The future of knowledge and education?

The Christian reconstructionist author Gary North, who's published many articles and books, poses an intriguing vision of the future dissemination of knowledge, and the means of learning, in two articles on LewRockwell.com.




His first article, Wikipedia And Google Will Bring Down Establishments All Over The World, examines how knowledge has been disseminated traditionally, and shows how technology is changing that. An excerpt:

It is possible to have a book scanned and converted to a Google-searchable PDF file for 16 cents a page if you allow the outfit to cut the spine of the book. It's 36 cents if you don't allow this. You can set up a website for $10 a year for domain name hosting, plus an extra $10 if you want your identity as the owner concealed from snoopers. Use Hostgator or Hostmonster to host an unlimited number of domains for $8 a month. You can post PDFs.

In every language these books will be online. They will eventually be translated digitally "on the fly."

Then will come archive collections of letters. They will take longer to convert to searchable typeset words. But that day will come.

The cost of writing history will fall. It is costly to do research in a major research library. You must pay for the plane fare, overnight housing, and a rental car. This can easily cost $300 a day – or three times that in cities like London or Berlin. Only a few people can afford this, and only for short visits.

If the library's pre-1923 books and archive materials were online, anyone could do it at home. The little guy would be able to compete.

Say that you want access to all academic journals. These are all on-line. It is expensive to access them. You must be an enrolled student or a faculty member to access them. Solution? Hire a student intern who has on-line access to the library. Then have the student look up the articles you want to read and send PDFs to you. Or just use his access code to do your own research. "That's cheating," says the librarian. But taxpayers pay for the library. I suffer little guilt.

Every time you find a Google link to a locked article on JSTOR, you contact your intern. Presto. Unlocked!

Some interns work for free to gain college credit. Do I have access to such an intern? To ask this question is to answer it.

Soon, brains and insight will rule, not bank accounts and official accreditation by state licensing bureaus. The Establishments will all be in defensive mode.

It is happening today. This is going to increase.

Truth will fragment. New paradigms will emerge from the competition. The quality of thought will improve when bank accounts are not major barriers to entry.

The gatekeepers can no longer control the flow of information. This has never happened in man's history. Gatekeepers still control the gates. But the walls have holes in them. These holes are widening.

The gatekeepers control accreditation. They no longer control content except where it is very expensive to do primary research, such as nuclear physics. In the social sciences and humanities, it's just about over.

There's more at the link.

In a second article, M.I.T. Calls Academia's Bluff, he examines the future of university-level education. An excerpt:

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has begun the most revolutionary experiment in the history of education, stretching all the way back to the pharaohs. It now gives away its curriculum to anyone smart enough to learn it. It has posted its curriculum on-line for free. These days, this means a staggering 1900 courses. This number will grow.

This is proof to the academic world that MIT regards its program as the best, and dares any other institution to prove otherwise, where everyone can see and compare. The free site validates the MIT T-shirt: "HARVARD: Because not everyone can get into MIT."
. . .

MIT has up-ended several millennia of higher education. Let me explain.

For as long as there have been priesthoods, there has been formal classroom education.

. . .

This is what the college diploma has always done. It has created a guild that restricts entry by non-certified people. This keeps wages high.

To obtain the diploma, a person must pay money to the trainers. The trainers are located at one center or special regional centers. Journeying to the center adds costs. Quitting a full-time job back home also adds to the expense. Forcing students to attend pre-requisites adds to the cost. Everything is done to screen access to the knowledge.

So, the knowledge does not spread. This is the crucial function of the academic screening system, especially for practical knowledge: healing people and building things.

For the first time in the history of man, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has opened the gates to all comers. It has said, "You won't get certified by us, but you can get the classroom knowledge. If you are smart enough to teach yourself, you will have the knowledge."

MIT has now removed the most important layers of bureaucracy: the layers associated with classroom instruction.

1. The fee to obtain the training
2. The cost of journeying to a training center
3. The pre-requisite system
4. The cost of quitting your job

This has de-mystified the entire guild procedure. It says this: "If you are smart enough, you can master the initial content."

. . .

The next step in the liberation of society is the introduction of certification by examination without diplomas. There would no requirement to attend a school. Just pass the exam.

This terrifies every guild. Smart people could get in just by passing the guild's entry-level exam.

The ultimate breakthrough would be a requirement that every certified member of a guild would be required to pass the guild's entry exam every five years or else lose his official license to practice. That would mean the end of exams that screen for wage reasons rather than for technical reasons. The members would demand easier exams, so that they could pass. More students would pass. Wages would decline.

Finally, there would be a removal of state-chartered systems of professional licensing. It would not be illegal to sell any services at any price.

Combine these, and the bureaucratization of society would end.

If you think, "This is utopian," consider this: MIT has removed the crucial initial layer, which imposes the greatest financial burden.

A student in India who understands English and who has access to the Web can get an MIT education.

If other universities imitate MIT, the world of higher education will be radically changed for the better.

. . .

Parents who send their children off to Podunk College are behind the technological curve.

First, about half of college freshmen don't graduate, even after six years. Second, those who do graduate enter a job market in which only 20% of graduates can find a non-minimum wage job.

The graduates are four to six years older, minimally educated, have no full-time work experience, and have forfeited four to six years of income. I call this "formally certified stupidity." What would you call it?

