{"id":3530,"date":"2011-11-21T00:20:17","date_gmt":"2011-11-21T08:20:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/?p=3530"},"modified":"2011-11-21T00:20:17","modified_gmt":"2011-11-21T08:20:17","slug":"jade-memory-lapses-reading-and-other-mail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/jade-memory-lapses-reading-and-other-mail\/","title":{"rendered":"Jade, memory lapses, reading, and other mail"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mail 701 Sunday, November 20, 2011<\/p>\n

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Feeling jaded about the Taj Mahal <\/p>\n

Dear Jerry<\/p>\n

Saw your link to the Maya Taj Mahal photo<\/a>– after four decades of tropical sun and rain it needs a new coat of dayglow lime and orange paint to restore it to Magical Realism’s top ten list.<\/p>\n

One correction is in order – you give yourself too little credit, as the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology at Harvard & the Museum of Fine Arts Boston had you on the books as Associate Field Director of their joint venture, The Mesoamerican Jade Project.<\/p>\n

Here for those interested is Bill Broad’s New York Time’s story about the project’s successful, if somewhat delayed conclusion- having gone missing for roughly 25 centuries, the lost jade mines of the Olmecs took a quarter century to track down:<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2002\/05\/22\/world\/in-guatemala-a-rhode-island-size-jade-lode.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm.html<\/a><\/p>\n

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Attached is a picture of the end of the operation- After chasing rumor and reality over hill and dale, including the Sierra de las Minas, where we encountered the standard _Incidents of Travel In Central America_ assortment of mules, jaguars, coral snakes , live angry people with guns and peaceable dead ones without them , we finally got together enough good intel to end up with yours truly resting comfortably atop the the Quebrada Seca Olmec mother lode, a ~100 M3\/ 300 tonne blue jade monolith about half way up the side of the Jalapa escarpment, which I arrived at on horseback ( If only we had thought to ask for horses in 1977<\/p>\n

!) and dutifully reported in the December 2001 issue of _Antiquity_ — time it would seem makes archaeologists of us all<\/p>\n

A fellow name of Helferich is writing a book about jade in Guatemala, with the rather grandiose title "Stone of Kings" but I fear he is in kahoots with the Antigua tourist traps that, absent any jade a Chinese dealer would touch, used high pressure salesmanship to foist ugly high pressure rocks, mostly opaque omphacitites on unsuspecting tourists.<\/p>\n

Despite paying pennies per pound for bad jade in the Motagua valley, they are still advertising the products of digs like Don Angel Merida’s backhoe operation as produce of the entirely fictive "Quarry of the Maya Kings"<\/p>\n

Russell Seitz<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Thanks. It was an interesting adventure, complete with sleeping on top of the Land Cruiser while somewhat poisonous toads hopped about feasting on the cloud of mosquitoes that rose from the lake at dusk.<\/p>\n

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Letter from England<\/p>\n

The economy here seems to be gliding onto a sandbar. At least inflation has dropped to 5%. The expectation is for a double dip recession.<\/p>\n

See if you can understand these articles. They’re on pensions in the UK: <\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/finance\/personalfinance\/pensions\/8899628\/Will-the-Chancellor-demolish-pension-tax-breaks.html<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/finance\/personalfinance\/pensions\/8899230\/Squeeze-on-pensions-is-for-greater-good-says-minister.html<\/a><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

"Good judgement comes from experience, experience comes from bad judgement." (SLClemens)<\/p>\n

Harry Erwin, PhD<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

How many dips does it take before people begin referring to Depression? Ah well.<\/p>\n

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Occupy Movement Goes Nuts<\/p>\n

<.><\/p>\n

The group plans on disrupting banks, Wall Street, homes of financial CEOs, and whoever else constitutes the top 1 percent of the wealth holders in America. Their message is one of civil disobedience, enabled by a home base surrounding L.A. City Hall that functions<\/p>\n

<..><\/p>\n

"There is no debt crisis. There is a revenue crisis. It is in the coffers of the 1 percent," Brito interjected.<\/p>\n

<\/><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.whittierdailynews.com\/news\/ci_19372839<\/a><\/p>\n

