The only two strange things in 30 years on this carrier

I have been flying on U for 30 years, and in that time, have been very satisfied most of the time.

There were two strange incidents, however.

Once, the entire crew spent the entire very long flight giggling. It was really quite strange. They did not seem to be drunk or high otherwise, but their behavior was strange and giggling for hours.

The other strange thing that happened is once a nonnative English speaking crew was, I would say, yelling at some passengers to move, but the passengers didn't speak English, and one woman asked the other why they were being yelled at. I told the crew member that the passengers did not speak English and could not understand what she said. Then the crew member stared with WHAT IS YOUR NAME??? SHOW ME YOUR PASSPORT?? WHERE ARE YOU TRANSITING TO??

So of course I replied What is YOUR name?? We are going to see the supervisor at the front desk right now.

Les Miserables

As in the story, in which the first half takes 20 years, and then in the second half fate rains down on them all in a single day, we may very well see, in a telescoped ending, all of the excesses since the Vietnam War come raining down on the empire at dawn.

Happy 20th, World Wide Web!

http://www.slate.com/slideshow/business-tech/happy-20th-birthday-world-wide-web/

You have transformed the world.

Where most of the deficit came from

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/jamesfallows/assets_c/2011/07/24editorial_graph2-popup-58477.php

Audible.com BIZARRE policy

Audible is really great in so many ways, and yet...

There is a bizarre Audible policy that says you can have only 6 credits at one time. After that, credits are cancelled.

What the hell is that? You have credits that you have paid for, and they get cancelled? Why? That is just plain theft.

I think I should cancel my subscription.

Analog TV broadcasting ends in Japan

After 58 years, analog TV broadcasting has ended in Japan, except in those areas affected by the March megaquake.

Thank you, Slava Turyshev!

What a fascinating puzzle! I thoroughly enjoyed following your efforts these many years.

I cannot imagine how much work you and your colleagues did. This project made me think about all kinds of possible effects that I had never considered before.

And you have now constrained many values using a terrific instrument. What a great unplanned experiment!

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2011-07/mystery-pioneer-anomaly-solved-last

Urthecast, Spring 2012

Saltwater ocean under Enceladus

It must be just teeming with bacteria. At least!

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/home/124501909.html

The New York Times put up a paywall

I don't know how to tell them this, but they are just not that important anymore.

I used to flip through the NYT every day, but since I did't want to use up my twenty free views per month, I stopped... and after a few weeks, I realized I didn't care because there are so many other things to look at on the Net.

This is much worse than the Great Depression

Although nominal GDP has returned to levels before the crash, there are 20 million fewer jobs.

Also, since the dollar has lost say 20% against other currencies, I would say the GDP is still way off from what it was. If the dollar declines in value say from the current 73 to 50, then while nominal GDP will be 14 trillion, it will actually be 7 trillion.

http://cr4re.com/charts/charts.html#category=Employment&chart=EmploymentRecessionsAlignedNov.jpg

Oh, of course. Everything is always everyone else's fault.

The country’s energy future is being dictated by the world’s major oil producing nations with no input from American policymakers, a former U.S. intelligence director said Wednesday.

“America’s future is being determined with no Americans in the room,” said retired Adm. Dennis Blair, who served as Obama’s director of national intelligence before resigning last year.

Blair called on policymakers to begin weaning the United States off foreign oil so that the country would not be held hostage by the decisions of major oil producers, which have significant influence over the price of oil on world markets.

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/677-e2-wire/165347-former-intelligence-director-opec-holding-us-energy-future-hostage

Just put them on roofs!

Oh, wait, then the utility company can't make money...

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/greenspace/2011/04/desert-tortoise-ivanpah-brightsource-solar-energy-san-bernardino.html

Another reason to laugh at Microsoft... and shun them

Paul Allen, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, has lashed out at internet rivals such as Apple and described Google as "evil".

...

He describes Steve Jobs, the boss of Apple who is on medical leave, as "monomaniacal". [Yes, Steve Jobs monomaniacally focuses on putting out quality products... more than a decade before Microsoft, then Microsoft copies it... badly... iPod vs. Zune. Microsoft puts out stuff full of bugs that is not even decently beta tested and let's everyone waste time debugging it... for years... and does whatever is necessary to make more money. People hated Vista so much they renamed Vista2 as Windows 7 to mislead everyone into thinking it was not Vista. Microsoft has wasted more of everyone's work time than anything else, all for the sake of making more money.]

