Time for some random thoughts about Google and what they might be up to long term that could justify a 200 dollar stock price.
I for one am holding out hope that Google will turn out to be the M$ slayer. Well that's not really true. I would be surprised if M$ ever really dies.... But then no one thought IBM would be so far out of the PC OS business in the early 80's either. How could Google do this ? Well they are definitely taking strides to interconnecting people in ways that are probably long over due. They are making formally hard things easy... like blogging for example. And no writing a blog was never very hard for someone technically adept, but Blogger makes it as easy as a web e-mail system and yet allows for a great deal of customization if you so desire. It is a great example of Google's philosophy. Make things possible and stay out of the users way, and give it away to bring them in the door so that you can put context sensitive ads around them.
Many people have theorized that a Google OS may be in the offing and I for one happen to agree. I think before long you are going to see a Google Portal application that at least at first will be built around a browser concept on steroids. It will be a glue architecture for connecting all of Google's offerings into a single coherent package. Ultimately it will further blur the line between local and network storage and begin unifying the internet as a persistent environment. I think that ultimately they are going to have to get into the provider game and they are going to do the same thing they always have. Give it away and provide such a good service it attracts enough people to make money on unobtrusive ads.
How could they do this? Well They are buying a great deal of dark fiber which has tremendous data capacity. A true Network OS with standard programs running as web applications is going to take a pretty good pipe to the users... what better way to provide it than being able to determine the pipe people use? My off hand guess would be fiber running to last mile wireless nodes... and I mean wireless on a massive scale. Fiber lines can run at Terabytes per second rates and that can provide fat pipes to a lot of people. If you could make a line of sight (similar to radio or cell phones) fiber linked wireless system you could probably blanket most metro areas pretty damn easily. Yes it would cost a lot of money but that is something Google can leverage right now. On the plus side Fiber is highly under used and thus very cheap right now. Moving massive amounts of data around is their specialty and if they provided a usable universal wireless broad band access for free they could fricken guarantee people will buy the needed quantities of client hardware to tie into the system.
To put it another way. Google has the money to buy the fiber. They have the money to buy/develop the wireless equipment. If they are going to do this it would be fairly easy to talk a hardware manufacturer to build the needed client cards based on the fact they were providing it. If it works then in the end they make money for the hardware providers to provide people with the ability to connect to their system. They make money by having people on the system the same way they make money by people going through their search sight. In a sense it is the same thing they do now just on a larger scale. And it would drive more data through their systems for indexing which just makes their core function that much more capable.
If on top of this it will almost have to require you to access it via portal software... or better yet a portal OS that is a purpose built front end that leverage the power of the local system and provide access to the powerful network back end. This way you could wind up with some seriously cheap systems in a hurry... E-machines that work. Your machine would be a login on a portal system away. Similar to the way Google Mail is available wherever you go and have a net connection. Imagine if your desktop was the same way... including access to materials stored on your home machine like it was local ? Your backup capacity would be the industrial level provided by Google in addition to any private means you wished to take on your own. And that would in general be far more than most people do now. This wouldn't take away using the system like you do now necesarrily... but if done right it would just make it obsolete. It also would provide the means to impement needed security patches.... ie it would be similar to going from a 'confederate' system of networking to a 'federal' one.
Sound far fetched? Well Google is already working on the personal storage level that would be needed. 2.5 gb per gmail account and climbing. More and more uses for that storage space are coming online courtesy of blogger and picture sharing with Hello. The conversion to digital formats of library contents. How far fetched is a web service Open Office suite ? One with a constantly updating set of grammar rules culled from all users, one which automatically links to quoted texts or contextually similar information ?. Thin client front ends to a set back end. IE windows faces version and hardware compatibility nightmares. What if they had the barest requirements for access on the front end and had control of the programs provided on the back end ? The result should be far more stable IF you could rely on the connection. IE my system doesn't do the number crunching... all it provides is input and a place to output. In other words putting to practical use the concept of 'The network is the computer'. On top of this they have a SETI style CPU cycle system which could be put to use sharing capacity among the systems hooked to the network.
To make an idea like this work they are going to need pipes similar to sustained HD data transfer rates. That means a 10mbs up/down pipe at the least preferably with some burst capacity up around 100mbs. Then all you have to do is keep network latency under 10ms and viola... you don't even notice most of the data you are accessing isn't local. The performance would be very comparable to a local system. Wireless tech is already at 54mbs. Cell phone systems in Japan are already there. The fiber capacity is already available here. All that remains is an OS, and putting the system together. I give it 5 years max at which time either we will already not be able to recognize computing when compared to today... or well on the way. Google is the trailblazer cause they are the only ones with the balls to provide the access for free and know that if they get the herd to go through them they can make money in the process. So long as they can make it make money it will happen. I don't see this happening as a pay for access. At least not on that fast a time scale. If you make it negligible cost (50-100 dollar access card) to access it the adoption will be all but instantaneous by the people that matter. Once the pendulum swings that will be all she wrote for anyone that isn't riding the wave. At least that is what I think now. Perhaps next week will bring some new news.
Sunday, September 25, 2005
New Porno Police
Well the FBI has a new priority task group. Their job ? To crack down on porn. Kiddie porn you say? Oh no. They are after the more questionable practices that take place between consenting adults. BDSM for example and other more riske sexual acts. Things which are unquestionably repugnant to a large number of people. The litmus test being applied for this Task group is cracking down on so called Obscene materials is one which has been employed before with a not so stellar track record. For example once upon a time perfectly 'normal' sexual acts pictured between interacial couples was considered obscene for one particularly poignant example. This is not a doctrine with a good history. It is one that has often been the rallying call of moral pundits up on their high horse trying to reign in all the "rampant indecency" that so offends them.
