-1711008881

Odd at first thought? But understandable upon rumination. Both the creative and the productive become attached to their favorite working tools.

“If the poor workman hates his tools, the good workman hates poor tools.

The work of the workingman is, in a sense, defined by his tools.”

– Weinberg, p.203

John

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

Chaos Manor View, Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Physical Therapy on Monday and then I did some hard work on novels.

I had gained 18 points on abilities on whatever scoring system PT technicians use – things like able to stand for a full minute with my eyes closed, and how far I can reach without support. I tried one of those all wheel walkers, which only have brakes on the rear wheels. My goal with that would be to take long distance walks. The standard walker – two non-swiveling wheels in front, skids (tennis balls, actually) in back – works well in the house and in shopping malls and other places that have level surfaces, but Los Angeles has not done any sidewalk maintenance in fifty years, and we do like to plant trees in parking strips. When we bought our house there were two mature oak trees in front and they never cracked the sidewalk; oaks send down deep roots. But on other streets on my walking route they have magnolias, which have surface roots and are notorious sidewalk crackers. There are also plane trees and other surface root trees, very attractive but hard on sidewalks.

The result is a lot cracking, but although our winters are mild they can get cold enough that a few badly poured sidewalks can experience frost heaves; and of course there is general wear. None of this was a bother to anyone but skaters and skate boarders, but I sure notice them now with my walker; I keep hoping that the wheeled variety will work better. But my experiment in Physical Therapy was a bit ambiguous; the wheeled walker seems a bit squirrelly. My problem isn’t strength, it’s balance, which has been awful since the 2008 hard radiation brain cancer treatment – completely successful, I’m cancer free.

I walked with a cane or hiking staff before the stroke. I keep hoping to get back to that again, but I’m sure not there yet, and it looks like it’s going to be a while. I’d like to be able to walk a mile or so a day, and the wheeled walker might make it easier if I can get enough confidence in using it. I wish it had four wheel brakes. I have a good bit of confidence in the two wheel walker. Not so much in the four-wheeler.

My biggest problem remains typing, which is slow – distracting but tolerable – and inaccurate. The inaccuracy is the worst problem. I must look at the keyboard – there is no way I’m learning to be a touch typist again – and when I look up I see numbers and extra letters in words, and I seem compelled to fix them, and by then I have forgotten the end of the sentence, or what the next sentence should be. It makes writing incredibly slow,

Roberta keeps urging me to try Dragon, which I have, but I need to train my dragon – actually Dragon needs to train me – and I find it a bit daunting. So I think of stories but I get frustrated trying to write. Nothing for it but to Just Do It, of course. I’m also training my autocorrect, which is tricky; I pretty well have to stick to unambiguous words lest I make some really horrid mistakes. Still, what can mischevi9ous be? But sometimes misspelled words might be any of several, and sometimes the wrong one can be bizarre.

Michael will be over in an hour or less to complete the pickup of my car from its annual servicing – including of course a new battery from being driven infrequently. I’ll work on this, but then I have to go with him to sign the payment, and we’ll do a bit of shopping. I’m not yet up to driving, and I doubt I ever will drive at nights – octogenarians cause accidents, not being in them so much as strictly obeying the laws and not compromising the way younger people with more confidence in their reflexes do.

Roberta’s birthday dinner

We have two new candidates for President: Jeb Bush, and Donald Trump. While I hope The Donald scares the country club Republicans, and I rather think he will, I suspect he will not be able to beat Hillary, given the Clinton attack machine. He is being played by the media as the clown prince. But he’d certainly be preferable to Hillary, and for that matter to the Country Club Republicans, whoever they would choose. That, I think, will not be Jeb Bush, who, unlike his father and brother, has actual principles rather than a strategy; or so I’ve observed.

Bush II tried to be his own man, and when he was he was pretty good, but he didn’t have any overriding principles like reducing the size of government. He was far too willing to let the Big Spenders convince him that we had to spend our way out of the Great Repression; one reason Obama won the next election. Bush II didn’t really believe in TARP but he didn’t stand up against it, either; and of course he got hit with 911 and used it to unseat Saddam, largely on moral grounds – Hussein really was a monster – but without any strategic objective whatever. He wanted to undo some of the effects of his father’s mistakes, but he had no idea of what to do next.