A college could easily provide free on-line guides to passing the Advanced Placement, CLEP, and DSST exams to quiz out of the first two years. Total cost: under $2,000 for the exams. That would save parents at least $60,000. The school would provide conservative guidelines for free on-line in PDF. It would also provide free YouTube or Blip.tv video courses.

If the school were interested in educating people, it would do all this. But Podunk College is interested in selling accredited degrees at above-market rates. It is not interested in educating people.

. . .

Could a college make its money by teaching upper division courses on-line for 25% of today's tuition – $5,000 a year instead of $20,000 – with no room and board costs? Yes. Will any of them do this? Of course not. Why not? Because they are in debt up to their ears for educationally unnecessary real estate. They adopted a technologically defunct model before the Web.

Again, there's more at the link.

North makes compelling arguments. Certainly, looking at the average American university student, I can't think of a single one who wouldn't benefit from the system he advocates.

I have personal experience to back this up. I hold four University qualifications - every one of them obtained through distance education and/or part-time study. I could never afford to attend university full-time. Are my degrees of lower quality than those obtained by full-time students? Like hell they are! I worked as hard, if not harder, to earn them: and because I was investing my scarce time and money in them, and working while studying to be able to afford them, I valued the educational experience rather more highly, I think.

I strongly recommend reading both of the above articles in full, at the links provided. They offer a great deal of food for thought, particularly if you're a student, or have children who are or will be students.

Peter

August 24th-26th, 1944: Paris is liberated

On this date, and for the next two days, in August 1944, the capital city of France was finally freed from German occupation. The story of the liberation of Paris is a remarkable one, well chronicled by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre in their book Is Paris Burning? If you haven't read it, I highly recommend it.




The story's too long and complex to tell here, but a summary may be found in Wikipedia. The video clip below uses footage shot during the liberation of the city to tell the story in brief.

Hitler had ordered the destruction of all monuments and landmarks in Paris before its evacuation, so that the Allies would liberate only a field of ruins. We may be grateful that the German garrison commander, General der Infanterie Dietrich von Choltitz, did not obey his orders, but instead did his utmost to hand over the city intact, despite enormous obstacles. The intact, beautiful city may perhaps be regarded as his memorial.

Peter

Is sunscreen linked to Alzheimer's disease?

A report in a British newspaper suggests there may be a link.

The frightening possibility of Alzheimer's disease being induced by suncream is being investigated by academics.

Millions of British holidaymakers use block to protect their skin from the sun every year.

Now the University of Ulster says two of its experts have been awarded £350,000 by the European Union to explore the possible links between the suncream and the brain disease.

They are leading a groundbreaking three-year research project into whether human engineered nanoparticles, such as those found in sunscreen, can induce neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

. . .

Professor Vyvyan Howard, a pathologist and toxicologist, and Dr Christian Holster, an expert in Alzheimer's, are conducting the latest research as part of a worldwide project called NeuroNano.

The University of Ulster experts will be specifically looking at nanoparticles present in chemicals found in sunscreens and an additive in some diesel fuels - titanium dioxide and cerium oxide - and their connection to Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.

Professor Howard said: 'There is now firm evidence that some engineered nanoparticles entering intravenously or via lungs can reach the brains of small animals.

'Indeed they lodge in almost all parts of the brain and there are no efficient clearance mechanisms to remove them once there.'

. . .

'It has recently been discovered that nanoparticles can have highly significant impacts on the rate of misfolding of key proteins associated with neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

'The brain itself is a very special organ. It cannot repair by replacing nerve cells, the ones you get at birth have to last all your life, which makes them peculiarly vulnerable to long term low dose toxicity.'

The brain had built up some protective mechanisms but a major worry was that nanoparticles seemed to be able to circumvent them, he said.

. . .

'The risk that engineered nanoparticles could introduce unforeseen hazards to human health is now also a matter of growing concern in many regulatory bodies, governments and industry,' said the professor.

There's more at the link.

That's a scary thought! I don't know how many millions - billions? - of tubes and bottles of sunscreen are used annually, but it's got to be a huge number. I've gone through three or four tubes in a week to protect my face, neck, arms and legs while attending outdoor courses. To be told now that some of the hi-tech sunscreens may have unforeseen and unwanted side effects . . . well, it's a bit late, isn't it? If this is proved to be true, why didn't the manufacturers test for such side effects before marketing their products?

Peter

So much for a quiet game of table-tennis!

I hugely enjoyed this video clip of a table-tennis match. I'm not sure where it took place, but the competitors are Chinese, I think. Great action/reaction stuff, and good humor at the end.

Why can't more sports be so civilized, and see opponents enjoying a laugh together, despite the stress of competition?

Peter

The reality behind the fiction

I note that Quentin Tarantino's new film, Inglourious Basterds, is now playing to packed houses worldwide. I won't bother to see it myself - it bears no relationship whatsoever to the facts of history, and I've seen more than enough real-life bloodshed to be in no hurry to indulge in buckets of the stuff in fictional form - but there's a story behind the fiction.

There was, indeed, a group of former German Jews who formed a special 'X Troop' in the British Commandos during World War II. Kim Masters, the daughter of one of them, recently wrote about her father's war. Here's a brief excerpt.

My father was an Inglourious Basterd. Actually, he was the opposite of that. But he was a Jewish commando in the British Army during World War II.




And for my father, this fight was very personal. A native of Vienna, he belonged to a secret unit made up of refugees from the Nazis. They went on reconnaissance missions in enemy territory; they stormed the beaches of Normandy on D-Day; they shot at, blew up, captured, and interrogated German soldiers.

