Tuesday, July 07, 2009
PIONEERING ACROSS THE UNIVERSE
There has been some argument over when the first launch into space was - anywhere from some of the V2 tests up to Sputnik - mostly depending on how low you count "space" as.
However there can be no doubt about the first launch that went up there & didn't come straight back down.
On August 27, 1957, astrophysicist Bob Brownlee and other Los Alamos scientists detonated an atom bomb at the bottom of a 500-foot, concrete-lined vertical tunnel drilled in the Nevada desert.
The goal of the test, codenamed Pascal-B, was to see what would happen if a plutonium bomb was accidentally detonated. The expected yield was equivalent to a few tons of TNT. A steel lid, 10 cm thick and weighing several hundred kilograms, was placed directly above the bomb; it was expected that it would be blown off, but nobody knew exactly how fast.
It turned out that the yield of the Pascal-B was closer to 300 tons of TNT; when the explosion vaporized the concrete walls of the shaft, the lid rose on a column of superheated gas and emerged at an unprecedented speed of 56 Km/sec, as confirmed by high-speed cameras and by some calculations made afterwards.
They never found it.
As the article points out escape velocity is 11.2 km/sec. he article suggests that it would have been vapourised on the way up by the atmosphere but I think this assume it went upblunt side up whereas if air pressure pushed it side on the vapourisation would be little more than with with a normal nickel-iron metero & ones of that size to reach Earth.
If so it got up there just over a month before Sputnik on 4th October 1957
Dr Brownlee reports
However there can be no doubt about the first launch that went up there & didn't come straight back down.
On August 27, 1957, astrophysicist Bob Brownlee and other Los Alamos scientists detonated an atom bomb at the bottom of a 500-foot, concrete-lined vertical tunnel drilled in the Nevada desert.
The goal of the test, codenamed Pascal-B, was to see what would happen if a plutonium bomb was accidentally detonated. The expected yield was equivalent to a few tons of TNT. A steel lid, 10 cm thick and weighing several hundred kilograms, was placed directly above the bomb; it was expected that it would be blown off, but nobody knew exactly how fast.
It turned out that the yield of the Pascal-B was closer to 300 tons of TNT; when the explosion vaporized the concrete walls of the shaft, the lid rose on a column of superheated gas and emerged at an unprecedented speed of 56 Km/sec, as confirmed by high-speed cameras and by some calculations made afterwards.
They never found it.
As the article points out escape velocity is 11.2 km/sec. he article suggests that it would have been vapourised on the way up by the atmosphere but I think this assume it went upblunt side up whereas if air pressure pushed it side on the vapourisation would be little more than with with a normal nickel-iron metero & ones of that size to reach Earth.
If so it got up there just over a month before Sputnik on 4th October 1957
Dr Brownlee reports
Ogle: And how fast is it going?"I very much regret that a Google search for the image in that one frame found nothing. I am sure it must still exist somewhere in US government records & would very much like to have been able to put it here. Perhaps sometime in future.
This last question was more of a shout. Bill liked to have a direct answer to each one of his questions.
RRB: "Six times the escape velocity from the earth."
Bill was quite delighted with the answer, for he had never before heard a velocity given in terms of the escape velocity from the earth! There was much laughter, and the legend was now born, for Bill loved to report to anybody who cared to listen about Brownlee's units of velocity. He says the cap would escape the earth. (But of course we did not believe that would ever happen.)
The next obvious decision was made. We'll put a high-speed movie camera looking at the cap, and see if we can measure the departure velocity.
In the event, the cap appeared above the hole in one frame only, so there was no direct velocity measurement. A lower limit could be calculated by considering the time between frames (and I don't remember what that was), but my summary of the situation was that when last seen, it was "going like a bat!!"
Labels: Science/technology, space
Monday, July 06, 2009
CENSORED BY REALCIMATE.ORG
Realclimate is the blog always quoted by alarmists (Monbiot defends his rubbish regularly by quoting them. It's best known name is Michael Mann author of the Hockey stick graph which the IPCC used extensively. It was subsequently proven not merely that it was wrong & incompetent but that Mann had deliberately hidden the method of calculation which he should have known were false. One can see why it is the top alarmist site then. Neither my comments or the reply contain anything as amusing as a former editor of Nature saying the government's chief science advisor should be inn kindergarten as happened in the Deltoid discussion but the degree to which their "debate" depends on insulting is obvious:
149 - You say this report was – apparently “suppressed” – by the EPA & that it – supposedly – undermines what the EPA case.
Is there any actual doubt that the EPA did suppress it & that it, despite it coming from EPA personnel who clearly weren’t on message to what was required, not only undermined the EPA claims but flatly disagreed with them?
[Response: The Endangerment finding was open for public comment for months, no comments were 'suppressed' and Carlin could easily have put in his paper there. Instead he wanted it to be the official submission from his unit (NCEE) to the process which was not approved by his boss. How is that suppression? Who has an automatic right to get their institution to give their non-official musings on any subject they care to write about an imprimatur? No-one I know. But in any case, the real issue is whether there is any credible science in the document. There isn't, and so whether the NCEE was or was not embarrassed to be associated with this is not really my concern as a scientist. - gavin]
As for calling Friends of Science an “a astroturf anti-climate science lobbying group” – by “astroturf” do you mean it involves only a small number of people who all work full time for some organisation (government or industry) because if so Realclimate is astroturf. he “anti-climate science” line is even stranger. Science is a process of comparing differing theories so if climate science is a genuine science it must welcome examination. The only way it would be possible for Mr Gregory to be “anti-climate science” is if he claims the subject doesn’t exist i.e. that this planet has no atmosphere & thus no climate which can possibly be scientifically examined. If this is what you are really claiming that would indeed be extraordinary.
