Sunday, December 4, 2016

If Republicans want to force through massive tax cuts, we will fight them tooth and nail.

Senator Elizabeth Warren

Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for the West as it commits suicide.

James Burnham

If a foreign government had imposed this system of education on the United States, we would rightfully consider it an act of war.

Glenn T. Seaborg, National Commission on Education, 1983

“Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Immigration without assimilation is invasion.

Roberta is home and we are frantically rebuilding to accommodate her confinement to a wheelchair. She is recovering, a bit slower than I did, but we’re confident that it’s only a question of time. It has been a rather frantic week, bringing her home and setting up to dare for her, and I am behind on essays; I also have works of fiction to work on, and I got dome of that done, but I can only do one thing at a time, and if interrupted I take a while to resume focus. That sounds like an excuse, and I grew up not to make excuses; but while there are never adequate excuses, there are sometimes expiations.

Things to remember when considering free trade.

There are always nice things you want to do for your workers. Minimum wages are one of them. High minimum wages coupled with free trade produces a paradox. If you require minimum wages in all your factories, companies will compete to bring other costs down; one way they will compete is to raise productivity: to make more widgets with a smaller work force. This means fewer jobs.

If you also have free trade, and you trading partner does not require a minimum wage, he will generally produce widgets cheaper than you can make them; particularly if you keep raising the minimum wage. Surely this is obvious? You continue to raise productivity and employ more robots who do not get minimum wages or annual raises, and perhaps you can compete with your overseas trading partner who has neither minimum wages nor annual raises, so you stay in business; but you do so with fewer workers. This is efficiency, but those who used to work for you must be supported: food stamps, free “surplus” foods grown and bought at government price support prices (it’s cheaper to give them away than to store them), unemployment compensation, government retirement, etc. That means taxes on everyone including those who do not want or need widgets; or of course you can put a sales tax on widgets, including imported widgets, and hope the need for widgets is great enough to keep the widget market healthy.

Now comes a regulation requiring all businesses to give healthcare insurance to all employees. If it applies only to businesses with x or fewer employees, this will work to prevent widget businesses from ever growing past X employees; again limiting the number of people employed. We can also add various health and safety regulations, and inspectors to come around periodically and enforce them. They will have to be paid, of course, either out of the general fund or from the revenue from widget sales taxes. Meanwhile, your trading partner, who has neither minimum wages nor health and safety requirements, continues to export widgets. We can expand the complexities, but surely the point is clear?

There were two relevant articles in the Saturday Wall Street Journal.

First, Peggy Noonan’s weekly column entitled “Trump’s Carrier Coup and a Lesson From JFK” will be interesting to those who do not remember John Kennedy’s experiences with business, about which he knew nothing. (He never had a paycheck from anyone but government, and he didn’t cash those; he endorsed them and gave then to charity.) It isn’t long, and it’s worth reading.

On the same page is a column by Holman Jenkins, Jr., not my favorite journalist, called “Trump’s Charm of Not Being Obama” which injects some much needed realism into the energy debates. It is very well done, and perhaps Mr. Jenkins’ best work this year, also well worth your time.

If the goal is to increase jobs and people working, cheap energy and fewer regulations and restrictions is the way to bring it about. There are many wonderful things you can do for workers, but requiring companies to do them is more likely to shrink the work force than grow it; and free trade will accelerate that unless your trade partners give their workers equivalent goodies. That is why Free Trade with England is not like Free Trade with China or Mexico. But surely you knew that?

And I will say it again: doubling the size of the number of employees exempted from various laws and regulation – as in this regulation applies to companies with 10 or more employees, making it 20, and if 20 making it 40, etc. – is the quickest and simplest way to raise employment.

Aleta Jackson, RIP http://www.transterrestrial.com/?p=66229

She was the executive secretary of the L-5 Society; later I recommended her to General Graham where she did invaluable service in his High Frontier organization. Her biography is well told in the announcement, and I will miss her greatly. Farewell, good and faithful friend.

Global Warming Explained Please

Dear Dr. Pournelle,
First I am very happy to hear your wife (and you!) are doing better! I have read your columns since the Byte days and truly enjoy your style and content. With that in mind, would you please take a crack at explaining what is and is not scientifically known about Global Warming in laymen’s terms? There has been a huge amount of discussion on your site about it, but to be honest I am left with a rather murky picture of what is and is not fact vs. theory.
Thanks in advance!
Robert Porter

One of the problems is disagreement on just what facts we have. I have been required to measure temperatures to a tenth of a degree (both C and F) and I found it very difficult and expensive; yet we discuss tenths of a degree differences in average year-round global temperature, and most of those discussing that seem to have no notion of the difficulty of obtaining that data. I give you one example: what is the average temperature of your back yard over a 24 hour period? Surely easier to measure than the average temperature of the entire Earth for a year, no? But if you attempt to discover it, you will find it no easy task. Take a copper globe, four inches in diameter, and put a good thermocouple inside it. Solder the thermocouple to a dime sized disk of thin copper, and let that hang free in the center of the globe. (While you are at it, put another thermocouple soldered to a small copper disk inside a beaker of ice water, preferably all water including the ice having been distilled. This will serve as the reference temperature and presumed to be 0 degrees C.) Hang the globe out where it will be exposed to the sky day and night.

You will notice that your temperatures will vary considerably from day to day, and even hour to hour. You are getting a combination of conductive air temperature and the radiation environment temperature, and while air temperature varies more slowly, the radiant temperature varies a lot, and quite quickly, depending on cloud cover. When there are clouds in daytime the temperature will be lower than when it is exposed to the sun. At night it’s even more variant; the radiant temperature of clear night sky is some -270 degrees; the Romans used to make ice cream in the desert by taking advantage of this. The radiant temperature of cloudy environment will be much higher. OK, put you thermometer in the shade; but have you really got the temperature now? Just what is the temperature of your back yard averaged over a 24 hour period? Your answer will depend on how you measure it. Now look at the source temperatures fed into the climate models.

I could list some more problems; but my point is that the “consensus” of the scientists includes people who never think about measurements and how they are obtained. The models are not sensitive to cloud cover. And if we try to compare temperatures from long ago to today’s, none of those from long ago – even fifty years ago – were accurate to a tenth of a degree. In the 12800’s and for much of the 20^th Century, sea temperatures were taken by drawing up a bucket of water and measuring it with a hand-held mercury thermometer. At night, by a seaman who didn’t have a magnifying glass.

Part of the consensus comes from the agreement of many models; they nearly all use the same inputs, and they give the same predictions. They all attempt to account for all known energy sources, but of course those aren’t all predictable. The year 1816 is known as “The Year without a Summer” (also known as 1800 and froze to death). This is because the volcano Tambura blew off and polluted the Earth’s atmosphere, reflecting sunlight that normally would have reached Earth; the result was year round winter. The models could not have predicted that, nor could they predict most other volcanic eruptions. As an aside, Benjamin Franklin, observing an Icelandic volcano pouring gup into the sky that reached England and beyond, proposed the theory that something like this caused the Ice Ages.

No one sane denies that raising the CO2 levels without limit would have great and very likely deleterious effects on Earth’s climate. If those levels get a good bit higher, something ought to be done. We were told the Iraq war would cost $300 Billion. I said at the time that for that much I could build 100 1000 megawatt nuclear power plants (the first ones would cost maybe $15 billion, but by the time we had 20 or so they would be more like 1 or 2 billion each, leaving plenty of money to mine Uranium); with that power we could tell the Arabs to drink their oil, and build plants to take whatever amount of Carbon we liked out of the atmosphere. Of course that wasn’t done, the war cost far more than $300 billion, but that’s for another discussion.

We know that in historical times the Earth has been warmer than it is now. In Viking times. Leif the Lucky and his cohorts built dairy farms in Greenland that are still covered by ice; and the Vikings planted a colony on Nova Scotia which they called Vinland because they could grow grapes and make wine there. Needless to say it’s still to cold to grow grapes in Vinland. In those Viking times we find middle European monastery records of longer growing seasons, and we find similar records of agricultural yields in China. It was warmer in Viking times. We have pretty good evidence of a Roman Warm period, and of climate variations during the Bronze age. It is unlikely that human CO2 contributions caused those. I don’t know what did, but it seems clear that in historical times we have been warmer.