The idea here is to apply the so called community standard that recieved its strongest test in the case of the People vrs Larry Flynt. If there is no redeeming value then it is declared obscene and thus is declared off limits/ illegal etc... The thing is if people are buying it then you might just have to consider that they find value in it. Essentially that is what wound up being determined in the case againt Hustler Magazine owner Larry Flynt. In otherwords they decided that there was no accounting for some peoples taste.
America's schizo relationship with porn is nothing new. What people say in the light of day and then do in the privacy of their own home have long since parted ways. Porn is a multibillion dollar industry which last year made more money than all professional sports franchises combined. That is, as a society, we spend more on purient pursuits than we do on sports. And not a small portion of this money is spent seeking out the new 'obscene' targets of this task group.
In deffense of this effort a new conservative writer by the name of Benjamin Shapiro has tossed in this diatrab .
I loved this particular bit right here.
Plainly it is not governmental inefficiency these agents are worried about. They find the anti-pornography crowd disturbing because they believe that policing pornography violates fundamental rights. This has become the dominant view in our society: As long as what I do doesn't harm you personally, I have a right to do it. It's a silly view and a view rejected by law enforcement policies all over the country. Were we to truly recognize such a philosophy, we would have to legalize prostitution, drugs and suicide – as well as the murder of homeless drifters with no family or friends. After all, if someone kills a homeless drifter, how does that affect anyone else? Consent should make no difference here – that's an imposition of your values. Just because a murderer offends your moral sensibilities doesn't give you an excuse to impose your subjective values on a society
We would have to legalize prostitution, drugs, suicide as well as the murder of homeless drifters without family ????? Hold on their a minute Mr. Shapiro, that is what they call a classic slippery slope argument. Not to mention Killing someone is clearly violating their rights so it dosn't even fit the discription you are trying to slip it in as. So no one here is suggesting that we should ok the killing of homeless drifters... or genocide due to moral relativity as he later goes on to indicate are possible results of this dangerous idea that if something dosn't hurt others it should be allowed. If you don't believe me go read it yourself, thats why I put the link up there.
While I would like to say that this absurd line of argument whereby Mr. Shapiro exits stage left from rational thought largely invalidates his enitre discourse I am left unable to. He starts out well enough with the issues of such things as Drugs, Prostitution and Suicide. All excellent fringe freedom issues.
There are plenty of issues surrounding the Porn industry that could be tackled by such a task force. But deciding whether or not depictions of certain sexual acts between consenting adults should be allowed is not one of them. That is for the people to decide for themselves and as the courts found in the case against Larry Flynt... there just is no accounting for some peoples taste. Instead there are plenty of very legitimate issues for the task force to focus on. Such as the hiring of underaged performers. Drugs used for the express purpose of lowering inhibitions IE like rupinal in date rape scenarios and any number of other issues of the underbelly of a very seedy industry. Issues which need not require the FBI to get involved in deciding what it is ok for consenting adults to do to each other on film for the entertainment of others.
The idea here is to apply the so called community standard that recieved its strongest test in the case of the People vrs Larry Flynt. If there is no redeeming value then it is declared obscene and thus is declared off limits/ illegal etc... The thing is if people are buying it then you might just have to consider that they find value in it. Essentially that is what wound up being determined in the case againt Hustler Magazine owner Larry Flynt. In otherwords they decided that there was no accounting for some peoples taste.
America's schizo relationship with porn is nothing new. What people say in the light of day and then do in the privacy of their own home have long since parted ways. Porn is a multibillion dollar industry which last year made more money than all professional sports franchises combined. That is, as a society, we spend more on purient pursuits than we do on sports. And not a small portion of this money is spent seeking out the new 'obscene' targets of this task group.
In deffense of this effort a new conservative writer by the name of Benjamin Shapiro has tossed in this diatrab .
I loved this particular bit right here.
Plainly it is not governmental inefficiency these agents are worried about. They find the anti-pornography crowd disturbing because they believe that policing pornography violates fundamental rights. This has become the dominant view in our society: As long as what I do doesn't harm you personally, I have a right to do it. It's a silly view and a view rejected by law enforcement policies all over the country. Were we to truly recognize such a philosophy, we would have to legalize prostitution, drugs and suicide – as well as the murder of homeless drifters with no family or friends. After all, if someone kills a homeless drifter, how does that affect anyone else? Consent should make no difference here – that's an imposition of your values. Just because a murderer offends your moral sensibilities doesn't give you an excuse to impose your subjective values on a society
We would have to legalize prostitution, drugs, suicide as well as the murder of homeless drifters without family ????? Hold on their a minute Mr. Shapiro, that is what they call a classic slippery slope argument. Not to mention Killing someone is clearly violating their rights so it dosn't even fit the discription you are trying to slip it in as. So no one here is suggesting that we should ok the killing of homeless drifters... or genocide due to moral relativity as he later goes on to indicate are possible results of this dangerous idea that if something dosn't hurt others it should be allowed. If you don't believe me go read it yourself, thats why I put the link up there.
While I would like to say that this absurd line of argument whereby Mr. Shapiro exits stage left from rational thought largely invalidates his enitre discourse I am left unable to. He starts out well enough with the issues of such things as Drugs, Prostitution and Suicide. All excellent fringe freedom issues.
