Simple Country Physicist

One more good reason to abandon MegaHard and make the switch to another OS:

“If you’re running Windows 7 beta, you probably know that when you first load operating system it asks if you want to upgrade an existing Windows installation or do a fresh install. But as Business Week’s Stephen Wildstrom points out, that upgrade feature only works for Windows Vista users. If you want to upgrade from Windows XP you’re out of luck.“  [Link]

(emphasis added.)

computers, technology, insanity

While we are on the subject of blowing things up, I note that the theory that a meteorite did in the mammoths is being depreciated. [Link] Seems that researchers at Lawrence Berkley Labs and U London had the dea that if these hirsute pacyderms were done in by a celestial kinetic event then there would have been widespread fires. Overall, a fairly standard direction and one that seems to provide a ‘gotcha” for the “hammer of deity” theory.

Remember that when protesting the tyranny of others. Until such time as survival is actually threatened, as opposed to constrained or reduced, morality remains a central concern. Those who lightly abandon it become little more than than dispossessed versions of the tyrants opposed.

extinction, mechanism, morality

Today is the anniversary of the execution day of Guy Fawkes. [Link] Fawkes was executed for being part of a plot to protest the British government’s pro-protestant, anti-catholic policy. The protest took the form of a gunpowder bomb aimed at the British legislatue and chief executive.

Besides, being ineffectual is just asentient consumerism.

politics, protest, rebellion, human rights

Friday is traditionally punday, at least in the office environment that I used to work. And yes, Qadgop, those in the service of the Yankee republic did indeed exert force over distance. I don’t believe this had much of anything to do with Spider Robinson or Callahan’s, at least in part because most of the folks who work for the Yankee republic have not the perspective to appreciate science fiction. Although again, the scope of the folks who participated in the informal social ritual were rather varied, from clerks and interns through members of the Senior Executive Service. No General Officers, but then that just tends to confirm their myth of granite jaws as well as mentation.

But I was reminded of such by the conjunction of several articles this morning. First is a fan fare on a sixty year light bulb that costs ~ $3 to manufacture. [Link] This is all rather too close to those old stories about gas additives and carborator gagets that result in one never needing gasoline again. So pray forgive me if I am not golding my breath. But what I am confident in is someone finding a truly wonderful way into making this product cost a great deal more and last a great deal shorter time, if it does exist. Physics and humans, a combination far beyond the capacity of football coaches to comprehend.

Next, the Washington Times [Link] informs me that criminal inclination is largely a matter of given name. It seems the more out of the ordinary – in some poorly explained and therefore I suspect, poorly defined, sense – a given name is, the more likely that person is to engage in criminal activity. If this is the case, and it does seem rather specious, one may imagine mothers rushing to caucus to deciede on the name they will all bestow on their children. Should also make things rather difficult for shul teahcers and drill instructors. Of course we might take a leaf from the book of the British Army who commonly used one’s service number as an identified, especially when names were less irregular than they are now?

On a similar vein, I note that the government of Champaign, Illinois – the municipality closest to one of my Alma Materi, the campus of the Boneyard – has issued an edict that snow must be removed from sidewalks by property owners. Huh? I thought the sidewalks were there because the city exercised a lein on the property they are own and thus in effect, insofar as control is concerned, the city owns that property inasmuch as they have domian over it? Is this some sort of government shell game? You not only take property away from citizens without recompense, but you charge them for the privilege? Or is this just a town-gown animosity thing?

Next, I note in the Wall Street Journal [Link] that locales that just instituted a positive identification validation component to voting exhibit an increase in such. This sounds like a light bulb story. First, the recent presidential election was the heaviest in a decade or more, largely due to the polarization of the electorate. So that is a factor that tends to overwhelm the measurement. Next, the explaination offered is that people are more eager to vote in an environment of decreased fraud. Again, this sounds like a light bulb story. What seems more likely is that people figured the Yankee government is now keeping track of who votes and doesn’t and may send the latter off to some unnamed successor to Guantanamo Bay.

And lastly, reserachers at Florida Internation U claim to have developed a monoelemental chemical compound, boron boride, which sounds suspiciously like something the Irish would name one of their kings. [Link] The compound exists stabily (?) at over a kiloatmosphere of pressure and a kilodegree of temperature. I haven’t trakced down the original article yet but as odoriferous as this one is, it still seems the least such of the list.

By now those who give attention span to national news have heard of the Yankee postal service whining about further compromise of their jobs. I heard it last evening on the  electromagnetic acousto-optical image receiver as part of the national news program. And no, I cannot tell you which one because I don’t pay much attention to the hetwork. It’s whichever one is on immediately after the local news program.

