I'm going to give you an opportunity of an imaginary lifetime -- you can take a two-way trip to anywhere in history, spend thirty minutes there, then return. After this, the time machine breaks. Also, causality, schmausality, anything you change there is now permanently part of history, even if it undermines your existence. (After which you never existed.) So, where in history do we go? Please keep in mind that this is the only time we can do this, as the unobtainium used to power the time machine is literally the only one I could find in the entire world.
I can immediately hear the most popular response -- Kill Hitler.
Yes, German dictator Adolf Hitler can personally be blamed for well over 50 million deaths and was a seriously evil guy. There are worse dictators, (although not many, I can count them on one hand), and he couldn't have done it on his own, so are you sure about this? With the right nudge to history, he might instead be a relatively unknown painter, or even a real estate agent if we change...okay, I can see I'm changing none of your minds. For our thirty minutes in the past, I send a strike team to the eastern front of World War I, between the Russian and Austrian lines. My strike team quickly guns down Corporal Hitler, and returns to the present. So we prevented World War II then? Well...no.
June 18th, 1919
The treaty of Versailles ends World War I with the surrender of the Central Powers. Although the United States lobbies for Wilson's fourteen points, which the central powers would readily agree to, England and France demand harsher teams for the pain they've suffered in the war. The Central powers feel compelled to sign these terms, as they have rather literally run out of soldiers. Nationalists of these nations call bullshit, (as none of the national territory of the central powers actually saw any fighting during the war), but are ignored by everyone else.
January 1923
Rampant hyperinflation strikes Germany, and to a lesser degree Austria. Even the most basic things require entire wheelbarrows full of money. People become radicalized as they hope for anything that could even possibly relieve their suffering, even for a moment.
November 1923
An ambition member of the exceedingly fascist Nazi party, Erich Ludendorff, attempts to throw a coup. This fails and he is sentenced to death for treason. The authorities are alarmed at the way that he had over 3000 helpers providing direct help for his plan, and probably had additional agents waiting in the shadows.
Sometime 1924
The Dawes plan brings some recovery in Germany. Support for extremist parties such as the Communist part of Germany and the Nazi party decreases sharply.
October 1929
A massive stock crash leads to worldwide economic depression. Well, shit. Hyperinflation returns to Germany, and radical parties now account for at least 45% of the vote in that country.
Sometime 1931
Japan conquers Manchuria from the local warlord. China protests, but is too disorganized and warlord-riddled to manage an effective response.
Sometmime 1933
President of Germany, Hindenberg, strikes a bargain, with Goering, the leader of the Nazi party, to get them to fight off the communists. This temporarily works well, then badly backfires when...
April 1934
In a series of "emergencies," Goering increases his powers until having total dictatorial power over Germany. He declares himself to be "Fuerer," or leader, of the entire nation.
Sometime 1935
Germany and Austria combine into one nation.
Sometime 1937
Japan and China go to war, with Japan demanding effectively all of China, and China demanding the return of Manchuria.
Sometime 1938
Goebbles demands the outer portions of Czechoslovakia, the Sudetanland, on the grounds that it's majority German. An international committee of England, France, and other allied countries agrees to allow this. Neville Chamberlain declares "Peace in our time."
About a month after that
Germany absorbs the rest of Czechoslovakia, contrary to previous treaty.
October 1939
Germany demands that Poland hand over Gdanz, known in German as Danzig. Poland notes its alliance with two world powers, the UK and France, and refuses. War begins in Europe.
June 1940
France is defeated. The entirety of the French army, and 2/3rds of the British army are captured. The remaining 1/3rd of the British army manages to escape and fortify the UK. Denmark and Norway are quickly conquered by Germany.
June 1941
Germany declares war on USSR.
December 1941
Japan attacks Pearl Harbor. USA declares war on Japan, Germany, and the rest of the axis.
February 1942
Moscow is taken by Germany. Russian government successfully evacuates to Kalomna.
May 1942
Kalomna is taken. Russian government successfully evacuates to Novosibirsk. Considerable help from the USA is required to keep Russia functional and in the war.