Clearly it has been colder. In 1776 cannon were brought across the frozen Hudson River to the relief of General George Washington in Harlem Heights, thus saving the Continental Army and the Revolution. The Hudson hasn’t frozen hard enough to walk on, much less drag cannon across it, for a century.

It has been warmer and colder in historic times. The models say there is a sudden great rise in temperature now, but the data don’t show it.

And in a way it’s all irrelevant anyway: give me enough electric power and I’ll take the Carbon out of the atmosphere if we have to do that, and if we don’t have to and it’s getting colder again, I’ll have power to heat homes. Our Climate Problem is an economic and energy problem, and that’s true whether we are in for warming or cooling.

Erik Verlinde’s Gravity Minus Dark Matter | Quanta Magazine

Might not be dark matter out there after all. Maybe we just don’t understand gravity.

> But the dark matter hypothesis assumes scientists know how matter in the sky ought to move in the first place. This month, a series of developments has revived a long-disfavored argument that dark matter doesn’t exist after all. In this view, no missing matter is needed to explain the errant motions of the heavenly bodies; rather, on cosmic scales, gravity itself works in a different way than either Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein predicted.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/20161129-verlinde-gravity-dark-matter/?utm_source=pocket&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=pockethits

Thanks,

John

I have long said that until we understand gravity better, we should not adopt a new physics and assume 75% of the universe is invisible…

‘My research was attacked by thought police in journalism, activist groups funded by billionaires and even the White House.’

<http://www.wsj.com/articles/my-unhappy-life-as-a-climate-heretic-1480723518>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

In this Land of the Free. I thought the point of university tenure had to do with free exchange of ideas, but apparently it’s just more rent seeking.

Poems from Paradoctor

Hsin Ku and Quads

    By Nathaniel Hellerstein
    In May of 1993, I participated in a poetry festival at Lincoln University, then in San Francisco. At this conference, Dr. Kenneth Fan called for poems of a new form: “Hsin Ku”, or “New Classic”. Its form and rules are summarized by these two hsin-ku I wrote:

New classic poem form;
four words, four lines
Any topic, any image
Second, fourth near rhymes.

“Let Reason rule Rhyme,”
Decreed the sage Master,
“So our audience be
(I hope) much vaster.”

I admit that I couldn’t resist some sardonicism there. I hope much vaster!
Here are some more:

A single look reveals:
Airplane left, bird right
Climbing, crossing; silent passage
In the evening light.

Me, praise a pearl?
Or its owner, ma’am?
Or its inner grit?
I praise the clam!

O love, we wonder;
Through you, I’m wise;
How deeper we see
Than only two eyes!

Mr. Fan wanted poems in honor of an ancient Chinese king who prayed for world peace. Alas, I could not resist delivering the following snark:

“May all war cease,”
The high lord sings;
But when there’s peace
Then who needs kings?

There are also “quad” poems, which are hsin-ku with 4 letters per word, abab rhyme, and telegraphic grammar. Here are some:

This quad poem form;
Four word, four time
Four each word; also
Even line good rime.

Don’t rule over rime!
You’d feel like fool
When even this time
Says rime over rule.

Hill tent camp rest
Even dark sees afar
Late nite view best
Land, lake, moon, star.

Dear love, what song
What best true rime
Will show them long
This love thru time?

I also composed these science-fictional hsin-ku and quads:

Science, myth and fantasy
Future joy and sorrow;
Dreamer, come enchant me
With life beyond tomorrow.

Don’t take time trip!
Push days into spin
Make just tiny slip
You’d ain’t even been.

This book make slip;
They don’t show rite
That move that ship
More fast than lite.

“This plug,” says punk
(make such huge deal)
“fill head with junk
That ain’t even real.”

Just what does Zugs
From afar star hurl
With eyes like bug’s
Want with Urth girl?

“We come in peace,”
The green man said.
“Came we for war
You’d all be dead.”

Said robot to man
“You low human slob!
Behold my evil plan;
I’ll take your job!”

Build cities in space?
It doesn’t seem fair
Pay owners of place
Food, rent – and air.

“What is true reality?
Computer, say the word!”
It answered with finality,
“Your question is absurd.”

“I seek your boss,”
The star man sings.
“That is your loss;
We have no kings.”

Why read science fantasy
Mostly thud and blunder?
I seek marvels, mystery,
Vision, sense of wonder.

The Trump Carrier Deal

Carrier gets $7 Million in tax incentives.

If average Carrier employee salary =$23/hr x 40 = $920/wk x 52= $49k/yr x 1000 jobs =$49Million

Federal Income Tax paid by 1000 employees = $7,350,000/yr

State Income Tax paid by 1000 employees = $1,127,000

That leaves ~$40 Million/yr that people have to spend in the local economy and bills.

Only an idiot would think this is a bad deal.

No wonder Trump made all the other candidates look like silly children.

Of course, employees don’t concern themselves with details like these.

Obama administration is more concerned with “Bathroom Bills”, Muslims and

continual stupid race dialog.

Trump Protesters don’t have jobs (That’s why they have time and energy to protest.)

so they don’t pay income tax.

The Carrier deal is the kind of policy change every working American has been waiting for.

ericsabo

“British officers don’t duck!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrauBQf7FpI

With examples, historical testimony, and explanations as to why.

Fascinating.

He’s cheeky, but quite serious and worth hearing out, this Lindy beige chap.

Petronius

Stephen Hawking: AI will automate middle class jobs – Business Insider

I think he is spot on and understating the danger to society. 

We’ll have Univ Basic Income and a lot of people spending most of their lives in boredom with nothing to do and no sense of accomplishment. Drug use will soar. We think our schools are bad now. Wait until no one has any real reason to get a good grades since they have no future to worry about. 77% of China’s population with no work is really worrisome.

I see this as a far greater threat to our survival as a species than climate change will ever be. 

A report put out in February 2016 by Citibank in partnership with the University of Oxford predicted that 47% of US jobs are at risk of automation. In the UK, 35% are. In China, it’s a whopping 77% — while across the OECD it’s an average of 57%.
And three of the world’s 10 largest employers are now replacing their workers with robots.
Automation will, “in turn will accelerate the already widening economic inequality around the world,” Hawking wrote. “The internet and the platforms that it makes possible allow very small groups of individuals to make enormous profits while employing very few people. This is inevitable, it is progress, but it is also socially destructive.”

http://www.businessinsider.com/stephen-hawking-ai-automation-middle-class-jobs-most-dangerous-moment-humanity-2016-12?r=UK&IR=T

John Harlow

A topic for another time; but are robots good for democracy? And what do we do here?

Origin of the second amendment,

Jerry

How far back does the Second Amendment go? According to David E. Vandercoy (http://www.constitution.org/2ll/2ndschol/89vand.pdf),

Blackstone credits King Alfred, who ruled England from 871 to 901 A.D., as establishing the principle that all subjects of his dominion were the realm’s soldiers. Other commentators trace the obligation of Englishmen to serve in  the people’s army to 690 A.D. Regardless of the beginning date, an Englishman’s obligation to serve in a citizen army is an old proposition. Coupled with this obligation to defend the realm was the obligation to provide oneself with weapons for this purpose. …

Charles  II  disbanded  the  army  except  for  troops  he  believed  would  be  loyal  to  his government. Parliament assisted by enacting the Militia Act of 1661 which vested control over the militia in the King. Charles II began molding a militia loyal to the throne by directing that his officer corp assemble volunteers for separate training and “disaffected persons … not allowed to assemble and their arms seized.” In 1662, the more select militia was authorized to seize arms of anyone judged dangerous to the Kingdom. In addition, gunsmiths were ordered to report weekly on the number of guns made and sold; importation of firearms was banned.

A move toward total disarmament occurred with passage of the Game Act of 1671. The Game Act dramatically limited the right to hunt to those persons who earned over £100 annual income from the land. More importantly, and unlike any prior game act, it made possession of a firearm by other than those qualified to hunt illegal and provided for confiscation of those arms.