They didn’t take scalps or carve swastikas into anybody’s forehead.

Those fanciful elements are present in Inglourious Basterds, Quentin Tarantino’s cartoonish tale of an American death squad made up of Jewish soldiers. Their commander (Brad Pitt) exhorts them to bring him the scalps at least 100 Nazis each. Soon after, the Tarantino violence-porn begins.

The real story is better.

. . .

My father’s first taste of battle didn’t come until June 6, 1944—D-Day. His unit crossed the rough waters of the English Channel and when they approached Sword Beach, some of his comrades were killed even before they could get off the landing craft. My father carried a rucksack, a Tommy gun, lots of spare rounds of ammunition, various grenades and a collapsible bicycle. He also carried a heavy hemp rope to be used in the event that the retreating Germans managed to blow out a bridge that was a key supply route for the advancing Allies. (He was very pleased, when he arrived at Pegasus Bridge, to find it intact. He could finally abandon that rope.)

The commandos were valued not only because they specialized in reconnaissance but because their fluency in German was useful in interrogating captured troops. As my father’s unit moved inland on their bicycles, the man in the lead position was shot through the head. The troops took cover and then the captain told my father to approach the village ahead. He didn’t want my father to take a stealth approach but to walk down the open road. With a sinking feeling, my father understood that his mission was to draw German fire so the captain could see where it was coming from. Realizing that there was no time to do more careful reconnaissance, my father accepted what he saw as a likely death sentence.

“All that training going to waste,” he lamented. Then he remembered having seen Gunga Din in which Cary Grant, surrounded by the enemy, says coolly, “You are all under arrest.” That inspired my father as he strode down the center of the road, shouting in German: “Surrender, all of you! Come out! You are completely surrounded and don’t have a chance!”

For a time all was silent. Then a German soldier popped up from behind a parapet and fired. My father dropped to his knee and fired back. Each missed the other. My father’s gun jammed. The German dove for cover. My father went flat on his stomach to clear his gun. As he prepared to shoot again he heard a noise and there, behind him, his entire troop was charging, bayonets fixed. The soldier in the lead shot two enemy soldiers concealed in a ditch to the left of the road, each with a belt-fed German machine gun.

When my father approached, he saw that both looked “appallingly young.” One was severely wounded; my father interrogated the other, who said they were 17 and 15 years old. The English soldier who had shot them asked my father how to say, “I’m sorry” in German.

In 1997, when he was 75, my father published his memoir: Striking Back: A Jewish Commando’s War Against the Nazis.




He did a great deal of public speaking and contributed to historian Stephen Ambrose’s books on the war. He very much wanted the world to know about X Troop, the Jewish commandos who fought heroically and took exceptionally high casualties, to counter the image of Jews being herded to slaughter.

There's much more at the link. Highly recommended reading.

Peter

Search for a long-lost explorer

Roald Amundsen, the famous Norwegian Arctic explorer, died in 1928 while attempting to rescue his fellow Arctic explorer, Italian Umberto Nobile. He took off with several other crew in a French-built and -crewed Latham 47 flying-boat, which disappeared over the sea.




According to the Search For Amundsen Web site:

On June 18th, 1928 Amundsen and the French team members left for the rescue of the Italia crew. At about 4 p.m. they took off from Tromsø, Norway.







None of the transmissions mentioned technical difficulties, which implied that the flight was progressing as planned. However, the transmission did reveal difficulties with the radio. In the late 1920s, this was quite common. It is assumed that the accident took place somewhere in the area around Bear Island. Between 6.45 and 6.55 p.m., the last radio call was sent from Latham 47 and from that point on the connection fell silent forever.

There have been several discoveries over the years of pieces of wreckage presumed to come from the aircraft. However, the aircraft itself has never been located. The search is now being renewed, using modern side-scanning sonar and remotely-operated submersibles. According to the Search For Amundsen Web site:

[At the] end of August, the team and ships will leave Tromsø for a mission that will keep them at sea for almost two weeks, searching an area of 45 square miles. Two ships will work together: KNM Tyr, a Royal Norwegian Navy Vessel, and its supply vessel, the KV Harstadt, belonging to the fleet of the Norwegian Coast Guard. Most important for the success of the mission are the high tech apparatus that will be onboard.

Two remotely operated submersibles will be used during the search. Modern sonar can capture images of startling clarity, even at great depths. The pictures below are of an aircraft and a ship on the sea-bed in the search area (the former probably a casualty of World War II, when many aircraft were lost during convoy battles, etc. The elliptical wings on this aircraft suggest it's the remains of a German Heinkel He 111 bomber - compare them to the photographs at the link.)






Will the search finally discover the last resting-place of Norway's greatest explorer? Only time will tell. Good luck to all involved.

Peter

I owe Mr. Hedrick a beer or three!

I'm grateful to reader Mike L. for forwarding the link to a video clip of a former Marine, David Hedrick, who challenged Representative Brian Baird about the socialization of health care, remarks by various politicians equating opposition to Obamacare with Nazi Germany, and so on. It's what I can only term a 'righteous smackdown', and I wish I'd been there to applaud!

Right on, Mr. Hedrick! Way to go! And, very definitely, Semper Fi!

