Monthly Archives: October 2015

Chaos Manor View, Saturday, October 24, 2015

I’ve been busy with fiction and other stuff for days. I have also been faithfully doing the Five Tibetan Rites daily, which is good for me but tiring. If you don’t know about The Five Tibetan Rites, you should learn; they may not be your idea of a fitness program, but they do seem to work better than anything else I know of.

You can get a good idea of the mechanics of the Rites from Hugh Howie and Amber http://www.hughhowey.com/the-five-tibetans/ but for a bit more of the background and the importance of form, see Ellen Rush https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjtslbrFbLY , and there are more expositions all over the web. Form vs. getting through enough repetitions is a long time question. Howie is an advocate of just getting through it. Various martial arts masters like Steve Barnes are more concerned with form. Steve says one of the goals is training the mind as well as the body, which is similar to what the physical therapists insisted on when I was first recovering from the stroke. My conclusion has been that you need both unless you have a coach, which is to say like most of us.

That is: before my stroke I was working up to sufficient repetitions of each Rite, but I never got there because I couldn’t do enough in proper form. I had the strength, probably – no, almost certainly – so I was letting myself go with what I thought was a good excuse. After the stroke I missed the Rites – couldn’t even get down on the floor, or get up if I did, and the thought of doing Rite One was absurd. But after watching Hugh Howie, I decided that I had always had better form than him and he was getting through all of them just as he could. Amber has better form than I will ever have. They both do this daily and speak highly of it, and they aren’t the only ones I respect who do – after all, it was Steve Barnes who introduced me to this rather obscure ritual, years ago, and it has served me well for years.

The result is that I do 21 repetitions of each Rite daily. The first few are in reasonable form, and I am working hard to get all of them right; but when I can’t do it in good form, I don’t quit. I just do what I can in good form, and get through 21 no matter how hard it is – or how long it takes, which, I fear, is one reason I haven’t written much here this week. (The other is that my typing is getting sloppy again; Microsoft has said they are shipping the Pro 4 keyboard, which looks good for correcting some of that, but really, it’s as Dr. Lupo, the Rehab doctor at Holy Cross where I learned to be something other than a vegetable after the stroke says, “practice makes perfect.” He was talking about just swallowing my breakfast, but I since found that one of the most useful bits of advice I have ever had.)

I will add that before the stroke, the Five Tibetans were pretty well good enough for all my formal exercise, but I did a lot of walking – a couple of miles a day – and my office was upstairs so I climbed those stairs many times a day.  Now I don’t, and I find that even with the Five Tibetans daily I need more exercise – walks with my walker, formal exercise, etc. – to keep from turning into a vegetable. Now that we don’t have a dog, it’s easy to forget to take a morning walk, and the consequences can be grave.  Pity, but there it is.  I’m working on a new schedule. 

One thing that would help is the right device for Audible and other audible books; I need to listen to some of my own since we are writing in that universe. Suggestions on the right equipment for an hour a day walk in a walker while listening to a book – equipment suitable for someone with Costco hearing aids – appreciated.  Thanks in advance; I’ll read it all, but I may not be able to answer every email. Please use subject “audible book reading.” I suppose I should add that Audible has done a good job of publishing Legacy of Heorot and Beowulf’s Children as audio books. They’re free on a special promotion just now, and very well done.

I have two comments on the paucity of posts this week. First, unfortunately this begins Pledge Week for KUSC, the LA good music station. It began Thursday, and runs until next Saturday. Long time readers will know that signals my own pledge drive. I run this place on the same model as KUSC: it’s free, but like Public Radio, if it doesn’t get support from users it will go away. That’s not immanent, as it happens, but it’s possible. In addition to the comments and essays, I read a lot of mail from readers, publish what I think is pertinent – usually with what I hope are intelligent comments – and encourage rational discussions, some of which I edit into publishable exchanges.

I also go through more press releases than I normally would, and tease out some that I think are worth your attention. That includes product announcements. I sometimes send email to the Platinum list; never more than one a day, always about something interesting; I can’t and wouldn’t send email to all patrons or readers, because it would be far too many.

Mostly I encourage rational discussion, including disagreements.

All of this takes up time.

The KUSC practice is to have their music program announcers vamp through pitches on why you should subscribe at $15 to $150 a month, and to give away prizes like free records — well Cd’s – well, DVD’s – prizes anyway, for subscribing NOW. I don’t ask for anything like that much. You and find out more at Paying For This Place http://www.jerrypournelle.com/paying.html which tells all. If you’re curious as to what this place is, http://www.jerrypournelle.com/ has a lot of information.

So the pledge drive comes at an awkward moment when I was less productive than usual, but there it is. If you have been reading this for a while and just haven’t got around to subscribing, http://www.jerrypournelle.com/paying.html will tell you more than you need to know. If you’ve subscribed but can’t remember when you last renewed, it’s probably time to renew. Go to http://www.jerrypournelle.com/paying.html and get it over with. It doesn’t take long.

And if you’ve recently renewed, as many of you have, I thank you.

I regret to announce:

Maureen O’Hara, RIP.

<http://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-maureen-ohara-20151025-story.html>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

I enjoyed her pictures a lot. RIP

Some residuum on the Dyson Sphere matter:

Jerry:

I was delighted to see my amateur musings on Dyson spheres in correspondence with Ms. Osborn reproduced on your website.

https://www.jerrypournelle.com/chaosmanor/dyson-spheres-and-the-mile-high-club/

IMHO, our failure to detect communications from the star does not preclude the possibility that this is a Dyson sphere or other megastructure because it is predicated on the premises that the aliens use a communication medium that we can detect. This argument is akin to Neolithic savages concluding that a modern city can not be an artificial construct rather than a natural feature because they haven’t seen any smoke signals or heard any drums. If the aliens rely on anything as mundane as tight beam lasers or fiber optics for communication, we will not detect them.

The absence of IR radiation to compensate for the decrease in emissions in the visible spectrum is the most compelling argument against the idea that the star is being occluded by an artificial structure. However; this argument is less compelling if the star is being periodically occluded by a megastructure that only partially occludes the star. How about a really big light said that is being launched towards Earth?

Finally, it is a fallacy to assume that a Dyson sphere or other megahabitat should be built at the same orbital radius from the star as the home planet of the builders. Because the radiating surface of a planet is four times greater than the instellation surface, a planet is on average much cooler than a flat surface that constantly faces the star would be. A Dyson sphere might and probably should be built at a greater distance from the star than the home planet. Of course Ms. Osborn is correct that a Dyson sphere or a “Bowl of Heaven” would collapse under a star’s gravity unless the materials were astonishingly strong. Even Niven’s Ringworld would experience substantial gravitational force transverse to it’s circumference that would compress it into a string. An armada of lightsails that enclose a star and use light pressure to support themselves is possible, but a large number of collectors in carefully orchestrated and actively managed orbits is more plausible.