Febuary 1943
The battle of Stalingrad is won by Russian forces when the Germans retreat. The city is effectively destroyed by the battle.
May 1943
Second attack on Stalingrad. The ruins are now controlled by Germany.
November 1943
Maximum extent of the Axis. Germany and their various allies controls the entire European continent from the Atlantic to the Urals, minus the neutral countries of Switzerland, Sweden, and Spain. However, the German high command notes that there are starting to be shortages in manpower, matériel, and armaments.
March 1944
Stalingrad is retaken by Russian forces. A massive party is thrown in Novosibirsk.
August 1944
Russian forces retake Moscow. The city is promptly rebuilt, and the Russian command begins to move back. German forces are in full, perpetual retreat.
September 1944
A British, Canadian, and American army lands on the coasts of France near Normandy. Allied forces slowly push the Axis out of France, and crush the regime in Vichy.
June 1945
Project Manhattan detonates the first ever atom bomb in a classified test site near Los Alamos, New Mexico.
August 1945
France is liberated. Charles deGaulle's Free France government assumes control in Paris. United States bombs the Japanese city of Hiroshima, wiping it off the face of the planet. Millions die.
September 1945
Belgium and the Netherlands are liberated. Their respective governments return from their colonies. Nagasaki is nuked, and millions more die.
October 1945
Japan surrenders, Korea is liberated. Italy is conquered and under British control.
November 1945
Russian forces now control Romania, removing it from the axis camp. The city of Innsbruck is nuked, and millions die. Chinese civil war resumes.
January 1946
Bulgaria is conquered by Russian forces, removing it from the axis camp. Greece is liberated.
March 1946
Finland switches the the allied side under intense Russian coercion. Hamburg is nuked, killing 90% of its population.
April 1946
Hungary is conquered by Russian forces, removing it from the axis camp. Germany is now the only surviving axis power, and its days are clearly numbered. Sweden abandons all pro-German sentiment in favor of pro-British, as it is prudent to side with a winner.
June 1946
Russian forces are at the gates of Berlin. Allied forces liberate the Czech half of Czechoslovakia.
July 1946
German government decapitated when Berlin is nuked and 90% of the German high command, including Goering, are instantly incinerated.
August 1946
Russian forces take the remains of Berlin. Czechoslovakia and Austria are now fully liberated.
September 1946
Germany surrenders, ending World War II. 8 million people died under German imprisonment, and 5% of the earth's entire population died in battle and/or nuclear incineration. The world must not forget. The subsequent party in Russia uses up the country's entire supply of ethanol, starting with vodkas and ending with perfumes.
Huh, that was actually worse. Since we have no more charges on our time machine, we can only hope that the clock-roaches clean up this alternative timeline.
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label History. Show all posts
Friday, June 22, 2012
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Christmas Truce
On this day, 97 years ago, the horrors and violence of the first world war suddenly came to an abrupt end. Soldiers on opposing sides met in the middle, exchanged gifts, sang traditional songs, and for a minute, human nature was shown to be remarkably civilized. An impromptu soccer game was even held.
The generals, of course, hated it. Pal-ing around with the enemy did not get them the concessions that they wanted, way better for peace than for war. The more nationalistic, the more they hated it -- Christmas songs weren't bringing in any of the land or glory.
Of course, the next day, everyone was back to shooting at each other, since after all, a war was on. The generals worked hard to avoid a repeat in the next four years of the war, until the Central powers finally surrendered.
Events like this, the Christmas Truce, make me feel that a better world is definitely possible.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
UFOs
You know where I think the ideas of UFOs came from? I think there was an experimental aircraft crash in 1947, the government got all weird and evasive about it, like they do for anything classified, rightly or wrongly, some guy happened to write a book about people being abducted by aliens that year, and the two ideas got combined in a massive hurricane of terrified and crazy.
Tune in tomorrow when I continue with the downright strange things of this world.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
History of the Chicken
Which came first, the chicken or the egg, asks a famous riddle. After all, the primary source of chicken eggs are chickens, and the primary source of chickens are those same eggs. To a casual observer, this would seem to be an endless regress, hence the question. The egg came first, and was first laid in India.