Peter

EDITED TO ADD: I see my buddy Lawdog has embedded the same video on his blog, a couple of hours before I did. Well, he and I have similar tastes in many things, so I hope he'll allow me to follow his lead!

Epijunky needs our help

Those of you who've browsed my reciprocal blogroll will have come across a blog called Pink, Warm and Dry. It's written by a lady whose nom-de-blog is Epijunky, and who works in EMS.

She recently made the decision to attend medic school, but has run into difficulties arranging financing for her studies - not surprising, I suppose, considering the state of many banks these days. Be that as it may, a bunch of her blogger friends have put their heads together, and come up with an idea to help her. I learned about it from Ambulance Driver, who refers those interested to this site to learn how they can help Epijunky pursue her dream.

At the link, you'll find this challenge from Bernice:

I know money is tight. I know we most of us don't "know" her, but I dare you to take five minutes and read through Epi's blog and tell me she doesn't deserve a chance to make her dream come true. She has worked so hard to get where she is today only to be stopped in her tracks.

I'm challenging all of you to three fives. Give five dollars, tell five friends and take five minutes to stop by Epi's blog and give her some words of encouragement.

I have put a donation button in the sidebar. Every last penny goes to Epi and getting her to medic school. I HATE asking for money but I can't think of anyone else that deserves this as much as she does.

You'll find the donation button on Bernice's blog. Reader, if you enjoy this little blog of mine, and you've taken the time to have a look at Epijunky's, may I ask you to join me in responding to Bernice's challenge? I daresay all of us can afford a mere $5 to help someone who deserves it. That's no more than the price of one beer at a pub, or a Big Mac and fries.

Would you please join me - us - in helping Epijunky achieve her dream? I'd be personally very grateful: and you never know . . . she might be the one to patch you up after an accident, one day! Talk about a return on your investment!

Thanks, folks.

Peter

A musical blast from the past

I was talking with a friend today, and amongst other things, our discussion turned to the music of the late 1960's and early 1970's. I was around then - he wasn't. He confessed, to my surprise, that he'd never even heard of (much less heard the music of) the group Uriah Heep.




Well, we can't have that, can we? Uriah Heep were background music to many of my formative years, and were the inspiration for a great many musicians who followed them. They were one of the first 'heavy rock' groups. Their original lead vocalist, David Byron, was a tragic figure, reminiscent in many ways of a fledgling Freddie Mercury, with a truly remarkable voice and stage presence. He died of alcohol-abuse-related causes in 1985.

Uriah Heep never 'made it big' in the USA, but were enormously popular in Britain, Europe and the Far East. They've sold over 30 million albums, and can still fill a stadium with fans, forty years after they began performing.

Here are some of Uriah Heep's classic songs from their first five albums. They're selected at random from a great many available on YouTube. Search that site for 'Uriah Heep' and you'll find plenty more.

From their first album in 1970, Very 'Eavy, Very 'Umble, comes the track Gypsy. This is a live performance recorded a few years ago, with the band rather older than they were when they first recorded this song!

Next, from their second album Salisbury, released in 1971, the classic Lady In Black. This is one of the definitive Heep songs, and fans (including yours truly) learned the words by heart. It wasn't unusual to have the entire audience singing along to this one!

From their third album, Look At Yourself, released in 1971, I've selected two tracks. The first is eponymous, and introduced the album.

The second is July Morning.

Their fourth album, Demons And Wizards, released in 1972, is still regarded as one of their greatest, and a classic heavy rock album in its own right. I've selected three - well, actually four - tracks. First is Easy Livin', which became a hit all over the world.

Then there's three tracks, spread across two videos. In the first video below, you'll find the opening track to the album, The Wizard. It's followed at the three-minute mark by Paradise, the seventh track, which runs together with the eighth, The Spell. Paradise ends the first video below, and The Spell is on the second clip.

To close, from the band's fifth album, The Magician's Birthday, also released in 1972, comes the opening track, Sunrise. This is a live performance, recorded in Tokyo, Japan, in 1973.

I hope you enjoyed this 'blast from the past'. I certainly enjoyed reliving many memories!

Peter

It may be Photoshopped, but it's still funny!

Amazon.com is known for selling, not only new books and other goods, but - where applicable - used versions of the same thing. For example, it's common to see Amazon advertise books at new price, and also link to sellers of used copies.

I received the image below via e-mail. (Click the picture for a larger view.) Despite the realism of the image, this is one category of goods where I think used sales don't apply!







Peter

The New York Times reveals its anti-Second-Amendment bias once more

An editorial in today's New York Times set my teeth on edge. It reads as follows:

Packing Iron Before The Cameras

It is hard to know what is more shocking: the sight of a dozen Americans showing up to flaunt guns outside the venue for President Obama’s speech in Phoenix on Monday, or the fact that the swaggering display was completely legal. We are all familiar with the right to bear arms and the noisome extremes indulged by its zealots. But is there no sense of simple respect due the nation’s elected leader when he ventures forth among the citizenry?

One man strutted through the crowd with an AR-15 semi-automatic assault rifle slung over his shoulder. (That weapon was banned in recent American history until a bipartisan retreat before gun-lobby propaganda.) The man also packed a holstered handgun and completed this war-games ensemble with an ammunition clip in his back pocket. Such lethal parading, he announced, was legal under Arizona law and the public should “get kind of conditioned to it.”

The local police and the Secret Service were aware of the armed protestors and noted that they were kept out of the guarded convention hall where Mr. Obama spoke. That is hardly reassuring, especially this summer when so many protestors seem to consider primal rage a reasoned political statement.