[Response: I might suggest that Gregory's and the FoS's connection to the practice of true science is somewhat ambiguous.... - gavin]
That Carlin & Davidson’s conclusions reflect those Friends of Science hold is not, obviously a reasonable criticism. All science is based on standing on others shoulders & it is no more a criticism of what they say than it is of Realclimate to say appear to be directly that same as the IPCC’s. Indeed the opposite is true & there actually is some limited value in being able to show that your views hold a consensus position.
Proper criticism in science involves disputing the facts & the closest you come to that is saying they show a “complete lack of appreciation of the importance of natural variability on short time scales” which actually isn’t disputing facts but merely stating that the 11 years of cooling isn’t enough to count. If that is your position presumably the 18 years from 1980 to 1998 when we had warming isn’t enough to count either. By your own argument the whole alarmist cause has, from the start, been guilty of exactly the fault you complain of except magnified since alarmists take this short period as evidence of a change unparalleled in human history, likely to make Antarctica the only habitable continent & justifying our destruction of most of the world economy (as we can all see) whereas sceptics are merely sceptical of such claims.
[Response: "Destruction of most of the world economy" - and you are accusing me of being alarmist for pointing out that climate sensitivity is not negligible? Funny that. - gavin]
CENSORED REPLY:
Re the responses to my post 149:
1 - You seem to now be disputing not whether the the report was suppressed but merely asking me to say why the author should think his bosses shouldn’t have done so. The answer is not because the author has right to be heard but that the EPA, as a body funded by the taxpayer, has a duty to put up all the evidence not merely what supports their programme. This should also be the self enforcing duty of all scientists.
2 - You might indeed “that Gregory’s and the FoS’s connection to the practice of true science is somewhat ambiguous” & I might make a similar suggestion about the Hockey Stick theory & Realclimate but if one does so without producing evidence one is simply dropping to the level of schoolyard insults. What exactly is your evidence that all those involved in Friends of Science, including Mr McKittrick, have no good relationship with science?
3 - Alarmists are calling for the ending of around 80% of combustion on the planet. There is a strong correlation between economic capacity & power usage & thus those who don’t publicly support a massive extension of nuclear power (admittedly there are a handful who do) are in effect calling for the destruction of around 80% of the world economy. This would indeed be “most” of the world economy & before doing so we should have undisputable evidence that warming, on a catastrophic scale such as would render “Antarctica the only habitable continent” is actually happening. There is a theory & there are computer models (ie a theory calculated on a computer) but where is the evidence of catastrophic warming?------------------------------
This was hardly a surprise since I have been censored by alarmists on Deltoid & the aptly named Brave New Climate but it does seem enough to establish a statistical conclusion - that alarmists are almost wholly unable to sustain their claims without censorship & so opposed to the principle of science to be willing to use it in scientific discussion, after lies & personal vituperation have failed them.
Gavin who put up the first answers will be Gavin Schmidt who has clearly learnt by his experience debating Michael Crichton in New York, that honest debate cannot serve the alarmist's cause.
If any reader knows of a single eco-fascist or alarmist site, anywhere in the world, which actually deals with science & doesn't believe in censorship I hope you will let me know because I find it difficult to believe that there isn't somebody both competent & honest selling this.
149 - You say this report was – apparently “suppressed” – by the EPA & that it – supposedly – undermines what the EPA case.
Is there any actual doubt that the EPA did suppress it & that it, despite it coming from EPA personnel who clearly weren’t on message to what was required, not only undermined the EPA claims but flatly disagreed with them?
[Response: The Endangerment finding was open for public comment for months, no comments were 'suppressed' and Carlin could easily have put in his paper there. Instead he wanted it to be the official submission from his unit (NCEE) to the process which was not approved by his boss. How is that suppression? Who has an automatic right to get their institution to give their non-official musings on any subject they care to write about an imprimatur? No-one I know. But in any case, the real issue is whether there is any credible science in the document. There isn't, and so whether the NCEE was or was not embarrassed to be associated with this is not really my concern as a scientist. - gavin]
As for calling Friends of Science an “a astroturf anti-climate science lobbying group” – by “astroturf” do you mean it involves only a small number of people who all work full time for some organisation (government or industry) because if so Realclimate is astroturf. he “anti-climate science” line is even stranger. Science is a process of comparing differing theories so if climate science is a genuine science it must welcome examination. The only way it would be possible for Mr Gregory to be “anti-climate science” is if he claims the subject doesn’t exist i.e. that this planet has no atmosphere & thus no climate which can possibly be scientifically examined. If this is what you are really claiming that would indeed be extraordinary.
[Response: I might suggest that Gregory's and the FoS's connection to the practice of true science is somewhat ambiguous.... - gavin]
That Carlin & Davidson’s conclusions reflect those Friends of Science hold is not, obviously a reasonable criticism. All science is based on standing on others shoulders & it is no more a criticism of what they say than it is of Realclimate to say appear to be directly that same as the IPCC’s. Indeed the opposite is true & there actually is some limited value in being able to show that your views hold a consensus position.
Proper criticism in science involves disputing the facts & the closest you come to that is saying they show a “complete lack of appreciation of the importance of natural variability on short time scales” which actually isn’t disputing facts but merely stating that the 11 years of cooling isn’t enough to count. If that is your position presumably the 18 years from 1980 to 1998 when we had warming isn’t enough to count either. By your own argument the whole alarmist cause has, from the start, been guilty of exactly the fault you complain of except magnified since alarmists take this short period as evidence of a change unparalleled in human history, likely to make Antarctica the only habitable continent & justifying our destruction of most of the world economy (as we can all see) whereas sceptics are merely sceptical of such claims.
[Response: "Destruction of most of the world economy" - and you are accusing me of being alarmist for pointing out that climate sensitivity is not negligible? Funny that. - gavin]
CENSORED REPLY:
Re the responses to my post 149:
1 - You seem to now be disputing not whether the the report was suppressed but merely asking me to say why the author should think his bosses shouldn’t have done so. The answer is not because the author has right to be heard but that the EPA, as a body funded by the taxpayer, has a duty to put up all the evidence not merely what supports their programme. This should also be the self enforcing duty of all scientists.