In the jungles of Thailand, Cambodia, and Burma lives an animal called the Red Junglefowl. It is a tree dwelling bird, distantly related to the Pheasants that European aristocracy hunted for sport. Animal traders brought captured birds to India, where it was hybridized with the Grey Junglefowl, producing the modern chicken. The ancient Indian birdkeepers noted that the birds were easily cared for, enjoyed eating insects (and so were very useful to farmers), and were delicious with the right spices. Over time, Indians lost interest in eating the eggs, but those not prohibited from eating meat for religious reasons continue to enjoy eating the chickens themselves.
Over the years, the chicken was spread by trade through Persia, eventually reaching Greece and Europe. The ancient Greeks and even Romans thought of the chicken as a very exotic bird, as their only supply was through the Persians, and relations between the Greek city-states and the Persian empire were often frosty. However, centuries of trade quickly populated the bird throughout Europe.
Colonists to "The new world" of North and South America often brought domestic animals with them, and the expansion of the chicken eventually reached the Pacific Islands in the 1800s. Chickens are now found worldwide except Antarctica (where they occasionally arrive dead in the form of food).
In the jungles of Thailand, Cambodia, and Burma lives an animal called the Red Junglefowl. It is a tree dwelling bird, distantly related to the Pheasants that European aristocracy hunted for sport. Animal traders brought captured birds to India, where it was hybridized with the Grey Junglefowl, producing the modern chicken. The ancient Indian birdkeepers noted that the birds were easily cared for, enjoyed eating insects (and so were very useful to farmers), and were delicious with the right spices. Over time, Indians lost interest in eating the eggs, but those not prohibited from eating meat for religious reasons continue to enjoy eating the chickens themselves.
Over the years, the chicken was spread by trade through Persia, eventually reaching Greece and Europe. The ancient Greeks and even Romans thought of the chicken as a very exotic bird, as their only supply was through the Persians, and relations between the Greek city-states and the Persian empire were often frosty. However, centuries of trade quickly populated the bird throughout Europe.
Colonists to "The new world" of North and South America often brought domestic animals with them, and the expansion of the chicken eventually reached the Pacific Islands in the 1800s. Chickens are now found worldwide except Antarctica (where they occasionally arrive dead in the form of food).
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Civil War
Every big country I can name that has existed for more than 150 years or so has had a civil war. The effects of which often spill out onto other countries. I'm thinking about the American Civil War, which raged from 1860 - 1865, primarily over the rights of the states that compose the country, tariffs, and as pulp history likes to over-simplify it, the legitimacy of slavery as an institution. The war ended with the complete defeat of the southern rebels, "Dixie," and a rough period in which they were reintegrated into the country. Historians like to point out the weird parallels with America's war of independence in the first place, with the northern faction more in the position of the UK and the southern faction more in the position that the colonies had at the time.
"Dixie," or as it officially named itself The Confederate States of America, had pinned its hopes of survival on the UK and France intervening in the war. Such a foreign intervention is a major risk for the intervening power, as a successful intervention leaves the surviving power in their debt, but a failed one leads to understandable anger from the faction you opposed. The Confederacy ultimately sucked at diplomacy, and their "You need us as we're your biggest source of cotton" position alienated the countries they wished to court, who promptly found other sources of cotton to feed their mills.
I'm aware of the take of the UK, France, and Mexico on the affair. The UK and France were horrified by the Confederacy's enthusiastic endorsement of slavery, an institution that they had both recently banned as grossly immoral. They were also aware that friendly actions towards the Confederacy understandably cheesed off the American government, which was a major trading partner of theirs. Mexico, meanwhile, had lost half of its territory to the Mexican-American war twenty years before, and was aware that the Union government had no further claims, while the Confederacy desired the remainder of their lands. They were grateful to Abraham Lincoln (the Union president)'s denouncement of the Mexican-American war as a cynical land-grab, and was thus enthusiastically pro-Union.