New Hampshire is another “open carry” state. When Mr. Obama held a town hall meeting in Portsmouth on Aug. 11, gun-packing protestors were also there. As the television cameras zoomed in, one man preened as if in the O.K. Corral, his holstered gun strapped proudly to his thigh. What’s next? Citizens strolling in helmets and camouflage flak jackets? If we didn’t know better, we would think that the National Rifle Association would be embarrassed by such macho nonsense.

The editorial is sickening in its condescension and insulting in its patronizing tone. It's also inaccurate (well, what else would you expect from the New York Times when it speaks about firearms?). The AR15 rifle was not and has never been banned. Certain cosmetic features of some models of the rifle were banned for ten years, from 1994 until 2004, but the rifle itself continued to be freely available for sale. Furthermore, there is no such thing as a 'semi-automatic assault rifle'. An assault rifle, by generally accepted definition, is capable of fully automatic fire, among its other attributes. Ergo, the AR15 rifle carried by the person in question may have resembled, but in fact was not, an assault rifle.

A friend, who wishes to remain anonymous, points out that if the New York Times were to use precisely and exactly the same language and tone towards any group of Americans other than gun owners, and about any other human and Constitutionally-guaranteed right other than the right to keep and bear arms, the protests would be deafening. He submitted the following example, re-writing the editorial to refer to the right of peaceable assembly rather than the right to keep and bear arms, and changing the race of the protagonists. With his permission, I'll publish his example in full.

Flaunting “Race Equality” Before the Cameras

It is hard to know what is more shocking: the sight of a dozen African-Americans showing up to flaunt themselves outside the venue for President David Duke's speech in Phoenix on Monday, or the fact that the swaggering display was completely legal. We are all familiar with the right to peaceably assemble and the noisome extremes indulged by its zealots. But is there no sense of simple respect due the nation's elected leader when he ventures forth among the citizenry?

One large buck strutted through the crowd accompanied by a white woman. (That man was farm equipment in recent American history until a bipartisan retreat before abolitionist propaganda.) The man also packed a copy of the Bill of Rights and completed this race-baiting ensemble by waving his voter registration card. Such incendiary parading, he announced, was legal under Arizona law and the public should "get kind of conditioned to it."

The local police and the Secret Service were aware of the black protestors and noted that they were kept out of the guarded convention hall where Mr. Duke spoke. That is hardly reassuring, especially this summer when so many protestors seem to consider primal rage a reasoned political statement.

New Hampshire is another state where blacks are allowed to exercise their First Amendment rights. When Mr. Duke held a town hall meeting in Portsmouth on Aug. 11, blacks were also there. As the television cameras zoomed in, one man preened as if in a Civil Rights march in Selma, Alabama circa 1963, carrying a sign saying “We Shall Overcome.” What's next? Blacks strolling in loincloths with a bone through their nose? If we didn't know better, we would think that the NAACP would be embarrassed by such macho nonsense.

It's an excellent parody of the New York Times editorial, and my friend makes an important point with it. Why should those of us who value our human and civil rights, which are upheld and guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, put up with such snide condescension and thinly-veiled contempt from the New York Times?

Perhaps it's time we spoke up rather more loudly when such bias becomes evident - and perhaps we all need to exercise our rights more often, publicly and openly. After all, as others have pointed out, rights are like muscles. Unless they're exercised, they atrophy.

Peter

It had to happen, I suppose . . .

With all the fuss and bother over the Obama administration's proposed socialization of the US health care system, plus disappointment (not to mention resentment) over its bailouts of fat-cat industrialists and bankers, and its disregard for the opinions of ordinary Americans, I suppose this had to happen.

There's now an 'Official I Am Sorry I Voted For Obama' Web site. It introduces itself thus:

The purpose of this website is to tell America that former Obama supporters are no longer proud of their decision. We want everyone to contribute a story of themselves or about someone they know that tells America that they are sorry they voted for Obama.

If You Didn't Vote for Obama

You can still sign the form and tell us about a friend or coworker that is now ashamed of how they voted.

Everyone knows someone that is avoiding telling people how they voted. You have probably seen people take off their Obama stickers. You might have noticed they no longer talk about politics

We want to hear those stories.

America Is Listening

If you are Democrat, Republican, or Independent, we want to hear from you. Tell us what Obama said during the election that was promising and how he has now failed to deliver.

The Web site aims to collect 4 million signatures. They've only just begun, but it'll be interesting to see how many they gather.

Peter

Headline of the week!

Every now and then a headline catches my eye, something so startling as to rivet my attention on the article it advertises. You can imagine the impact when I spotted this one over at Environmental Graffiti:

SCIENTISTS CREATE LESBIAN WORMS

I mean . . . WTF??? Hey? Come again? Aren't all worms hermaphrodites? Who took out the 'herm' and left the 'aphrodite'?

The article's fairly short, and describes how genetic manipulation altered the sexual preferences of the worms concerned. Nevertheless, with a headline like that, it deserves wider - one might almost say, more promiscuous - circulation, wouldn't you agree?



Peter

Shiver me politically-correct timbers, matey, arrr!

I was both amused and disgusted to read that the British bureaucracy has struck again - this time at the World Walking The Plank Championship in Kent.

Pirates taking part in an annual walk-the-plank competition were told to cancel the event by health and safety bosses unless they could prove the sea water was clean enough for them to jump into.