James Crawford=

Orbital Rings and Dyson Spheres
A couple of possible “engineering” counter-points to some of the “science” objections raised against orbital rings and Dyson spheres:
Circular Orbital rings:
More of a question than a point – might an orbital ring be maintained in a circular orbit using electromagnetic interaction with the sun’s magnetosphere? The magnetic field is weak, but the size of the coils could be huge, and there should be plentiful solar power to feed the coils. Continuous maintenance of a circular orbit ought to require much less power than attempts to restore circularity from an elliptical orbit. If it is workable, it would eliminate most of the requirement for reaction mass.
Dyson Sphere radiation detection:
If the Builders wished to minimize their IR signature in most directions, it should be possible to direct their IR radiation mostly in two opposing directions, for example along a line perpendicular to the galactic plane.
For simplicity of terminology, think of the sphere as having an “up/down” orientation. Directed IR radiation could be accomplished by making the surface a series of stair-steps – with “horizontal” surfaces highly conductive while “vertical” surfaces are highly insulated, forcing most IR radiation into the “vertical” directions. Seen exactly edge on, there would be very little IR radiation, increasing at higher angles. The directional effect might be further enhanced by putting the radiating surfaces in insulated wells.
Tom Craver

Still yet more thoughts on Dyson Spheres

As regards whether it is more efficient to build a “Dyson Sphere” around a star, or engage in interstellar colonization, here’s something else to think about.
Consider the information transmission time between different elements of a civilization that are separated by A. Dyson sphere: light minutes B. Interstellar colony: dozens/hundreds of light years. Now think about how fast information can spread, and how rich/vital the respective civilizations might be…
If the neurons of a human brain could be separated by hundreds of kilometers from each other, but the same pattern of connections maintained, and the absolute transmission speed is the same, it would be as smart… but way, way, slower.
Also, as regards colonization as a solution to a population problem: Nah. As Asimov pointed out, if population doubled every 47 years (it recently doubled every 18 years in Syria!) it would take only 6700 years to convert all the matter in the universe into human flesh. So the answer to population growth is neither interstellar colonization nor Dyson spheres, but population growth restraint (which may be either the easy way or, like recent Syria, the hard way). If civilizations do build things like Dyson Spheres, surely it will be to increase the richness of the culture/total computational power, not deal with an exponentially growing population, because in a finite universe that’s impossible. The issue is not ‘efficiency’ per se, but what you hope to achieve…

TG

Russia Hit the Iceberg

I guess when things get crazy, you go to what you know:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11937348/Russia-retreats-to-autarky-as-poverty-looms.html

https://news.yahoo.com/stalin-portraits-soviet-nostalgia-rule-ukraines-rebel-regions-052534004.html

It’s over. If we can’t get something worked out with Russia now or very soon, it seems we’ll need to pass through another round of unpleasantness before we sit down and look at this again. Your thoughts?

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

My thought? This was predictable and predicted. When Clinton let us get into the anti-Slav position in Europe, endorsing Albanian thugs rather than Serbian thugs and bombing Slavic Serbs and destroying the economy of the lower Danube, what did he expect to happen? NATO closed an iron ring around Russia. The US continues with entangling alliances and concerns itself with the territorial disputes in Europe that have gone on for hundreds of years, and now we wonder what is happening?

Assad and the Kurds are tolerant of Christians. (And Jordan, which is probably the next Arab state to fall despite last minute US efforts taken when we suddenly realize the problem.) The Caliphate is not, nor are most of the Sunni rebels. Russia has always had an interest in the Middle East, particularly Persia; we are astonished that this interest continues? They do not require history in most of the major universities; what would you predict that does for foreign policy?

It is a bit late now to invest our money in energy production and tell the Arabs to drink their oil, but it is perhaps not too late…

Of course Russia will become an autarky. What incentives have we ever given Russian patriots to do otherwise?

“If it’s an invasion map, you wouldn’t show the bus stations.

It’s a map for when you’re in charge.”

<http://www.wired.com/2015/07/secret-cold-war-maps/>

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Roland Dobbins

Surprise!

Quantum Theory Experiment Said to Prove ‘Spooky’ Interactions    (nyt)

By JOHN MARKOFFOCT. 21, 2015

In a landmark study, scientists at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands reported they have conducted an experiment they say proves one of the most fundamental claims of quantum theory — that objects separated by great distance can instantaneously affect each other’s behavior.

The finding is another blow to one of the bedrock principles of standard physics known as “locality,” which states that an object is directly influenced only by its immediate surroundings. The Delft study, published Wednesday in the journal Nature, lends further credence to an idea that Einstein famously rejected. He said quantum theory necessitated “spooky action at a distance,” and he refused to accept the notion that the universe could behave in such a strange and apparently random fashion.

In particular, Einstein derided the idea that separate particles could be “entangled” so completely that measuring one particle would instantaneously influence the other, regardless of the distance separating them.

Einstein was deeply unhappy with the uncertainty introduced by quantum theory and described the implications of quantum theory as akin to God playing dice.

But since the 1970’s, a series of precise experiments by physicists are increasingly erasing doubt — alternative explanations that are referred to as loopholes — that two previously entangled particles, even if separated by the width of the universe, could instantly communicate.

The new experiment, conducted by a group led by Ronald Hanson, a physicist at the Dutch university’s Kavli Institute of Nanoscience, and joined by scientists from Spain and England, is the strongest evidence yet to support the most fundamental claims of the theory of quantum mechanics about the existence of an odd world formed by a fabric of subatomic particles, where matter does not take form until it is observed and time runs backward as well as forward.

The researchers describe their experiment as a “loophole-free Bell test” in a reference to an experiment proposed in 1964 by the physicist John Stewart Bell as a way of proving that “spooky action at a distance” is real.

“These tests have been done since the late ’70s but always in the way that additional assumptions were needed,” Dr. Hanson said. “Now we have confirmed that there is spooky action at distance.”

According to the scientists they have now ruled out all possible so-called hidden variables that would offer explanations of long-distance entanglement based on the laws of classical physics.

The Delft researchers were able to entangle two electrons separated by a distance of 1.3 kilometers, slightly less than a mile, and then share information between them. Physicists use the term “entanglement” to refer to pairs of particles that are generated in such a way that they cannot be described independently. The scientists placed two diamonds on opposite sides of the Delft University campus, 1.3 kilometers apart.

Each diamond contained a tiny trap for single electrons, which have a magnetic property called a “spin.” Pulses of microwave and laser energy are then used to entangle and measure the “spin” of the electrons.

  The distance — with detectors set on opposite sides of the campus — ensured that information could not be exchanged by conventional means within the time it takes to do the measurement.

“I think this is a beautiful and ingenuous experiment and it will help to push the entire field forward,” said David Kaiser, a physicist at M.I.T., who was not involved in the study. However, Dr. Kaiser, who is with another group of physicists who are preparing to perform an even more ambitious experiment next year that will soon measure light captured at the far edges of the universe, also said he did not think every scintilla of doubt had been erased by the Dutch experiment.

The tests take place in a mind-bending and peculiar world. According to quantum mechanics, particles do not take on formal properties until they are measured or observed in some way. Until then, they can exist simultaneously in two or more places. Once measured, however, they snap into a more classical reality, existing in only one place.

Beyond the immediate result, physicists noted that the experiment represented an advance in the understanding of a Lilliputian world that was once largely the province of theory. Quantum mechanics has already had a huge impact on modern technology and industry. For example, it is the foundation for modern computers and lasers.

“What I do find interesting is that the experimenters are learning how to manipulate quantum systems, and do experiments that are far beyond what was possible when I was starting in physics,” said Leonard Susskind, a theoretical physicist at Stanford. “Things which were at best ‘thought experiments’ become possible, then routine. That is incredibly impressive.”