I know not what other use as their criteria for selecting such a program but ours is a bit of a mixed state. My solitary criterion for the selection is the value of information presented on weather in my location. I am not very concerned with what the weather is in Huntsville – Nawth Alibam’s Shining City on the Hill, or Birmingham – Central Alibam’s Sulfide Sublimeness, or even Dawg’s Hind Leg – Alibam foremost bastion of real, actual, democracy, except as they will eminently impact me. I recognize this is a rather selfish outlook but it is mitigated by a secondary expectation that uniformity of presentation will be provided. In consumer speak, everyone’s ice cream cone gets licked.

I really care less about the petty happenings in the area that pass the lips of the Potempkinisn news readers, a travesty of news whose primary value is the humor insitilled in its mangling, nor do I really care what meaningless competitions have been engaged in by the varios sports apparats in the area although the cheerleader huff puff style of the sports readers is less annoying than the smiling voice of doom Mosaic style of their colleagues.

But it is very distressing when the weather beavers pronounce that the nights heat conditions will be conducive to a phase change of dihydrogen oxide and then fail to provide me with localized temperature predictions so I can estimate whether prophalctic measures are indicated. This is also a source of stress to FD SCP since such measures involve the dripping of faucets and she finds such activities discomfiting. Such situations would be avoided if one could find local craftspeople who could properly weatherproof hourses for heat or cold. But then such shoddy construction techniques have long been  Southron tradition.

The postal service is more of a Nawthran tradition, perhaps the oldest of the Yankee government, owing no small part of its providence to the senior of the founding fathers. And it is no surprise to students of modern organizational practice to recognize that it is very likely rather badly whacked. At the root of that whackedness is, as one should expect, the Yankee congress. Basically the woes and ills of the postal service have their well spring in the unfunded mandates of that august legislature. And since the congress is quite unable to manage itself with any effectivenesss, much less efficiency, we may not expect any rectification of these ills in the postal service.

One of the basic contradictions of the postal service is that by dictate of the congress they are the only ones who may convey letters. They also may convey packages but they have plenty of competition for this and that competition is part of the weeping sores that are the postal service. There are good social reasons for the postal service to carry letters and be solitary in that task, but there is little reason why they should carry packages. Back when such was the only vector other than express companies the service made some sense but with the rise of the great commercial package delivery houses, the service has become redundant and wasteful.

So perhaps the postal service should drop its package service and limit itself to letters, and periodicals? This would permit it to unify its activiteis and its infrastructure and while there would be a period of turbulence during the transition this would place the postal service on a sound financial foundation.

And maybe get the mail delviered on time and accurately?

You have to really appreciate the contribution the PEW folks make to modern society. One of their latest surveys is a test of “common knowledge”. [Link] The survey is a set of ten questions. And the questions are on the subject of current events, heavy on national politics.

No history, no maths. That may be the bad side.

No celebrities, unless politicians count as celebrities, which may certainly be the case if a necessary and sufficient condition for being a celebrity is being a near worthless, malignant parasite. That may be the good side.

Before discussing the questions. A look at the statistics of the results. Among the sample population:

• men got about 0.2 more questions “correct” than women;
• college graduates (regardless of degree) did 0.6 better than high shul grads and dropouts;
• people under the age of 30 did poorly;
• registered voters knew about 0.6 more than not-registered-voters;
• democrats were marginally less knowledgeable than republicans and independents; and
• the mean was answering about seven of the ten questions correctly.

So from this we may conclude that male college graduate who are over thirty and not democrats but are registered voters are smarter (more knowledgeable?) than everyone else?

I took the test. Got 8 of 10 questions officially “correct”. Then I went and looked at the questions. Seven of the ten were well posed in that the answers, while multiple choice, were objective. Examples are: “x is closest in value to” (numeric) or “y is a member of which set” (binning). But three of the seven questions were subjective. Example is “z is good, bad, indifferent”. So given there are four answers to each question and three subjective question, probability gives that you have a reasonably good liklihood of answering one of the three questions correctly and two incorrectly. So I can chalk up my grade to random chance with a pretty good confidence. More, actually, than in the local television weather beavers who tell me it is going to rain today.

And aside from some other whacks, such as well documented trends like women, statistically at least, paying less attention to politics than men, and young people paying less and different attention to news than older folks, the problem I have is the claim that this is common knowledge. Given the grades it clearly is not common knowledge, although that is a bit of a conundrum. If it were common knowledge, then everyone not pathologically disengaged would know it, so if the grades aren’t close to nine of ten, the test is whacked.