I'm curious as to how the rest of the world felt about the Confederacy, then and now, especially as a lot of conservative southern Americans look back to the Confederacy with nostalgia, and even vigorously wave Confederate flags and dream of a repeat. A behavior that northerners and westerners find treasonous. As late as World War 2, southern battalions often incorporated Confederate symbols where possible, and the American visit to Mao was called the "Dixie mission," comparing his rebellion against the Republic of China to the Confederate rebellion against America. Except that Mao was a left-wing communist and the Confederacy right wing extremist, and Mao actually succeeded, an interesting comparison.
"Dixie," or as it officially named itself The Confederate States of America, had pinned its hopes of survival on the UK and France intervening in the war. Such a foreign intervention is a major risk for the intervening power, as a successful intervention leaves the surviving power in their debt, but a failed one leads to understandable anger from the faction you opposed. The Confederacy ultimately sucked at diplomacy, and their "You need us as we're your biggest source of cotton" position alienated the countries they wished to court, who promptly found other sources of cotton to feed their mills.
I'm aware of the take of the UK, France, and Mexico on the affair. The UK and France were horrified by the Confederacy's enthusiastic endorsement of slavery, an institution that they had both recently banned as grossly immoral. They were also aware that friendly actions towards the Confederacy understandably cheesed off the American government, which was a major trading partner of theirs. Mexico, meanwhile, had lost half of its territory to the Mexican-American war twenty years before, and was aware that the Union government had no further claims, while the Confederacy desired the remainder of their lands. They were grateful to Abraham Lincoln (the Union president)'s denouncement of the Mexican-American war as a cynical land-grab, and was thus enthusiastically pro-Union.
I'm curious as to how the rest of the world felt about the Confederacy, then and now, especially as a lot of conservative southern Americans look back to the Confederacy with nostalgia, and even vigorously wave Confederate flags and dream of a repeat. A behavior that northerners and westerners find treasonous. As late as World War 2, southern battalions often incorporated Confederate symbols where possible, and the American visit to Mao was called the "Dixie mission," comparing his rebellion against the Republic of China to the Confederate rebellion against America. Except that Mao was a left-wing communist and the Confederacy right wing extremist, and Mao actually succeeded, an interesting comparison.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Steampunk
Image via Wikipedia
This does lead to some unusual technology choices. Steam was the power source of choice in Victorian times. If something needed energy, a boiler was the usual way to do it back then. Steam was well understood. Electricity was known, but it was known so poorly that it was seen as semi-divine, and only a truly mad scientist would be willing to mess around with it. So to make your car or train go? Steam. You need your computer to send signals? Steam based valve. You need to power your factory? Steam.
So...some very interesting art comes from this. Much of today's technology could have been made in victorian times, although they would have made it in a very different style. Brass instead of plastic. More showing of mechanism out of technological pride, than hiding it out of aesthetic purity. How would the world have been different?
Friday, December 17, 2010
Barter Economy
Before there was money, people dealt with their desire for things they didn't own with trading. This allowed you to turn extra goods that you didn't want (let's say you're a cattle rancher. You would have lots of milk, cheese, and beef, but you'd be disappointed if you needed say a potato), into goods that you do want.
Now, there's a reason we stopped doing it this way. For one, you have to find someone who wants what you have, and has what you want. There's a famous German story about a group of Prussian officers trying to trade around their possessions, and some 62 trades have to be made to finally get everything they want. This is essentially the ancestor that famous red paperclip story in which a series of trades turns one ordinary, fraction-of-a-cent in value paperclip into a house, but has to do a lot of trades for things he didn't want in order to get there. Money, by contrast, is a singular store of value that I can trade for almost anything under the sun.
However, in the depression climate, Barter can be useful again. Many Americans have old, unwanted possessions from fatter times. What we need is money, and money is hard to come by, but I still think we can get what we want. By trading. Trade that old stereo that you're tired of to someone who has more booze that he can drink. Trade your old car to an enthusiast, who can give you, say, a new set of tools. No money traded hands, but as I understand Economics, all of this trading would make us all richer. Something we didn't want has been turned into something we do. And that thing need not be a good. There's no reason that services couldn't also be bartered.
See, wealth is not just dollars. Wealth is also having things that you want, and more importantly, need. A broken old car isn't wealth to you, unless you're a mechanically minded old car fan. A book on how to speak Russian isn't very useful...unless you need to learn to speak Russian. Maximize the wealth.