There are plenty of issues surrounding the Porn industry that could be tackled by such a task force. But deciding whether or not depictions of certain sexual acts between consenting adults should be allowed is not one of them. That is for the people to decide for themselves and as the courts found in the case against Larry Flynt... there just is no accounting for some peoples taste. Instead there are plenty of very legitimate issues for the task force to focus on. Such as the hiring of underaged performers. Drugs used for the express purpose of lowering inhibitions IE like rupinal in date rape scenarios and any number of other issues of the underbelly of a very seedy industry. Issues which need not require the FBI to get involved in deciding what it is ok for consenting adults to do to each other on film for the entertainment of others.
Wednesday, September 21, 2005
NASA exploration architecture
You know. I could talk all day and night about the new exploration initative. But I think I will leave it at this.
We are proposing a 12 year time line at the earliest to land on the moon.
In 1960 Kennedy proposed we would do it by the end of the decade and we made it in 69.
In otherwords... we made it faster when we didn't know it could be done than we are proposing to do it now that we not only know it can be done but still retain all the knowledge that got us their last time.
In otherwords... It is being proposed it will take 3 years longer in the day of the supercomputer than it did in the day of the slide rule.
That only gets more ridiculose when you consider they did it faster with slide rules when they were not sure they could do it than they are proposing to do it with computers and current manufacturing and hindsight of the last 30 years of space flight.
What makes it worse ? Its not like we are even proposing a completely different more capable mission. If you look at the newly released mission configuration for the lunar landing it looks more than suspiciously similar to the old Apollo configuration. It IS the Apollo configuration. And the only difference this time will be incremental not revolutionary... ie more capable computers, slightly more refined rocketry and perhaps better materials. Marginal improvements at best.
The only major difference ? The Shuttle stack vrs the Saturn stack. AND WE ALREADY HAVE THE ROCKETS. the 9 years of Apollo included the design of the rocketry stack from the ground up, design building and testing of the engines used which were providing capabilities that had NEVER existed before. They are currently propsing to use off the self rocketry in a new configuration only. And still saying it will take longer than it did when they built the whole thing from scratch. They are not proposing some new capacity. In fact the proposed system will still fall short in many respects of the Saturn V stack. So... existing tech with known capacity and performance vrs entirely new designs with unknown performance parameters untill said testing was completed.... and they did the ground up faster than what they are proposing when utilizing known systems.
Furthermore. What are we doing differently ? We have done our flags and footprints mission. At least tell me we have a solid goal of what we will accomplish this time above and beyond what was done in the 60's, 70's that will require this longer program development and deployment time ? I have yet to hear it. A dark side telescope? A permanent or at least long duration outpost ? Landing in a more challenging and geologically interesting location? Atempted gathering and refining of Lunar resources for a future self sufficient outpost? Please god don't tell me we are not just going to copycat ourselves from 40 years ago. That would REALLY be pathetic. Like a 50 year old in a mid life crisis trying to recapture their youth. I firmly believe Apollo was worth every dime. But to reproduce it for no other reason that to reproduce it is not worth one lousy half a penny in my humble opinion.
Now I can understand arguments of... but this program is not going to be funded the same way. Thats fine. But it SHOULDN'T be. My god if we had to spend 1% of the national budget for a decade to recreate something we did 40 years ago before the advent of the personal computer with technology we largely have already developed I would be really concerned. I know NASA has gotten bad at managing money but that bad ? Yes yes yes I know that Shuttle and ISS suck up most of the NASA budget at present and that the NASA budget is tiny to begin with. I know that until the shuttle dies around 2010 there just won't be any of an already limited budget to throw at space exploration... so in that sence, this is a proposed 8 year timeline with some preliminary spitballing and the initial crew capsule design done in the mean time.
So in 2010 we will have the crew capsule. We will have the Rockets. And it will still take 8 years to put them together to launch to the moon? Someone want to explain that one to me again ? We built the rockets and capsule etc from scratch in 9 before and the delivery of the technology was the largest problem in terms of how long it took. Your telling me that when space exploration becomes the 500 pound gorilla in the budget and we already have most of the technological ground work laid it will still take us 8 years to repeat a feat we did in ten years, 4 decades ago, building from scratch ?
Your joking right?
Some suggestions.
1) Get NASA to paying for delivered goods. Cost Plus Contracting is a blight on any endeavor and has yet to deliver on any promise other than to super inflate any cost of any program which is run on such an asinine concept.
2) Let whoever can deliver the goods get the money. Private industry is supposed to take risks. Hang out a few hundred million or a Billion or two and someone will make the effort to build the tech you need on speculation they will succeed in providing it. Stop providing life support for the military industrial complex by assuring they are the only ones that can compete for NASA money and bank rolling them before they even deliver one practical item. Rutan's Scaled composite built Space ship one and the White Knight mother ship in less than 5 years for less than 20 million dollars for a 1o million dollar prize. What could they have done in 5 years with a billion dollar prize and a clear goal similar to the ansari X prize? Perhaps its time to go with people that deliver results instead of cost overuns and scandles.... or at least with those who will profit ONLY if they actually DELIVER the goods.
We are proposing a 12 year time line at the earliest to land on the moon.
In 1960 Kennedy proposed we would do it by the end of the decade and we made it in 69.
In otherwords... we made it faster when we didn't know it could be done than we are proposing to do it now that we not only know it can be done but still retain all the knowledge that got us their last time.
In otherwords... It is being proposed it will take 3 years longer in the day of the supercomputer than it did in the day of the slide rule.
That only gets more ridiculose when you consider they did it faster with slide rules when they were not sure they could do it than they are proposing to do it with computers and current manufacturing and hindsight of the last 30 years of space flight.
What makes it worse ? Its not like we are even proposing a completely different more capable mission. If you look at the newly released mission configuration for the lunar landing it looks more than suspiciously similar to the old Apollo configuration. It IS the Apollo configuration. And the only difference this time will be incremental not revolutionary... ie more capable computers, slightly more refined rocketry and perhaps better materials. Marginal improvements at best.