Charles II’s successor, his brother James, pursued the disarmament. James, however, was the object  of  suspicion  because  he  was  Catholic.  As  King,  James  was  also  the  official  head  of  the Anglican Church. He sat on the throne of a country that barred Catholics from holding appointed office. …

James continued disarmament by enforcing it in Ireland. The common perception was that James was disarming Protestants in Ireland and the new Whig party that opposed him. James then asked Parliament to repeal the test acts that precluded Catholics from holding office, to suspend the Habeas Corpus Act, and to abandon the militia concept in favor of standing armies. Parliament refused.

James responded by having his Judges find that the laws of England were the King’s laws and the King could dispense with them. The King replaced Protestants with Catholics at high government posts, including the military; he then placed 13,000 men of his army outside London. In 1688, James’s son-in-law, William of Orange, a Protestant, landed in England with a large Dutch army. James’s army deserted him and he fled to France.

William and Mary became sovereigns in 1689. Parliament restricted their powers by adopting the Declaration of Rights. William and Mary were required to accept the rights enumerated in the Declaration as the rights of their subjects and to rule in accordance with Parliament’s statutes. The Declaration  recited  the  abuses  by  James,  including  the  raising  and  keeping  of  a  standing  army without  Parliament’s  consent,  quartering  of  troops  in  private  homes,  and  disarming  Protestant subjects. The declaration set forth the positive right of Protestant subjects to have arms for their defense, suitable to their conditions, and as allowed by law.

Well, there you have it. I have read this elsewhere, so it is not just one guy’s notion of history. The Founders wrote the Second with history and past abuses in mind.

Further, in a series of essays collected in A People Numerous and Armed, John Shy makes the case that it was the militia who won the Revolution. Wherever the Brits ventured the Militia rose up and fettered them, preventing them from gathering fodder and food, even fighting with them. When you think about it, that’s just the way it happened: they left Boston and took over NYC. Yet (as detailed in Washington’s Crossing, by David Hackett Fischer) the New Jersey militia made any extension to NJ impossible. And when they leaped down to Charleston, the militia and the Swamp Fox slowed them, pestered them and hobbled them.

So with both negative and positive examples to guide them, the writers of the Bill of Rights wrote this amendment, and placed it second, following only the amendment concerning the freedoms of speech and religion.

It makes sense when you look at it this way.

Ed

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

Thursday, December 1, 2016

If Republicans want to force through massive tax cuts, we will fight them tooth and nail.

Senator Elizabeth Warren

Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for the West as it commits suicide.

James Burnham

If a foreign government had imposed this system of education on the United States, we would rightfully consider it an act of war.

Glenn T. Seaborg, National Commission on Education, 1983

“Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Immigration without assimilation is invasion.

Roberta is home and recovering slowly, but getting better each day. The vectors are all toward improvement.

I got the Fire Department’s bill today. Unlike the one I got for myself, most of this one was covered by various insurances; since Roberta and I have the same insurance, I’m not sure why I got the whole bill, but we only pay less than half of this one, but I’m not going to complain. I will note that the Fire Department paramedics and ambulance used to be paid by the city – after all, the major expense is salaries of the Firemen and medics, and they’d have to be paid whether they were on a call or not – but again I’m not going to complain. They were there when needed, and they did their work efficiently and smoothly. But I do wonder who would have paid for their time while they took her to St. Joseph’s if she hadn’t needed them.

Continuing the discussion of Free Trade, national production, robots, productivity and wages:

You will recall that Dr. David Friedman said when I asked him what advice to give Mr. Trump,

“Unfortunately, the best advice I could give he can’t follow, politically speaking. That’s to declare unilateral free trade, the policy of Britain in the 19th century and Hong Kong in the 20th. That would not only be good for the country and set a good example for the world, it would eliminate the current practice of using free trade negotiations to pressure other countries to adopt policies popular with American voters in exchange for the agreement.”

Hong Kong’s policy is “Hong Kong is a free port.  We pursue a free trade policy and do not maintain barriers on trade. No tariff is charged on import or export of goods.  Although licensing is required for the import and export of some goods, this is only to fulfill obligations undertaken by Hong Kong to our trading partners, or to meet public health, safety or internal security needs. The licensing procedures are as simplified  as possible in such cases.”

Whether that is strictly true now that Hong Kong has reverted to being under the Chinese People’s Republic, it was certainly true in the British rule period, and the licensing regulations were continually scrutinized to be sure they were regulatory and not protectionist. Given Hong Kong’s quite limited natural resources (essentially none) and the wealth developed there, it is certainly worth study.

Of course most trade agreements are not really for Free Trade even if that is the treaty’s name. Many of them run to hundreds of pages. Some products and industries and companies are favored, and quite often newcomers are so regulated that the startup costs of entering a particular market are prohibitive.

The theory of Free Trade is that there will be more goods to consume, since each country will make the stuff it does best with, and buy the stuff that it finds expensive to make from somebody else: thus consumers pay the lowest possible prices, regulation costs will be kept to a minimum – over-regulation drives costs up, and thus over-regulated nations cannot compete – and so forth.

The theory does not take into account “entitlements” which must be paid to those no longer employed because what they used to make is now produced elsewhere; since these entitlements must be paid for, generally by the consumers who enjoy the benefits of cheaper stuff, the benefits may not be as large as supposed; indeed, sometimes the savings might be negative, depending on the goods under discussion. There is not a great deal of analysis of this, and there should be more.

The United States makes a lot of stuff; by some accounts, more than ever before. What it doesn’t have is as many people employed in making that stuff. Look at an automobile assembly line, and compare it to one in the 1950’s. The older lines had far more people turning out fewer cars. Today’s factories have a lot more robots turning out more cars. Workers tend to assist and supervise the robots, not actually make some part of the product. At one time a great proportion of the work force was involved in agriculture; now a tiny fraction of those formerly employed produce far more food at a cheaper price. So it appears to be in manufacturing. A lot more robots, a lot more product, a lot fewer workers at decent wages.

That trend will continue. More stuff, fewer human workers. I have said before: by 2024, and I think a great deal sooner, over 50 % (and I think more) of the existing jobs in manufacturing, sales, and distribution will or can be done by a robot costing no more than a year’s salary for the human the robot replaces. Humans should be employed in jobs not easily taken on by a robot. Since our education system seems unable to turn out graduates who can do jobs that other people will pay them money to do – one might wonder if the system is designed for this result – we are left with some obvious questions I will at present leave as exercises for the readers.

True free trade produces more goods. It also cares not for dignity, community stability, or many of the other civic values we used to prize so highly. Yes, I think the US better off with jobs remaining in the US, not exported to Mexico or further away, and I do not think we are better off for turning Detroit into a wasteland; on the other hand, Detroit contributed to this by remaining inflexible and counting on government protection (Labor Relations Act, Union Shop, Protective Tariff, etc.) until the costs of “Made in America” became just too high. Detroit also had a great deal of capital sunk into investments of early World War II productive instruments, while Germany and Japan were bombed flat and had to start from bare floors; but that is another story and not part of this discussion.

We need education institutions aware of national trends, who can turn out graduates who can do jobs needed that robots can’t do. Clearly we don’t have those.

Abraham Lincoln said that if he bought a shirt from England, he had the shirt. England had the money which would be spent in England. If he bought it from New England he probably paid more, but he had the shirt and the money remained in the United States, to be spent again and again. When considering free trade, that simple and undeniable observation needs to be kept in mind.

Porkypine sums up the first weeks since the election:

Jerry,

Early days yet, but the President-Elect is disappointing widespread fears of chaotic amateurism. Thus far he’s picking competent people for his Administration in a competent manner.

As I see it, the focus should shift from how soon will he shoot himself in the foot, to how soon they’ll manage to send enough alligators at him to completely distract him from draining the swamp.

That, and to the necessary tradeoffs between which parts of the swamp he thinks most important to drain and which parts are most practically drainable. Because even absent alligators he will not have unlimited resources.

All Presidents do end up as full-time alligator-wrestlers eventually.

The mark of a good one is how much swamp he gets drained before that sets in. So far, it’s mainly the left siccing ‘gators on him, and they don’t yet seem to realize how toothless theirs have become.