I’ve been reading Emma Sky’s “The Unraveling” http://www.amazon.com/The-Unraveling-Hopes-Missed-Opportunities-ebook/dp/B00PSSCU2K . I always knew they were unprepared for a Mesopotamian adventure, but even I didn’t think they were that unprepared. I probably should have. Colonel Couvillon was discreet in his conversations about his experiences as Governor of Wasit Province, but it was clear that while his heart was in the right place, he had no real experience at governing; as a Marine, why should he?

Ms. Sky was a 32 year old British Council – look it up – civil servant who had been on cultural missions to Egypt and some other Arab areas, but never to Iraq; and had no executive experience at all. The British government advertised for volunteers to help rebuild Iraq. She volunteered, and within a few days was temporarily posted to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and put on an airplane to Iraq, got to Baghdad, then to Kirkuk, all without any briefings; where she was told that she was the provincial Governor, and the only civilian advisor to the American military commander. The Province was sort of given to the Brits to govern, but she had no British staff; while the US Airborne Infantry occupiers had no experience with Arabs, or with governing, or with the history of Sunni-Shia-Kurd relations, or Hussein’s Arabification of the province. She, like the Colonel, had only good intentions and common sense to guide her. So much for British Colonial Experience and expertise.

As for Bush II, he won the war. Mission accomplished. Let the State Department and the Foreign Service handle it now, with our troops to enforce our pro-consul’s decrees. And so came Bremer, a man Bush had never met, from State, to be proconsul, and the real war began.

Jeb Bush had no part in all this. He governed Florida, and did that well in frightening economic times. He stayed out of foreign affairs except for immigration, which he did better with than most. He had to avoid denouncing The Family, and did. He would make a far better President than Hillary, and in my judgment better than either his father or his brother; but he is a Bush, and Bush I fired every Reagan friend in the White House the day he took office. He is the son of the anti-Reagan; of the man who swore never to raise taxes but did so at the first opportunity. Jeb Bush can plead that government and taxes were smaller when he left the governorship than when he took it; and that he has never broken his word.

I can think of worse candidates for President than Jeb Bush; but I can think of worse candidates than Donald Trump also.

Subject: Power Re-estimate

A correspondent of yours asked, ‘did Obama let ISIS go nuclear’? That question overestimates Obama’s – and America’s – actual power. A re-invasion and re-occupation of Iraq would cost another trillion dollars, re-flood the VA and the military cemeteries, re-alienate the public in the Middle East and at home, end as messily, and leave behind even crazier fanatics.

We have learned – some of us – that an army built to defeat empires is useless against insurgencies. Given this fix, what to do? Obama’s strategy – and Clinton’s if she succeeds him – is to competently manage imperial decline. By contrast, W’s strategy – and that of any present Republican candidate, were one to win – is to incompetently hasten imperial collapse.

Paradocter

Power Re-estimate

Not true of ISIS which needs a territory to be legitimate; and we have counter insurgency techniques for the rest.  What we don’t have, and probably do not want, Is the structure for ruling without the consent of the governed.

Jerry Pournelle

Chaos Manor

Very well then, America and Isis have a common interest: that Isis has a territory for them to brag about and for America to attack. So I think that’s what will happen.
Endgame: partition Iraq. Kurdistan, Shiite rump Iraq, Sunni central Iraq. Biden suggested this years ago, but it was called an embarrassing gaffe, because it was a good idea. As is we’ll get the same result, but Isis also picks up half of Syria. A terabuck for that?
Isis will establish a reign of theocratic terror, much like theocratic terror of their former sponsors, the Saudis. For now they brag of the pious purity of their brutality, but of course once they settle in they’ll keep the brutality and corrupt the piety. (Much like their former sponsors, the Saudis.) To justify their insanity they’ll provoke the Americans. We shouldn’t take the bait, but our war industry needs wars, winnable or not.

As for ruling without the consent of the governed, don’t worry, the 1% is pioneering the necessary techniques here at home.

