Waiting for the lights to go out - fisked

The guys at The Speculist team up to respond to a lengthy dystopian screed in the Times Online, Waiting for the Lights to Go Out. Let the fisking begin!

We've taken the past 200 years of prosperity for granted.

So we deserve to be punished!

Humanity's progress is stalling, we are facing a new era of decay,

Really? Says who?

and nobody is clever enough to fix it.

Wow. So, should we give up now or...

Is the future really that black, asks Bryan Appleyard

Oh, so he's just asking. Whew. We were afraid Bryan might have an ax to grind. Okay, so let's get into his balanced investigation:

Fisking at The Speculist, article at Waiting for the lights to go out.


My own humble contribution

Either it's just not worth pursuing certain innovations since they won't pay off — one reason why space exploration has all but ground to a halt

Space exploration has all but ground to a halt. Let that phrase roll around inside your mouth for a bit.

One site - JPL - lists twenty-two missions involving space craft. A few more involving ground facilities. I won't bother listing ESA, Japanese, Russia efforts; you get the point.

Gloomy pessimisim is one thing. Willful ignorance is just sad.

Welcome Back

Remember this guy?

Once Marine Gunnery Sgt. Michael Burghardt realized he could wiggle his toes and fingers, he had one message for the insurgents who wounded him - defiance.

He's back.

A month ago today, Dunlap had driven to Burghardt's aid after the Marine explosives expert wasn't able to disarm the last of three improvised explosive devices.

Two things amazed those who were there that day:

• Burghardt survived the explosion and would return to duty in less than a month.

• A World-Herald photograph showing Burghardt standing on his own two feet, pants cut off, legs bandaged and directing a single-digit salute of defiance at his attackers, has transformed him into one of the most famous Marines of the Iraq war.

The photo appeared on numerous Marine-related Internet weblogs. Burghardt received more than 100 e-mails within days of the picture's publication. It has become a screensaver on soldiers' and Marines' computers across Iraq.

"I don't know how my anger turned into a motivational picture," Burghardt said.

Can't keep a good man down.

The Edifice Complex: Liftport is in good shape

From Slate - The Edifice Complex

…The truth is that individuals and institutions usually turn to architecture at moments of decline. This curious fact was pointed out years ago by Cyril Northcote Parkinson in his 1968 best seller, Parkinson’s Law. This book is full of pithy observations on the foibles of business administration, the best-known of which is: “Work expands to fill the time available for its completion.” Less well-remembered is the author’s observation on architecture. Parkinson considered buildings as an important barometer of corporate health, but as a negative barometer. “During a period of exciting discovery or progress there is no time to plan the perfect headquarters,” he wrote. “The time for that comes later, when all the important work has been done. Perfection, we know, is finality; and finality is death.”…

Liftport offices in a building in the unfashionable part of Bremerton. The Millville site is functional - the exterior resembles my barn in Texas. IT is a hosted server, wherever Seth happens to be, Tom's living room and my kitchen table.

We're cool according to the Slate article.

Tip to TJIC.

Kitty

Sandhill Trek reports that this cat results in really high hit counts for whoever steals the image.



This cat brings into play the WTF factor.



Now that I have your attention. Would you pretty please with sugar on top go here and sign up for Liftport's announcement list? We send you an email once a month and it's worth your time.

Yes, okay you've signed up. Now go convince five of your friends, associates or siblings to do the same. You'll whiten your teeth and enhance your sex life.

Would a guy posting cute fuzzy cat pictures fib to you?

Earthling Property Right

Final frontier for lawyers -- property rights in space.

Bizarre though it sounds, the case of Nemitz vs. United States is just one of the odder sideshows in an emerging circus known as "space law." Space is new legal terrain, just as the air was in the early days of aviation and as the seas were in the dawn of ocean voyaging.

For space buffs, the stickiest legal issue is property rights in space, the question of whether a private person can lay claim to property where there is no constituted government. And it involves not only land, but also the airless void of space.

Entrepreneurship is the driving force.

Of course there is a poll. Early returns are not looking so good.

Q: Do earthlings have a right to claim property rights in outer space?
Yes, we should be allowed to claim anything that is not owned. 13%
No, space should remain the province of all beings. 58%
Only if we can send all the lawyers there. 28%
Total votes: 537

If we rephrase it to "Do San Franciscans have a right to claim property in Marin County" would a majority then vote 'yes'?