This is frightening.  Clearly these people are putting out disinformation, misinformation, or they are speaking anything that sounds like it will fly.  If you confiscate all wealth of the top one percent, you will not even get one year’s GDP.  Then, after you confiscate that wealth how will you turn it into more wealth?  How will the former elite — now that they have no wealth?  <\/p>\n

The statements from the article suggest that Occupy enthusiasts believe the top 1% in the list of successful Americans deserves negative sanction.  Why not use the courts, ballot box, and legislative bodies?  I think more thought, consideration, and communication is necessary.  So far, I see angry people who don’t seem to have the bile or zest to figure out what they’ve been screwed out of and whom screwed them.  The "movement" never dicusses these points. <\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Most Respectfully,<\/p>\n

Joshua Jordan, KSC<\/p>\n

Percussa Resurgo<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Movements never discuss such matters. And of course the Occupy enthusiasts no sooner draw attention before they are diluted and swamped by hangers on as well as organized groups. It\u2019s a very old political tactic used by both Communists and Fascists between the wars among other times: let someone else draw a crowd, then go exploit the attention.<\/p>\n

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Deutschland, Deutschland, ueber Alles.<\/p>\n

<http:\/\/www.express.co.uk\/posts\/view\/284656\/Germans-try-to-kill-off-pound<\/a>><\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Roland Dobbins<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The art of economic warfare is not lost\u2026<\/p>\n

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One Nanosecond<\/p>\n

You will of course have realized, perhaps belatedly, that either your recollection or Adm. Hopper is wrong.<\/p>\n

One nanosecond is 299.8 mm, 5 mm. less than a foot. It is perhaps too bad that we went to the metric system before getting a good handle on the speed of light. One foot = one nanosecond at c would have been a nice, unambiguous standard.<\/p>\n

By a curious coincidence, Thos. Jefferson’s suggested definition of a foot — one-fifth of the length of a uniform bar that beats one second when suspended as a pendulum — is a good bit closer to a nanosecond at c than it is to the current value of a foot.<\/p>\n

Regards,<\/p>\n

Ric<\/p>\n

Ric Locke<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I plead temporary insanity. Of course you\u2019re right. I still have my nanosecond, but I haven\u2019t looked at it for twenty years. I should have gone to the trophy case and dug it out. Thanks. And Grace Hopper was never wrong. And alas, that wasn\u2019t the only lapse this week:<\/p>\n

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Evolution and light speed  <\/p>\n

Dear Dr. Pournelle, <\/p>\n

I read Chaos Manor today with interest, and this one snippet you posted caught my eye: <\/p>\n

"I have yet to see a report of actual information travelling faster than light in these experiments, but that would be the obvious next experiment. If information is sent faster than light, the theory of evolution is in need of drastic revision, and theories like Petr Beckmann\u2019s entangled gravitational fields as a form of aether bear examination."<\/p>\n

Having read this, I have a simple question. <\/p>\n

Why, exactly, does the theory of evolution need revision if information can be sent faster than light? Normally I understand what you’re talking about, but I’m afraid I need some education this time.<\/p>\n

Many thanks if you can assist. <\/p>\n

Respectfully, <\/p>\n

Brian P. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The answer is nothing, of course. I meant Relativity. I should take more time proof reading. In my defense at least I managed to name an important theory. Just the wrong important theory. Evolution is hardly in danger from CERN.<\/p>\n

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Georgetown University suggests reading comes from memorization<\/p>\n

http:\/\/explore.georgetown.edu\/news\/?ID=60788&PageTemplateID=295<\/a><\/p>\n

"WASHINGTON, D.C. \u2014 Skilled readers can recognize words at lightning fast speed when they read because the word has been placed in a visual dictionary of sorts, say Georgetown University Medical Center <http:\/\/gumc.georgetown.edu\/> (GUMC) neuroscientists. The visual dictionary idea rebuts the theory that our brain \u201csounds out\u201d words each time we see them…"<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