2 - You might indeed “that Gregory’s and the FoS’s connection to the practice of true science is somewhat ambiguous” & I might make a similar suggestion about the Hockey Stick theory & Realclimate but if one does so without producing evidence one is simply dropping to the level of schoolyard insults. What exactly is your evidence that all those involved in Friends of Science, including Mr McKittrick, have no good relationship with science?
3 - Alarmists are calling for the ending of around 80% of combustion on the planet. There is a strong correlation between economic capacity & power usage & thus those who don’t publicly support a massive extension of nuclear power (admittedly there are a handful who do) are in effect calling for the destruction of around 80% of the world economy. This would indeed be “most” of the world economy & before doing so we should have undisputable evidence that warming, on a catastrophic scale such as would render “Antarctica the only habitable continent” is actually happening. There is a theory & there are computer models (ie a theory calculated on a computer) but where is the evidence of catastrophic warming?------------------------------
This was hardly a surprise since I have been censored by alarmists on Deltoid & the aptly named Brave New Climate but it does seem enough to establish a statistical conclusion - that alarmists are almost wholly unable to sustain their claims without censorship & so opposed to the principle of science to be willing to use it in scientific discussion, after lies & personal vituperation have failed them.
Gavin who put up the first answers will be Gavin Schmidt who has clearly learnt by his experience debating Michael Crichton in New York, that honest debate cannot serve the alarmist's cause.
If any reader knows of a single eco-fascist or alarmist site, anywhere in the world, which actually deals with science & doesn't believe in censorship I hope you will let me know because I find it difficult to believe that there isn't somebody both competent & honest selling this.
Sunday, July 05, 2009
SARAH PALIN GIVES UP GOVERNING ALASKA EARLY
Sarah Palin's resignation statement:
Life is too short to compromise time and resources… it may be tempting and more comfortable to just keep your head down, plod along, and appease those who demand: “Sit down and shut up”, but that’s the worthless, easy path; that’s a quitter’s way out. And a problem in our country today is apathy. It would be apathetic to just hunker down and “go with the flow”.
Nah, only dead fish “go with the flow”.
No. Productive, fulfilled people determine where to put their efforts, choosing to wisely utilize precious time… to BUILD UP.
And there is such a need to BUILD up and FIGHT for our state and our country. I choose to FIGHT for it! And I’ll work hard for others who still believe in free enterprise and smaller government; strong national security for our country and support for our troops; energy independence; and for those who will protect freedom and equality and LIFE… I’ll work for and campaign for those PROUD to be American, and those who are INSPIRED by our ideals and won’t deride them.
I WILL support others who seek to serve, in or out of office, for the RIGHT reasons, and I don’t care what party they’re in or no party at all. Inside Alaska – or Outside Alaska.
But I won’t do it from the Governor’s desk.
I’ve never believed that I, nor anyone else, needs a title to do this - to make a difference… to HELP people. So I choose, for my State and my family, more “freedom” to progress, all the way around… so that Alaska may progress… I will not seek re-election as Governor.
And so as I thought about this announcement that I wouldn’t run for re-election and what it means for Alaska, I thought about how much fun some governors have as lame ducks… travel around the state, to the Lower 48 (maybe), overseas on international trade – as so many politicians do. And then I thought – that’s what’s wrong – many just accept that lame duck status, hit the road, draw the paycheck, and “milk it”. I’m not putting Alaska through that – I promised efficiencies and effectiveness! ? That’s not how I am wired. I am not wired to operate under the same old “politics as usual.” I promised that four years ago – and I meant it...
My choice is to take a stand and effect change ... we know we can effect positive change outside government at this moment in time, on another scale, and actually make a difference for our priorities – and so we will, for Alaskans and for Americans.
Let me go back to a comfortable analogy for me – sports… basketball. I use it because you’re naïve if you don’t see the national full-court press picking away right now: A good point guard drives through a full court press, protecting the ball, keeping her eye on the basket… and she knows exactly when to pass the ball so that the team can WIN. And I’m doing that – keeping our eye on the ball that represents sound priorities – smaller government, energy independence, national security, freedom! And I know when it’s time to pass the ball – for victory.
... we can ALL learn from our selfless Troops… they’re bold, they don’t give up, they take a stand and know that LIFE is short so they choose to NOT waste time. They choose to be productive and to serve something greater than SELF… Now, despite this, I don’t want any Alaskan dissuaded from entering politics after seeing this REAL “climate change” that began in August… no, we NEED hardworking, average Americans fighting for what’s right! And I will support you because we need YOU and YOU can effect change, and I can too on the outside.
We need those who will respect our Constitution where government’s supposed to serve from the BOTTOM UP, not move toward this TOP DOWN big government take-over… but rather, will be protectors of individual rights - who also have enough common sense to acknowledge when conditions have drastically changed and are willing to call an audible and pass the ball when it’s time so the team can win! And that is what I’m doing!
Remember Alaska… America is now, more than ever, looking North to the Future....
In the words of General MacArthur said, “We are not retreating. We are advancing in another direction.”
##############################
Well despite all the rubbish from the MSM (in Britain our fascist media talks about her with the sort of venom the NYT would use if the locals didn't know anything about her) that is not a woman giving up her chance to run for President that is a woman saying she has done the job in Alaska & she is going for broke.
Here are 3 comments I put on Belmont Club before I had read the full statement:
1 - Sounds to me that the “positive change outside government” remark does indeed mean establishing a movement & probably a think tank for new ideas. If so she is quite right to decide that she would not serve Alaska well by keeping the paycheck for that job. However it takes somebody with both integrity & guts to do it.