Vote early, vote often.

'D' is for ...

Ms. Grotenhuis was showing Cian (5) objects that start with 'D'. A dog, donuts.

Ms. G: What else starts with 'D'?
C: Diesel!

Gotta love that kid.

Fred Plans to Devolve

Fred Reed on evolution in modern education;

Now, what grave consequences are thought to await if children hear briefly in school an argument that they have heard a dozen times in the course of ordinary life? Will the foundations of civilization crack? The birds of the air plunge, appalled, to earth? The planets shudder in their orbits and fall inward in dismay? Surely everyone short of the anencephalic knows of Creationism.

Or is it thought that kids attracted to the sciences will abruptly change their course through life and enter the clergy? That applications to graduate school in biochemistry will cease? Children learn (or did) of the Greek gods and goddesses, and that ancient people believed that the earth rode on the back of a giant turtle. I have not heard that they now sacrifice oxen to Athena.

One plausible explanation for this rigid evolutionary monotheism, though I think an incorrect one, is a fear that the children might come to believe in Creationism. Unlikely, but again, so what? A belief in Creationism does not prevent one from working in the sciences. A goodly number of scientists, to include biochemists, are in fact Christian and, some of them, Creationists. Others presumably are Buddhists or Hindus. The only thing for which acceptance of Creationism renders one unsuitable is…Evolutionism.

A more likely explanation is a fear that children might realize that a great deal of Evolution, not having been established, must be accepted on faith, and that a fair amount of it doesn’t make a lot of sense. While Creationism is unlikely to convert children into snake-handlers, it does suggest that orthodox Evolution can be examined critically. Bad juju, that.

and

I once posed these questions in a column on Fredoneverything.net and, in another place, to a group of committed evangelicals of Evolution. A tremendous influx of email resulted. Much of it was predictable. Many Christians congratulated me on having disproved Evolution, which I had not done. The intelligent and independent-minded wrote thoughtfully. Of the Knights Templar of Evolution, none—not one—answered the foregoing yes-or-no questions. They ducked. They dodged. They waxed wroth. They called names.

This is the behavior not of scientists but of true believers.

There is more - Fred is always worth reading.

Have you noticed that a number of interesting and opinionated people are former Marines? Yes, Fred was am Amtrac driver in Vietnam. Are interesting opinionated people made by the Marines or attracted to the Marines?

September 1967 - AmTrac crew atop vehicle B-26
Photo by: Hugh Connelly - 1st AmTrac Battalion

Keith interviews Brad Edwards

KeithCu interviews Dr. Brad Edwards.

Interesting interview.

The Ties That Do Not Bind: The Decline of Marriage and Loyalty

There is a great deal to agree with in The Ties That Do Not Bind: The Decline of Marriage and Loyalty

Man is a social animal – utterly dependent on forming and maintaining relationships with other people. A person who has always been truly alone is one who will be emotionally dead. Of all of the relationships into which people enter, the family is the most important. We are raised by parents, confronted with siblings, and introduced to peers through our familial roots. Indeed, human character arises out of the very commitments people make to others in their family or outside of it. Marriage, of course, is the supreme form of that commitment. When we make marriage less important, character suffers.

There is a great deal here - some I agree with and some not. It is hard to argue with the premise; character matters and family is important.

Highland County Boy - Lyrics

Scott Miller's 'Highland County Boy' was playing on Boot Liquor Radio the other day. Love that song - like any bleak poetry it brings a manly tear to my eye.

I couldn't find the lyrics on Google. Yes, Google failed. I did find it on Miller's board. As a rebuke to Google then ...

HIGHLAND COUNTY BOY

I am a Highland County boy and William is my name
I farm those rocky hills before the Jackson is the James
Well my brothers they all joined 'the cause'
But I was left behind
Too old to hold in Mama's arms
And much too frail to fight
But I remember the day they marched away
They sang down Richmond Road
"Ol' Lincoln's bound like ol' John Brown
for the long end of a rope"

Well one died at Manasass, sir, and one at Malvern Hill
And after making it through that, Archer he took ill
Charlie's lost but not confirmed
When they fought at Cross Keys
The last sight that they had of him
Was crawling through the weeds
A letter said a shower of lead
Had hit the men down low
And they danced around like ol' John Brown
On the long end of a rope

The spark of plow to rock is now the only fight I've known
And the songs of victory that they sang don't help the seeds I've sown
'Tis wickedness and self conceit that is the bane of man
So the farmer and the land compete
As God's first reprimand
There'll be a day when the Blue and Grey
Will hear the trumpets blow
And they'll danced around like ol' John Brown
On the long end of a rope

October 15, 2006 Update. This post gets a fair bit of traffic - at least a few per week. Anyone who has come by looking for lyrics to "Highland County Boy" feel free to say something in the comments.