But the truly fierce ones are out there, in Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, in jihadist enclaves all over, in obscure corners of this economy, and tucked away among factions of his own nominal party. The question now is how long he can keep enough of those threats deterred, distracted, or at least directed elsewhere so swamp-drainage can proceed.

Porkypine

And that, I think, sums it up quite well. When you’re fighting the alligators it’s hard to remember the mission was to drain the swamp. Of course the best way to drain the swamp is to choose the right people and support their efforts, while choosing others to fight the alligators.

I note that Trump said he would accept the results of the election, and so did Hillary; then there emerged the odd attempt to reverse the election in the electoral college (with about one in a billion chance of honestly doing so), and Trump began to question the popular vote total and illegal voting practices. Voting by non-citizens is a federal felony and thus a deportable offense whether you have documents or not; and of course there are counties in Illinois rumored to have ballots cast by voters known to have died in the Chicago Fire…

Free trade

Good evening

Dr. Pournelle, may I suggest the possibility of a connection between campaign finance and free trade? Free trade is primarily about business advantage, a would-be car salesman in a city that already had dealerships for the Detroit brands was likely very receptive to a pitch for Toyotas and Datsuns. A shop owner looking for a better profit margin would be interested in oriental electronics. These people would suggest the benefits of free trade as they contributed to political campaigns, politicians who acted on these suggestions received more donations and enjoyed more success. The benefits to consumers were a happy accident, it was not the original intent.

I hope Roberta’s recovery continues, good health to you and yours, Tim Harness.

Beware the fury of the legions

“Obama Administration Tells Medal of Honor Recipient He Cannot Attend Marine Corps Ball”

http://tribunist.com/news/obama-administration-tells-medal-of-honor-recipient-he-cannot-attend-marine-corps-ball/

“Why? Because Meyer has been an outspoken critic of the Obama administration.”

Words fail.

Cordially,

John

Newt on Trumps 3 greatest challenges

http://www.gingrichproductions.com/2016/11/president-elect-trumps-three-greatest-challenges/

Very good.

—

Phil Tharp

emdrive

a website I’ve been following (I may have first seen it from your columns) has a possible explanation for how the emdrive works and is saying that the NASA experiment may be off by a factor of ~10x
http://physicsfromtheedge.blogspot.co.uk/2016/11/emdrives-dielectrics-nasa-shift.html
I will say that his idea seems to explain a lot of anomalies in one formula that doesn’t require any arbitrary constants or dark matter positioning.
David Lang

EM drive

Dr. Pournelle,
Excellent news that Roberta will be home today. My prayers for both of you to continue your recoveries. I am curious about EM and continue to read everything I can find in lay media, but I am a little confused. I thought that light drive was a known technology (light sail and photon drive). I know that rest mass of photon is accepted as zero, but it must have some mass at c. However, generation of photons does not require the emitting body to lose mass. So, in essence isn’t the EM drive more a photon drive?
Thank you for clearing up my confusion.
Merry Christmas!

Douglas

EMdrive & diamond – not dilithium – crystals….

Interestingly this http://www.bris.ac.uk/news/2016/november/diamond-power.html
plus (with a bit of luck) the EM drive….

D J Turner

The EM Drive Subject

Jerry,
Proving that the EM drive is reactionless will take more than an externally powered gravity sling experiment. After all, thrust can be produced by a laser, and an externally powered laser thruster would not lose mass when operated. We would not call this a reactionless drive as we are emitting photons from the test article and the loss of mass in the power supply.
To me, the biggest part of the proof is not to show that the test article produces thrust, but that it produces thrust without the asymmetric emission of ANYTHING, including all electromagnetic bands. If all of its emissions are symmetrical and still a thrust is produced, I will start thinking that this could be a reactionless drive, otherwise, I will remain skeptical.
However, even if the EM drive does not turn out to be reactionless, it may well be the most efficient particle/photon emitting drive ever built. This still makes it very useful.

Kevin L Keegan

I still want to see it hang off vertical in a swing for two weeks.

Ideas and Blue Sky on EmDrive

Dear Doctor Pournelle,

If the experimentum crucis were to prove that even the current lab bench prototype EmDrives are doing that thing they seem to do, I thought of some possible uses for even a low thrust device:

Imagine a tank equipped with such a unit, and suitable power source.

Suddenly the tanks effective weight is lowered by the thrust of the internal EmDrive. It can cross bridges that without the EmDrive the tank was too heavy for. Operate the EmDrive from solar, and you lower the amount of fuel needed to move the tank, because of the effective reduction in weight. Or you can carry more fuel and ammo because the tanks suspension can handle the extra mass with the EmDrive lowering the weight. Ooops, inertia remains for the added mass though, so easy on the brakes there!

Same for long haul trucks. Same for railroading. Put an EmDrive in each car of the train, and you’ve got a massively more efficient transportation system.

Hybrid aircraft. The EmDrive lowers the weight of the vehicle, again, making it more fuel efficient. Put the EmDrive on a zeppelin, with the exterior of the zeppelin covered in solar cell fabric, and you can cruise the world for zero fuel cost.

Aerial crane helicopters now become much more efficient. Same for ground based cranes. Have to lift a load 200 feet by crane? Put an EmDrive on the load, power it up, and your crane is now several per cent more efficient.

Even a few newtons per KW will make some/all of the above possible.

What happens when we can use an ambient temperature superconductor with a working Em Drive? Weight for generators and power cables goes way down, efficiency goes through the roof.

I know this is early days for any proof of concept, but we are talking Richard Seaton watching the experiment fly through the skylight and out of sight territory here if ANY of this is real. Deep change will be upon us. Forty days to Mars, a year to the Kuyper belt, mining the asteroids.

The end of worry over an upper Torino Scale object ending all life on Earth. If some rock has our name on it, we slap an EmDrive and power source on the offensive bit of slag, and shove it on its’ way.

This is H. G. Wells meets “Doc” Smith times Victor Appleton II, with a dash of G. Harry Stine and John W. Campbell. If it works, somewhere they will are having a laugh at our expense, and smiling!

Against all odds, we might have a future worth having, after all…

Petronius

The power source might not be so simple…

Minimum wage increases cause automated restaurants

All-Vegetarian Automated Restaurant Opens in Downtown DC

Rod

Petraeus

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/petraeus-would-have-to-notify-probation-officer-if-offered-state-job/article/2608579

Does this mean that someone in government will actually have effective oversight?

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 Excellence;  Avoider of Yard Work

Having met a few probation officers, I’d say no.

Korey Harvey

Subject: Warning about Chinese Camera Manufacturer’s

The e-mail stream is a bit lengthy but I deleted a lot of the superfluous info. This is from the surveillance folks that have installed all of our surveillance cameras around the City, they come from the military and security groups and now run a private company. The information they pass along regarding the cameras and camera systems might help some of the agencies looking into camera surveillance programs. I left they contact information on one of the e-mails in case anyone needs to call and get more information from them.

Yes, Please do forward this.  The US really needs to become more aware of the threat that China can be on our infrastructure

Yep, do you mind if I send this e-mail on to all the other police departments in Monterey?

Exactly, that is why I included King City and the other PD’s in my email.  They must think security first!  Just imagine this, that the Chinese government gets into the PD’s records, evidence, crime reports, etc… through a backdoor in the surveillance system.  It’s not just a probability that this could happen it has happened.

And having access to surveillance cameras and surveillance systems all over the country is not a bad perk for the Chinese either, make a bunch of money selling surveillance cameras that give you access to the surveillance system. Very smart move especially when most companies (and government entities) worry more about the bottom line and the lowest bid for equipment.

I was on the Information Security Team when Cisco’s Internet Operating System (IOS) software was stolen by Huawei. A Chinese backed networking company who got its start by stealing Cisco Systems source code. 

We were tasked to go through the code and identify the stolen Intellectual Property.  When we looked at their source code it was almost laughable.  We thought that we were tasked with something that would be difficult to prove but Huawei did not even bother to remove the Cisco Copyright statements from huge sections of the code.  Based on my experience with Huawei vs Cisco,  the Chinese are out to steal their way to success at the expense of US companies.