I think she does have to start campaigning early because with the media so uniformly hating her she has a much bigger wall to break through than other candidates - however once she has got through it & proven that (A) she has ideas that will work & (B) the MSM are scum who will tell any lie about her, then she is essentially fireproof against anything they throw.
I was very impressed when she said that a McCain/Palin Presidency would start building nuclear plants in January” & have no doubt that if that had been done & none of Obama’s silly spend & regulate bills gone through America would now be out of recession.
I expect the building of a genuine programme of new ideas, perhaps in combination with Newt, together with a running commentary on what Obama should have done instead of what he does. I also expect the building of a campaigning network, probably heavily using the blogsphere. I expect a programme containing a commitment to inexpensive nuclear power & relatively balanced budgets & hope for commitment to major cuts in bureaucracy (perhaps an Amendment allowing regulation to be challenged purely on the grounds that their cost is disproportionate to any benefit), a commitment to encouraging economic growth by the methods used in the fastest growing economies (low business taxes & economic freedom), a rational examination of evidence on global warming & substantial ongoing funding for an X-Prize Foundation.
In which case in 2012 she would walk it & deserve to.
....................
2 - One sign of how politically savvy she is is her looks. Ok as a cheerleader she was beautiful & she is still very good looking however she hasn’t let it hold her back. Beauty is not an advantage in politics because it makes it more difficult for people to empathise & this applies even moreso to women, particularly for the female vote.
So what is her most prominent feature - the one thing you could recognise in any cartoon?
The glasses. Most women would choose contact lenses & be thought pretty but not to be taken seriously. She went for glasses & not just any glasses but big, black, intelligent looking, intimidating glasses.
That woman is smart & self confident & competent & determined & doesn’t think the world owes her a living (as “leftist wimmen” usually do) & wants to do something rather than to be something. If any American politician can save western civilisation it is her
.................
3 - Regarding mentions of the possibility of Palin getting an Oprah like TV slot. This need not be necessary. Remember the unknown British politician, Danial Hannan who got millions of hits when he put his speech to Gordon Brown about how incompetent he was on Facebook
Imagine Palin doing that - weekly. She can say anything she wants, the advertising will pay for the rest of her campaign, she will get 10s of millions of viewers almost all supporters & even the NYT couldn’t ignore it (they famously refused an op-ed piece from McCain but not Obama).
..................
Having read her words & highlighted the bits I thought particularly important I find not only my expectations but most of my hopes justified. Note the joke about "real" global warming :-) which is rather further than she has gone before. The only thing not covered is the X-Prize Foundation which is hardly a a major issue in Alaska. She has also implied that she will be working to support favoured candidates in the 2011 Congress race, something not practical if she had remained Governor. And not necessarily all Republicans which would help getting swing votes in the Presidential race.
Talking of X-Prizes brings me to Newt Gingrich who is in favour of such prizes & has recently proven the most effective Republican in Congress. Newt has ideas, by the bucketload. He may well also be setting his cap at the White house in 2012 but I think they are both people who are more interested in achieving things than in having job titles. He certainly has Washington experience she lacks, though holding any sort of top job, as she has, is a sort of experience you can only get one way.
If they were to have an agreed programme running for President & Vice-President I almost don't think it would matter who had the top job (& after all that is what primaries are for).
Labels: global warming, International politics
Saturday, July 04, 2009
FISK OF THE RUN OF ANTI-NUCLEAR ARGUMENTS
From comments on Danial Hannan's blog we have this quick summary of all the eco-fascist claims against nuclear. I am putting a quick fisk here in bold because the Telegraph seems to have screwed up comment registration (at least it isn't just me somebody else on there mentions it):
Half of the EU doesn’t want nuclear plants. Their choice, literally no reason it should dictate ours The EU would need hundreds of them and it takes a decade to build just one The implication that it would thus take hundreds of decades to build them is wrong for the same reason that it doesn't take 5 hours to cook 100 eggs. In any case it does not take a decade to build a reactor - Westinghouse say they can do it in 3 years, if it first takes 7 years to let government agree to it that is not inherent & an argument for having reducing the amount of government eco-regulatory parasitism. Not only do they cost a fortune to build they also cost a fortune to take down. No true - the first reactor at Shippingport cost $98 million to decommission & modern ones are built specifically to dismantle more easily. Again we see the eco-crowd vastly inflating regulatory costs & then complaining that regulatory costs are so high The used fuel has to be stored for xthousand years. Not true - reactor waste, precisely because it is highly radioactive burns down to safe levels in 50 years & to less radioactive than the ore it was mined from in 2-3 centuries. The cost of the fuel is going up even faster than oil and gas. So what - uranium cost is a tiny part of nuclear cost, indeed this is why the price is volatile The uranium costs a lot of energy/pollution to extract and process Not true - if it cost as much as coal to extract it would cost as much as coal - once again we see the eco-fascists ignoring the price system & making assertions based firmly in mid air. and isn’t durable either. Obviously not true - uranium has been here since the Earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago - how much more "durable" is required The safety is questionable. Not true. Nuclear has the best safety record of any power system - more people have died falling of windmills that in nuclear power though nuclear generates hundreds of times as much power Nuclear power favours monopolies. Not true - organisational structure depends on how things are organised not on the technology Nuclear power requires lots of expensive engineers and support staff. Staff, & other, costs are far lower per kwh power produced - is it supposed to be a fault that it can produce a lot of power Nuclear power can’t live with renewables because you can’t turn it on/off at will. Wholly untrue - nuclear is a very good match with hydro precisely because you the latter is so flexible which is why France is 80% nuclear & 20% hydro. What the idiot means is not renewables but that it doesn't fit with windmills but since they can't be switched on when required windmills "can't live with" windmills - in fact all this assertion shows is that windmills are completely useless because they can't produce ANY baseload power but only occasional power which, to be used at all, requires genuine generators of all sorts have to be turned off Builders of nuclear plants systematically ask for priority to the net because otherwise they would go bust. The truth is the exact opposite. Builders of nuclear plants systematically offer the cheapest power meaning that a sanely run grid would naturally choose them as first option - Windmillers demand & being politically connected, get priority to the net though they produce the most expensive power. This is what the Renewables Obligation means Enough reasons? Not really but clearly the best the eco movement can do.