Indeed, the experiment is not merely a vindication for the exotic theory of quantum mechanics, it is a step toward a practical application known as a “quantum Internet.” Currently the security of the Internet and the electronic commerce infrastructure is fraying in the face of powerful computers that pose a challenge to encryption technologies based on the ability to factor large numbers and other related strategies.

Researchers like Dr. Hanson envision a quantum communications network formed from a chain of entangled particles girdling the entire globe. Such a network would make it possible to securely share encryption keys, and know of eavesdropping attempts with absolute certainty.

For some physicists, even though the new experiment claims to be “loophole free,” the matter is not yet completely closed.

“The experiment has closed two of the three major loopholes beautifully, but two out of three isn’t three,” Dr. Kaiser said. “I believe in my bones that quantum mechanics is the correct description of nature. But to make the strongest statement, frankly we’re not there.”

A potential weakness of the experiment, he suggested, is that an electronic system the researchers used to add randomness to their measurement may in fact be predetermined in some subtle way that is not easily detectable, meaning that the outcome might still be predetermined as Einstein believed.

To attempt to overcome this weakness and close what they believe is a final loophole, the National Science Foundation has funded a group of physicists led by Dr. Kaiser and Alan H. Guth, also at M.I.T., to attempt an experiment that will have a better chance of ensuring the complete independence of the measurement detectors by gathering light from distance objects on different sides of the galaxy next year, and then going a step further by capturing the light from objects known as quasars near the edge of the universe in 2017 and 2018.

Quantum Theory Experiment Said to Prove ‘Spooky’ Interactions (NY Times)

Think about three positions: A, B, and C.

A is the place where the two entangled particles come from.

B and C are the current locations of the particles.

There’s definitely no way to get the particles from location A to locations B and C faster than the speed of light.

There’s also no way to influence the state of either particle at locations B or C from location A at any speed.

That’s old news.

As far as I know, there’s still no way to control the state of the particle at B from location C or vice-versa.

While an event at position B can cause a change at position C, there’s no way to control or predict what that change is or will be, so no way to use the change to communicate any information.

But that’s just my own interpretation. You probably have real physicists among your readers, so I suggest you pose that question on the website and see how they respond.

Best,

.               png

Meanwhile, on the subject of spooky:

‘The researchers demonstrated that they were able to suppress quantum tunneling merely by observing the atoms.’

<http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2015/10/zeno-effect-verified-atoms-wont-move-while-you-watch>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

What’s going on with El Nino…

…and the real (okay, probable) effect on the weather. This is a good article; the writer had his head on his shoulders, logicked his way through, and gathered some very good statistics.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/imageo/2015/10/14/godzilla-the-blob-son-of-blob-el-nino-reality-check/?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DSC_News_151022_Final&utm_content=&spMailingID=23815290&spUserID=MTE2MDc4MjYyNjg3S0&spJobID=662308129&spReportId=NjYyMzA4MTI5S0#5468

Basically what’s happening, insofar as I can tell, is that the strength of the El Nino is throwing off the circulations in the Pacific, resulting in The Blob and Son of Blob. I make no claims to expertise on this, but that’s what it looks like to me.
Stephanie Osborn

“The Interstellar Woman of Mystery”

Prepare for a wild winter.

In unexpected discovery, comet contains alcohol, sugar – Yahoo News India

Jerry:

It sounds like the ingredients to a good cocktail.

https://in.news.yahoo.com/unexpected-discovery-comet-contains-alcohol-182309427.html

James Crawford=

Unsurprising but possibly of interest:

www.climatedepot.com/2015/09/20/update-leader-of-effort-to-prosecute-skeptics-under-rico-paid-himself-his-wife-1-5-million-from-govt-climate-grants-for-part-time-work/

 

 

 

 

 

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

Chaos Manor View, Monday, October 19, 2015

Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for Western Civilization as it commits suicide.

There will be a separate post on Dyson sphere discussion.

Saturday night I did a radio interview, http://www.blogtalkradio.com/authorsontheair/2015/10/18/sf-giant-jerry-pournelle-live-interviewed-by-h-paul-honsinger which isn’t likely to interest any of the readers here; it was good enough, but mostly for people who don’t know who I am. Sunday it rained, sort of, in Los Angeles, and we didn’t get out of the house after church and brunch with my son and Larry Niven. I didn’t do much Sunday, and Roberta and I watched some TV, and I read some more of Sarah Hoyt’s Witchfinder. I don’t really recommend it, not because it isn’t well written – all of Sarah’s books are well written – but it was originally published a chapter at a time, and that format requires a hook at the end of each chapter; and that requires that it be a surprise for the characters, so they can’t have seen it coming, which they didn’t know the rules that allow that sort of thing to happen, because if they had, they’d have been prepared.

That sort of thing is not my cup of tea. I prefer to be surprised but to say to myself, oh! I didn’t see that coming, but I should have seen that coming – thereby not making the characters be astonished because they were too stupid to see something coming that I saw; which I would have if I’d known the rules. And this is getting complicated; I did say I was reading the book, and yes. I’ll finish it because the characters are interesting and that part is well done; but the plot structure is just not my cup of tea. It does have a thrill every five minutes, but then they have to get out of that, and Pauline must be in peril again by the end of the chapter… Anyway I am fascinated by the characters and the way that Regency England can be preserved given open use of magic, and I read too late and woke up too late.

So this morning I felt like I was turning into a vegetable, and before lunch I went upstairs to the Monk’s Cell, not to write but to perform the Five Tibetan Rites I used to recommend back before I had my stroke, and which I have missed terribly since then. If you want to know more about the Five Tibetan Rites, there’s a huge stewpot full of information; just Google Five Tibetan Rites and stand back. You’ll learn all you need to know, and yes I still recommend them. There’s a new piece about them: Hugh Howie and Amber [posted last May after my stroke, but seem to be at the top of Google). Naturally it’s four oh four, and Time Warner Cable has done its daily shut down of the Internet, so I’m getting page not found. That will go away by four fifteen, but it’s vastly irritating because I always seem to need the Internet at 1600, and it’s never available; probably some kid down the block gets home for his daily porn while mother watches some TV program. (No, I have no real theory, only the observation that at 1600 Time Warner Cable Internet connection dies and isn’t restored until 1615, and I am becoming increasingly irritated .) Ah, it’s 1515. http://www.hughhowey.com/the-five-tibetans/ Hugh Howie and Amber demonstrate well, without much mysticism; if you want more on the origin of the Rites, you’ll have fun looking, at least you will if you don’t do it on Time Warner Cable Internet at 1600.

Up I went, but before I started the exercises I turned on the ThinkPad. I’d used it with Outlook for the first time since last year, and it downloaded a pile of incoming mail most of which I deleted anyway, and I just left it when I went downstairs. That was probably Friday. It needed a punch on the power button to get its attention, which is normal if no one has been around for days. I should have just closed the lid when I left, but I hadn’t; getting down those stairs is a daunting experience, not dangerous so long as I pay attention step at a time, and I do a certain amount of mental preparation. Anyway the ThinkPad came up all right, restoring Windows and wanting a fingerprint, but it was acting slow. I brought up Task Manager and noted a whole potload of processes were running. I shut down Outlook, but everything seemed sluggish, and then nothing worked: I couldn’t even get the START button to work so I could shut it down.