I am passing this information along since I know many cities in Monterey/Santa Clara County are looking to deploy cameras, including the installation of cameras in sensitive areas (PD’s, airports, hospitals). HikVision is now the world’s largest camera manufacturer. They are being extremely aggressive in the Public Safety and Government verticals in the USA.  I’ve seen 2 RFP’s go out that have spec’ed this camera into their bid.  HikVision is a Homeland security concern.  We do NOT recommend or install them. Many integrators are also responding to RFP’s using these cameras, due to their low price point, not being aware of the security risks.

https://security.world/is-the-worlds-biggest-surveillance-camera-maker-sending-footage-to-china/

Regards,

Maria

On Climate Change.

We were all sold by the smooth talking speech giving politician Al Gore with his

2006 “Inconvenient Truth” movement. Now anybody who questions the global warming

narrative and subsequent “Carbon Tax” that results in windfall profits it brings.

Anyone going against the narrative is a “Science Denier”.

But I am pretty sure that we all have been fooled on CO2 and……;

 

I think it’s 10x harder to convince them they’ve been fooled.

(Nobody has the time to become un-fooled.)

It turns out that a group of “scientists” colluded to produce the “Global Warming” scam.

It’s all an effort to fleece the huddled masses of more money in the form of “Carbon Tax”.

Of course, if you listen to Obama, this “Fake News” and Russian propaganda site is to be

ignored. Even though James Corbett is always armed to the teeth with facts and charts.

It’s unfortunate the simple people just want somebody (Obama) to tell them the truth.

They don’t have time to investigate for themselves.

The latest 17 minute (Too much information) Global Warming Corbett Report;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sT4133vfTmk&t=69s

Other too much information reports;

(It’s easier to just believe Obama and mainstream media.)

Nobel Laureate on Global Warming;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCy_UOjEir0&t=282s

Noam Chomsky on Global Warming;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJUA4cm0Rck&t=85s

The climate is however, changing and there’s nothing we can do about it.

We know it has been warmer than now in Viking times, and colder in the a8th and 19^th Centuries. Beyond that is theory.

‘Global warming’ hits Tokyo. 

<https://asiancorrespondent.com/2016/11/japan-tokyo-first-november-54-years/>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

Leftist Propaganda

The propaganda becomes most ridiculous these days. On Yahoo News, sourced to Thompson Reuters, I’ve seen the most incredible piece of “news” yet. This piece holds out hope that one could use the 25th amendment to remove Trump from power:

<.>

There are two options to remove a mentally unfit president, which were helpfully laid out step-by-step by Fusion. The first option requires a majority of the president’s cabinet — positions such as secretary of state and secretary of defense — joining together with the vice president to declare the president is unfit. The second option requires the vice president to convince a majority of the House of Representatives and the Senate to decide the president is unfit. Both chambers of Congress then submit a letter stating such, which removes the president from power.

In both cases, the president can then submit a letter claiming he is fit for office, which then mandates a special session to vote on the issue. Once that special session is called, those trying to oust the president, in this case Trump, would have 21 days to convince a two-thirds majority of both Congressional chambers to vote to keep Trump out of the Oval Office.

While this might seem like a long shot, many are navigating toward it.

</>

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-steps-search-secretary-state-meet-petraeus-180957953.html

Now, how would the GOP Congress, enfranchised by Trump and confirmed through Paul Ryan’s announcement craft such letters and secure a 2/3 majority? Are we to endure four to eight years of this sort of

nonsense? The election ended; these people must get on with their

lives.

◊ ◊ ◊ ◊ ◊

Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

I find it rather amusing.

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

Monday, November 28, 2016

If Republicans want to force through massive tax cuts, we will fight them tooth and nail.

Senator Elizabeth Warren

Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for the West as it commits suicide.

James Burnham

If a foreign government had imposed this system of education on the United States, we would rightfully consider it an act of war.

Glenn T. Seaborg, National Commission on Education, 1983

“Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Immigration without assimilation is invasion.

if Romney had treated Obama half as roughly as he treated Gingrich in the primaries, he might have won in ’12 and saved us all a LOT of trouble.

Roberta comes home tomorrow, and we’re in the throes of repairs and alterations to make things ready for her. She’ll still be in a wheel chair, unable to get about very far with a walker. I’ve got more support for her, as she’ll need more than I did. It’s likely to be hectic, and I’ll have less time for work including this place, but I’ll manage somehow. There aren’t a lot of places for rational discussion despite what the web offers.

I spent part of the weekend at LOSCoN, the LASFS run Thanksgiving weekend local science fiction convention. The topic I was most interested in was the Em Drive, and it got brought up on every panel as well as in dinner discussion with Greg Benford, retired UC professor of physics. The problem is, there’s nothing to discuss: either it produces thrust, force, action, without losing mass, or it doesn’t. The evidence is that it does, but the run times have been short and the force is low.

We all pretty well agreed that if it works at all, we’re going to need some new physics, possibly a meld of Newtonian and Quantum physics, and we have given that a lot of thought but got nowhere in decades; but if this thing does work and produces a reactionless drive, it changes the nature of space exploration. The observations calculate about 1.02 (they give it to two decimal places) milliNewtons per kilowatt of electric power inputted.

http://www.digitaltrends.com/cool-tech/emdrive-news-rumors/ has a picture and a purported video of a “flight” (rotation, similar to what G. Harry Stine said he witnessed when Dean showed him the famed Dean Drive). In both these cases and in all other claims I know of, there is a hard connection to an immovable object. The digital trends report is of a purported leak of a NASA test; NASA has since released the report, and published it in a peer reviewed journal. The test reports force exerted against a torsion pendulum; that is it turns about a central hard and fast anchor, as do all the other tests I know of. That reports 1.02 millinewtons per kilowatt, but does not report the total thrust measured, and my reading did not detect any claim to long term operation.

There is a detailed and revealing analysis of possible errors of measurement, and the conclusion that none of them, or even all combined, could account for the observed forces.

That seems to be more than sufficient data to warrant an experimentum crucis to settle once and for all if this “works”. I propose that they hang it in a gravity swing; leave it unpowered long enough to determine the exact resting position; and turn it on. Presumably it will thrust forward to some angle off vertical, where the thrust will be more or less equal to the gravity forces dragging it back to the rest position. Now leave it on for a week, or weeks if possible. If at the end of the run it still hangs off vertical and has lost no mass, I would think that enough evidence to warrant spending the money for a test in orbit. If it can change orbits consuming power but expending no mass, I see no other explanation than reactionless drive. Thrust without mass loss, and the length of the experiment overcomes any possible error of measurement.

Depending on the ship size and how large the Em drive can be built, time to Mars is reduced by hundreds of days; forty days or so depending on when you depart. No fuel expended: the whole ship makes the trip, and doesn’t through 90% of it overboard for propulsion. I don’t know how to keep a crew alive in orbital travel to Mars for hundreds of days; I can imagine ways to do it for forty.

I am not saying we have a reactionless drive: I grew up with Newton’s Third Law and the physicists notion of conservation and I’m not ready to give them up easily. On the other had, I had old physics textbooks in science class that stated that matter could be neither created nor destroyed: Conservation of matter, and conservation of energy. Then, in 1945, just as I was leaving grade school, came Trinity… We got new textbooks.

I have been experimenting with Precious, the Surface Pro 3 tablet/laptop with a Surface Pro 4 keyboard. The 4 has a fingerprint reader, which the 3 did not have, but the software for the 3 runs the ID program. That has worked, but otherwise the software has been a nightmare. Now understand, my granddaughter is perfectly happy with her Surface, and I’ve got used to windows 10, sort of, and 10 is running on all my systems; and I suspect that if I hadn’t enlisted in the experimental “insiders” program which gets me early releases of Windows 10; I’d be happier. Microsoft seems to have too many updates even for my big machines, but I can live with that; but Windows 10 Insider has made a living Hell out of using the Surface Pro. When I first had the stroke, Eric was able to get the Surface Pro out to me in the hospital, and I could use it; I soon reverted to the ThinkPad because it was bigger and easier to read, but I used the Surface and liked it.