But more germanely, it is not at all obvious to me any more in our information balkanized nation that such a test is meaningful because it is not at all obvious that very much is common any more. It might be argued that certain warning signs, money, and acts like dialing a telephone are common. But attention to the news? Maybe. Agreement on which news content to listen to? No. And that’s the rub.

Another rant about television advertisements for internet services.

Put in the form of a Zeno statement:

Say what? Slowness? Whazzat?

Is this another stupid on the order of “the speed of dark”? It certainly seems as such.

Suppose the rabbit sits still. How can the turtle be three times as slow as not moving?

Or is this preying on the inability of Joe Consumer/Citizen to comprehend basic maths? Like speed limits and making change?

Happily I refrained from hurling anything – partially digested stomach contents, book of the moment, small anvil, crockery – at the television screen. Probably was able to restrain myself only because the Yankee congress has delayed the transition to digital television because something less than 0.01 of the population has not implemented their conversion. And what is the fraction of people in the Yankee republic who don’t even have television? More than0.02! So how do they know? Someone please go round up the usual bunch of conspiracy theorists for an exercise period.

Also aversion to the high prices on HDTV instruments. What is it that I can buy a 23″ LCD monitor for $250 and a PC for a bit more but an HDTV 23″ in size costs about 2.5 times the total? Something smells and it is the wrong season for Lutefisk.

And correct me if I am wrong but the programming transmitted will be the same old stercus? Inept but occasionally humorous local news readers, exhibitionist talk show hosts, parasitic celebrities. And the old movies won’t look right?

This is improvement?

Tuesday is science podcast day at gym. Usually I listen to the SCIENCE podcast and then NATURE, but lately I have been getting rather complacent about biology items. After all, biology per se is just applied chemistry and a bit of structural mechanics, and chemistry is just applied physics, at least in that classical view that everything except physics is just stamp collecting. Not that I wish to disparage stamp collecting. In fact, I find stamps very evocative, somewhat like slide rules, in their beauty of precision and function, and in a way that does not emerge, for me at least, from coins.

So this morning I listened instead to podcasts on science (and technology, whatever that is in the minds of the journalists involved,) from THE WORLD and THE GUARDIAN. The latter was relatively unmemorable but the latter included a vignette that captured some attention span. It seems that some researchers at U Missouri Saint Louis have looked at Victorian novels in the light of Darwinian evolutionary theory. [Link] This is after all, the bicentennial anniversary of Darwin’s birth so otherwise uninventive academics have ready made templates for struturing their research.

The conclusion out of these folks is that these morality tales had a positive effect on society by propagating the good defeats evil paradigm throughout society and that this in turn fostered the propagation of altruistic genes. I have to admit that I find the latter part of that a bit difficult. Has altruism been ascribed to specific genes?

My first thought was the work of Gregory Clark, A Farewell to Alms, which I have blogged about previously and have not yet finished, largely because of the oangs of maths nausea every time I pick it up. Now Clark makes rather an economist’s type of Darwinian argument that the economically affluent have more children because they work less hours and hence have time for sexual eproductive activity, and have more money to pay for foodstuffs, education, and medical care. Of course the children do not do as well and are thus doomed to lower social status, but the point being is that the rich are fruitful and multiply both economically and sexually.

Now I mention this because the podcast journalists commented on how only the affluent bought these morality tales books (Oliver Twist, Dracula, Frankenstein,…..) and while Clark’s economic Darwinism certainly seems to support the researchers’ thoeries in this regard I also recall that this was the period when pulp prublishing began and that the tenor of those stories was also moralistic. So the thesis that black/white, good versus evil and good is triumphant in the end, “literature” imbues society with a moralistic, altruistic even, tone seems to have wider basis than the hournalists portray.

But the azimuth that seemed strongest is that this may be part of our problem today. Modern “literature” is much less specular. Yes, there are cautionary tales of good and evil still, like the Harry Potter books, but even they are tinged with the relativism that has become the hallmark of modern writing. Today heroes are villains and no one is an unmixed state. In a sense this reflects daily life where compromise is everywhere and no one is bad or good in essence. In a sense we have all become mud people and if this theory is right is is partly beacause of mud literature.

It also explains the great interest, at least in part, in good/bad movies – like the Ring series, and romantic comedies. It alsl may indicate why book publishing as a whole is in the doldrums, because even the intelligensia find realism unentertaining.

Yesterday I had converse with one of my colleagues, Mass Linear Momentum, on the subject of electronic technology and personal preferences. In the process we both had occasion to cite a statement by another, joint colleague, Total Angular Momentum Coupling, (of whom I have blogged previously,) who once responded to some officious hoarder of stercus that they called it a “personal computer” for a reason. I have to admit to strongly agreeing with TAMC in the sense of a toothbrush or a good fountain pen.