Paradocter

Yes, they  are; Obama with his Executive Orders and Regulatory agencies is running the experiments. Crony capitalism thrives; but is has been ever so. What needs to be preserved is freedom, and that is very much under threat from Wesley Mouch and his cohorts.

If by W you mean President George W. Bush, it should be obvious he had no strategy; just as President Barrack Hussein Obama has none. Mr. Obama had one: he made a speech in Cairo that was to change everything. It did not work, and the Arab world collapsed as it sometimes does. The current Administration, much of the time with Hillary Clinton as foreign minister, did not fare well in protecting American interests in the area; is not doing so now.

Sending a few more troops is a bit like sending twenty forest fire fighters to instruct those fighting the fire. If you are to use force, use it. If the job needs one division, send two.

As to the partition of Iraq I do not recall Mr. Biden saying that; I certainly did, before they went in, which I advised against because it was obvious that any unified Iraq would have to be a tyranny. Fortunately there is enough oil to support three nations there (with perhaps some remnants going to Syria, Turkey, and Jordan); not lavishly, but not in more poverty either.

I have no brief for intervention in territorial disputes in Europe or the Middle East; but we broke it, and it will not fix itself; and an ISIS tyranny really would be intolerable.

You ought to put this link on permanent and prominent display.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFZAAFGTioE

Robert

Yes; well done. The field Army needs close air support. The Air Force will not supply it.

: I confess that I did not know there was such a thing as a “National Week of Making.”

NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim June 12 through June 18, 2015, as National Week of Making.

https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2015/06/16/2015-14980/national-week-of-making-2015?utm_campaign=subscription+mailing+list&utm_medium=email&utm_source=federalregister.gov

Rod

I didn’t either…

NSA “gets back”…

http://www.duffelblog.com/2015/06/nsa-launches-revenge-porn-site/

Access options for data access range in “…price from the 50GB, $9.99/month basic package, to the expensive but popular the $199.99/year “Edward Snowden” package, which includes unlimited browsing and downloads.”

“According to early projections the website is on pace to sell nearly $1 billion in subscriptions this month alone. Due to the release of millions of e-mails and text messages detailing seedy affairs and rendezvous NSA analysts believe there will be a 81 percent increase in the divorce rate and as much as a 53 percent increase in STD and paternity test rates.”

Charles Brumbelow

Clearly satire, and not really to my taste.

Subj: Change…

is not always “good”, sometimes it’s evil.  This is no longer the country
of which I felt I was a positive part for 40 plus years.
http://nypost.com/2015/06/06/how-a-massive-silent-cultural-revolution-has-changed-america/
Remove all warning labels and let natural selection work.

Tolerance leading to acceptance is quite arguably a good thing. Forced “acceptance” as in the case of the bakers is quite another. I would go farther: I think shops should have the right to refuse service to anyone they choose, without having to state a cause. Of course that would lead to demonstrations, but so long as they are not violent that is acceptable. Then you come to individual police having to decide what demonstrations they will protect.

Dante reserved a bolgia in the ninth circle for those who sow dissent.

It is one thing to say you wish to practice your customs without interference; it is another to demand legal use of force against those who will not assist you in doing so.

Vinland is where you find it

Dear Jerry:

In the wake of  Mark Steyn’s  Heartland conference slip-up, , I reviewed the latest British Vineyard maps.

It appears that some  latter day Vikings  need not leave home to discover Vinland: wine is now  being made hundreds of miles North of the known Medieval limit of British  viticulture, the Isle of Ely:   wine is now  being made on Percy lands  at  Adderstone Vineyards, a   cold stone’s throw from Bamburgh Castle , in grimest Northumbria.

More frighteningly,  the Scots are afoot, with Dalrossach Vineyards up the Don, about halfway between Balmoral and Castle Forbes.

Rumor has it that some of this  subarctic  plonk has already been exported to California.

Best

                         Russell Seitz

I expect so; the Earth is much warmer than in 1800. I doubt they plant grapes in nova Scotia yet. But wouldn’t that be nice? Vinland Wine.