In an interview with the Sunday Times, Allen criticisesSergey Brin and Larry Page, the co-founders of Google, for their corporate mission statement: "Don't be evil". Allen talked about their "elbows and claws" in their pursuit for growth.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/apr/24/microsoft-paul-allen-rivals-evil

If you don't know, misunderstandings multiply exponentially

Genuine ignorance is... profitable because it is likely to be accompanied by humility, curiosity, and open mindedness; whereas ability to repeat catch-phrases, cant terms, familiar propositions, gives the conceit of learning and coats the mind with varnish waterproof to new ideas.

John Dewey

http://www.quotegarden.com/ignorance.html

There is something very, very wrong with Harry's dad

What is the matter with some people?

Worse than the criminals they prosecute. Don't want to get the right answer, just want to get an answer... so they can say they did their job and get promoted or something. Sickening.

And all this information is leaking from the Earth, so eventually, the entire universe will know. Have they no shame? As usual, shunning is the only possible response left.

Supreme Court rejects damages for innocent man who spent 14 years on death row

In a 5-4 ruling, justices overturn a jury verdict awarding $14 million to John Thompson, who had sued then-New Orleans Dist. Atty. Harry Connick Sr. because prosecutors hid a blood test that would have proved his innocence in a murder case.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-court-prosecutors-20110330,0,1730487.story

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001065/bio

This is even worse than the thought process in the post below. Hey, start off with a conclusion and then hide the evidence that the conclusion is wrong. Ta-dah!

Like a serial killer, but instead of a knife, uses paperwork.

Stay as far away from people like this as possible because, well, if he did it to them, what makes you think he won't do it to you?

Confabulation is unfortunate and the normal mode of human thought

• Just because something appears to make sense, that does not mean it is true. Often times, more than one story appears to make sense, given the available information.
• Just because you have not read about an idea already, that does not mean you are the first to have that idea, especially if you don't read much.
• Natural systems are incredibly complex, and the fact that we have not yet understood and predicted every detail does not mean the scientific community is negligent or hiding something.

Christie Rowe

http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/post.cfm?id=earthquake-triggering-and-why-we-do-2011-03-30

EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE!

THIS MIGHT BE IT! DEFINITIVE PROOF THAT THERE IS LIFE OUT THERE.

I expect there are thousands of bodies in our solar system alone that currently harbor living bacteria. That would suggest that there are trillions to quadrillions of bodies in the Milky Way that harbor at least bacterial life.

Fossils of Cyanobacteria in CI1 Carbonaceous Meteorites:
Implications to Life on Comets, Europa, and Enceladus

http://journalofcosmology.com/Life100.html

At least 50 billion planets in the Milky Way!

I guesstimate there will turn out to be a billion habitable Earthlike planets in the habitable zone of the Milky Way, say 20,000 to 40,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way.

To me, diet soda does not taste sweet

It tastes like plastic.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41479869/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/

Aluminet is excellet

I have used this for years and it is totally worth the price.

http://www.igcusa.com/greenhouse-shade-cloth-aluminet.html

Touch screens everywhere in the near future

Stunning model of HIV

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/nstv/2011/02/hiv-as-youve-never-seen-it-before.html

How is it possible to tell of all the sweetness and sadness of life in so few notes

For which Michael Caine wins Best Supporting Actor. A true gentleman. One of the most generous and warm acceptance speeches ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuhXv2wBeiQ

The most astonishing app I have ever seen

You just hold the iPad up to the sky... or down at the floor!... and it shows you what the sky looks like there! Jawdropping.

Star Walk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMHxMSa4HVw

I did not know exactly why Cepheid variables varied the way they do

And then I heard this on a podcast and said "Doh!"

From Wikipedia

The accepted explanation for the pulsation of Cepheids is called the Eddington valve,^[11] or κ-mechanism, where the Greek letter κ (kappa) denotes gas opacity.

Helium is the gas thought to be most active in the process. Doubly-ionized helium (helium whose atoms are missing two electrons) is more opaque than singly-ionized helium. The more helium is heated, the more ionized it becomes.

At the dimmest part of a Cepheid's cycle, the ionized gas in the outer layers of the star is opaque, and so is heated by the star's radiation, and due to the increased temperature, begins to expand. As it expands, it cools, and so becomes less ionized and therefore more transparent, allowing the radiation to escape. Then the expansion stops, and reverses due to the star's gravitational attraction. The process then repeats.