I was hoping to use the Surface Pro the way I used my old Compaq tablet long ago; that laptop/tablet combo was great. I took it to COMDFEX and other shows, and it was all I needed. The Tablet with keyboard and Microsoft OneNote were the best research tool I have ever had. It was too slow, of course, and both the system and disk memory were too small, but it was enough to get my BYTE columns done, take notes in presentations and lectures in both keyboard and handwriting, and do Internet searches either wireless or the Ethernet connections usually supplied in the Press Room,and even in motels that still made you use modems.

But every time I’d get used to the Surface they’d have an update, usually needless improvements, and more complications, and more, and crazier defaults, and no accommodation for those who had learned on DOS and earlier versions of Windows. At this point I’d only wish the Surface on enemies. It has now decided that it must access some pst files on OneDrive. I don’t recall ever telling it, or Microsoft, that I want any of my pst files on OneDrive. I don’t want any of my mail files on Microsoft servers or anyone else’s.

Meanwhile, Outlook won’t open without access to that OneDrive pst, and without Outlook the Surface isn’t much use for me.

I’m going to scrub the Surface and reinstall a release copy of Windows, as vanilla as I can get, and update only when forced to, and see if I can make the Surface work for me, stand by. But as of now, I sure think learning to live with the frequent updates makes the Surface Pro more trouble than it’s worth to a user.

While I am at it, I love the ASUS ZenBooks. I have the big ones, and they have the best keyboards I know of: that is, for a two-finger typist which I have been since the stroke. The keys are BIG, and well separated, and I do not often hit two keys at once. I can see the big screens pretty well. All told, excellent. Recommended if you need that much laptop, which I do.

I’ve just got a final notice from email updates to go get their malware or else. I sure wish I could believe it was their final notice…

EM Drive Potential

Jerry,

The recent peer-reviewed paper on EM-drive tests showed 1.2 milliNewtons of thrust per kilowatt input power. That’s not much, no. Not a practical space-drive due to ridiculously low thrust-to-weight for any realistic power source.

But (assuming the effect is real at all) nobody seems to think that 1.2 milliNewton per kilowatt is any sort of a theoretical limit.

The drive’s inventor, for what it’s worth, has been quoted in the press saying he thinks up to five orders of magnitude (100,000x) efficiency improvement are possible. I’ll take that with a LARGE grain of salt for now, as I’m still not entirely convinced the effect is real at all.

But just to see what the outer bounds are, that’d be 120 Newtons thrust for a kilowatt input (in english units, 27 pounds force.)

To illustrate the possibilities at those levels, an LM-2500 marine power gas turbine puts out about 25 Megawatts (MW) of torque and masses about five tons. A 787’s ~200 kilowatt engine-mounted generators mass 235 lbs each – I assume they’re near state-of-the-art. That works out to roughly another 15 tons for 25 MW of generators. Call it 20 tons total to generate 25 MW of mobile power (not counting fuel, structure, thrusters, etc.)

That 25 MW, at 27 lbs thrust per kilowatt, would produce almost 340 tons of thrust. Plenty to spare for fuel, structure, thrusters, and substantial payload. Aerial battleships, anyone? Or add oxidizer storage and have a space battleship… And that’s WITHOUT even looking at what you could build around a submarine reactor.

The stuff of a Doc Smith novel, yes.

But the EM-drive would be immensely useful at far short of those 100,000x efficiency levels. Figuring 10 kg of (space) ship per kilowatt of power available and a goal of 2 kilometers/second per day acceleration capability, we’d need 20,000 Newton-seconds per day for our kilowatt of power. At 86,400 seconds in a day, that’s 230 milliNewtons per kilowatt, or a mere 200 times more efficiency than the peer-reviewed test article.

Ships that can accelerate continuously at 2 km/sec per day give us the Solar System. The WHOLE Solar System. 10 weeks to Mars at average distance – and less than a year to Pluto. We’d still need old-fashioned rockets to get into space in the first place, but once there, if real, and if improvable a hundred-fold or more, this thing would change everything.

Improve it 100,000-fold, and we get flying cars – that can reach the Moon in three hours. I’m not greedy though, I’ll take 200-fold.

Here’s hoping. We’ll see.

Henry

Even if it’s limited to millinewtons / kw, it’s a key to the solar system. But as Carl Sagan (quoting Descartes) was fond of saying, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and these are certainly extraordinary claims…

Decisions,

Jerry

From the outside, Trump may seem to be thrashing around. I think most observers don’t get that when you base your decisions on values, you make decisions this way. You try one thing on for size – it doesn’t fit, so you toss it away and try on something else, something different. Eventually you zero in on what you want. This is not ideology-based or strategy-based decision making. This is making decisions based on values.

This is also like markets. And, like markets, you see overshoots. You see people throwing things against a wall and seeing what sticks. You see what products sell, what services are profitable. Expect to see mistakes, and rapid corrections. The problem with ideology-base decision-making is that they make as many mistakes but they don’t correct them. We had many years of not correcting mistakes. I like Trump’s way.

Ed

Inside the project to rebuild the EDSAC, the world’s first general purpose computer

Jerry,

    As a Communications Technician in the Navy, I was trained on tubes (or valves as the Brits refer to them) as well as semiconductors.  I’m all in favor of this reconstruction and I’d love to see it when it’s finished.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/inside-the-project-to-rebuild-the-edsac-one-of-the-worlds-first-general-purpose-computers/

New ultra-thin semiconductor could extend life of Moore’s Law

http://phys.org/news/2016-11-ultra-thin-semiconductor-life-law.html

Tracy

Old and new…

In addition to the reactionless drive, we have another potential physics revolution:

The speed of light is constant? Physicists plan to test a new theory that questions Einstein’s assumptions — Quartz

It will be interesting if they prove to be correct. If the speed of light varies (or varied over time) then a few assumptions have to change.

Magueijo proposed that to solve one of the biggest physics problems, called the “horizon problem,” we might have to challenge the idea that the speed of light is constant. The problem states that the universe reached a uniform temperature long before energy-carrying photons traveling at constant speed could have had the time to reach all corners of the expanding universe.

The most accepted explanation for the horizon problem is something called inflation. It suggests that, after the Big Bang, the temperature evened out before the universe went through a rapid phase of expansion. But the inflation theory doesn’t sit well with many physicists, mainly because nobody can explain why inflation started and why it stopped.

http://qz.com/846498/the-speed-of-light-is-constant-physicists-plan-to-test-a-new-theory-that-questions-einsteins-assumptions/

John Harlow

Special Relativity requires an absolute constant speed of light. Given that gravity propagates at the observed local speed of light, the advance in the perihelion of Mercury, the observation that drove Einstein to formulate the Special Theory, can be accounted for by Newton’s model; he assumed infinite propagation speed. Of course General Relativity assumes that what we think of as gravity is in fact a distortion in the fabric of space, and I’m not sure that propagates at all, but it’s not my subject; I don’t do math above vectors and matrices.

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

Thursday, November 24, 2016

Thanksgiving

If Republicans want to force through massive tax cuts, we will fight them tooth and nail.

Senator Elizabeth Warren

Liberalism is a philosophy of consolation for the West as it commits suicide.

James Burnham

If a foreign government had imposed this system of education on the United States, we would rightfully consider it an act of war.

Glenn T. Seaborg, National Commission on Education, 1983

“Deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”

Immigration without assimilation is invasion.

I am likely to have a busy day, so I’ll put up what I can until my sons come to get me. Yesterday we went to the Holy Cross hospital Thanksgiving Dinner for patients, staff, visitors, and alumni. Roberta looked better than ever, but the room was full of people and we couldn’t talk much, and I did not understand a word; but then I seldom understand anyone in a noisy environment. After the party we went back to her room, only to discover they had taken her to the gym for more therapy, and when we (Alex and I) went to the gym she was hard at it. A good day.

Reactionless drive rough calculations

Hi Jerry:

I ran some back-of-the-envelope calculations on the reactionless drive, and it looks pretty disappointing for interstellar work, but promising for the solar system, at least with current technology.