The World Walking the Plank championship, which takes places this Sunday, was finally given clearance at the 11th hour today after organisers drafted in their own scientist.

Chemical analyst Michael Young took a sample of the sea water from the Queenborough Harbour on the Isle of Sheppey, Kent, and declared it safe for 'pirates' to walk the plank into.

He had to take the sample to health and safety bosses at Swale Borough Council, so its own scientists could confirm the findings.

Mr Young, 57, said today: 'I have analysed the water in the creek and deem it suitable to be planked in.'

. . .

Organiser of the event, a man known only as Captain Cutlass, confirmed: 'As a result of our own exhaustive tests the World Walking the Plank championships are still on for Sunday.

'The plank-off starts at 2pm just before high tide.'

He added: 'It infuriates me officials always come up with reasons why Britain can't have fun. It's time we fought back - which is what we pirates do best.'




The competition, which has been held for the last 12 years, judges 'pirates' on use of pirate language such as 'Avast' or 'Arrr Matey', original costume, execution of jump and overall star quality - dubbed the 'Aargh Factor'.

The event, which has to warn its contestants that they 'could get wet' as part of its insurance, takes place this Sunday.

There's more at the link, including more pictures from last year's competition.

Y'know, for some unaccountable reason, I can't for the life of me imagine Blackbeard, Calico Jack or Henry Morgan taking kindly to such a notification from the authorities. In fact, I daresay they might be so annoyed as to burn down the health and safety offices - with their bureaucratic occupants chained to their desks inside!



Peter

Now that's beautiful!

The Red Arrows, the aerobatic display team of the Royal Air Force, performed above Fowey, in Cornwall, yesterday. As they began their flypast, a rainbow appeared, making a spectacular visual backdrop for their performance. Here's just one picture of the flypast, courtesy of the Daily Mail, to give you an idea. Click it for a larger view.




There are more (and larger) pictures in the Daily Mail article on their performance. It's really worth clicking on the link to see them for yourself. Wonderful photography!

Peter

To the edge of space

James May, of the BBC program Top Gear, recently had an opportunity to fly to the edge of space in a U-2 reconnaissance aircraft. Here's a video clip of what he saw and experienced.

Awesome indeed! I'd love to experience flight at that altitude. Perhaps, before I die, I may win the lottery . . . that's the only way I'll be able to afford a quick sub-orbital trip aboard one of Virgin Galactic's spacecraft, or one of its competitors. Here's hoping, anyway!

Peter

When a standard isn't so standard any more

It seems the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, near Paris in France, has a problem. They keep the 'standard' example of a one-kilogram weight there - but its weight appears to have changed! NPR reports:

More than a century ago, a small metal cylinder was forged in London and sent to a leafy suburb of Paris. The cylinder was about the size of a salt shaker and made of an alloy of platinum and iridium, an advanced material at the time.

In Paris, scientists polished and weighed it carefully, until they determined that it was exactly one kilogram, around 2.2 pounds. Then, by international treaty, they declared it to be the international standard.

The international standard one-kilogram weight

Since 1889, the year the Eiffel Tower opened, that cylinder has been the standard against which every other kilogram on the planet has been judged. But that's creating problems. According to scientists, the cylinder's mass appears to be changing.

. . .

As it stands, the entire world's system of measurement hinges on the cylinder. If it is dropped, scratched or otherwise defaced, it would cause a global problem. "If somebody sneezed on that kilogram standard, all the weights in the world would be instantly wrong," says Richard Steiner, a physicist at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in Gaithersburg, Md.

For that reason, the official kilogram is kept locked inside a secured vault at the International Bureau of Weights and Measures near Paris. Scientists are so paranoid that they've only taken it out on three occasions: in 1889, 1946 and 1989. Each time, they've compared it to a set of copies. In 1889, the copies and the kilogram weighed the same, but by 1989, they had drifted apart. Based on the data, the kilogram appears to weigh slightly less than the copies.

The real crux of this problem is that it's impossible to tell what has changed over the past 120 years. The copies may have grown heavier over time by absorbing air molecules. But it's equally possible that the kilogram is getting lighter. Periodic washings, for example, may have removed microscopic quantities of metal from its surface.

Or it could be that both the copies and the kilogram are changing, but at different rates. There is no way to tell what's happening because mass is always calibrated against another mass, says Peter Mohr, a theoretical physicist at NIST who is working on the kilogram problem.

That's the bad news. The good news is that the change is extremely small, around 50 micrograms (billionths of a kilogram). "The actual ramifications for somebody going to the store will be negligible," Mohr says. But "for scientific work, it makes a difference."

For that reason, scientists have embarked on a quixotic quest to redefine the kilogram in terms of a fundamental constant. Constants are used by physicists to describe the natural world. They are both precise and unchanging — the perfect instruments for setting standards.

. . .

Some researchers believe the best hope for redefinition comes from a new kind of scale called a watt balance. "It's basically just a very highly calibrated bathroom scale," says Steiner, who is in charge of the watt balance at NIST.

Prof. Steiner adjusts a watt balance

Rather than using another mass, watt balances measure the mass of a kilogram in terms of electrical and magnetic forces. Those forces can be translated into a number that is related to Planck's constant.

The scale is so sensitive that it can detect changes as small as ten-billionths of a kilogram. "If you pulled a hair out of a person's head and then weighed them, we could tell the difference," Steiner says.