Nothing seemed to be working. Eventually I used the Big Red Switch. Well, it’s not big or red on the ThinkPad, but I still think of it that way; it used to be the power switch on home computers.

It turned off, and when it tried to open Windows up came a blue screen. I let it try to repair the system, and up came a blue screen again. It was doing a lot of trundling, so I started the Five Tibetan Rites – scary, especially Rite One, since I am still using a walker – and when I’d get my 21 repetitions I’d go over and try to get the computer to come up. It would go through the repair routine, then blue screen; but each time it seemed to me that it had got a little farther in the startup, so despite the definition of insanity I kept trying the same thing over and over, and when it would get started I’d go back to the Rites. About the Fourth Rite I said to hell with it, used to power button to turn it off, and went back to the Fifth Rite; I’d only been able to do 13 of that last time, but I got through 21 in terrible form but I did them; then I did 30 situps.

Went back to the ThinkPad and tried once more; came to blue screen; let it try the repair again, and when it reset up came Windows; so far as I could tell, it was genuine Windows 7, worked fine, everything there. I closed the lid on the laptop and came downstairs, and that’s the current status.

I see Lenovo Laptop T410-W7P Intel Core i5 2.40GHz 4 GB Memory 160 GB HDD 14.0″ Windows 7 Professional 18 Months Warranty

From New Egg for $250 refurb, which seems a decent insurance against this system dying away; but how to transfer Office from one to the other? And there are other options. I’ll keep you posted on what happens next. It’s dinner time.

Tuesday, Oct 20, 2015  1215;

Went up to do the Tibetan Rites and the ThinkPad is working fine, although it seems to have forgotten some passwords;and of course so have I.  I’ll have to look them up.  Maddening.  But the ThinkPad works fine now.  I make sure it is asleep before I leave it; some of my advisors say the symptoms of its disorder yesterday are much like they have heard about systems trying to install Windows 10 and failing.  All I know is that the rebuild worked on the fifth attempt, and having worked it’s just fine.

I’ll have a mail on Dyson spheres shortly…

Apple keychain wants to send me text messages on a landline phone that does not get text messages. It does this with the iPhone and the MacBook Pro, and there is apparently no way out of this loop. I got the iMac before I got my iPhone, and the landline was the only phone; this was the first year iPhones came out. And now I can’t get the cloud validation number except as a text message to a phone that doesn’t have text messaging, and I can’t validate my iCloud stuff without having two apple devices, and nobody answers if I try to make contact with them.

Macs are fine for a lot, but you had better use them exclusively. They don’t seem to play nice with Microsoft products. Jobs comes through again.

SITREP, China

Bill Gertz is one hell of a China analyst. I capped off my analytic studies with a country analysis course focused on China. Gertz and Shambaugh are two writers that I became very familiar with during that course and I’ve seen them time and time again in the media, all over the world. This latest article from Gertz comes from the Asia Times and he’s someone that we should be listening to:

<.>

By telegraphing its plan for warships to intrude within the 12 miles of the islands, the Obama administration believes it can minimize any diplomatic fallout with the Chinese. The US strategic message seems to be that sailing so close to the disputed islands is normal and should not be viewed as a military provocation. China, however, is not getting that message.

The new chief of naval operations, Adm. John Richardson, seemed to undermine US efforts to bolster regional allies with a political message of American resolve last week. Richardson told sailors aboard the Reagan that the freedom of navigation operation will be routine.

“I don’t see how these could be interpreted as provocative in any way,” he said Oct. 15.

The comments reflect the overriding desire of US policymakers in the White House, State Department and to a lesser extent in the Pentagon to play down the upcoming operations. These officials are opposing all military activities in the disputed waters that could upset Beijing, as part of the President Obama’s diplomacy-first policies.

The administration for months has been under pressure to conduct the sailing operation that was sought privately by US Pacific Command commander Adm. Harry Harris. The four star admiral is concerned that a weak US response to what he regards as China’s illegal territorial claims will be misinterpreted as quiescence unless there is a show of force in the region challenging the claims.

Harris wants to push back against China’s efforts to dominate the international waterway in the face of competing maritime claims, mainly from Vietnam and Philippines. Until a Senate hearing last month, when Harris said he had presented options for conducting freedom of navigation operations within 12 miles of China’s reclaimed islands, his appeals had fallen on deaf ears.

</>

http://atimes.com/2015/10/the-looming-military-showdown-in-the-south-china-sea-gertz/

This is like watching a train wreck, but this is worse because they can hear us telling them how to avert this catastrophe and they’re just going on with their bad selves and their related bad policies like that guy riding the bomb in Dr. Strangelove. We’re looking at militant madness or compound stupidity; I’m not sure which. And, yeah, Napoleon said that thing about malice and incompetence but Napoleon never bothered to consider the topography and weather when he invaded Russia; so I take his points with a grain of salt.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Close Air “Cooperation” 

Jerry,

US Air Force problems with doing close air support for the Army go back considerably farther than Korea. I recently came across an excellent book on both the origins of the problem between the wars, and on how at least part of the US armed forces solved it (temporarily, alas) to good effect during WW II: “Patton’s Air Force: Forging a Legendary Air-Ground Team”, by David N. Spires.

Amazon has it at

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J6Y99XU?keywords=patton’s%20air%20force&qid=1445261098&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1

, or if you’re fortunate as I was, you might find it at your local library.

Just a couple of the interesting points this book raises: The US Army going into WW II was specifically designed to be a highly mobile force that lacked its own truly heavy weapons (think Tiger tanks versus Shermans, or railroad guns versus 105’s) and thus by design needed a lot of close air support. (My own thought on this, provoked by the generous dose of battle-campaign maps in the book, is that Patton obviously understood how to use this mobility far better than anyone else on the US side.)

And the Army Air Force was focused enough on gaining complete independence from the ground Army that the term “close air support”

became inadvisable careerwise. “Support” apparently implied just another auxiliary branch like the artillery or engineers. The correct term for those who wanted to get ahead in the nascent USAF was “close air cooperation.”

The book is not a light read, covering considerable dry doctrinal, organizational and logistical detail in addition to the political, tactical and technical (and of course, battlefield) story. It’s very much worth plowing through for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of the issue. (It also is, as a side-benefit, the best overview of Patton’s Third Army campaigns from D-Day to the Elbe within the overall western campaign context I’ve seen.)

Henry

Yes. I’ve written about this before.  It is becoming increasingly important.

r.e “Without answers to these fundamental questions, the Air Force nuclear enterprise remains on the same trajectory…

Dear Jerry,

The USAF and its hierarchy clearly don’t want this mission anymore.  They have it made it abundantly clear they are not going to resource it adequately, which includes providing viable career paths into senior ranks for the personnel.  Further argument with an entire culture of people who have their minds made up this way is pointless.

So as a first step let’s take the ICBMs away from the USAF.  This includes equipment, facilities, budget, manpower and manpower authorizations, including the Air Police tasked with guarding the facilities and all related logistics personnel. 

Now we’re free to examine other options, and there are several viable options.

1.  Set up an independent land based ICBM force ala the ex-USSR and Russian Strategic Rocket Forces.  However, such an entity will not mesh well with the present Joint Chiefs of Staff system or with DoD’s present logistics system. 