And when the depression ends, there's an even better thing you can do -- garage sale. You unload stuff that's worthless to you, in exchange for cold hard cash, and the people who bought it get it way cheaper than it would have cost new or in a secondhand store. Everyone wins, and that's pretty rare in Economics.
Now, there's a reason we stopped doing it this way. For one, you have to find someone who wants what you have, and has what you want. There's a famous German story about a group of Prussian officers trying to trade around their possessions, and some 62 trades have to be made to finally get everything they want. This is essentially the ancestor that famous red paperclip story in which a series of trades turns one ordinary, fraction-of-a-cent in value paperclip into a house, but has to do a lot of trades for things he didn't want in order to get there. Money, by contrast, is a singular store of value that I can trade for almost anything under the sun.
However, in the depression climate, Barter can be useful again. Many Americans have old, unwanted possessions from fatter times. What we need is money, and money is hard to come by, but I still think we can get what we want. By trading. Trade that old stereo that you're tired of to someone who has more booze that he can drink. Trade your old car to an enthusiast, who can give you, say, a new set of tools. No money traded hands, but as I understand Economics, all of this trading would make us all richer. Something we didn't want has been turned into something we do. And that thing need not be a good. There's no reason that services couldn't also be bartered.
See, wealth is not just dollars. Wealth is also having things that you want, and more importantly, need. A broken old car isn't wealth to you, unless you're a mechanically minded old car fan. A book on how to speak Russian isn't very useful...unless you need to learn to speak Russian. Maximize the wealth.
And when the depression ends, there's an even better thing you can do -- garage sale. You unload stuff that's worthless to you, in exchange for cold hard cash, and the people who bought it get it way cheaper than it would have cost new or in a secondhand store. Everyone wins, and that's pretty rare in Economics.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Water Recycling, Historically
Human civilization uses a lot of water. We drink it directly, use it for cleaning, and pour tons of it on our plants for farming and gardening. It doesn't come from magic. We take it from nature. Various lakes and streams and rivers. (Though smaller sources like ponds tend to be a bad idea. The water gets stagnant and things start to grow in it.)
After we've used the water, it tends to be unappealing. If we washed things with it, it's now full of dirt and soap. It may contain sewage. In the old days, we'd just flush it straight back into the river. The river did tend to take it away where we never saw it again. We now know that all rivers eventually go to the ocean, and the ocean an only absorb so much before we get horrible blooms and such.
Since then, we've learned to chemically clean water. We add a material that sticks to the dirt and bacteria and soap and whatever other additives. We run it through sand and charcoal. We expose it to ultraviolet light to kill off what bacteria remains. The end result of this is cleaner than the water we got from the stream in the first place. And yet, it's been proven in Singapore and Australia, two places with a desperate shortage of water, that people are still grossed out by the idea of recycled water. (And yet all water is recycled. In nature, it's filtered by clay and such before flowing back to the river. The clay does a very good job, but it is quite limited in capacity. Put more than a certain amount of water through it and it just stops working at all.)
So if people won't touch this filtered water, the next best thing, and the thing that I'm 99% sure actually happens, is to return recycled water to nature. No more infected, polluted rivers. No more harmful algae blooms from detergent. And yet, this could be better.
Studies of river water with returned water show traces of pharmacology byproducts. The metabolic transformations of the pills people took, peed out, and survived the filtering process to return to the river. Sometimes they combine into hormone-like chemicals. News reports feminized frogs, where various pills combined to form a pseudo-estrogen, the frogs absorbed this and feminized.
I suppose the only way around this is to find a better purification system. The only way I could be totallly sure would be to electrically separate the hydrogen from oxygen, and then burning the hydrogen to recombine them. (and condense the resulting steam, of course.) This is not energy efficient.
After we've used the water, it tends to be unappealing. If we washed things with it, it's now full of dirt and soap. It may contain sewage. In the old days, we'd just flush it straight back into the river. The river did tend to take it away where we never saw it again. We now know that all rivers eventually go to the ocean, and the ocean an only absorb so much before we get horrible blooms and such.