The only major difference ? The Shuttle stack vrs the Saturn stack. AND WE ALREADY HAVE THE ROCKETS. the 9 years of Apollo included the design of the rocketry stack from the ground up, design building and testing of the engines used which were providing capabilities that had NEVER existed before. They are currently propsing to use off the self rocketry in a new configuration only. And still saying it will take longer than it did when they built the whole thing from scratch. They are not proposing some new capacity. In fact the proposed system will still fall short in many respects of the Saturn V stack. So... existing tech with known capacity and performance vrs entirely new designs with unknown performance parameters untill said testing was completed.... and they did the ground up faster than what they are proposing when utilizing known systems.
Furthermore. What are we doing differently ? We have done our flags and footprints mission. At least tell me we have a solid goal of what we will accomplish this time above and beyond what was done in the 60's, 70's that will require this longer program development and deployment time ? I have yet to hear it. A dark side telescope? A permanent or at least long duration outpost ? Landing in a more challenging and geologically interesting location? Atempted gathering and refining of Lunar resources for a future self sufficient outpost? Please god don't tell me we are not just going to copycat ourselves from 40 years ago. That would REALLY be pathetic. Like a 50 year old in a mid life crisis trying to recapture their youth. I firmly believe Apollo was worth every dime. But to reproduce it for no other reason that to reproduce it is not worth one lousy half a penny in my humble opinion.
Now I can understand arguments of... but this program is not going to be funded the same way. Thats fine. But it SHOULDN'T be. My god if we had to spend 1% of the national budget for a decade to recreate something we did 40 years ago before the advent of the personal computer with technology we largely have already developed I would be really concerned. I know NASA has gotten bad at managing money but that bad ? Yes yes yes I know that Shuttle and ISS suck up most of the NASA budget at present and that the NASA budget is tiny to begin with. I know that until the shuttle dies around 2010 there just won't be any of an already limited budget to throw at space exploration... so in that sence, this is a proposed 8 year timeline with some preliminary spitballing and the initial crew capsule design done in the mean time.
So in 2010 we will have the crew capsule. We will have the Rockets. And it will still take 8 years to put them together to launch to the moon? Someone want to explain that one to me again ? We built the rockets and capsule etc from scratch in 9 before and the delivery of the technology was the largest problem in terms of how long it took. Your telling me that when space exploration becomes the 500 pound gorilla in the budget and we already have most of the technological ground work laid it will still take us 8 years to repeat a feat we did in ten years, 4 decades ago, building from scratch ?
Your joking right?
Some suggestions.
1) Get NASA to paying for delivered goods. Cost Plus Contracting is a blight on any endeavor and has yet to deliver on any promise other than to super inflate any cost of any program which is run on such an asinine concept.
2) Let whoever can deliver the goods get the money. Private industry is supposed to take risks. Hang out a few hundred million or a Billion or two and someone will make the effort to build the tech you need on speculation they will succeed in providing it. Stop providing life support for the military industrial complex by assuring they are the only ones that can compete for NASA money and bank rolling them before they even deliver one practical item. Rutan's Scaled composite built Space ship one and the White Knight mother ship in less than 5 years for less than 20 million dollars for a 1o million dollar prize. What could they have done in 5 years with a billion dollar prize and a clear goal similar to the ansari X prize? Perhaps its time to go with people that deliver results instead of cost overuns and scandles.... or at least with those who will profit ONLY if they actually DELIVER the goods.
Sunday, September 11, 2005
New Dinosaur
Well now we have an interesting new discovery of a gigantic flying dinosaur. Previously Petrosaurs were highly disputed as flying animals because of the difficulty of the physiology of flight as we understand it today. However the overwhelming fossile evidence that indicated not just that the animal flew but flew easily has largely confounded experts in modern bird physiology.
To make a long discussion short the issue is material strength and metabolisim. Bird wings are extrodinarily fragile constructs. Anyone that has ever held a flight bird in their hand knows just how in substantial they are and how easy it is to break them. Now imagine such a structure that stretched some 8-9 meters to a side and then flap it hard enough to lift the weight of a bird with a 18 meter wing span. Experts were puzzled before by earlier examples of the capable flyers that petroasaurs evidently were and they have all be considerably smaller than this monster that they just found. The argument in short is that bones can not be both strong enough and light enough for what would be needed to support a bird flapping such large wings. And when you start with that problem to begin with it dosn't get any easier as you add strength.. because to do that you need stronger bones which means heavier bones which mean more force must be generated.
I have no doubt that in the years to come there will be some argument about the flying ability of this new find very similar in vein to the old petrosarus debate. But the evidence in support here seems to be of a similar nature so the question is more HOW did it fly than that it did or did not. and it truly is a puzzle. If you have never encountered the size issue debate of dinosaurs from the understanding of modern biology it is a fascinating discussion. Moden biologists have major problems with the giant sizes of some dinosaurs. Discussions about the sauropod neck are endless as are discussions about the athletic capacity of T-Rex. All evidence seems to point to animals that were highly active, but modern biologists often insist it is impossible. That the shear size presents problems.