The mechanics of the pulsation as a heat-engine was proposed in 1917 by Arthur Stanley Eddington^[12] (who wrote at length on the dynamics of Cepheids), but it was not until 1953 that S. A. Zhevakin identified ionized helium^[13] as a likely valve for the engine.

LEDs go from 0 to 64% of lighting sales in Japan in one year

The Japanese economic newspapers are reporting that sales of LED light bulbs in Japan went from essentially zero in July of last year to 64% of sales now, about one out of five units sold.

The prices are dropping really fast.

The best ones I have tested so far are Panasonic EVERLEDS. At small specialty shops near Akihabara Station in Tokyo, they are now going for about $22. The warm white ones have output of 450 lumens for just 6.9 watts. Unbelievably nice. I think they are on track to drop to about $10 by next year. At the electricity rate in Tokyo of about 30 cents per kilowatt-hour, one will pay for itself in two months if used about 10 hours a day. After that, each will save $50 per year in electricity compared to a 60 watt incandescent if used about 10 hours a day.

I think there is going to be wholesale adoption in 2011 in Japan.

Next year, I think about 600 LED light bulb factories are going to come online, so prices should really drop and brightness should go up. Whatever you do, buy one first and test it. There are many issues to learn about before buying many.

I don't understand people who lease their land for fracking natural gas production

It seems to me that many people do not understand that what makes their land worth something is a supply of water. By taking even $100,000 in exchange for fracking rights, I think they will wind up with a groundwater supply contaminated with heavy metals and volatiles for millennia, which in many cases will render their land worthless.

http://www.pbs.org/now/shows/613/

I think this will turn out to be The Last Delusion, the last time the US does enormous damage to itself instead of just ramping up energy efficiency and investing in alternatives. I already reduced the energy use of my house to 90% less than the energy use of the average US house with no change in living standard, so it can be done easily and for no cost in the long run if you plan what to do properly. I say this not to brag, but because people don't believe me. It can be done. It just takes a little planning. I could reduce this to zero with a $10,000 photovoltaic system, but I will wait as the price is continuing to collapse. If you think this is not possible, you will not spend the time learning how to make it possible, and then of course it will actually be impossible.

The fracking companies say there is no problem with groundwater contamination. And of course that is possible. But as we have seen, cutting corners and mistakes can lead to disaster in very short order. One way to confuse an issue is to discuss everything from a perfectly executed example that has nothing to do with actual execution in reality. During the Vietnam War, Agent Orange was sprayed over huge areas. The representatives of the manufacturers sat before Congress and said things like "Agent Orange does not cause cancer. Here is experimental proof." And what they were saying was technically true, but was a lie of distraction. What was sprayed on the jungles was not the extremely pure Agent Orange they were showing, but industrially produced Agent Orange which is far from pure and had many side products (unintended and undesirable molecules of different structure) that are impossible to completely remove at a reasonable cost. The Space Shuttle was supposed to be very safe and be lost in no more than 1 in 1,000 missions, but as we saw, the loss is more like 1 in 50.

Investing in energy efficiency is cheaper and safer and makes you way more than $100,000 in the long run.

I cannot believe that PBS Now and Bill Moyer's Journal have been cancelled. They have done us a wonderful service.

The Stanford Institute Prize proposition

“Economics is fundamentally about efficiently allocating resources so as to maximize the welfare of individuals.”

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jun/24/time-we-have-growing-short/

Why matter is what remains

The Fermi team sent protons and antiprotons into a head-on collision, which produced slightly more muons than antimuons.

So, for some reason, there is a slight excess of matter over antimatter, and when the matter and antimatter subsequently annihilate each other, a tiny excess of matter remains. And so The Glorious Accident was set in motion.

http://www.physorg.com/news194726882.html

12 events that would change everything

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=interactive-12-events

Life on Titan!

This would be truly extraordinary... Life, but not as we know it...

http://www.physorg.com/news194801328.html

And Mars!

http://www.physorg.com/news194876452.html

In 1968...

"There can be no gain saying of the fact that our nation has brought the world to an awe inspiring threshold of the future. We've built machines that think and instruments that peer into the unfathomable ranges of interstellar space. We have built gargantuan bridges to span the seas and gigantic buildings to kiss the skies. And through our spaceships we have penetrated oceanic depths and through our airplanes we have dwarfed distance and placed time in chains. This really is a dazzling picture of America's scientific and technological progress. But in spite of this something basic is missing. In spite of all of our scientific and technological progress we suffer from a kind of poverty of the spirit that stands in glaring contrast to all of our material abundance.