A better idea therefore is:

2.  Return this mission to the US Army.   Unlike the USAF I believe the US Army’s Artillery Branch will provide the ICBM corps with an honored position.  Instead of being those guys down in holes who don’t fly they’ll be the guys with the biggest artillery of all.  Unlike the USAF the Army has never considered pilot/aviator wings a prerequisite for advancement to anything except for presiding over flocks of helicopters.  Therefore advancement paths to senior commands will be far more open, including the potential for promotion to four star general officer ranks.

Best Wishes,

Mark

I agree that the ground army should have the a strategic nuclear force. Whether it ought to be in command of the strategic nuclear mission in war is not so easily determined. Air war is a specialty career.

Re: BLOWING THE WHISTLE ON THE UC BERKELEY MATHEMATICS DEPARTMENT

Jerry,

http://alexandercoward.com/BlowingTheWhistleOnUCBerkeleyMathematics.html

It’s a >2,600 word letter by Alexander Coward about the situation he’s encountered as a professor at the UC Berkeley Mathematics Department. If it’s even partly true it’s infuriating.

Regards,

George

An important data point in the modern education drama. 

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

Chaos Manor View, Friday, October 16, 2015

I’ve been overwhelmed with stuff, all urgent in the sense that it can’t be ignored. And now it’s past time for lunch. The Dyson’s Sphere speculation is fun, but hardly urgent…

Dyson Sphere on Space?

While it’s still too early to tell, and we had similar speculation when neutron stars were discovered, we may have confirmation that we’re not alone. I read many articles about this, and I plan to follow this closely:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/10/15/the-strange-star-that-has-serious-scientists-talking-about-an-alien-megastructure/

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

large structures orbiting a star
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2015/10/the-most-interesting-star-in-our-galaxy/410023/

Eric Gilmer

“Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilization to build.”

<http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/alien-megastructure-could-surround-giant-6632574>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

There’s been a lot about the discovery of a Dyson Sphere, or an “Alien Object” by the Kepler telescope.

The following is a series of emails tracking this story. Participants are an electrical engineer, a physicist and Stephanie Osborne, Interstellar woman of mystery and more relevantly retired NASA rocket scientist. It won’t settle the matter because it isn’t settled, but here’s what rational discussion brings us so far. It started with a note from a Ph.D. Physics friend:

From: Physicist

To: steph-osborn@sff.net (Stephanie)
Subject: Wow
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2015 17:06:20 +0000

Please forward (removing my work email) to the usual suspects

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/forget-water-on-mars-astronomers-may-have-just-found-giant-alien-megastructures-orbiting-a-star-near-a6693886.htmlP

– – –

Which is worthy of a wow to be forwarded to the usual suspects like me.

– – –

From: Stephanie [mailto:steph-osborn@sff.net Sent: Thursday, October 15, 2015 12:10 PM
Subject: RE: Wow

When I click on the link it gives me a page not found.

If it’s the same as this, it’s already all over Facebook:
http://www.outerplaces.com/science/item/10127-did-astronomers-just-find-evidence-of-an-extraterrestrial-dyson-sphere

and the probability is high that it is simply some very large stuff left over from system formation. Dyson spheres, it is now realized, take more material to build than is found in a typical stellar system, excluding the central star. Ringworlds aren’t a lot better. The article I listed actually proposes several different natural phenomes for the observations.
Stephanie Osborn

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

– – – –

Stephanie’s link led to

Did Astronomers Just Find Evidence of an Extraterrestrial Dyson Sphere?

http://www.outerplaces.com/science/item/10127-did-astronomers-just-find-evidence-of-an-extraterrestrial-dyson-sphere

The star, called KIC 8462852, experiences dips in its brightness, which is nothing unusual on its own. The Kepler Space Telescope has found thousands of exoplanets by observing their transits across neighboring stars, which causes their brightness to dim briefly. However, the dips are too extreme and too erratic to be the result of run-of-the-mill transiting exoplanets. A transit usually causes a star’s brightness to dim by less than one percent, and on a periodic basis, as the exoplanet orbits the star regularly. But this star has experienced huge dips in brightness, up to 22%, which simply could not be the result of a planet, and it doesn’t seem to be occurring on any kind of cyclical basis.
There are several explanations that are somewhat plausible, but none are perfect. It would make sense if there were some kind of massive planetary collision in the recent past that caused huge chunks of debris to surround the star, causing transits with no apparent rhyme or reason. But we would expect the dust created in a huge collision to emit excess infrared light, which hasn’t been observed in the area surrounding the star. The best explanation is a series of comets circling the star, but even then it’s difficult to explain such a huge blockage of light.

– – – –

That’s pretty intriguing, and is actually worth reading.

Next came the physicist, who is usually pretty skeptical:

From: Physicist

Subject: RE: Wow
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 2015 17:14:05 +0000

Boyajian, who oversees the Planet Hunters project, recently published a paper looking at all the possible natural explanations for the objects and found all of them wanting except one – that another star had pulled a string of comets close to KIC 8462852. But even this would involve an incredibly improbable coincidence.

Paper at http://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.03622v1.pdf

– – – –

I guarantee you will not read all of this paper; here are the summary and conclusions:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1509.03622v1.pdf

5 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

In this paper, we have shown that KIC 8462852 is an unique source

in the

Kepler

field. We conducted numerous observations of the

star and its environment, and our analysis characterizes the object

as both remarkable (e.g., the “dipping” events in the

Kepler

light

curve) and unremarkable (ground-based data reveal no deviation

from a normal F-type star) at the same time. We presented an ex-

tensive set of scenarios to explain the occurrence of the dips, most

of which are unsuccessful in explaining the observations in their en-

tirety. However, of the various considered, we find that the break-up

of a exocomet provides the most compelling explanation.

Observations of KIC 8462852 should continue to aid in un-

raveling its mysteries. First and foremost, long-term photometric

monitoring is imperative in order to catch future dipping events. It

would be helpful to know whether observations reveal no further

dips, or continued dips. If the dips continue, are they periodic? Do

they change in size or shape? On one hand, the more dips the more

problematic from the lack of IR emission perspective. Likewise, in

the comet scenario there could be no further dips; the longer the

dips persist in the light curve, the further around the orbit the frag-

ments would have to have spread. The possibility of getting color

information for the dips would also help determine the size of the

obscuring dust. On the other hand, following the prediction in Sec-

tion

4.4.3

, if a collision took place, we should see re-occurring dip-

ping events caused from debris in 2017 May. Unfortunately, the

2015 April event likely went unobserved, as all available photo-

metric archives we checked came up with nothing. In collabora-

tion with the MEarth team (PI, D. Charbonneau), monitoring of

KIC 8462852 will thankfully continue from the ground beginning

in the Fall of 2015. This will enable us to establish a firm baseline

of its variability post-

Kepler

.

Several of the proposed scenarios are ruled out by the lack of

observed IR excess (Section

2.4

), but the comet scenario requires

the least. However, if these are time-dependent phenomenon, there

could be a detectable amount of IR emission if the system were

observed today. In the comet scenario, the level of emission could

vary quite rapidly in the near-IR as clumps pass through pericen-

ter (and so while they are transiting). The WISE observations were

made in Q5, so detecting IR-emission from the large impact sce-

nario, assuming the impact occurred in Q8 (D800, Section

4.4.3

),

is also a possibility. We acknowledge that a long-term monitoring

in the IR would be demanding on current resources/facilities, but

variations detected in the optical monitoring could trigger such ef-

fort to observe at the times of the dips.