For example if you take the largest herbivore and largest carnivore of today. The Elephant and the Bear respectively. Both are fairly lethargic. The bear in fact is actually omnivourous and in fact derrives much of its diet from non meat sources. The elephant bears the distinction of being the only mammal that cannot jump. Taking what we know of modern elephant physiology modern biologist simply have no answer for how a T-Rex, which was larger than an elephant, Could not only carry all of its weight on Two legs, but actually perform the highly agile manouevers needed for a carnivore to catch its prey. This difficulty is the single largest reason why early on most people assumed dinosaurs were lumbering extremely slow beasts that simply lived in slow motion. That they were cold blooded and that the reason T-Rex could be a carnivore was that it could be that slow and still catch food. Then the evidence began mounting strongly in favor of warm blooded creaters with high metabolisims that had activity rates much more in common with that of birds than chilled reptiles. IE they were fast and quick AND huge. This is still a thorny subject to modern biologists because to their eyes it is completely impossible that this combination could ever exist.
The problem of the strength of the petrasuarus wings is the same for T-Rex's legs and the Sauropods Neck. Muscles couldn't be strong enough, Bone couldn't be strong enough and even if either were the shear amount of energy that would have to be processed to put them to use would have had them needing to eat non-stop for 30 hours a day (IE not enough time to do anything else and still not enough time). All in all its is a fascinating discussion at the edge of science where what we know about the past and what we know about the present clash.
To make a long discussion short the issue is material strength and metabolisim. Bird wings are extrodinarily fragile constructs. Anyone that has ever held a flight bird in their hand knows just how in substantial they are and how easy it is to break them. Now imagine such a structure that stretched some 8-9 meters to a side and then flap it hard enough to lift the weight of a bird with a 18 meter wing span. Experts were puzzled before by earlier examples of the capable flyers that petroasaurs evidently were and they have all be considerably smaller than this monster that they just found. The argument in short is that bones can not be both strong enough and light enough for what would be needed to support a bird flapping such large wings. And when you start with that problem to begin with it dosn't get any easier as you add strength.. because to do that you need stronger bones which means heavier bones which mean more force must be generated.
I have no doubt that in the years to come there will be some argument about the flying ability of this new find very similar in vein to the old petrosarus debate. But the evidence in support here seems to be of a similar nature so the question is more HOW did it fly than that it did or did not. and it truly is a puzzle. If you have never encountered the size issue debate of dinosaurs from the understanding of modern biology it is a fascinating discussion. Moden biologists have major problems with the giant sizes of some dinosaurs. Discussions about the sauropod neck are endless as are discussions about the athletic capacity of T-Rex. All evidence seems to point to animals that were highly active, but modern biologists often insist it is impossible. That the shear size presents problems.
For example if you take the largest herbivore and largest carnivore of today. The Elephant and the Bear respectively. Both are fairly lethargic. The bear in fact is actually omnivourous and in fact derrives much of its diet from non meat sources. The elephant bears the distinction of being the only mammal that cannot jump. Taking what we know of modern elephant physiology modern biologist simply have no answer for how a T-Rex, which was larger than an elephant, Could not only carry all of its weight on Two legs, but actually perform the highly agile manouevers needed for a carnivore to catch its prey. This difficulty is the single largest reason why early on most people assumed dinosaurs were lumbering extremely slow beasts that simply lived in slow motion. That they were cold blooded and that the reason T-Rex could be a carnivore was that it could be that slow and still catch food. Then the evidence began mounting strongly in favor of warm blooded creaters with high metabolisims that had activity rates much more in common with that of birds than chilled reptiles. IE they were fast and quick AND huge. This is still a thorny subject to modern biologists because to their eyes it is completely impossible that this combination could ever exist.
The problem of the strength of the petrasuarus wings is the same for T-Rex's legs and the Sauropods Neck. Muscles couldn't be strong enough, Bone couldn't be strong enough and even if either were the shear amount of energy that would have to be processed to put them to use would have had them needing to eat non-stop for 30 hours a day (IE not enough time to do anything else and still not enough time). All in all its is a fascinating discussion at the edge of science where what we know about the past and what we know about the present clash.
Wednesday, September 07, 2005
Gay Marriage
Well the California State legislature became the first to pass a bill allowing same sex marriage today.
Well better late than never. Its nice that we are finally catching up to our supposed roots of a country founded on the concept of freedom and tolerance. It has amazed me to no end the uproar caused over two people wanting to have their union officially recognised. I mean its not like same sex couples are going to change. It is not like this suddenly legitimizes them. They were already legitimate. If you think not then you have never known personally two people of the same gender that were bound in their love for one another. This is simply a long overdue recognition of the fact that some people form pair bonds with the same sex. And that as we recognize those pair bonds between a man and woman we should give no less recognition to those that form it man to man or woman to woman. I hope that all 50 states soon follow.
What are those against this afriad of? That there will be no marriages between man and woman if we make it acceptable to be married to someone of the same sex? Please. That it is a Sin? Hell it never even says out and out in the bible that sex between people of the same gender is evil. It says it was a practice of the people of Soddam and Gomorrah and that they were evil people. Not that this was what made them evil. Be nice if some actually read the good book rather than spouting off nonsense about it. What about love your neighbor ? Hmmmmm ? Judging not lest ye be Judged ? If the act of homosexuality is abhorrent to God then God will take care of those errant ways in good time. Feel free to make it known you do not approve as you have every right to your opinion on the matter. But no one has a right to say who it is right for another to Love. And who it is wrong to Love. And it certainly is not the Governments Job to say what bonds of love shall be recognized and which shall not. The governemnt is to provide equality for all walks and persuasions inso much as it does not interfere with the rights of others. The desire of two consenting adults to form a partnership has no bearing on any other persons rights, and as such should not be denied any rights accorded other such partnerships.
Churches have every right to NOT accept this. They have every right to refuse to perform a ceremony joining two people of the same sex in Holy Matrimony. Just as others have every right TO accept it and to perform such ceremonies. It is not the governemnts right however. Nor is it the right of the majority to decide that the minority cannot enjoy the same freedoms. How many times must we travel down this road before we realize there is more to democracy than the popular will of the people? We elect representatives and leaders not just to do what we want them to. But for them to make the decisions in the best intrest of all. Whether or not they are popular decisions.