China’s South China Sea dominance is the price US pays for Iraq and Afghanistan | buffy willow

Jerry

I guess you were right again:

http://atimes.com/2015/06/chinas-south-china-sea-dominance-is-the-price-us-pays-for-iraq-and-afghanistan/

“The US is working on countermeasures, to be sure, but chronic underinvestment in cutting-edge defense R&D has left them underdeveloped and under-deployed. The Bush administration spent $1 trillion or so in Iraq and Afghanistan, mainly on personnel, and reduced defense R&D to accommodate its nation-building ambitions in the region. That was a bad trade-off. The US has little to show for its efforts . . .”

How to lose the strategy of technology. Don’t you hate when you call it right?

Ed

It’s an example if I bring out a new edition. Alas, The Strategy of Technology is forgotten by all but a few.

Subj: ISIS has enough captured radioactive material to build “dirty bomb” – UK Independent

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isiss-dirty-bomb-jihadists-have-seized-enough-radioactive-material-to-build-their-first-wmd-10309220.html

Lurching Toward War? or New Cold War?

Jerry,

Tsars do not think like we do. I fear our leaders do not understand that. This may not bode well…

Regards, Charles Adams, Bellevue, NE

<http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCAKBN0OV17A20150615?sp=true&utm_content=buffere3dd1&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer>

Russia says will retaliate if U.S. weapons stationed on its borders

Mon Jun 15, 2015 2:39pm EDT

By Gabriela Baczynska and Wiktor Szary

MOSCOW/WARSAW (Reuters) – A plan by Washington to station tanks and heavy weapons in NATO states on Russia’s border would be the most aggressive U.S. act since the Cold War, and Moscow would retaliate by beefing up its own forces, a Russian defense official said on Monday.

The United States is offering to store military equipment on allies’ territory in eastern Europe, a proposal aimed at reassuring governments worried that after the conflict in Ukraine, they could be the Kremlin’s next target.

Poland and the Baltic states, where officials say privately they have been frustrated the NATO alliance has not taken more decisive steps to deter Russia, welcomed the decision by Washington to take the lead.

But others in the region were more cautious, fearing their countries could be caught in the middle of a new arms race between Russia and the United States.

“If heavy U.S. military equipment, including tanks, artillery batteries and other equipment really does turn up in countries in eastern Europe and the Baltics, that will be the most aggressive step by the Pentagon and NATO since the Cold War,” Russian defense ministry official General Yuri Yakubov said.

“Russia will have no option but to build up its forces and resources on the Western strategic front,” Interfax news agency quoted him as saying.

He said the Russian response was likely to include speeding up the deployment of Iskander missiles to Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave bordered by Poland and Lithuania, and beefing up Russian forces in ex-Soviet Belarus.

“Our hands are completely free to organize retaliatory steps to strengthen our Western frontiers,” Yakubov said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry said: “We hope that reason will prevail and the situation in Europe will be prevented from sliding into a new military confrontation which may have dangerous consequences….”

The current administration wants a reset with Russia – and it looks like the Clinton-Albright reset from the Balkan Wars. The Neocons are not much better. And we have no SAC, and missile officer is not a career advancing post.

EWO. EWO. Emergency War Orders. Emergency War Orders. I have a massage in five parts. Message Begins. Tango X-ray Foxtrot…

Weather Service retiree defined his own post-retirement consulting job 

Dr. P,

For some reason, this tale reminds me of Lazarus Long’s comment about being a shaman – “it’s lovely work if you can stomach it”:

Top Weather Service official creates consulting job — then takes it himself with $43,200 raise, watchdog says

By Lisa Rein June 5

A senior National Weather Service official helped write the job description and set the salary for his own post-retirement consulting post– then came back to the office doing the same job with a $43,200 raise, the agency’s watchdog found.