Our most promising theory invokes a family of exocomets.

One way we imagine such a barrage of comets could be triggered

is by the passage of a field star through the system. And, in fact,

as discussed above, there is a small star nearby (

1000

AU; Sec-

tion

2.3

) which, if moving near to KIC 8462852, but not bound to

it, could trigger a barrage of bodies into the vicinity of the host

star. On the other hand, if the companion star is bound, it could

be pumping up comet eccentricities through the Kozai mechanism.

Measuring the motion/orbit of the companion star with respect to

KIC 8462852 would be telling in whether or not it is associated, and

we would then be able to put stricter predictions on the timescale

and repeatability of comet showers based on bound or unbound

star-comet perturbing models. Finally, comets would release gas

(as well as dust), and sensitive observations to detect this gas would

also test this hypothesis.

Our physicist friend said the explanations given were fairy improbable; Stephanie said “Even so; I find that far more likely than the notion of a Dyson sphere.” I went off to LASFS having run out of time yesterday.

There came from our good friend the electrical engineer

Date: Fri, 16 Oct 2015 14:28:24 +0000
From: engineer
To: steph-osborn@sff.net
CC: usual suspects

Subject: Re: Wow

Randy Bovell just sent to me and I thought you all might find this interesting concerning the conversation.

Alien technology possibly spotted orbiting a distant star

Scientists recently identified an irregular mess of objects orbiting a distant star that defies most natural explanations.

http://www.mnn.com/earth-matters/space/stories/alien-technology-possibly-spotted-orbiting-distant-star

Nestled between the constellations of Cygnus and Lyra sits what might be the strangest, most mysterious star in our galaxy. This star, designated as KIC 8462852, is not particularly unusual in and of itself. What’s odd is what astronomers have spotted orbitting it: an irregularly-shaped mess of objects that appear unnatural, possibly even alien, reports The Atlantic.

The star was first flagged by amateur astronomers in 2011 for its peculiar dimming pattern, as detected by the Kepler Space Telescope. By themselves, dimming patterns in distant stars are not that usual. In fact, they are what Kepler scientists look for in their hunt for faraway planets. As planets pass in front of their stars, they momentarily block out a portion of the light being emitted by the star, thus revealing themselves. Thousands of exoplanets have been discovered this way in recent years.

PHOTO BREAK: 12 out-of-this-world observatories

The dimming pattern identified in KIC 8462852, however, was unlike any discovered among the over 150,000 stars that have been analyzed by the Kepler Space Telescope. The pattern suggested that KIC 8462852 was surrounded by a whole jumble of objects in extremely tight formation. Such a pattern might be expected from a young star, with a solar system that was first forming. Young solar systems are typically characterized by a messy field of debris, which eventually coalesces into a system of planets as the star’s gravity molds and shapes them. But KIC 8462852 is not a young star. A field of dust surrounding a young star would give off infrared light, and excess infrared light is not observed here.

“We’d never seen anything like this star,” explained Tabetha Boyajian, a postdoc at Yale. “It was really weird. We thought it might be bad data or movement on the spacecraft, but everything checked out.”

It should be reiterated that this mess of objects is irregularly shaped. It’s not something that should form naturally, not given a sufficient amount of time, anyway. So it’s likely that it was deposited there recently, because otherwise such a field of objects would have been shaped into a more regular pattern or swallowed up by the star’s gravitational field by now.

So what is it? Scientists have considered a number of scenarios, from instrument defects, to an asteroid belt pileup, to planets crashing into one another. But at this juncture the list of possible explanations has been narrowed to two. First, it’s possible that the debris field could be a sea of comets, recently yanked inward into the solar system by the gravity of another close-passing star. This sort of event would represent an extraordinary coincidence, though — a rare event, one not observed in any other star ever observed.

The second possibility that can’t be ruled out is a wild one, an explanation that scientists don’t put forward lightly. It’s possible that there is no natural explanation for the objects circling KIC 8462852 at all. It’s possible they are alien.

Makes me think of the dude that looks like a Centauri off of Babylon 5 and how much I want to throw something at the screen when he’s on. About all those shows are good for is getting ideas for SF stories.

Look, guys. Lemme give y’all a f’r-instance. Last night I had to comment and make corrections on someone else’s Facebook post, because the person was saying that the “new” coronal hole was a hole straight into the core of the Sun, and the solar wind from it was going to blast our atmosphere from pole to pole (not just AT the poles) and create all this horrid radiation. And it was getting shared fairly widely.

The LAST thing I look forward to is handling the misinformation caused by the complete distortion of an astronomical paper by the mainstream media. They do plenty enough of that in meteorology/climate research as it is. And yes, I HAVE already been dealing with it, starting along about Tuesday or Wednesday, when the first article came out.
Stephanie Osborn

“The Interstellar Woman of Mystery”

From: engineer
Subject: Re: Wow

Sounds like how much I love the Chariots of the Gods on the history channel. It makes me smile but it also makes me think.

---

From: “Stephanie”

Subject: RE: Wow

that’s exactly what we’ve been talking about, and it’s pretty much impossible. But every last media report has had something along that line for a headline. Tiny fractions of a percent probability that it is alien tech of ANY sort, next to impossible for it to be a Dyson sphere because it takes more material than is found in a planetary system (outside the star itself) to build one; most probably an accretion disk of some sort. But wow! Let’s make people read us! We’ll make the headline be about aliens! SMH. Shades of The History Channel.

Stephanie Osborn

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

And there, I think, we have about all we’re going to know about this for from months to years. I got to thinking about it: is it easier to make a Dyson sphere or Ringworld than to travel to another star?

The reason I ask that is that this is the only Dyson Sphere we’ve observed even if you assume that’s what we see. Yet what is the probability that such a thing was built recently? Isn’t it likely that if you can build one, you’d build a lot of them? You’ve had millions of years to do that. The probability that you invented it in the last couple of thousands of years is infinitesimal.

On the other hand, if you can go star faring, would you build a Dyson Sphere at all? And if you can’t, where did you get all that mass to build it out of? Maybe your sun used to have a companion you could just get to and start taking it apart, and you’re not done yet? But then I’m a science fiction writer. This looks like a job for Niven and Benford…

I’m enjoying this, but I am not sure where it leads

dyson sphere dilemma 
Dr. Pournelle;
Your comment that finding only ONE dyson sphere seemed a bit odd, that any super-civilization capable of making such a beastie would probably make many, seems, unsurprisingly, spot-on. However, would it not be difficult to detect a fully enclosed dyson sphere? Might there be hundreds or even thousands of them littered throughout space and they are simply too faint of an infrared signature to see? The star in the news recently might just be the only UNFINISHED dyson sphere floating around.
Speculating gleefully,
Eric Gilmer

Gleefully indeed; and of course I don’t know.

Google Book Scanning Ruled Fair Use
Appeals court rules that Google book scanning is fair use.
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/10/appeals-court-rules-that-google-book-scanning-is-fair-use/
You probably have seen this 100 times already. I look forward to your comments.
My $0.0000002 (inflation!)
Just as Apple’s iTunes Match program brought in otherwise unrecoverable money from people who pirated music for years, I think having out of print materials available in Google searches can bring in (at least some) money to writers of otherwise lost works. Sell advertising against the searches and Google Ads in the display of the text, hand 70% to the writer. (just a suggestion on how it could work)
Les

This is just out; there is a lot of discussion in author associations about it. Nothing urgent.