The GHRS-RTG radioisotope thermoelectric generators used in the Cassini and Galileo missions have the highest power-to-mass ratio of any RTG: 5.2 to 5.4 W/kg. With the thrust of the drive at 1.2 mN/kW, if you neglect the mass of the drive and just count the mass of the power source, this works out to an acceleration of 6E-7 m/s2. Because the thrust force scales with the mass of the power source, mass of the power source falls out of the equation–i.e, building a larger, higher power (more massive) power source does not improve acceleration, assuming power source mass is proportional to output power.

So an RTG powered craft, accelerating at 6E-7 m/s2, would achieve the following velocities and distances over time:

1 year; 18 m/s (about 40 mph); 540,000 km (to the moon and beyond)

10 years; 180 m/s; 54 million km (over half way to Mars at closest approach)

The amount of time it would take to get to relativistic speeds (say c/10) is 1.7 million years. Unfortunately the half-life of the 238Pu in the RTG is 87.7 years, so it would never reach those speeds.

Things are better with solar panels, limited to use in the inner solar system. Solar panels used in space deliver about 300W/kg, so acceleration could be 3.6E-4 m/s2. This would give:

1 year; 11 km/s; 324 million km (taking into account acceleration and deceleration, perhaps one round trip to Mars)

Accelerating to c/10 would now take 2800 years, and would have to be achieved by shining a laser on the craft as it left the vicinity of the sun.

So I think we would need some quantum leaps in power source density and drive efficiency for the system to be useful for interstellar work, but it might be useful for inner solar system missions in the shorter term.

Hoping for you continued health and Roberta’s continuing improvement,

Doug Ely

First we need proof of existence: a reactionless drive requires us to rethink our understanding of the relationship of Newtonian, Einsteinium, and quantum physics in fundamental ways. If reactionless drives exist, they probably can be improved once the principle is known.

Jerry

You know that it’s science when people argue over the results?

http://arstechnica.com/science/2016/11/nasas-em-drive-still-a-wtf-thruster/

Ed

A Step Farther Out 

Dear Doctor Pournelle,

It is good to hear of Mrs. Pournelle’s progress in recovery. Stay strong!

In the Galaxy days of “A Step Farther Out”, as well as your early seventies story cycle, whose title at the moment escapes me, you proposed a launch system that was single stage to orbit based on ground based lasers. How much work was ever done on this, and why has it not been developed, or even tested as a concept that I know of? Was there some show stopper technical problem, or just another good idea that never got traction?

Also, the discussion about EmDrive reminds me of your story “Tinker”, wherein the spaceship’s drive was electric. I believe you posited a nuclear generation system for the power needed. It seems that for EmDrive, if it truly is what we hope, nuclear is the way to go. You need power density for such a drive, if I understand the equations correctly.

I remember a painting, an illustration for a magazine article on the Dean Drive bask in those times, showing a US Navy nuclear submarine in orbit, after being equipped with the drive. Unlikely, yes, fanciful even, but something like that would be what is needed here. If you are going to slowly build up speed, even with high power density, you need a big ship for all those consumables you use up in two hundred days getting anywhere. This leads to a world where commerce and travel will be more like the Age of Sail on earth than the Jet Age. Interesting territory for story telling, but more so for the reality it would make possible of opening up the solar system to exploitation.

If launch costs to LEO could be got down to ten dollars a pound, and the EmDrive could get a ton to Mars or anywhere else in the inner system for about another ten dollars a pound, our biggest problem will be figuring out how to spend the wealth efficiently. Imagine if we found one asteroid with a few million tons of high grade copper ore for example?

What if there was one with a few thousand tons of gold, and we could build power grids with gold wires?

We live in interesting times.

Newt Gingrich should be NASA chief, and it should be upgraded to a full department and cabinet status. Newt might well be our own latter day Pepys.

Does a working EmDrive not have implications for our understanding of

mass and inertia? What do the physics boffins say?

Petronius

Obviously this merits further testing. Any thrust without loss of mass is worth studying for proof of existence, then for means.

From the New York Times live interview with President Designate Trump

( http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/us/politics/trump-new-york-times-interview-transcript.html?action=click&contentCollection=Podcasts&module=RelatedCoverage&region=EndOfArticle&pgtype=article ):

FRIEDMAN: Will you have a reset with Russia?

TRUMP: I wouldn’t use that term after what happened, you know, previously. I think — I would love to be able to get along with Russia and I think they’d like to be able to get along with us. It’s in our mutual interest. And I don’t go in with any preconceived notion, but I will tell you, I would say — when they used to say, during the campaign, Donald Trump loves Putin, Putin loves Donald Trump, I said, huh, wouldn’t it be nice, I’d say this in front of thousands of people, wouldn’t it be nice to actually report what they said, wouldn’t it be nice if we actually got along with Russia, wouldn’t it be nice if we went after ISIS together, which is, by the way, aside from being dangerous, it’s very expensive, and ISIS shouldn’t have been even allowed to form, and the people will stand up and give me a massive hand. You know they thought it was bad that I was getting along with Putin or that I believe strongly if we can get along with Russia that’s a positive thing. It is a great thing that we can get along with not only Russia but that we get along with other countries.

I find this comforting; it is pretty close to what I would have said to the NYT were I about to become President; and I think Mr. Putin will find it reassuring. I said before the election that I agreed that Trump makes me nervous, but this interview makes me much less so.

Indeed, I found the entire interview interesting; I do not think Trump was dissembling; he said what he thinks. His views on Climate Change, as an example. He believes it is not settled and that the “consensus” is not as solid as is usually stated; and he is aware that at least part of the “consensus” was based on outright fraudulent interpretation of the data. He is also aware that windmills and other green gewgaw is not going to fix our energy problem. He is apparently open to rational arguments, which is about all I have ever asked.

This also from the transcript:

HABERMAN: And on torture? Where are you — and waterboarding?

TRUMP: So, I met with General Mattis, who is a very respected guy. In fact, I met with a number of other generals, they say he’s the finest there is. He is being seriously, seriously considered for secretary of defense, which is — I think it’s time maybe, it’s time for a general. Look at what’s going on. We don’t win, we can’t beat anybody, we don’t win anymore. At anything. We don’t win on the border, we don’t win with trade, we certainly don’t win with the military. General Mattis is a strong, highly dignified man. I met with him at length and I asked him that question. I said, what do you think of waterboarding? He said — I was surprised — he said, ‘I’ve never found it to be useful.’ He said, ‘I’ve always found, give me a pack of cigarettes and a couple of beers and I do better with that than I do with torture.’ And I was very impressed by that answer. I was surprised, because he’s known as being like the toughest guy. And when he said that, I’m not saying it changed my mind. [An earlier version made a mistake in transcription. Mr. Trump said “changed my mind,” not “changed my man.”] Look, we have people that are chopping off heads and drowning people in steel cages and we’re not allowed to waterboard. But I’ll tell you what, I was impressed by that answer. It certainly does not — it’s not going to make the kind of a difference that maybe a lot of people think. If it’s so important to the American people, I would go for it. I would be guided by that. But General Mattis found it to be very less important, much less important than I thought he would say. I thought he would say — you know he’s known as Mad Dog Mattis, right? Mad Dog for a reason. I thought he’d say ‘It’s phenomenal, don’t lose it.’ He actually said, ‘No, give me some cigarettes and some drinks, and we’ll do better.’

Again, I find nothing to disagree with. I cannot say I would never use waterboarding for any purpose – the classic case is the ticking time bomb known to be in an unidentified crowded public place and a captive known to have put it there – would you use torture? It has been asked for centuries, and remained a moral dilemma when torture was physical, very painful, and often left permanent damage. Is that ever justified? There has never been unanimity on this question. Fortunately, I have never been Faced with this decision except in rhetoric. I hope none of you ever are. Mr. Trump speaks as a reasonable man who is faced with this decision.

The full transcript is above; of course some interpret it their way.

http://www.climatedepot.com/2016/11/23/fake-news-update-media-falsely-spins-trumps-climate-comments-read-full-nyt-transcript/

The media spin on President Elect Donald J. Trump’s sit down with the New York Times on November 22, can only be described as dishonest. Trump appears to soften stance on climate change & Donald Trump backflips on climate change & Trump on climate change in major U-turn

The ‘fake news’ that Trump had somehow moderated or changed his “global warming” views was not supported by the full transcript of the meeting.[snip]

[snip] Trump also told resident NYT warmist Tom Friedman: ‘A lot of smart people disagree with you’ on climate change. (Note: Friedman has some wacky views: Flashback 2009: NYT’s Tom Friedman lauds China’s eco-policies: ‘One party can just impose politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward’)

Once again, Trump was 100% accurate as very prominent scientists are bailing out of the so-called climate “consensus.”