And of course this is a repeat of the study done generations ago that caused the educationists to denounce teaching phonics. Of course experienced readers do not \u201csound out\u201d words. Over time they learn words about the same way that Chinese learn to read classical Chinese script, or Egyptians read hieroglyphs, of for that matter, readers of languages with a phonetic alphabet such as the Phoenicians have been reading their languages for over two thousand years. The phonetic revolution made it possible for everyone to learn to read, and to read words that they had never seen before: with a phonetic language you can say words you have never seen written before, so that your \u201creading language\u201d and your \u201cspeaking language\u201d are the same. Over time those who read learn the words, and don\u2019t have to \u201csound them out\u201d, but every now and then they may see a word they haven\u2019t seen in a long time, and they may have to attack it with phonic skills. But the geniuses in the departments of education decided that since mature readers don\u2019t sound out words, there was no point in teaching kids how to do that, thus neatly converting phonetic English into an ideographic language like Chinese or Egyptian hieroglyphics, and setting reading education back by two thousand years. California managed to go from the highest literacy rate to way down below average by forbidding the teaching of phonics in public schools. A generation of teachers grew up unable to teach phonics because they had never learned them.<\/p>\n

The creature who imposed this idiocy on the State has since apologized, and I suppose he was sincere, but I don\u2019t accept his arrogant apology. He was told better at the time.<\/p>\n

You can find out more on this at http:\/\/www.readingtlc.com\/<\/a> which is the web site for my wife\u2019s reading program. It is a systematic phonics program that works, and if you know anyone from age 5 to adult who needs to learn to read English, this program will do the job. It has taught thousands, and in California after they had 20 years in which teaching reading was in effect outlawed by arrogant professors of utter ignorance, it has been damned well needed.<\/p>\n

So I see the drum rolls are starting again?<\/p>\n

So precisely how do science students read polymorphicnitrotoluene and other such words that they have never seen before? Only a damned fool thinks that people sound out all the words they read. But there is no shortage of idiots in education schools. I expected better from Georgetown.<\/p>\n

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gun protection from TSA<\/p>\n

Note that, per the TSA website, having a gun in hard-sided locked luggage doesn’t mean they can’t open it. It just means you have to go watch them do it and give then the key. This will still keep your items from being stolen–the airline never gets the key–but it’s not a magic way to keep the screeners from going through your luggage. (indeed, it’s probably more of a way to *ensure* that they go through it.)=<\/p>\n

M<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Water Does not prevent dehydration<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/health\/2011\/11\/20\/business-leaders-will-reportedly-face-jail-time-for-claiming-water-prevents\/?test=latestnews<\/a><\/p>\n

J<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Not all the dolts are in departments of education.<\/p>\n

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occasional success stories<\/p>\n

there are occasional success stories. For example, the Dallas News reports on the stunningly good math and reading test scores achieved by third-grade pupils at Field Elementary school. There was a minor downside, though. They achieved those high math and reading test scores by devoting essentially all of their effort to teaching these kids math and reading, which of course meant they had to skip science and other subjects almost entirely. Not to worry, though. The kids still got grades in those other subjects. Of course, those grades were faked, sometimes assigned by teachers who\u2019d never even taught the subjects in question. If I had school-age children, I\u2019d do whatever it took to either homeschool them or get them into private schools. I don\u2019t believe public schools\u2013any public schools\u2013can any longer be trusted to educate kids.<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.ttgnet.com\/journal\/<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Some aren\u2019t dolts.<\/p>\n

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Newborn Pentagon DNA database exposed in Supreme Court<\/p>\n

Another tip of the iceberg that may interest the curious:<\/p>\n

<.>In a long running case, a Supreme Court has ruled to limit the use of blood samples collected from newborns by the government.The case has exposed the fact that there is an ongoing semi-covert movement by state and federal governments to claim ownership of every newborn baby\u2019s DNA for the purpose of genetic research without the consent of individual citizens. The Minnesota Court ruled Wednesday that the Minnesota Department of Health is violating the law in storing, using and disseminating newborn screening test results and newborn DNA. Overruling a lower court\u2019s decision, the state Supreme Court found that the samples are \u201cGenetic Information\u201d under the State Genetic Privacy Act, and held that \u201cunless otherwise provided, the Department must have written informed consent to collect, use, store, or disseminate [the blood samples].\u201d<\/>http:\/\/www.infowars.com\/supreme-court-blocks-government-plan-to-claim-ownership-of-dna\/<\/a><\/p>\n

This is one of those "conspiracy theory" issues; look at that it wasn’t a theory after all it’s what happened.  —–<\/p>\n