For the truth on the subject see Professor John McCarthy's site
Anybody wanting to know about nuclear or indeed the sustainability of progress generally should visit McCarthy's site. As one of the world's leading experts on artificial intelligence his opinions are clearly not those of a fool, which is a change from most people we see on TV lecturing on the subject.
Half of the EU doesn’t want nuclear plants. Their choice, literally no reason it should dictate ours The EU would need hundreds of them and it takes a decade to build just one The implication that it would thus take hundreds of decades to build them is wrong for the same reason that it doesn't take 5 hours to cook 100 eggs. In any case it does not take a decade to build a reactor - Westinghouse say they can do it in 3 years, if it first takes 7 years to let government agree to it that is not inherent & an argument for having reducing the amount of government eco-regulatory parasitism. Not only do they cost a fortune to build they also cost a fortune to take down. No true - the first reactor at Shippingport cost $98 million to decommission & modern ones are built specifically to dismantle more easily. Again we see the eco-crowd vastly inflating regulatory costs & then complaining that regulatory costs are so high The used fuel has to be stored for xthousand years. Not true - reactor waste, precisely because it is highly radioactive burns down to safe levels in 50 years & to less radioactive than the ore it was mined from in 2-3 centuries. The cost of the fuel is going up even faster than oil and gas. So what - uranium cost is a tiny part of nuclear cost, indeed this is why the price is volatile The uranium costs a lot of energy/pollution to extract and process Not true - if it cost as much as coal to extract it would cost as much as coal - once again we see the eco-fascists ignoring the price system & making assertions based firmly in mid air. and isn’t durable either. Obviously not true - uranium has been here since the Earth was formed 4.5 billion years ago - how much more "durable" is required The safety is questionable. Not true. Nuclear has the best safety record of any power system - more people have died falling of windmills that in nuclear power though nuclear generates hundreds of times as much power Nuclear power favours monopolies. Not true - organisational structure depends on how things are organised not on the technology Nuclear power requires lots of expensive engineers and support staff. Staff, & other, costs are far lower per kwh power produced - is it supposed to be a fault that it can produce a lot of power Nuclear power can’t live with renewables because you can’t turn it on/off at will. Wholly untrue - nuclear is a very good match with hydro precisely because you the latter is so flexible which is why France is 80% nuclear & 20% hydro. What the idiot means is not renewables but that it doesn't fit with windmills but since they can't be switched on when required windmills "can't live with" windmills - in fact all this assertion shows is that windmills are completely useless because they can't produce ANY baseload power but only occasional power which, to be used at all, requires genuine generators of all sorts have to be turned off Builders of nuclear plants systematically ask for priority to the net because otherwise they would go bust. The truth is the exact opposite. Builders of nuclear plants systematically offer the cheapest power meaning that a sanely run grid would naturally choose them as first option - Windmillers demand & being politically connected, get priority to the net though they produce the most expensive power. This is what the Renewables Obligation means Enough reasons? Not really but clearly the best the eco movement can do.
For the truth on the subject see Professor John McCarthy's site
Anybody wanting to know about nuclear or indeed the sustainability of progress generally should visit McCarthy's site. As one of the world's leading experts on artificial intelligence his opinions are clearly not those of a fool, which is a change from most people we see on TV lecturing on the subject.
Labels: eco-fascism, nuclear
Friday, July 03, 2009
SOME MORE HL MENCKEN
A few choice ones culled from this
Progress, then, as I see it, is to be measured by the accuracy of man's knowledge of nature's forces. If you examine this sentence carefully you will observe that I conceive progress as a sort of process of disillusion. Man gets ahead, in other words, by discarding the theory of to-day for the fact of to-morrow.
...women, as a sex, are shrewd, resourceful, and acute; but the very fact that they are always concerned with imminent problems and that, in consequence, they are unaccustomed to dealing with the larger riddles of life, makes their mental attitude essentially petty. ....
...the great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom respectable. No virtuous man - that is, virtuous in the Y.M.C.A. sense - has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading...
The formula of the argument is simple and familiar: to dispose of a problem all that is necessary is to deny that it exists.
...one is always most bitter, not toward the author of one's wrongs, but toward the victim of one's wrongs.
idealism is not a passion in America, but a trade
All [of the American's] foreign wars have been fought with foes either too weak to resist them or too heavily engaged elsewhere to make more than a half-hearted attempt. The combats with Mexico and Spain were not wars; they were simply lynchings. still true if we remember the cold war didn't involve fighting Russians. Britain used this strategy ubefore we got into WW1
Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed.
The average man doesn't want to be free. He wants to be safe.
The natural tendency of every government is to grow steadily worse - that is, to grow more satisfactory to those who constitute it and less satisfactory to those who support it. this, with more explanation is what Pournelle's Iron Law says
There were jails, of course, from the earliest times, but they were used mainly to detain persons accused of crime until their guilt could be determined. Once they were found guilty they were not commonly returned to durance, but punished forthwith, either by death, by exile, by fine, or by some form of corporal suffering. Prisons were set up by philanthropists eager to do away with these ancient cruelties, but what they mainly accomplished was to make cruelty more facile. The very fact that they were regarded as humane suggested longer and longer sentences, and so today, at least in the United States, it is common for men to be locked up for years for crimes which, in a more innocent day, would have been punished by some such triviality as branding on the hand, a few hours in the pillory, a good cowhiding, or the loss of an ear.
The volume of mail that comes in to a magazine or a newspaper or a radio station is no index of anything, except that you happen to attract a lot of idiots, because most people that write letters to newspapers are fools. Intelligent people seldom do it - they do it sometimes, but not often. I used to, in my days of running a column - I welcomed the letters that came in, and, in fact, edited them. I was in charge of the letter column, and always let anyone in who denounced me violently get in - because I believe that people like to read abuse.