The deputy chief financial officer also demanded that he be paid a $50,000 housing allowance near Weather Service headquarters in downtown Silver Spring in violation of government rules for contractors, one of numerous improprieties in a revolving-door deal sealed with full knowledge of senior agency leaders, according to an investigation by the Commerce Department inspector general’s office…

By the time he was fired 21 months later, the government had paid him another $471,875.34…

During an interview with investigators about the case, a high-ranking Weather Service official wondered aloud, “why we have all these people that retire and then we go and hire them to come back,” the inspector general said. The contracting official who helped arrange the deal told investigators that similar arrangements “happen all the time” at NOAA  — but the contracting staff did not “question or at least more closely scrutinize this arrangement,” the report said…

[His lawyer, Matthew]Kaiser said the agency’s contracting officials approved the deal, relieving his client of responsibility for wrongdoing.

“That a long-time distinguished public servant can have his name dragged through the mud for following the advice of his boss and his agency’s compliance officials should be absolutely terrifying for every federal employee at an agency with an overly aggressive inspector general,” Kaiser said.

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/federal-eye/wp/2015/06/05/top-weather-service-official-creates-consulting-job-then-takes-it-himself-with-43200-raise-watchdog-says/>

Kind of makes you want to transfer some rogue bunny inspectors to the Inspector General’s office, doesn’t it?

Regards,
    William Clardy

“The faster I run, the behinder I get!”– Pogo

Well, we still have bunny inspectors; some approach retirement…

https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/bunny-inspectors-again/

https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/1254778-the-debate-over-the-budget-continues

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

Chaos Manor View, Sunday, June 14, 2015

Roberta’s Birthday

Happy Birthday!

Flag Day

Today is Roberta’s birthday.  Yesterday we went to Costco and got the earphones tuned, which seems to work better in some ways – less background noise —  and not so good in others.  I have ordered a gizmo that feeds the input from an external microphone directly into the hearing aids. We’ll see how useful that is. I heard most of the table conversation at breakfast this morning, and even some of the Lessons, but it needs improving.

Something else that needs improving is mu typing skill.  I am probably converting to hunt and peck two finger typing and even that is  slow and sloppy, every sentence no matter how carefully typed requiring a half dozen corrections, causing a very big slowdown.  It may be getting better, but it’s slow. One danged thing is hitting a key, Id guess ALT and some other, maybe A, that stops the process until I use the blasted mouse to move the cursor back to the end of the line and click; I cannot ignore it and fix later as I try to do with words that have numbers or extraneous letters in them.   But I am slowly learning to produce text.  After all four pages a day is at least two books a year, as I once told David Drake. And auto correct works in Word pretty well, although not so good in Live Writer.

More later.  We’re having a birthday party.

Mom, Alex, and Frank out on the front patio.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2015/06/12/smartphone-thefts-are-way-down-heres-why/

Smartphone thefts are way down. Here’s why. (WP)

By Thad Moore June 12 at 9:28 AM

It’s a tough time to be in the business of stealing smartphones.

Apple started letting users clear their data and disable their iPhones remotely in 2013 with its “Find My iPhone” feature, and Android is expected to roll out the function soon. That makes it harder for thieves to do much with a stolen smartphone: If it doesn’t work, it’s not worth an awful lot on the black market.

Now, that technology appears to be turning away would-be thieves: A third fewer Americans say they had phones stolen last year compared to 2013, according to a Consumer Reports study released Thursday.

An estimated 2.1 million Americans had their phones stolen last year, down from 3.1 million in 2013.

The magazine says it tweaked its methodology in the latest study, which could account for some of the change, but that the overall change is still significant.

That’s what prosecutors and policymakers hoped for as they’ve pushed for so-called “kill switches” to become standard in smartphones. The issue has inspired legislation in Congress (though it hasn’t moved out of committee) and laws in states such as Minnesota and California, particularly as phone thefts soared in recent years. The number of Americans whose phones were stolen doubled between 2012 and 2013, according to the magazine.

Those laws concerned privacy activists, who said kill switches could be used improperly, especially if wiping a stolen phone becomes compulsory. They worry that law enforcement agencies, for example, could abuse such features when targeting a suspect.

In a statement, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman said his office planned to keep pushing phone makers to make the technology standard.

“This new report confirms what our office found earlier this year: the introduction of ‘kill switches’ in cell phones – resulting from pressure brought by my office, the San Francisco DA, and countless law enforcement officials and consumer advocates who joined the coalition – led to a staggering drop in smartphone thefts,” Schneiderman said in a statement.