There's more at the link.

The geek in me is fascinated by this. I mean - if the international standard one-kilogram weight has already changed in the one hundred and twenty years since it was made, how will you calibrate a watt balance to the original value of a kilogram? How is it to be established in the first place?

I foresee an interesting debate . . .

Peter

The British Ministry of Defense has a black eye

I'm cynically amused to see that the British Ministry of Defense is having a hard time locating the equipment it's supposed to have.

Bungling Ministry of Defence officials have 'lost' desperately-needed military equipment worth £6.6 billion [US $10.9 billion] including vehicles, weapons and battlefield radios.

With ministers under fire over their support for troops fighting and dying on the frontline in Afghanistan, spending watchdogs have condemned the MOD's 'inadequate' and 'deteriorating' efforts to keep track of its own kit and supply stocks.

National Audit Office investigators found serious discrepancies during spot checks at military supply depots, and refused to sign off the MoD's annual accounts because officials did not know where vast amounts of essential equipment was, or whether it was fit for use.

. . .

Defence officials could not account for some £1.25 billion [US $2.06 billion] of equipment deployed with troops, such as machine guns, night-vision goggles, combat radios and body armour, and £350 million [US $578 million] worth of fighting vehicles apparently being used for training and operations.

The remaining £5 billion [US $8.25 billion] of 'missing' supplies consist of raw materials and spare parts, ranging from rifle components to engine propellers.

There's more at the link.

The more one reads about the UK Ministry of Defense, the more one gets the impression that their fighting men and women count for very little in the eyes of the bureaucrats running the 'establishment'. The latter are far more interested in office politics, dotting every 'i' and crossing every 't', than they are in the well-being and safety of the troops on the front line.

On the other hand, I'm sure the troops are going to take full advantage of this lapse in record-keeping to obtain a few 'souvenirs' for themselves, and also account for everything they can't trace, find or locate when they return to England.

I'm reminded of a story my father told me, about the end of World War II. He was responsible for organizing a number of flights bringing combat units and their equipment back from Germany to England, where they would prepare to deploy to the Far East to fight Japan. (Fortunately, the atomic bombs put paid to that.) Anyway, one of the transport aircraft, a C-47, crashed on take-off from Germany. The crew escaped with minor injuries, but the aircraft and its cargo burned out completely.

Now, a C-47 had a rated cargo capacity of 6,000 pounds, which could be increased to 8,000 pounds in a war emergency situation. So far, so good. However, when the Army unit involved in the repatriation submitted its equipment returns, it emerged that this particular C-47 had been carrying no less than 267,500 pounds of cargo - a mere 45 times its normal maximum payload! Eyebrows rising almost into his hairline, my father went down to the Army unit and asked to speak to the Commanding Officer. He explained his problem, and politely asked what was going on.

The CO blushed, and told my father in confidence that his unit had been losing equipment here and there ever since the Normandy landings, almost a year before. They'd fought their way across France and the Low Countries into Germany, drawing new gear as they needed it, pursued by increasingly acerbic queries from the Supply Directorate asking where the old stuff was, and why hadn't it been handed in for repair or replacement? The crash had come as a Heaven-sent opportunity. On their CO's instructions, the Quartermaster had listed on the plane's manifest every single missing item of equipment - hence the unbelievably heavy 'cargo' that had been 'destroyed in an air crash'. It included weapons, ammunition, motor vehicles, tents, furniture - even a complete field kitchen!

The CO presented my father with a case of the finest French brandy (captured from the Germans, who'd looted it from the French), and asked him very nicely to not say anything about the payload question, because the Army Supply Directorate wouldn't know enough about the subject to ask any awkward questions - provided no-one enlightened them. After all, it was the end of the war, and the supply clerks wanted to be demobilized and go home too, rather than waste time on pointless inquiries. My father, knowing what the finest French brandy was worth on the English black market at the time, solemnly assured him that his lips were sealed. I understand they parted the best of friends!

The claim duly went through, and something like half a million pounds worth of equipment (it'd be about ten million pounds today, I guess) was written off, without charge to the unit concerned. I imagine everyone blessed the day that particular aircraft crashed! (And yes, my father said he did share the brandy with the pilots and crew of the crashed plane! He was an honest man, after all . . . )



Peter

The end of privacy as we know it?

There's a very worrying article on CNET that discusses the ever-diminishing privacy of the individual. A brief excerpt:

The population of the world stands at about 7 billion. So it takes only 10 digits to label each human being on the planet uniquely.

This simple arithmetic observation offers powerful insight into the limits of privacy. It dictates something we might call the 10-Digit Rule: just 10 digits or so of distinctive personal information are enough to identify you uniquely. They're enough to strip away your anonymity on the Internet or call out your name as you walk down the street. The 10-Digit Rule means that as our electronic gadgets grow chattier, and databases swell, we must accept that in most walks of life, we'll soon be wearing our names on our foreheads.

A study of 1990 U.S. Census data revealed that 87 percent of the people in the United States were uniquely identifiable with just three pieces of information: five-digit ZIP code, gender, and date of birth. Internet surfers today spew considerably more information than that. Web sites can pinpoint our geographical locations, computer models, and browser types, and they can silently track us using cookies. Banking sites even confirm our identities by verifying that our log-ins take place at consistent times of day.

Database dossiers, too, carry surprising amounts of identifying information, even when specifically anonymized for privacy.