Shameless Monkey Blog

I shamelessly used monkeys in my latest Liftport Blog post. And the cover of a beloved children's book. I feel so very very low and small.

At the last I can feel good; I did not use the llama.

Support your local police

What is a police department for? Protect, serve, all that jazz? Nope.

In what was described as an initially hostile stop, Roane politely asked the New Jersey officers to turn off their lights and slow down. The Passaic officers claimed that returning from helping with Hurricane Katrina rescue duties gave them the right to speed.

"We just had guys down there for the last 14 days... helping our brothers in blue," Passaic County Sheriff Jerry Speziale said in a recorded telephone call to Roane after the incident. "You know what? You need to get off of that highway, pal, and wake up and learn what law enforcement is all about -- supporting each other."

"It's a disgrace," Speziale said of Roane's conduct. "If you think that that's not a disgrace, you should take the badge off your shirt and throw it in the garbage."

Which reflects poorly on law enforcement in general, I know. Still - this is the attitude publicly aired by the top cop in Passaic County, New Jersey. Wonder what his troops say to each other on patrol?

Hat tip to The View from North Central Idaho.

Update: I was wrong. Sherrif Speziale was quoted in a recorded call to Deputy Roane. Transcript here.

Update the Second: more at The View From ... 9/11 calls from motorists.

“I had my cruiser going 70 [mph], and they just blew right past us,” Graham said. “It was just a whole snake of them. It looked like a NASCAR race where they draft each other” bumper to bumper.

and

Said one caller: “There are four New York police cars running side-by-side with flashers on. … They are not letting traffic go by, going approximately 50 to 55 mph.”

and

“The four New York police vehicles … just cut me off,” the driver said. “They have the right lane blocked and won’t let anyone around them.”

The dispatcher taking this called listed the caller as “very upset.”

Which sounds bad. Unless you're a New Jersey lawman. Then it's all problems with 'airing dirty laundry in public' and the villain in this sorry affair is

the Trooper with the Virginia State Police who pulled the tape of the conversation between Sheriff Speziale and the VSP, contacted the media, and turned it over to them so it could be printed everywhere.

Great job you spineless piece of garbage. Great job in handing the media more reason to keep this story going and attack your profession.

Whatever. I used to think Marines were a clanish insular bunch. Ah - Marines. I turned this around - what would I think if (say) a convoy of Marines from my unit was caught jacking around and playing the fool in a convoy.

Get upset that another Marine (allegedly) slipped a transcript to the press? Nope - I'd be ashamed of my brother Marines for being dipsh*ts and disprespecting their uniform. I'd put the blame where it belongs in other words.

Great job, guys.

David Brooks - NYT. Worth reading.

David Brooks wrote this in the NYT. Excerpts from Mark.

Worth reading, based on the bits excerted below. But won't be, sadly, by many because it's hiding behind their subscription wall.

I believe in the lost tradition of American politics, the tradition of Hamilton, Lincoln and the Bull Moose. In other words, I believe that social mobility is the core of the American experience. I believe that society should be structured so that as many boys and girls as possible can work, and rise the way young Hamilton and Lincoln did.

If something is going to make American society more fluid and dynamic, then I am for that thing. That's why I love globalization, even while I am aware of its costs. I love the fact that American businesses are going to be improved via competition with Chinese and Indian rivals. I love the fact that to compete we are going to have to reform our lobbyist-written tax code into something flatter and fairer. I love the fact we'll have to make health insurance competitive and portable, so workers can move and companies can thrive.

I can't believe people want to shield America behind the walls of "fair trade agreements." I can't believe some people think we're going to be overrun by those hustling Asians. Americans are the hardest-working people on earth and the most mobile. American manufacturing output is twice China's and it's growing at 4 percent a year.

China isn't going to bury us. It's going to make us better and richer; it's going to open more opportunities than it closes.