U.S. confirms Iran tested nuclear-capable ballistic missile

The United States has confirmed that Iran tested a medium-range missile capable of delivering a nuclear weapon, in “clear violation” of a United Nations Security Council ban on ballistic missile tests, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.

“The United States is deeply concerned about Iran’s recent ballistic missile launch,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power said in a statement.

“After reviewing the available information, we can confirm that Iran launched on Oct. 10 a medium-range ballistic missile inherently capable of delivering a nuclear weapon,” she said. “This was a clear violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1929.”

SEE MORE: Iran says Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian convicted

The United States is preparing a report on the incident for the Security Council’s IranSanctions Committee and will raise the matter directly with Security Council members “in the coming days,” Power said.

Council diplomats have told Reuters it was possible to sanction additional Iranian individuals or entities by adding them to an existing U.N. blacklist. However, they noted that Russia and China, which have opposed the sanctions on Iran’s missile program, might block any such moves.

“The Security Council prohibition on Iran’s ballistic missile activities, as well as the arms embargo, remain in place,” Power said. “We will continue to press the Security Council for an appropriate response to Iran’s disregard for its international obligations.”

 

Surprised?

algae for the poor
Dr. Pournelle,
Soylent green isn’t people (yet):
http://nannofood.com/
-d

We feed it to astronauts. And I’d rather eat green slime than my boots

: Drone Assassination Leak

We have more Snowdenesque disclosures; these concern the drone assassination program. The disclosures seem to include information about JSOC and TF 48-4. I see nothing new or eye opening, but I’ve researched these programs run by CIA and JSOC for several years and I’m as about as surprised as I was by the Snowden disclosures — I wasn’t.

https://theintercept.com/drone-papers

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

“Without answers to these fundamental questions, the Air Force nuclear enterprise remains on the same trajectory as it has been for the last two decades – in ever-increasing decline.”

<http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/12/20/air-force-admits-nuclear-flaws-faces-uncertain-path-to-remedying/>

“If the practice continues to be to demand that the troops compensate for manpower and skill shortfalls, operate in inferior facilities and perform with failing support equipment, there is high risk of failure.”

<http://www.ap.org/Content/AP-In-The-News/2014/Why-Nukes-Keep-Finding-Trouble-Theyre-Really-Old>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

Both articles are very much worth reading. Overseas adventures are possible only if the nation is secure. We still live in a nuclear age, and there are those who believe that End Times are worth bringing about.

Income Inequality: New problem, the rich get better breakfast sandwiches buffy willow

I read your post about income inequality yesterday evening. Excellent. I had read an “article” earlier in the day about the new serious problem, inequality of breakfast sandwiches. It is in the Washington Post, and titled “Inequality in Everything: The Rich get Better Breakfast Sandwiches, too.”

Link, should you care to click: Inequality in everything: The rich get better breakfast sandwiches, too

Inequality in everything: The rich get better breakfast … Things are getting a little awkward.
View on www.washingtonpost…	Preview by Yahoo

Well. My first thought was that it was a satirical article. But, alas, apparently not. I am stunned, and quite depressed, that there are people who can even conceive of such a thing, make it a problem and that a paper generally recognized as a major news outlet would print it. We are in a stage in our society where reality sounds like satire, and satire is mistaken for reality.

Better sandwiches, in my humble opinion, means that many people can afford a better meal than can be had at McDonalds, and that enterprising entrepreneurs are more than happy to provide them. Does this not help the economy just a bit? What’s wrong with having choices, and being free to make those choices, and having a little disposable income to allow one to make different choices? Apparently, we are all (except the elite rulers who will tell us what our choices are) to live in a gray and drab completely equal existence. Heaven forfend that some of us might be able to enjoy some nicer things as a result of our labors and decisions.

I very much agree with your points regarding income inequalities, and counting our blessings: Yes, there are income discrepancies, and vast inequalities; but perhaps we should once in a while count our blessings, and contemplate the requirements of keeping what we have, and adding to the real opportunities we all are given, rather than resenting what we don’t have and the rich can afford.

I, too, have an example of the blessings of technology. I noticed a distortion in the vision of my left eye last summer, and visited my optometrist very shortly after. He referred me to a retianal specialist, we saw me two days later. I have a condition that was untreatable 10 years ago, and I would have lost my vision in that eye. However, it was fairly easily treated and I have no discernable effect to my vision. A blessing, indeed.

Cheri Rohrer

>Pleasant Hill, California

The possibility that we can all get richer without inequality in income has not been demonstrated.

Jerry

Bill Whittle: It’s the steel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwLjFm6GMBM

re: 5TB drives used in disk
re: your comment of “Wow!” with respect to 5TB drives to be used in a RAID disk system.
Something to consider (that often isn’t) is the RAID rebuild time of a failed drive. a 5TB drive in a RAID[anything] would take a LONG, LONG time. I prefer smaller 1-2TB drives particularly in a small office or home system for just that reason.
Just my opinion, but borne out by many hours spent in a computer room waiting for rebuilds to complete.
.bp

All true, and thanks.

Inside Saturn V in cross sections

Dear Jerry:

In your InfoWorld column for 9/17/1990, you described the “… Saturn V rocket, the most powerful machine ever built, set on its side as a lawn ornament for the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston.”

https://books.google.com/books?id=LDwEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PT61&ots=9R2gy4PCJJ&dq=pournelle+lawn+ornament+infoworld&pg=PT61&hl=en#v=onepage&q&f=false

Especially your younger readers might like to see the glory that was the Saturn V in these beautiful cross section drawings.

http://i.imgur.com/NAok3jp.jpg

Best regards,

–Harry M.

: Even more Syria

Dear Dr. Pournelle, 
What road was it good intentions was a paving material for?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/did-us-weapons-supplied-to-syrian-rebels-draw-russia-into-the-conflict/2015/10/11/268ce566-6dfc-11e5-91eb-27ad15c2b723_story.html
So the US has been supplying anti-Assad rebels with weaponry — but NOT enough to win.  I quote:
“The plan, as described by administration officials, was to exert sufficient military pressure on Assad’s forces to persuade him to compromise — but not so much that his government would precipitously collapse and leave a dangerous power vacuum in Damascus.”
…
Does anyone in the administration realize that insurgency is not a cake that you bake at just the right temperature? That a dictator who will almost certainly be hung for war crimes is not going to “negotiate” any kind of exit unless he is compelled to leave with overwhelming military force?   And that , so long as he can call on Iran and Russia, it is going to be very hard to develop and project that level of force? 
As it is, think of this like a poker game:  The Americans raised the stakes by pushing TOW missiles onto the board. They expected (I don’t know why) Assad to fold. Instead, he went to his friends and raised the stakes himself with direct Russian military intervention.
So what’s the next step? Call or fold? 
Regardless, we have officially stepped into a time warp and are engaged in a proxy war with Russia, to the extent that weapons WE supply are being used to kill Russians. And if we continue to supply weapons, knowing that is going to happen , that will make the current accidental proxy war a deliberate one. 
Whose imbecilic idea was it to get us into a shooting war with the Russians, anyway? 
I am utterly flabberghasted. This sort of consequence should be obvious to any academy graduate. Heck, if you just ask a teenager who has played Civilization 5.  What the devil do we have a Joint Staff for, if they are willing to approve a plan like this, as opposed to resigning en masse?