I hate to think what my Beloved South would be today if we merely allowed the popular opinion of those in power to rule the day. Democracy allows us to escape the tyranny of the many as well as that of the few. Making choices of morality for others is something that should always be avoided. Lay down the rules of wrong and right. But do not mistake your morality as the last judgement on what is right and wrong. Do not think to save people from themselves as just perhaps all they want is to be saved from your judgements. Just as you have the right to disagree with them so to they have the right to disagree with you. And it is that Freedom which is so precious. And so worth dying for that countless lives have been lost and untold gallons of blood spilt to provide for this country.
For once my hat is off to California. They done right.
Well better late than never. Its nice that we are finally catching up to our supposed roots of a country founded on the concept of freedom and tolerance. It has amazed me to no end the uproar caused over two people wanting to have their union officially recognised. I mean its not like same sex couples are going to change. It is not like this suddenly legitimizes them. They were already legitimate. If you think not then you have never known personally two people of the same gender that were bound in their love for one another. This is simply a long overdue recognition of the fact that some people form pair bonds with the same sex. And that as we recognize those pair bonds between a man and woman we should give no less recognition to those that form it man to man or woman to woman. I hope that all 50 states soon follow.
What are those against this afriad of? That there will be no marriages between man and woman if we make it acceptable to be married to someone of the same sex? Please. That it is a Sin? Hell it never even says out and out in the bible that sex between people of the same gender is evil. It says it was a practice of the people of Soddam and Gomorrah and that they were evil people. Not that this was what made them evil. Be nice if some actually read the good book rather than spouting off nonsense about it. What about love your neighbor ? Hmmmmm ? Judging not lest ye be Judged ? If the act of homosexuality is abhorrent to God then God will take care of those errant ways in good time. Feel free to make it known you do not approve as you have every right to your opinion on the matter. But no one has a right to say who it is right for another to Love. And who it is wrong to Love. And it certainly is not the Governments Job to say what bonds of love shall be recognized and which shall not. The governemnt is to provide equality for all walks and persuasions inso much as it does not interfere with the rights of others. The desire of two consenting adults to form a partnership has no bearing on any other persons rights, and as such should not be denied any rights accorded other such partnerships.
Churches have every right to NOT accept this. They have every right to refuse to perform a ceremony joining two people of the same sex in Holy Matrimony. Just as others have every right TO accept it and to perform such ceremonies. It is not the governemnts right however. Nor is it the right of the majority to decide that the minority cannot enjoy the same freedoms. How many times must we travel down this road before we realize there is more to democracy than the popular will of the people? We elect representatives and leaders not just to do what we want them to. But for them to make the decisions in the best intrest of all. Whether or not they are popular decisions.
I hate to think what my Beloved South would be today if we merely allowed the popular opinion of those in power to rule the day. Democracy allows us to escape the tyranny of the many as well as that of the few. Making choices of morality for others is something that should always be avoided. Lay down the rules of wrong and right. But do not mistake your morality as the last judgement on what is right and wrong. Do not think to save people from themselves as just perhaps all they want is to be saved from your judgements. Just as you have the right to disagree with them so to they have the right to disagree with you. And it is that Freedom which is so precious. And so worth dying for that countless lives have been lost and untold gallons of blood spilt to provide for this country.
For once my hat is off to California. They done right.
Friday, September 02, 2005
Katrina
This is our Tsunami ???? What crack rock are people smoking saying that? The Tsunami in dec 2004 killed more than 200,000 people. Damn near 300,000. If Katrina breaks 10,000 dead it will be a surprise. It is a tragedy enough by itself but DO NOT try and put it in the same class of something that killed a cool Quarter of a million people. Have some perspective here folks. And lord knows the US economy is in far better shape to deal with such damage than the severely depressed south east Asian economies.
Also part of the magnitude of the death toll is directly tied to the fact many people CHOSE not to go in addition to those that could not go. For those that chose to stay when a cat 5 hurricane threatened the coast they lived on or near I have little sympathy. They played Russian Roulette and I have as much sympathy for them as someone stupid enough to spin the cylinders of a partialy loaded revolver and then pull the trigger to find out if they will shoot themselves.
For those that had no choice but to stay help is comming. It can't happen over night. Several hundred miles of coast and one major city are completely devestated and the worst case scenario of the levies being breeched in New Orleans happend. For those comparing speed of response to something like 9-11 have a sanity check on the comparitive magnitudes of devestation. One downtown district in the middle of the most highly technologically advanced coasts in the world that suffered no other damage vrs 100's of miles of wiped out coast line in the poorest areas of the US. Katrina left 1,000's of square miles spanning THREE states in utter dissarray and an ENTIRE MAJOR CITY under water with 10's of thousands, perhaps more than a hundred thousand, stranded imobile poor that were in bad shape BEFORE the storm hit. You think it might take a bit of time to organize how to deal with this... hell just to make a dent in it ?
To the people spreading FUD about the speed of the response ??? STFU !!!!. Good lord. The largest calamity this nation has seen on its soil since Andrew hit the Carolina Coast is just 4 days in the past and all the relief that can be mustered is headed that way. Power Trucks in the thousands headed that way without delay to the detriment of other communities ability to recover from less severe damage as the storm moved inland. The National Guard has been bringing itself to bear. 10 billion dollars in reliefe has passed about as fast as an unplanned bill can. 11,000 people have been moved to just ONE location 350 miles away. Sit down and figure out the logistics of that without power, water, gas stations in Jefferson Parish and only limited access to the interior of the city. Much less the thousands of others that have been pulled to saftey in other locations. Thailand WISHES they could have mustered the response that has been delivered to the areas devestated by Katrina. Hell they wish they could have mustered HALF of it. And it is just going to get bigger and bigger.