The way for newspapers to meet the competition of radio and television is simply to get out better papers
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
Of all the human qualities, the one I admire the most is competence. A tailor who is really able to cut and fit a coat seems to me an admirable man, and by the same token a university professor who knows little or nothing of the thing he presumes to teach seems to me to be a fraud and a rascal
I believe that any man or woman who, for a period of say five years, has earned his or her living in some lawful and useful occupation, without any recourse to public assistance, should be allowed to vote and that no one else should be allowed to vote.
The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic.
There is, indeed, no genuine disposition among American public officials, or indeed among public officials anywhere, to reduce public expenses. As I have pointed out in this place a hundred times, they always try to lay on at least $2 every time they "save" $1.
...every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods
I believe that the public likes criticism only in so far as it is a good show, which means only in so far as it is bellicose. The crowd is always with the prosecution. Hence, when I have to praise a writer, I usually do it by attacking his enemies. And when I say the crowd I mean all men. My own crowd is very small and probably somewhat superior, but it likes rough-house just as much as a crown around a bulletin-board.
Economic independence is the foundation of the only sort of freedom worth a damn.
The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who loves his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.
the great masses of men, even in this inspired republic, are precisely where the mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant, they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are ignoble. They know little if anything that is worth knowing, and there is not the slightest sign of a natural desire among them to increase their knowledge.
Every step in human progress, from the first feeble stirrings in the abyss of time, has been opposed by the great majority of men.
Progress, then, as I see it, is to be measured by the accuracy of man's knowledge of nature's forces. If you examine this sentence carefully you will observe that I conceive progress as a sort of process of disillusion. Man gets ahead, in other words, by discarding the theory of to-day for the fact of to-morrow.
...women, as a sex, are shrewd, resourceful, and acute; but the very fact that they are always concerned with imminent problems and that, in consequence, they are unaccustomed to dealing with the larger riddles of life, makes their mental attitude essentially petty. ....
...the great artists of the world are never Puritans, and seldom respectable. No virtuous man - that is, virtuous in the Y.M.C.A. sense - has ever painted a picture worth looking at, or written a symphony worth hearing, or a book worth reading...
The formula of the argument is simple and familiar: to dispose of a problem all that is necessary is to deny that it exists.
...one is always most bitter, not toward the author of one's wrongs, but toward the victim of one's wrongs.
idealism is not a passion in America, but a trade
All [of the American's] foreign wars have been fought with foes either too weak to resist them or too heavily engaged elsewhere to make more than a half-hearted attempt. The combats with Mexico and Spain were not wars; they were simply lynchings. still true if we remember the cold war didn't involve fighting Russians. Britain used this strategy ubefore we got into WW1
Nine times out of ten, in the arts as in life, there is no truth to be discovered; there is only error to be exposed.
The average man doesn't want to be free. He wants to be safe.
The natural tendency of every government is to grow steadily worse - that is, to grow more satisfactory to those who constitute it and less satisfactory to those who support it. this, with more explanation is what Pournelle's Iron Law says
There were jails, of course, from the earliest times, but they were used mainly to detain persons accused of crime until their guilt could be determined. Once they were found guilty they were not commonly returned to durance, but punished forthwith, either by death, by exile, by fine, or by some form of corporal suffering. Prisons were set up by philanthropists eager to do away with these ancient cruelties, but what they mainly accomplished was to make cruelty more facile. The very fact that they were regarded as humane suggested longer and longer sentences, and so today, at least in the United States, it is common for men to be locked up for years for crimes which, in a more innocent day, would have been punished by some such triviality as branding on the hand, a few hours in the pillory, a good cowhiding, or the loss of an ear.
The volume of mail that comes in to a magazine or a newspaper or a radio station is no index of anything, except that you happen to attract a lot of idiots, because most people that write letters to newspapers are fools. Intelligent people seldom do it - they do it sometimes, but not often. I used to, in my days of running a column - I welcomed the letters that came in, and, in fact, edited them. I was in charge of the letter column, and always let anyone in who denounced me violently get in - because I believe that people like to read abuse.
The way for newspapers to meet the competition of radio and television is simply to get out better papers
We must respect the other fellow's religion, but only in the sense and to the extent that we respect his theory that his wife is beautiful and his children smart.
Of all the human qualities, the one I admire the most is competence. A tailor who is really able to cut and fit a coat seems to me an admirable man, and by the same token a university professor who knows little or nothing of the thing he presumes to teach seems to me to be a fraud and a rascal
I believe that any man or woman who, for a period of say five years, has earned his or her living in some lawful and useful occupation, without any recourse to public assistance, should be allowed to vote and that no one else should be allowed to vote.
The kind of man who wants the government to adopt and enforce his ideas is always the kind of man whose ideas are idiotic.
There is, indeed, no genuine disposition among American public officials, or indeed among public officials anywhere, to reduce public expenses. As I have pointed out in this place a hundred times, they always try to lay on at least $2 every time they "save" $1.
...every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods
I believe that the public likes criticism only in so far as it is a good show, which means only in so far as it is bellicose. The crowd is always with the prosecution. Hence, when I have to praise a writer, I usually do it by attacking his enemies. And when I say the crowd I mean all men. My own crowd is very small and probably somewhat superior, but it likes rough-house just as much as a crown around a bulletin-board.
Economic independence is the foundation of the only sort of freedom worth a damn.
The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naive and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who loves his country more than the rest of us, and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen turning to crime; he is a good citizen driven to despair.
the great masses of men, even in this inspired republic, are precisely where the mob was at the dawn of history. They are ignorant, they are dishonest, they are cowardly, they are ignoble. They know little if anything that is worth knowing, and there is not the slightest sign of a natural desire among them to increase their knowledge.