Like Alexander Hamilton, I love the dynamism of capitalism. And like Alexander Hamilton, that doesn't mean I hate government. I love government when it lifts people up to compete. I hate government only when it stifles competition and coddles. I hated the old welfare system, which pushed its victims away from work. I love welfare reform, which encourages work. I hate government that directs ever more money to the affluent elderly, but I would love a government that gave poor children savings accounts at birth, which would encourage them to think about the future and understand that their destiny is in their own hands.

NYT - tear down that wall!

Windows 2000 vs. FreeBSD 4.x

I have a Thinkpad. I had installed FreeBSD on early in 2004 for a project at work. Installation was unremarkable, bar fiddly problems with the display drivers and power management. The former was fixed by hacking the X config file, the latter by recomiling the kernal with the APM specific mods. Both fixes were (if memory serves) found with a few minutes of searching on Google. And it didn't keep me from using the thing.

Time passes. Now the Thinkpad needs to be a Windows machine again. I put in Windows 2000 Pro, install and ... the video is messed up. Fine, I can download the drivers from IBM. No, I can't. The ethernet drivers don't install, and appropriate drivers are not on the installation disk.

Yes, I know, use the restoration disk that came with the laptop. I'll have to find it of course.

Two Operating Systems, both install from a single disk. One simply works after install, the other requires a ton of effort going to the vendor for driver and so on. And the majority of users are running Windows machines .. why?

Iraq and Terror

Fred asks an interesting question at A VC.

It really begs the following question:

Are we safer or in more danger because of our war in Iraq?

I've replied in his thread, but wanted to post this here; it doesn't matter, and the question is, on reflection, foolish. Sorry Fred.

We can't know the answer. We can't go back to the last save point and try it again. We are where we are. A better way to phrase that question is Now What Do We Do?

I submit that, all said and done, winning is better than loosing. We're better off with a regime friendly to our interests than the regime ante bellum. We can win the current campaign in Iraq; the Army and Marines have learned their lessons from past defeats (and victories) and they're not dumb at the art of warfighting.

It will cost and the butcher's bill, while small in the grand scheme of things, will be tragic and a loss for all concerned.

That it may not be the wisest course of action is open to debate - but we can win this campaign.

There, done. I'm going to stay well away from politics from here on in. Unless it relates to really important things like the space access industry.

This will not persuade Greenpeace

It may, however, cheer the rest of us up, a bit.

Good News. A new study, to be published in Environmental Science and Technology in November, has concluded that the manufacturing of specified nanomaterials such as buckyballs and quantum dots is safer than oil refining or making wine. This was based upon an actuarial model that Zurich based XL insurance have developed to assess risks in existing manufacturing processes. Using the model allowed an assessment of the 'environmental footprint' of potential nanomaterial manufacturing.

Not that I have any reason to cheer the prospect of safe nano manufacturing on. Well, possibly more reason than some, but nano holds out the hope of being as important to the 21s century as wrought iron was to the 18th.

Busload of Faith

You can depend on cruelty
Crudity of thought and sound
You can depend on the worst always happening
You need a busload of faith to get by, ha

Lou Reed - 'Busload of Faith'

What? Oh, no reason. (cough)helpdesk(cough).

Hey, Tom Hanks!

Want to walk on the moon? NASA says you'll be too old, and that you're too tall to go. Which is really uncool on their part, considering all the great PR you've done for them over the years.

But you know what? You're wealthy, you know people. I'll bet you could talk to some people and get something done about that. I even know of a proposed launch system that will subject people to minimum stress on liftoff. We'll get your aged bones up there in comfort and style.

And Jack? You want to be a part of the next moon mission? Good luck with that. What I said above applies to you, as well.

Blogroll Addition

Everyone - both of you - welcome Event Horizon to the blogroll.

Semper Fi, Gunny

Injured Marine defies attackers.

Once Marine Gunnery Sgt. Michael Burghardt realized he could wiggle his toes and fingers, he had one message for the insurgents who wounded him - defiance.

Marine Gunnery Sgt. Michael Burghardt signals defiance at his Iraqi attackers after being injured by an improvised explosive device near Ramadi. Attending to the Marine were Nebraska 167th Cavalry members Spc. John Adams (far left, in front) of Hastings, Neb., and Pfc. Darin Nelson of Fremont, Neb.

Full text at The Smallest Minority.

Great big ones, Gunny Burghardt. Semper fi.