Respectfully,

Brian P.

The Commander in Chief approves it…

“The bottom line was that there would be a supernova close enough to the Earth to drastically affect the ozone layer about once every billion years.”

<http://nautil.us/issue/22/slow/the-secret-history-of-the-supernova-at-the-bottom-of-the-sea>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

So, ‘global warming’ will cause the next ice age, which will then cause more ‘global warming’.

<http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/10/12/were-closer-to-a-day-after-tomorrow-ice-age-than-we-thought/>

Sounds a lot like . . . I don’t know, variations in solar output, vulcanism, and albedo over time?

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

And if you still haven’t had enough about the Dyson Sphere:

From Hot Air: http://hotair.com/archives/2015/10/15/by-the-way-scientists-might-have-discovered-a-gigantic-alien-megastructure-in-deep-space/

By the way, scientists might have discovered a gigantic alien megastructure in deep space

posted at 10:01 pm on October 15, 2015 by Allahpundit

Just a little news tidbit I thought I’d slip in between the more important stuff, like Jeb Bush’s third-quarter fundraising haul and whether that aunt who sued her nephew has hugged it out with him yet.

You are much, much better off using the time you’d devote to reading this post to reading someone else’s far more intelligent treatment of the subject instead. In particular, I’d recommend Slate, The Atlantic, and, for a more skeptical view, the New Scientist. Since clicking a link is too much effort for some readers, though, here’s the bottom line. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (actually, it’s our galaxy, but whatever), roughly 1,481 light years from Earth, something strange started happening to a star known as KIC 8462852. You can’t see it with your naked eye; we know it exists only because the Kepler Space Telescope picked up the light coming from it, along with light from many thousands of other stars. One way astronomers can tell if there are planets orbiting a distant star is by tracking the brightness of the light the star emits. If a star’s light dims a tiny bit at regular intervals, that’s evidence that something is passing between it and the telescope. For a star the size of KIC 8462852, which is around one and a half times as big as our own sun, having a planet the size of Jupiter pass in front of it should dim the light by around one percent.

Since scientists began watching KIC 8462852, they’ve found that its light does dim — but not at regular intervals. And it doesn’t dim by one percent. It dims by … 15 percent. And 22 percent. The dimming doesn’t happen symmetrically, with a slight, gradual fade followed by a slight, gradual brightening. It can dim slowly and then rapidly brighten. Per Slate, “There’s also an apparent change in brightness that seems to go up and down roughly every 20 days for weeks, then disappears completely.” This is not the way stars normally behave. In fact, after having looked at thousands of other stars captured by the Kepler, this is the only star known to astronomers to behave this way. They’ve rechecked their data to see if there’s an error in the math or some sort of flaw in the lens, but if there were, you would expect to see the same sort of error in other stars’ measurements. Again: This is the only star that seems to operate this way.

One possibility is that it’s a young star, (relatively) recently formed, with lots of dust and debris still circling around it in the aftermath. That would explain the irregular dimming — except that the dust that surrounds young stars typically leaves a signature of infrared light, and KIC 8462852 doesn’t have that. Same goes for the idea of a nearby planetary collision. Lots of dust should mean lots of infrared reflections, but KIC 8462852 is emitting just the right amount of infrared light you’d expect from a normal star its size. The working hypothesis for now on what’s behind the strange dimming phenomenon is that it’s actually an enormous swarm of comets that were somehow sucked towards the star, possibly by the gravitational pull of another nearby star in transit, and are now burning off like fireworks all around it. That would explain the irregular, unpredictable dimming coupled with the lack of elevated infrared. The New Scientist explains:

Having worked through the other possibilities, the team concluded the most likely explanation is a family of exocomets that veered close to the star and were broken up by its gravity, producing huge amounts of dust and gas in the process. If the comets are on an eccentric orbit passing in front of the star every 700 days or so, further breaking up and spreading out as they go, that could explain all the dips in the data.

KIC 8462852 is about 50 per cent larger than our sun, so if this comet explanation is correct, the dust cloud would be pretty big. It would be an impressive sight up close, says Boyajian. Something that size in our solar system would blot out a significant amount of sunlight. When Earth passes through the debris clouds left in interplanetary space by passing comets, we get meteor showers. There’s no evidence of a planet in the KIC 8462852 system, but someone standing on such a world as it passed through the dust cloud would see quite a light show, says Boyajian. “The scale of the meteor shower would be huge, like cosmic-scale fireworks.”

Here’s where a more intelligent commentator would be useful because I don’t understand why the dust generated by an enormous storm of comets disintegrating around the star wouldn’t also generate an elevated infrared reading. I’m also having trouble conceptualizing the scope of a storm that could dim the light of the star by 22 percent when a mass the size of Jupiter could only manage one percent. And scientists have another problem with the theory: It seems remarkably coincidental that KIC 8462852 would be in the process of devouring a massive comet cluster just at the moment that we happened to point our telescope at it — the blink of an eye cosmically. How long would the heat and gravity from the star realistically take to suck a belt of comets into it? And we somehow caught that on the Kepler, in progress, in the few years that the telescope was functioning properly? That’s some luck.

Which brings us to the other theory. The Atlantic:

Jason Wright, an astronomer from Penn State University, is set to publish an alternative interpretation of the light pattern. SETI researchers have long suggested that we might be able to detect distant extraterrestrial civilizations, by looking for enormous technological artifacts orbiting other stars. Wright and his co-authors say the unusual star’s light pattern is consistent with a “swarm of megastructures,” perhaps stellar-light collectors, technology designed to catch energy from the star.

“When [Boyajian] showed me the data, I was fascinated by how crazy it looked,” Wright told me. “Aliens should always be the very last hypothesis you consider, but this looked like something you would expect an alien civilization to build.”

The theory, in other words, is that the energy from KIC 8462852 is being harnessed by some sort of planetary-sized structure of solar panels or something akin to that — a “Dyson sphere,” named after Freeman Dyson, who imagined that alien civilizations would figure out a way to satisfy their energy needs by milking local stars for it. A star’s just a big nuclear reactor, right? Might as well hook up some power lines to it and enjoy the juice. How a Dyson sphere would explain the data from this star isn’t clear to me, except as the end of a “no other theory works” process of elimination. Any sort of technology we can imagine, however massive, that’s pumping energy from KIC 8462852 would be in orbit around it, no? That means, I would think, that we should be seeing regular dimming intervals, not irregular ones, as the Dyson sphere transits around the star. The answer to that, I guess, is that maybe the dimming isn’t the product of a shadow passing in front of the star but the star itself actually temporarily losing luster as energy is drained from it, like the lightbulbs in a home momentarily dimming when there’s a sudden surge of demand on the grid. That’s hard to conceptualize too, but that’s the beauty of this theory, I guess. Whatever’s happening is so freaky deaky weird that you can indulge whatever flight of fancy you like in imagining how this technology would work. Who knows? Maybe it’s a giant Death Star and dims whenever it’s firing at Alderaan or whatever the aliens’ latest target is.

The Kepler telescope no longer works so astronomers don’t know what’s been happening with KIC 8462852 lately. The next step now is to point a giant antenna at the star and see if any unusual radio signals come back. If they do, hoo boy.

Blair Shorney

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