Kill switch advocates like Schneiderman will be eyeing Android’s new Lollipop 5.1 operating system when it rolls out later this summer to see if the function is headed to Android phones.

But as Consumer Reports’ Calla Deitrick points out, even if it does, it might take a while for the technology to get to all users.

“Given the helter-skelter, one-off approach phone companies take to their mobile operating systems, however, it will be a long time before a kill switch comes to all Android models,” Deitrick reports.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2015/06/12/ilm-creates-xlab-for-bring-virtual-reality-to-movie-experience/71064884/

Industrial Light & Magic wants to bring virtual reality to the movies (USA Today)

Marco della Cava, USA TODAY 12:29 a.m. EDT June 12, 2015

SAN FRANCISCO — Industrial Light & Magic is taking the notion of DVD-extras to a whole other galaxy.

The special-effects company, which was founded 40 years ago this summer by George Lucas to create the illusions for Star Wars, will announce Friday a new team dedicated to bringing virtual- and augmented-reality experiences to the movies.

ILM’s Experience Lab, or ILMxLab, will combine the technical assets of ILM, Skywalker Sound and Lucasfilm to create immersive experiences that allow fans to participate in their favorite movie worlds.

Although video games pegged to movies have promised a similar experience, this new tech will be different: non-competitive and using photo-realism rather than animation.

The division’s debut products will be Star Wars-based and debut later this year. The company is also working with other filmmakers to bring their projects into the virtual space. Disney, which bought Lucasfilm in 2013 for $3 billion, may use the resulting assets for everything from marketing to theme park attractions.

“ILMxLab is all about us leveraging our skills across all platforms,” says Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy. “It’s the Wild West out there with new frontiers, and we’re all figuring out these new tools. Today, technology is in search of content. But we can bring an emotional experience to that technology.”

ILMxLab’s next-gen entertainment mission comes at a time when the U.S. special effects scene – which pioneering ILM once dominated to the tune of 16 Oscars – faces increasing challenges from rival companies in Europe and Asia that benefit from tax incentives.

“The period of American technological superiority in the movie business is gone,” Lucas told USA TODAY in an interview. “You can get the same technology and people anywhere in the world now.”

Enter ILMxLab, which is testing a variety of iPad- and Oculus Rift-based technology that allows movie aficionados to enter specific scenes of a movie and navigate through them at will. ILMxLab executives say the tech is most likely to make its debut in association with J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars: The Force Awakens in December.

“What we’re aiming for is to open the two-dimensional world of the movies and allow fans to walk into those worlds with the same visual fidelity,” says John Gaeta, ILMxLab’s creative director. “All that George begat caused a reassessment of innovation from movies to video games. The next 40 years of ILM is about exploding that universe with tech once again. xLab is as attuned to Silicon Valley as it is to Hollywood.”

In an exclusive demo for USA TODAY, Gaeta fired up a Star Wars-inspired scene where R2D2 and C-3PO are hiding from Storm Troopers in a dusty village. Instead of just watching the scene on a screen, a visitor holding an iPad can turn 360-degrees and see all around the main characters’ world.

One room over, the same scene is played on a monitor while a visitor pops on a pair of Oculus Rift virtual-reality goggles. This time, the point of view is from on board an X-Wing fighter jet, which not only flies around the village but also responds to banking commands with head tilts.

The difference between a video game and ILMxLab’s world are immediately apparent. Rather than the goal being beating a rival, the end game is to put the viewer inside the movie in order to explore story lines perhaps not pursued by the director in the feature film itself.

Says Kennedy: “With image-quality rivaling film, you’ll be able to literally step into an alternate reality.”

The speed and realism of the ILMxLab demo wasn’t possible just a few years ago, but the combination of equipment such as tablets and VR goggles and the ability to store and stream massive data files in the cloud have changed the equation.

“Apple, Google, Intel, they all have moonshot projects around AR and VR, but they’re still just figuring it out,” Gaeta says. “Our standards for world-building are very high, and we intend to use our technology to give people experiences that they haven’t yet dreamed of.”

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