Damn. I know we live in a society that demmands immediate results but some things just plain take time. What could be done quickly has been done quickly, piece meal evacuation where equipment could be brought to bear and YES IT WASN'T ENOUGH. It was what was quickly available. Mustering and organizing the man power to effectively deal with this problem looks to have taken 4 days.
What might have been done better? Call up of National guard probably should have begun before the storm even landed. Soon as it hit sustained Cat 5 status and we knew it was going to make landfall they should have been mobilized and preperations made for where to send the reliefe. Oh wait.... THEY DID THAT. In accordance with past events. This one got bigger. And the response is scalling up accordingly. but if you wonder what the guard is doing just go check out their website. Perhaps the initial call up could have been bigger... but hell that thing was nothing till not much more than 48 hours before it hit. Can you imagine if it had developed into a cat 5 in the atlantic, Hit Miami THEN corssed into the Gulf and picked momentum back up the way it did? We may have had to define a new category beyond catastrophic and just called it the appocalypse.
Where should some blame land that it has YET to? How about the local and state government of Louisiana? The vulnerability of New Orleans to a direct hit by any significant Hurricane was far from unknown. The problem of dealing with the cities poor and essentially imobile population was recognized long ago as a major complication compounding factor to how ugly such an event would be. Yet when the evacuation became mandatory there was no allowance for evacuating those that had not the means to evacuate themselves. No busses already running moving people out of the path of the storm. Just a last ditch opening of the superdome for some of them to ride it out.... Nope instead of taking preventative measures with the immobile population the city rolled the dice on the deffenses they had built and they failed. They have done this for YEARS, hell DECADES. This is nothing new. What is new is that this time around the storm hit and the Levee failed. Thats the thing about odds and an infinate timeline. Sooner or later the event WILL happen. I see an awfull lot of similarity in this event and the discussion regarding asteroids colliding with earth. We know they have hit in the past, we know they will hit in the future. Yet we pay it no real mind assuring ourselves that before it hits we will come up with adequate deffense measures. Somehow I doubt many will take such a lesson from it... but I am strange.
New Orleans will Rise Again. Though I do somewhat question the wisdom of re-building a city that is well below sea level. But people do not always do logical things and the city has huge sentimental value. Hopefully we will take lessons from this and the next time it happens. Somehow I doubt it. If its deffenses are not built according to what we know can happen then they need to accept the risk or certainly plan better for what to do in the event that they know something is about to happen for which they have no deffense.
Also part of the magnitude of the death toll is directly tied to the fact many people CHOSE not to go in addition to those that could not go. For those that chose to stay when a cat 5 hurricane threatened the coast they lived on or near I have little sympathy. They played Russian Roulette and I have as much sympathy for them as someone stupid enough to spin the cylinders of a partialy loaded revolver and then pull the trigger to find out if they will shoot themselves.
For those that had no choice but to stay help is comming. It can't happen over night. Several hundred miles of coast and one major city are completely devestated and the worst case scenario of the levies being breeched in New Orleans happend. For those comparing speed of response to something like 9-11 have a sanity check on the comparitive magnitudes of devestation. One downtown district in the middle of the most highly technologically advanced coasts in the world that suffered no other damage vrs 100's of miles of wiped out coast line in the poorest areas of the US. Katrina left 1,000's of square miles spanning THREE states in utter dissarray and an ENTIRE MAJOR CITY under water with 10's of thousands, perhaps more than a hundred thousand, stranded imobile poor that were in bad shape BEFORE the storm hit. You think it might take a bit of time to organize how to deal with this... hell just to make a dent in it ?
To the people spreading FUD about the speed of the response ??? STFU !!!!. Good lord. The largest calamity this nation has seen on its soil since Andrew hit the Carolina Coast is just 4 days in the past and all the relief that can be mustered is headed that way. Power Trucks in the thousands headed that way without delay to the detriment of other communities ability to recover from less severe damage as the storm moved inland. The National Guard has been bringing itself to bear. 10 billion dollars in reliefe has passed about as fast as an unplanned bill can. 11,000 people have been moved to just ONE location 350 miles away. Sit down and figure out the logistics of that without power, water, gas stations in Jefferson Parish and only limited access to the interior of the city. Much less the thousands of others that have been pulled to saftey in other locations. Thailand WISHES they could have mustered the response that has been delivered to the areas devestated by Katrina. Hell they wish they could have mustered HALF of it. And it is just going to get bigger and bigger.
Damn. I know we live in a society that demmands immediate results but some things just plain take time. What could be done quickly has been done quickly, piece meal evacuation where equipment could be brought to bear and YES IT WASN'T ENOUGH. It was what was quickly available. Mustering and organizing the man power to effectively deal with this problem looks to have taken 4 days.
What might have been done better? Call up of National guard probably should have begun before the storm even landed. Soon as it hit sustained Cat 5 status and we knew it was going to make landfall they should have been mobilized and preperations made for where to send the reliefe. Oh wait.... THEY DID THAT. In accordance with past events. This one got bigger. And the response is scalling up accordingly. but if you wonder what the guard is doing just go check out their website. Perhaps the initial call up could have been bigger... but hell that thing was nothing till not much more than 48 hours before it hit. Can you imagine if it had developed into a cat 5 in the atlantic, Hit Miami THEN corssed into the Gulf and picked momentum back up the way it did? We may have had to define a new category beyond catastrophic and just called it the appocalypse.