...

On some positions cowardice asks the question, is it safe?

Expediency asks the question, is it politic?

Vanity asks the question, is it popular?

But conscience asks the question, is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right."

MLK

http://www.aavw.org/special_features/speeches_speech_king04.html

A thousand times better

You can tell we are getting to the sweet part of the exponential advance curve. Just look at how different the world is from around 2000.

No Google.

No YouTube.

Clunky computers.

Barely functional Internet.

Many things really expensive, like it cost $300,000,000 to sequence a genome. By around 2015, it will be around $1,000.

Note that things don't get slightly better these days, say twice as good; they get 10 times or 1,000 times better.

http://www.physorg.com/news193896595.html

This pattern of obvious order(s)-of-magnitude improvement, OoMI (let's say it's pronounced "Oh, my!"), will be noted on this blog from time to time.

I have seen many examples of this recently, but so many things are happening that I cannot keep up even my reading... so posts have suffered recently.

The first step in learning how to do something right is to do it wrong first.

Herbicide resistance

After 20 years of heavy use of herbicides such as Roundup, surprise! evolution! and the weeds have become so resistant that the herbicide is useless.

(I originally came across this story in the New York Times, but since they will soon be putting their stories behind a pay wall, I will no longer link to their articles. While they sit overestimating their own importance, the rest of the world will just move on.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roundup

Adjusting dosage for an individual

You will soon, say by 2015 at the latest, be easily and cheaply be able to determine whether you need a low dose or a high dose for many drugs.

http://www.physorg.com/news192726120.html

Audible audiobook quality 2, 3, 4, and e

If you are using an iPod with a lot of memory, audio file size is probably not an issue.

When you buy an audiobook at Audible.com, you can download the book at four separate sound qualities. The differences are quite apparent. At the lower qualities, when you listen at 2x, there is significant distortion and fluttering. However, at the highest quality, e, the sound is good even at 2x. Your default quality is probably set to 4, so you may want to try downloading an audiobook twice at different qualities to hear the difference. My default is now set at e.

RNAi treats disease for first time!

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2010-04/gene-silencing-shows-first-success-preventing-human-disease

We will learn an enormous amount in the very short term, quite a bit in the medium term, and absolutely nothing in the long term.

Jeremy Grantham

You can fool some of the people all of the time... and those are the ones you want to concentrate on.

An iPod Touch is not just an iPod

I did not understand until I had had an iPod Touch for a while that it is not just an iPod. It is actually a completely independent computer.

The two major advantages for me:

It can play podcasts and audiobooks at double speed.

Apps!

I wish I had gotten one years ago. I had no idea it was like this... actually, maybe it should be called an iPadlet. That might better convey what it can do.

Comets can be even worse than volcanoes

http://www.physorg.com/news189351860.html

http://www.sis-group.org.uk/abstract/napier.htm

Maybe we can find extant lifeforms similar to the first life on Earth!

The world’s deepest drill is about to get taller—tall enough to dig into Earth's mantle. Already, the Chikyu research vessel is capable of fetching samples at depths of 23,000 feet below the seabed, two to four times that of any other drill. In 2007, off the coast of Japan, it became the first mission to study subduction zones, the area between tectonic plates that is the birthplace of many earthquakes. Over the next three years, scientists will tack on at least an extra mile of drill and attempt the most ambitious mission ever: piercing the Earth’s mantle. There, scientists expect to find the same conditions as those in the early Earth—and perhaps the same life-forms that thrived then.

http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2010-03/deepest-drill

The Swine Flu Really is worse

While seasonal flu deaths are in people aged 76 on average, the average age of people killed by swine flu was 37. So Simonsen also decided to calculate years of life lost to swine flu, a common measure for the impact of disease. She used the ages of people who died in 2009 and their life expectancy to calculate that the US lost nearly 2 million years of life to the pandemic - more than in the 1968 pandemic. By contrast, she calculates that 600,000 years of life are lost on average to seasonal flu.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627545.000-swine-flu-no-big-deal-look-at-years-of-life-lost.html

Amphibious caterpillars!

http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201003265

Oh, wow! Dennis Hopper reads beat poetry...

On Petticoat Junction!

Two-drug combination kills precancerous colon polyps

http://www.physorg.com/news188995706.html

Augmented reality business cards

These are really cool!

Vitamin B6 levels inversely correlated to colorectal cancer risk

http://www.physorg.com/news187978106.html