That is, one does not normally loan one’s toothbrush. Perhaps in a pinch to someone one shares both close DNA correlation and affection with, but the number are few and happily avoidable given the slowness of dental deterioration and the relative inexpense of toothbrushes. Indeed, one may consider that relative inexpense to be one of the great and usually unsung successes of modern civilization. By the same token, one does not loan a good fountain pen simply because the pen and owner are a unit, each shaping the other and loaning such is comparable to loaning one’s wife. This may be a practice in some societies but not in mine.

Although I have had fewer requests to loan FD SCP than one of my Pelikans. I should perhaps venture that I might loan an inexpensive steel nibbed pen, such as those sold by those Levenger people, but never a truly good pen with a gold irridium nib. And since trash ball point pens cost less than toothbruses, their lack elicits no sympathy from me. I would, in the instance, of course, retain the cap to assure the pen is returned.

I fear I am comparably inclined with regard to my computers. If someone has need of one of mine for anything more than a brief internet search, I usually set them up a guest account that I may sanitize immediately after. I have adopted this process because another of my colleagues, Angular Momentum Energy, has grandchildren who visit and deposit all manner of electronic pony poo on his machine that I usually get entreated to tidy up for him, demonstrating more to me about the inability of those who claim to instruct computer literacy than any failing on his part.

Thus it was with some intrigue that I noted an article in the Register [Link] about how Gooey is promoting a client by which people can access “their” computer long distance. Such clients have been around for some time, rightly banned by the security conscious, but with the inertia of Gooey such may now become widespread. The obvious concern of software pundits such as the Free Software Foundation, is this will lead to computers becoming only internet terminals and the demise of localized computing.

I should first advance that in the context of the idea that users increasingly define computing in terms of what they do with a computer, that is, neither hardware nor software but activities or tasks, all of this makes eminent sense for those people whose actions or tasks will be provided online. The latter is the kicker. If all you do is things that Gooey Applications permit and support, then you have scant need for a box with a hard drive and such. I would not however recommend doing so. It rather strikes me as akin to trying to infect oneself with every disease possible – including ceasing all efforts of personal hygiene and having unprotected reproductive activity with the least costly of sexual retailers – on the theory that what does not kill us makes us stronger. (With apologies for the implied slur to German nationals.)

I do not think that the individual computer is yet at dire risk although it is receding to the vision of IBM originally and hence the cost will likely increase ameliorated by a slowdown in change in hardware and software capabilities. Indeed, the old practice of writing your own software may return. Certainly an environment almost idyllic for the selfsame Free Software Foundation and killing ground for the likes of MegaHard. The reason for this is that those whose activities and tasks are not supported by the web (or cloud or whatever it is called) and those who know what personal means will still want and need something in the way of a box that can do what they need and want in the way of security, tasks, and activities.

OK. I have to concede that the new guy in the oval office, the new one from Illinois, is pretty canny. The question is whether he thunk this up or one of his staff did and he was sharp enough to adopt it. Regardless, at least for now, his move to permit states to set their own automobile emissions standards is a thing of Byzantine beauty. [Link]

If the states set their own standards, and several – fourteen reported – already have, then the automobile manufacturers are faced with some hard choices. In effect they either offer automobiles for sale that meet the standards (or exceed them), or they go out of business in that state. And however dismal their sales fraction may be in any state, they will have to be VERY small for any manufacturer to completely disengage, shy of the corporation itself imploding. And (2) given the dismal sales nationally today, coupled with the general instance of sticker infarctions over hybrid automobile prices, and the impending demise of natural petroleum, it is unclear that any manufacturer can afford to manufacture fifty different versions of each model instance just to sale in the Yankee republic.

That is not to say that such is not possible, but it is a long way away with the current manufacturing and labor instrumentality that the automobile industry has today. If they tried it now all they would do is learn how to catastrophically break just-in-time logistics. So in effect, whichever state standard or union of standards is the most stringent (assuming more so than the Yankee government standard) becomes the de facto national standard that the automobile manufacturers have to manufacture to.

But what makes this so canny is that it short circuits not only the Yankee government bureaucracy, but also the corporate oligarchs by marginalizing both their lobbyist minions and their congress critter serfs. The oligarchs are still free to push forward their lobbyists and use legislative delaying tactics but now those have to be successful in every state and not just inside the district.  At the risk of sounding adulatory, this tactic borders on genius, at least as von Clausewitz used the term.

Whether this will win the battle, or even shape the war is yet to be seen. But kudos none the less for bringing smarts to Pennsylvania Avenue.