Where should some blame land that it has YET to? How about the local and state government of Louisiana? The vulnerability of New Orleans to a direct hit by any significant Hurricane was far from unknown. The problem of dealing with the cities poor and essentially imobile population was recognized long ago as a major complication compounding factor to how ugly such an event would be. Yet when the evacuation became mandatory there was no allowance for evacuating those that had not the means to evacuate themselves. No busses already running moving people out of the path of the storm. Just a last ditch opening of the superdome for some of them to ride it out.... Nope instead of taking preventative measures with the immobile population the city rolled the dice on the deffenses they had built and they failed. They have done this for YEARS, hell DECADES. This is nothing new. What is new is that this time around the storm hit and the Levee failed. Thats the thing about odds and an infinate timeline. Sooner or later the event WILL happen. I see an awfull lot of similarity in this event and the discussion regarding asteroids colliding with earth. We know they have hit in the past, we know they will hit in the future. Yet we pay it no real mind assuring ourselves that before it hits we will come up with adequate deffense measures. Somehow I doubt many will take such a lesson from it... but I am strange.
New Orleans will Rise Again. Though I do somewhat question the wisdom of re-building a city that is well below sea level. But people do not always do logical things and the city has huge sentimental value. Hopefully we will take lessons from this and the next time it happens. Somehow I doubt it. If its deffenses are not built according to what we know can happen then they need to accept the risk or certainly plan better for what to do in the event that they know something is about to happen for which they have no deffense.
Gas Prices
Human nature is a bitch you know. We take a hit to our supply chain and instead of perhaps laying off the gas, using the car less and easing the demand on the supply of gas to the stations we all rush like lemmings to the station and cause a panic. We took a hit to a 1/4 of our production. No word yet on how long that will last and the only other news we have for sure is that the reserves are going to be opened and fuel environmental requirements eased to speed production else where. All in all not a panic level of problem. But now we sucked out what little margin there was in the system to ease the transition to a lower supply market by rushing out to the stores en masse.
STUPID STUPID STUPID. This is a time to use LESS gas not MORE and that is exactly what happend with every one going and filling there tanks at once. And those f*****g money grubbing bastards that raised the pump prices so fast it scared everyone to death to begin with need to be held to account for this to some degree. We went from 2.40 to 3.00 a gallon here and it obviously has not seen its peak. If everyone had seen prices remaining more or less stable they likely wouldn't have paniced but no, they had to try and capitalize on the situation and the fact that oil entering the processing cycle NOW and that won't come to market for MONTHS just shot up on the stock market all because they can. Damn this is getting old. Oil has increased just over 20% per barrel over the last year before Katrina and yet pump prices rose more than 30%. Someone please explain that to me? What is the deffinition of price gouging again? Isn't that not allowed? Now it shot up a 1/6th a barrel and the prices jumped more than a 1/5th. This can't keep going like this.
On the other hand if gas prices more or less stabalize above 3$ a gallon it is going to do some interesting things to the alternative fuel markets in the US. For one thing pure Bio-Diesel just became more profitable. Somehow I doubt there will be much bio mass rotting in silos come the end of this year. Ethonol may take off like a bat out of hell as well since it can be put pretty much strait into existing engines with extremely minor modifications. Additionally this just made the Canada Tar field extraction process that much more profitable, and they have a supply of that crap to rival the middle east reserves of sweet crude.... just have to get production ramped up.
This is going to be a shock... its going to hurt. But perhaps having this shock come this way, via Natural disasster BEFORE we really just started sucking the supply dry will work to our favor. Afterall America has always worked best under the gun, always come up with more faster than any nation before it when it had to. For a long time now we havn't had to come up with anything. Europe just adjusted to insanely high oil prices. Americans won't. Hell with the distances and low population densities we have to deal with we just CAN'T.
STUPID STUPID STUPID. This is a time to use LESS gas not MORE and that is exactly what happend with every one going and filling there tanks at once. And those f*****g money grubbing bastards that raised the pump prices so fast it scared everyone to death to begin with need to be held to account for this to some degree. We went from 2.40 to 3.00 a gallon here and it obviously has not seen its peak. If everyone had seen prices remaining more or less stable they likely wouldn't have paniced but no, they had to try and capitalize on the situation and the fact that oil entering the processing cycle NOW and that won't come to market for MONTHS just shot up on the stock market all because they can. Damn this is getting old. Oil has increased just over 20% per barrel over the last year before Katrina and yet pump prices rose more than 30%. Someone please explain that to me? What is the deffinition of price gouging again? Isn't that not allowed? Now it shot up a 1/6th a barrel and the prices jumped more than a 1/5th. This can't keep going like this.
On the other hand if gas prices more or less stabalize above 3$ a gallon it is going to do some interesting things to the alternative fuel markets in the US. For one thing pure Bio-Diesel just became more profitable. Somehow I doubt there will be much bio mass rotting in silos come the end of this year. Ethonol may take off like a bat out of hell as well since it can be put pretty much strait into existing engines with extremely minor modifications. Additionally this just made the Canada Tar field extraction process that much more profitable, and they have a supply of that crap to rival the middle east reserves of sweet crude.... just have to get production ramped up.
This is going to be a shock... its going to hurt. But perhaps having this shock come this way, via Natural disasster BEFORE we really just started sucking the supply dry will work to our favor. Afterall America has always worked best under the gun, always come up with more faster than any nation before it when it had to. For a long time now we havn't had to come up with anything. Europe just adjusted to insanely high oil prices. Americans won't. Hell with the distances and low population densities we have to deal with we just CAN'T.
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