Every step in human progress, from the first feeble stirrings in the abyss of time, has been opposed by the great majority of men.
Thursday, July 02, 2009
IN GOD'S IMAGE - DA VINCI's TURIN SHROUD
Last night Channel 5 had a remarkable programme about the Turin Shroud which produced the theory that the Turin Shroud had been produced by Leonardo da Vinci. Now when I saw the trailer for this I doubted it for the same reason I find it statistically unlikely that Jack the Ripper was the Prince Regent or that Oedipus really was the long lost son of Lais.
However I found the case convincing. Leonardo really had been interested in the Camera Obscura, he really had an amazing knowledge of anatomy for the time, he really had experimented with chemicals like silver sulphate & the number of people in Renaissance Europe who could say all that could be counted on 1 thumb. On top of that there was evidence that he had been interested in how a hand with a nail though it would be & the dimensions of the head fit perfectly with his perfect head & not least that if it wasn't created miraculously it must have been done by a really great artist & with technique not known before the Renaissance.
That it was inspiring art is shown by the fact that before then Jesus had been depicted in any number of ways but now he is always the long haired beardy pictured in the Shroud.
American artist Lillian Schwartz, a graphic consultant at the School of Visual Arts in New York who came to prominence in the 1980s when she matched the face of the Mona Lisa to a Leonardo self-portrait, used computer scans to show that the face on the Shroud has the same dimensions to that of da Vinci.
“It matched. I'm excited about this,” she said. “There is no doubt in my mind that the proportions that Leonardo wrote about were used in creating this Shroud's face.”
The claims is made in a Channel Five documentary, to be shown on Wednesday night, that describes how da Vinci could have scorched his facial features on to the linen of the Shroud using a sculpture of his face and a camera obscura – an early photographic device.
The programme says the fabric could have been hung over a frame in a blacked-out room and coated it with silver sulphate, a substance readily available in 15th century Italy which would have made it light-sensitive.
When the sun's rays passed through a lens in one of the walls, da Vinci’s facial shape would have been projected on to the material, creating a permanent image.
Lynn Picknett, a Shroud researcher and author, said: “The faker of the shroud had to be a heretic, someone with no fear of faking Jesus’ holy redemptive blood.
“He had to have a grasp of anatomy and he had to have at his fingertips a technology which would completely fool everyone until the 20th century.
"He had a hunger to leave something for the future, to make his mark for the future, not just for the sake of art or science but for his ego."
Art historian Professor Nicholas Allen, of Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University in South Africa, has called for more tests on the Shroud for the presence of silver sulphate, which causes a reaction with the sun's UV rays.
He said: "If you look at the Shroud of Turin as it appears to the naked eye, you see a negative image of a human being, and if you take a photograph of that you produce a positive image of that human being, which means the shroud is acting as a negative.
"That in itself is a very good clue that it was made photographically."
Radiocarbon dating in 1988 showed the cloth was made between 1260 and 1390.
The programme explains the theory that da Vinci's forgery was commissioned to replace an earlier version that was exposed as a poor fake, which had been bought by the powerful Savoy family in 1453 only to disappear for 50 years. When it returned to public view, it was hailed as a genuine relic, and experts say it was actually the artist's convincing replica.
American Professor Larissa Tracy, of Longwood University in Virginia, told the programme: "Da Vinci had the necessary skills. He knew enough about anatomy and about the physical muscular structure of the body. Da Vinci had all the skills to create an image like the shroud. If anybody had the capacity to work with camera obscura or early photographic technique, it was Leonardo Da Vinci."
=================================
I find this wonderful. If art is the process of inspiring awe & empathy (Heinlein somewhere) the Crucifixion of the Son of God is about the best possible subject for it. And Leonardo produced the best possible way of evoking it. It is a work of art which embraces so many fields, which is a unique technology, whose achievement has transcended the importance of any other non-functional piece of art in the history of humanity.
Compared to this the Mona Lisa is just a painting.
I will not quite say it would not be greater if it had turned out to be the real thing - but not that far short. Certainly it is no more a "fake" than Faberge's eggs are fake eggs.
It also shows that great art should push the envelope of human experience & that science by definition does so. Modern art is so crap because having disconnected with science it can do nothing original & is reduced to Damien Hurst flogging bits of embalmed shark for novelty. LEONARDO WAS A GREAT ARTIST BECAUSE HE WAS A GREAT SCIENTIST.
And then the magnificent arrogant bastard put his own face on it & persuaded the post Renaissance world it is the face of God.
Labels: Science/technology
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
WARMING SCEPTICISM DISCUSSED, FAKECHARITIES NOT - SCOTSMAN LETTER
I have the lead letter in the Scotsman today which is pleasing, particularly since a shorter letter in the Herald wasn't selected. The major theme of the original letter was that "charities" campaigning for the government decision to ban fire were in fact, significantly government funded. The minor theme was that we don't actually have any warming currently, which hopefully will cause splutterings in reply. However the major theme has been edited out. I have highlighted the bits the paper didn't print:
Once again (Friday then Tuesday) we see the leading letter about the Scottish MSP's literally insane decision to cut Scotland's use of fire by 42% & GNP by a probably greater amount, is supportive. All the others are opposed. Personally I would have thought a letter from Jim Sillars, with its very appropriate description of the MSPs behaviour as a "collapse of reason" would have had greater news value than one from Dr Johnson but that is just my opinion.
Dr Johnson is correct to say that 1998 was warmer than 2000, though I don't see how this strengthens alarmist claims.. He is certainly correct to say that alarmists now contend that this was unusual because of El Nino but they said the exact opposite at the time. In any case he is wrong to say 1998 was the warmest in recent times. Best evidence is that 1933 was. Stephen McIntyre examined the previous American figures which had also said 1998 & found them to be counter-factual in many cases. The US authorities ultimately acknowledged & corrected this. For unknown reasons this got little media coverage. The US figures were the most complete & widespread but for unknown reasons the British Met Office have refused to release details that would allow a similar check of their figures so we must rely on the best available.