Renowned Princeton Physicist Freeman Dyson: ‘I’m 100% Democrat and I like Obama. But he took the wrong side on climate issue, and the Republicans took the right side’

Nobel Prize-Winning Scientist Dr. Ivar Giaever, Who Endorsed Obama Now Says Prez. is ‘Ridiculous’ & ‘Dead Wrong’ on ‘Global Warming’

Green Guru James Lovelock reverses belief in ‘global warming’: Now says ‘I’m not sure the whole thing isn’t crazy’ – Condemns green movement: ‘It’s a religion really, It’s totally unscientific’

Politically Left Scientist Dissents – Calls President Obama ‘delusional’ on global warming [snip]

A consensus that doesn’t include Freeman Dyson is not a consensus.

‘Global warming’ hits Tokyo.  

<https://asiancorrespondent.com/2016/11/japan-tokyo-first-november-54-years/>

—————————————

Roland Dobbins

Trump’s pro common core pick (deconstructed?)

On her web site, Ms. Devos states that she personally supports strong local standards, but not Common Core, though she has belonged to or worked with organizations that supported Common Core.

You pays your money, you takes your chances.  But I find support both for charter schools and for common core to be unlikely.  We’ll see how it plays out.

http://betsydevos.com/qa/

---

Subj: Fwd: Trump’s pro common core pick

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-taps-betsy-devos-for-education-secretary/

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/11/23/trump-announces-gop-mega-donor-betsy-devos-education-secretary/

When it comes to arrogance, power, and lack of accountability, journalists are probably the only people on the planet who make lawyers look good.  Steven Brill

NPR: No More Live Interviews with Conservatives

NPR has some racialist coverage; I’m a long time listener because I try to sample the major propaganda flavors this country has to offer.

I don’t think “racist” is the correct word, however:

<.>

National Public Radio ombudsman/public editor Elizabeth Jensen has recommended that the taxpayer-funded radio news service bar future live interviews of conservatives who may have controversial views, following an interview Nov. 16 with Breitbart News’ Joel B. Pollak.

Pollak, who serves as Breitbart’s Senior Editor-at-Large and In-house Counsel, defended its Executive Chairman Stephen K. Bannon from false and defamatory claims of antisemitism and “white nationalism.” He also turned the tables, pointing out that NPR has “racist programming,”

including a story that called the 2016 election results “nostalgia for a whiter America.”

NPR listeners were apparently outraged that anyone from Breitbart News had been given an opportunity to defend the website and its chairman.

In her response, “Listeners: Two Recent Interviews Are ‘Normalizing Hate Speech’,” Jensen concluded that the live format had allowed Pollak to get the better of host Steve Inskeep.

She suggested that future interviews be taped: “In addition, in my opinion, these interviews should not be done live. Inskeep is an excellent live interviewer, but live interviews are difficult, especially when there is limited time. A little contextualizing never hurts.”

</>

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2016/11/19/npr-pollak-interview-no-live-interviews-right/

I find it disturbing the NPR would prefer taped interviews — presumably so NPR can filter these interviews and release them in an abridged format. If NPR’s hosts cannot stand on their logic and rhetoric then they would do well to hire more talented folks who can better prepare for their interviews and/or maintain a respectable command and grasp of critical thinking and rhetorical skills. After all, NPR is partially tax-payer funded — don’t we deserve better?

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Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

I believe NPR actually has taxpayer money support? Charter schools return local control to parents; Mr. Trump and Ms. Devos seem agreed on that.  From what I know of Trump he may well sponsor – even finance – a “demonstration” school to show how education can be done. Or perhaps Ms. Devos will. We know schools can be better.  I once proposed to the late Rev. Moon when his unification movement bought the University of Bridgeport that they open a demonstration school as part of the University Education department; but despite some enthusiasm from Mr. Moon, nothing came of it. Among other principles it would have featured my wife’s reading education program. That was long ago. My mother was a first grade teacher in rural Florida; when I asked if any pupils left first grade who had not learned to read, she said no, thought for a moment, and said “A few, but they didn’t learn anything else, either.” 

The concept of normal children unable to read after fourth grade was simply incomprehensible – as the Army discover during the World War II draft.  Conscripts unable to read were almost universally those who had not been to school at all (more common in the 30’s and 40’s).  Now we think it splendid if only 20 % of high school grades are illiterate.

We could build schools in DC as demonstrations that over 90% of children can learn to read in first grade.

Clinton in jail?

I certainly don’t think that Trump should follow through on his “threat” to put Clinton in jail. I would like him to put in his own people at FBI and DOJ, and make it clear to them: I want you to find out what really happened, and if there are really a dozen or whatever FBI investigators who thought there should be an indictment, and if there are other investigations on other Clinton issues/crimes. Do your jobs. I will back you up, and whatever you conclude will be made completely public. The facts will be put out where people can see them. No one is above the law, and no one is trying to do a witch hunt either. Do your jobs.

Best wishes,

mkr

You should be pleased to know that that is pretty close to what Mr. Trump told the New York Times.

President – Elect Trump’s ‘concessions’

Jerry,

    A long time ago, I read (probably on Chaos Manor) that a conservative votes for a candidate based on their belief that the candidate has a similar set of standards as they do, and that the candidate will make good choices when faced with problems. Then they leave them alone (for the most part) and let them govern. On the other hand, a liberal votes for a candidate because they believe the candidate will bend to the electorate’s will and change their mind along with the current emotional state of the electorate.

    I believe that is what we are seeing as Trump selects his cabinet and advisors, and adjusts his position based on new information.  Those who helped him get elected are not screaming and yelling because he isn’t toeing the line, but instead believe he is doing what he believes is right, and will give him the benefit of the doubt (of course there are some that won’t, but in general they will).

I’ve come to agree that is a key difference between liberals and conservatives.

Tracy

The nature of dwarf stars and star formation via Birkeland Current, Herbig/Haro strings, and the most probable prehistory of our system (video)

Much better video than we’d had previously. Troy McLachlan put a lot of work into this item:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RtGal_-KXU&t=187s

Ted

Words of Muslim American

This is worth reading and it’s worth noting this is an American speaking:

<.>

“The Prophet said: ‘There is no god but Allah,’ said Thbait. “Instead the [elites of Mecca] rejected. They offered the Prophet wealth, status, and political representation – a seat on the executive branch within Mecca’s secular order – all to avoid this statement and its implications. Yet he rejected their offers and continued his journey towards radical change, providing us with step-by-step instructions on how to make this religion supreme.”

“The elites of Mecca would use every possible measure to coerce or contain Muhammad’s call for change within specific parameters,” he added. “Those parameters would permit the changing of anything that did not threaten their system and infringe on their power. But this message is not here to integrate. It is here to dominate. Islam is here to dominate! This was an ideological struggle, the sole purpose of which was to organize Man’s affairs in accordance with a system revealed by Allah.”

“There was no room for compromise,” Thbait continued. “Instead Allah revealed to the Prophet, saying: ‘Proclaim openly, as commanded, and turn away from those who associate others with Allah.’ ‘Proclaim openly, as commanded by Allah’ – this is our activism. It is free of polytheism, the polytheism of a secular system. Activism within a flawed infidel system is forbidden.”

</>

http://freedomoutpost.com/muslim-leader-in-us-islam-is-not-here-to-integrate-islam-is-here-to-dominate/

I wanted to make sure this wasn’t “fake news” so I confirmed it by looking at the video on Twitter;

https://twitter.com/OnlineMagazin/status/796794018269118468/video/1

Nothing surprising but worth noting.

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Most Respectfully,

Joshua Jordan, KSC

Percussa Resurgo

Truce and even alliance is permitted between true Muslims and unbelievers (including heretics). Peace is not permitted, although a long enough truce is perhaps indistinguishable from peace as a practical matter.

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