. . .

Our physical belongings also betray our anonymity by silently calling out identity-betraying digits. Small wireless microchips--often called radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags--reside in car keys, credit cards, passports, building entrance badges, and transit passes. They emit unique serial numbers.

Once linked to our names--when we make credit card purchases, for instance--these microchips enable us to be tracked without our realizing it. One popular book inflames imaginations with the lurid title, "Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track your Every Move with RFID."

But wireless microchips also highlight the futility of anonymity protections. To begin with, concerns about RFID tracking miss the forest for the trees. After all, mobile phones are ubiquitous and can be tracked at much longer ranges than standalone chips. Many people have GPS receivers in their phones and are signing up for location-based services, voluntarily (if selectively) disclosing their movements. There's little point in hiding the serial numbers of chips when your mobile phone squeals on you.

. . .

In the end, we probably won't need to carry anything at all to see our identities betrayed in public spaces. There are already tens of millions of surveillance cameras in public spaces in the United States.

Face recognition software is crude today, but it will improve. Cameras will eventually recognize faces as well as people do. Unlike people, though, they'll have the backing of databases containing millions of faces--or the headshots that so many of us already post online.

There's more at the link.

Being a person who values his privacy, I find this very disturbing. It's even more so when read in the light of another report this week, which reveals that scientists can 'manufacture' even DNA evidence to link one to a given location - like a crime scene. An excerpt:

Scientists have shown it is possible to fake DNA evidence, potentially undermining the credibility of the key forensic technique.

Using equipment found in labs up and down the country, they obliterated all traces of DNA from a blood sample and added someone else's genetic material in its place.

The swap was so successful it fooled scientists who carry out DNA fingerprinting for U.S. courts.

The development raises the possibility of samples of blood or saliva being planted at crime scenes, leading to the innocent being wrongly convicted and the guilty going free.

Israeli researcher Dan Frumkin, who produced the bogus DNA, said: 'If you can fake blood, saliva or any other tissue, you can engineer a crime scene. Any biology undergraduate could perform this.'

Again, there's more at the link.

So, someone wishing to do you the dirty could track your movements, pinpoint your location, and manufacture evidence suggesting you committed a crime there. All of that material - the tracking of your movements, the DNA evidence, etc. - would in turn be more than enough to convict you of the crime in question.

Minority Report, anyone? Brave New World, perhaps?

*Shudder*

Stop the world - I want to get off!

Peter

Will the 1906 record be broken at last?

One hundred and three years ago, American Fred Marriott set a land speed record of 127.659 miles per hour. What's more, he did it in the Stanley Steamer, a steam-powered car.




Whilst internal combustion and other engines have since increased the land speed record many times over, his record still stands as the highest speed ever officially recorded by a steam-powered vehicle. (The Barber-Nicholls team managed a one-way recorded speed of 145 mph in 1985, but could not complete the required second run in the other direction. Both runs are required, the final speed being an average of both, so their accomplishment remains unofficial.)

Now a new vehicle, the British Steam Car, and a new team, are standing by to have a go at this long-enduring record. Their first run will be at 6 a.m. Pacific time tomorrow morning, August 21st. According to the Daily Mail:

The Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) officials, who arrived on the site yesterday, are due to calibrate and record the team's official world record attempt.

It recognises a land speed record as the average speed of two passes made across the same measured distance in opposing directions within 60 minutes of each other. The time of the two runs is then averaged to obtain the official recorded speed.

If unsuccessful tomorrow, runs will take place until August 22, the team spokesman said.

Weighing three tons, the British Steam Car is made from a mixture of lightweight carbon-fibre composite and aluminium wrapped around a steel space frame chassis.

Using Liquid Petroleum Gas (LPG), the car is fitted with 12 boilers containing nearly two miles of tubing. Demineralised water is pumped into the boilers at up to 50l a minute. The burners produce three megawatts of heat - the equivalent of 23 cups of tea per second.

This superheats the steam to 400C which is injected into the turbine at more than twice the speed of sound. This in turn drives the rear wheels. Large Goodyear tyres and brake discs help bring it to a stop, and the car is also kitted with a parachute.




In April, during testing at the Ministry of Defence's Thorney Island facility in Emsworth, Hampshire, the car reached a speed of 72mph and all the vehicle's systems worked perfectly.

Officials said the team needs seven miles of track to make the record attempt, which is why it can't take place in the UK.

However the team has had to overcome sweltering heat in California, with temperatures reaching 40C by mid-morning.




The heat has resulted in numerous problems, including causing the car's electrical components to overheat and liquid propane to vaporise.

Project manager Matt Candy said plentiful supplies of dry ice have been used, enabling them to cool the components without the need for using water.

But he added: 'It has another advantage for us - low altitude. Being only 2,300ft above sea level, the air at Rogers Dry Lake Bed is denser than at higher altitude, providing more oxygen for the car's burners.'

There's more at the link, including more photographs.

Here are two short video clips of test runs prior to the record attempt. The first is of a test in England, during which the car reached over 70 mph.

The second is from an on-board camera, showing a recent test run at Edwards AFB in California, with the car reaching a speed of over 100 mph.

Congratulations to the team on getting this far, and the best of luck to everyone for the record attempt. Oh - and if you run out of fuel for the boilers, please feel free to borrow some of our more vociferous politicians. They spout enough hot air to power a dozen steam cars like yours!



Peter