So after 76 years of "catastrophic warming" it is cooler. Of course much of history has been warmer than even 1933. HL Mencken once said "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary" & the facts show that "catastrophic warming" is yet another "hobgoblin" being pushed by power drunk politicians with absolutely no interest whatsoever in the wellbeing of their constituents or even in the survival of western civilisation.
Regarding the leading letter on Friday which came from a prominent charity - That charity was, coincidentally, one of 9 I have previously mentioned on my blog as being both major sponsors of the conference of a prominent political party & heavily dependent (between 10% & 100%) on government money. This includes not only direct government grants but also grants from quangos, councils, lottery funding & the purchase of the charity's publications, courses, training & advice. 11 of their other sponsors were government departments, quangos, government employee unions & an industry entirely dependent on government subsidy. Such organisations described, perhaps unkindly, by the conspiracy minded blogsphere as "fakecharities" are exercising an increasing degree of political & social influence. Indeed it seems hardly a day goes by without the government funded BBC highlighting a report from some such organisation. By the most statistically surprising of coincidences I cannot remember a single one of these which has called for less government spending, cutting quangos, fewer government employees or generally less nanny statism.
I suggest to avoid accusations of not being transparent, authors of letters for publication, or indeed press releases for news features, should contain a mention of such financial relationships. Scotland's political culture would be much very much the better for it.
Now fair enough - even edited it is a relatively long letter & I have no reason for complaint. They let me say every MSP is "insane" (even if they edited out "literally"). Also I willingly admit that the editing has left a very hard hitting & effective last line (power-drunk politiciams ... survisval of western civilisation) which is correct & was buried in my longer letter. Nonetheless the subject of government funding of "dissenting" lobbyists calling for bigger government is an important one which the MSM should report. I phrased that part of the letter in as emollient a way as possible making no mention of advertising as a way of government buying influence - for example I am sure the Guardian makes more from government advertising than from readers & thus is, by the fakecharity definition a fakenewspaper*. However the disparity of discussion of this on the blogsphere with the complete failure of the MSM to report it is becoming painfully obvious.
My original blog mentioning the party conference - it was the LudDims naturally.
McIntyre proving 1933 the warmest year & the authorities accepting it
* this word does not appear in the OED or the Library of the British Museum or anywhere else as a single word & trust the OED will send me a small payment when they put it in.
Once again (Friday then Tuesday) we see the leading letter about the Scottish MSP's literally insane decision to cut Scotland's use of fire by 42% & GNP by a probably greater amount, is supportive. All the others are opposed. Personally I would have thought a letter from Jim Sillars, with its very appropriate description of the MSPs behaviour as a "collapse of reason" would have had greater news value than one from Dr Johnson but that is just my opinion.
Dr Johnson is correct to say that 1998 was warmer than 2000, though I don't see how this strengthens alarmist claims.. He is certainly correct to say that alarmists now contend that this was unusual because of El Nino but they said the exact opposite at the time. In any case he is wrong to say 1998 was the warmest in recent times. Best evidence is that 1933 was. Stephen McIntyre examined the previous American figures which had also said 1998 & found them to be counter-factual in many cases. The US authorities ultimately acknowledged & corrected this. For unknown reasons this got little media coverage. The US figures were the most complete & widespread but for unknown reasons the British Met Office have refused to release details that would allow a similar check of their figures so we must rely on the best available.
So after 76 years of "catastrophic warming" it is cooler. Of course much of history has been warmer than even 1933. HL Mencken once said "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary" & the facts show that "catastrophic warming" is yet another "hobgoblin" being pushed by power drunk politicians with absolutely no interest whatsoever in the wellbeing of their constituents or even in the survival of western civilisation.
Regarding the leading letter on Friday which came from a prominent charity - That charity was, coincidentally, one of 9 I have previously mentioned on my blog as being both major sponsors of the conference of a prominent political party & heavily dependent (between 10% & 100%) on government money. This includes not only direct government grants but also grants from quangos, councils, lottery funding & the purchase of the charity's publications, courses, training & advice. 11 of their other sponsors were government departments, quangos, government employee unions & an industry entirely dependent on government subsidy. Such organisations described, perhaps unkindly, by the conspiracy minded blogsphere as "fakecharities" are exercising an increasing degree of political & social influence. Indeed it seems hardly a day goes by without the government funded BBC highlighting a report from some such organisation. By the most statistically surprising of coincidences I cannot remember a single one of these which has called for less government spending, cutting quangos, fewer government employees or generally less nanny statism.
I suggest to avoid accusations of not being transparent, authors of letters for publication, or indeed press releases for news features, should contain a mention of such financial relationships. Scotland's political culture would be much very much the better for it.
Now fair enough - even edited it is a relatively long letter & I have no reason for complaint. They let me say every MSP is "insane" (even if they edited out "literally"). Also I willingly admit that the editing has left a very hard hitting & effective last line (power-drunk politiciams ... survisval of western civilisation) which is correct & was buried in my longer letter. Nonetheless the subject of government funding of "dissenting" lobbyists calling for bigger government is an important one which the MSM should report. I phrased that part of the letter in as emollient a way as possible making no mention of advertising as a way of government buying influence - for example I am sure the Guardian makes more from government advertising than from readers & thus is, by the fakecharity definition a fakenewspaper*. However the disparity of discussion of this on the blogsphere with the complete failure of the MSM to report it is becoming painfully obvious.
My original blog mentioning the party conference - it was the LudDims naturally.
McIntyre proving 1933 the warmest year & the authorities accepting it
* this word does not appear in the OED or the Library of the British Museum or anywhere else as a single word & trust the OED will send me a small payment when they put it in.
Labels: eco-fascism, global warming, letters