Most Respectfully,<\/p>\n

Joshua Jordan, KSC<\/p>\n

Percussa Resurgo<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Unexpected bio details, <\/p>\n

Jerry<\/p>\n

Biographical bits have the oddest way of turning up. Not long ago I re-read a lovely book called Queens Die Proudly, a 1943 book written by W L White, the man who wrote They Were Expendable. Like that book, Queens Die Proudly became a movie, the forgettable \u201cAir Force.\u201d Unlike the movie, Queens Die Proudly is fascinating, a look at B-17\u2019s in the Philippines at the beginning of the war, and the American involvement in trying to stop the Japanese in what is now Indonesia. But toward the end is a bit about LBJ, of all people (the excerpt is from page 263 and pp. 266-267):<\/p>\n

\u201cA man doesn\u2019t know what distance means until he flies that end of the world,\u201d said Red, the crew chief. \u201cRemember the time we had to make a forced landing right in the middle of the place?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll never forget,\u201d said Charlie, the bombardier. \u201cIt was about the time of that Buna business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had left Darwin,\u201d said Red, \u201cand were flying across the Australian desert headed for Cloncurry. We had umpty-ump rank aboard, about Sixteen in all\u2014General Royce, General Perrin, General Marquat, and some Australians\u2014Air Marshals they probably were\u2014and also Lyndon Johnson, a big lanky guy from Texas, a real Congressman, only now he was out inspecting this area as a Navy Lieutenant Commander.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, we\u2019re flying along over this wilderness which looks like the rumpled parts of New Mexico or Arizona, heading, we think, for this Cloncurry, only our arrival time goes by, and no Cloncurry. <snip> (p 263)<\/p>\n

\u201c. . . and in about a minute there was quite a bump, but still it was a perfect three-point landing. In four seconds the Major had her rolling smooth. The ground was soft. Twenty-five tons is a lot of bomber, and her wheels began to sink in about six inches. But the Major could sense this, so he gave gas to all four engines to keep her rolling, and taxied her up to high ground hard enough to hold her up.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get out. Pretty soon Australian ranchers begin crawling out of holes in the ground\u2014I don\u2019t know where else they came from\u2014and right away Lieutenant Commander Johnson gets busy. He begins to get acquainted. They tell him where we are and some of them go off to get a truck to take us into town where we can telephone, and more keep coming, and Johnson is shaking hands all around, and he comes back and tells us these are real folks\u2014the best damn folks in the world, except maybe the folks in his own Texas. Pretty soon he knows all their first names, and they\u2019re telling him why there ought to be a high tariff on wool, and there\u2019s no question he swung that county for Johnson before we left. He was in his element. I know he sure swung the Swoose crew. He can carry that precinct any day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cListening to him made us all homesick,\u201d said Frank, <snip> (pp. 266-267)<\/p>\n

I wonder, did any of LBJ\u2019s biographer\u2019s get this bit?<\/p>\n

Ed<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I have never heard that before.<\/p>\n

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World of Warcraft Wealth Survey.<\/p>\n

<http:\/\/xsinthis.net\/2011\/11\/report-world-of-warcraft-wealth-survey\/<\/a>><\/p>\n

Roland Dobbins<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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And yet another beauty from APOD<\/p>\n

The Butterfly Nebula from Hubble<\/p>\n

http:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/ap111113.html<\/a><\/p>\n

This site ( Astronomy Picture of the Day –<\/p>\n

http:\/\/apod.nasa.gov\/apod\/astropix.html<\/a> )<\/p>\n

is well worth bookmarking, and is a hell of a lot better way to start the day than any of the media sites.<\/p>\n

FYI – \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

Paul Gordon ( http:\/\/paulinhouston.blogspot.com\/<\/a> )<\/p>\n

"When faced with a problem you do not understand, <\/p>\n

do any part of it you do understand; then look at it again." <\/p>\n

(Robert A. Heinlein – "The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress") <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Mail 701 Sunday, November 20, 2011 Feeling jaded about the Taj Mahal Dear Jerry Saw your link to the Maya Taj Mahal photo– after four decades of tropical sun and rain it needs a new coat of dayglow lime and orange paint to restore it to Magical Realism’s top ten \u2026 Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mail"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3530\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jerrypournelle.com\/chaosmanor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}