Since then, we've learned to chemically clean water. We add a material that sticks to the dirt and bacteria and soap and whatever other additives. We run it through sand and charcoal. We expose it to ultraviolet light to kill off what bacteria remains. The end result of this is cleaner than the water we got from the stream in the first place. And yet, it's been proven in Singapore and Australia, two places with a desperate shortage of water, that people are still grossed out by the idea of recycled water. (And yet all water is recycled. In nature, it's filtered by clay and such before flowing back to the river. The clay does a very good job, but it is quite limited in capacity. Put more than a certain amount of water through it and it just stops working at all.)
So if people won't touch this filtered water, the next best thing, and the thing that I'm 99% sure actually happens, is to return recycled water to nature. No more infected, polluted rivers. No more harmful algae blooms from detergent. And yet, this could be better.
Studies of river water with returned water show traces of pharmacology byproducts. The metabolic transformations of the pills people took, peed out, and survived the filtering process to return to the river. Sometimes they combine into hormone-like chemicals. News reports feminized frogs, where various pills combined to form a pseudo-estrogen, the frogs absorbed this and feminized.
I suppose the only way around this is to find a better purification system. The only way I could be totallly sure would be to electrically separate the hydrogen from oxygen, and then burning the hydrogen to recombine them. (and condense the resulting steam, of course.) This is not energy efficient.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Aztec Computing
So, some guy keep searching my blog for an "Aztec Computer." Let me discuss briefly the computing technology of the Aztecs.
For computations beyond those doable on ones fingers, the Aztecs used a device similar to the Chinese abacus, that they called the "Nepohualtzitzin." These were recorded in a base-20 number system. (Unusual, but Welsh also works on this basis.) They had no other computing technology, and didn't require it. Archeologists argue about what technologies they would have invented had they not been destroyed in 1519, but in their 300-year empire, they never once invented the wheel, which was the first invention in practically every other culture.
Modern Mexico does a lot more computing technology, having 14 world-famous physicists, especially Dr. Miguel Alcubierre, most famous for describing a hypothetically possible warp drive. An Alcubierre drive is unlikely to be constructed any time in the near future, especially as it revolves around things that we're not sure even are technically possible. Part of an Alcubierre drive would need materials that have negative mass. Nothing we have found in the universe to date has that property.
There is a modern company called "Aztec Computers." I'm not sure what their connection to the Aztecs is, if they have any. Possibly the founder has some connection to Mesoamerica or Mexican or Guatamalan heritage. Their website doesn't specify.
For computations beyond those doable on ones fingers, the Aztecs used a device similar to the Chinese abacus, that they called the "Nepohualtzitzin." These were recorded in a base-20 number system. (Unusual, but Welsh also works on this basis.) They had no other computing technology, and didn't require it. Archeologists argue about what technologies they would have invented had they not been destroyed in 1519, but in their 300-year empire, they never once invented the wheel, which was the first invention in practically every other culture.
Modern Mexico does a lot more computing technology, having 14 world-famous physicists, especially Dr. Miguel Alcubierre, most famous for describing a hypothetically possible warp drive. An Alcubierre drive is unlikely to be constructed any time in the near future, especially as it revolves around things that we're not sure even are technically possible. Part of an Alcubierre drive would need materials that have negative mass. Nothing we have found in the universe to date has that property.
There is a modern company called "Aztec Computers." I'm not sure what their connection to the Aztecs is, if they have any. Possibly the founder has some connection to Mesoamerica or Mexican or Guatamalan heritage. Their website doesn't specify.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
Analog Computer
You know you're a CS geek when you make computing parts that don't use electricity. How? I've seen plastic brick (a la Lego), wooden dowel (along the lines of Tinkertoy), and I heard of someone using PVC pipe and water.
The most common part I hear constructed are half adders, and for the real obsessive types, whole adders. Whole adders are a complicated chain of half adders that can do addition of up to three numbers, as large as the word size of the processor. Half adders are only made of about five parts, and so can only add two single-digit binary numbers, and at most product a two digit result. Single digit binary numbers can't represent very much by themselves. A whole adder almost certainly exists in your processor, in electric gate format, as part of your central processor's Arithmatic and Logic Unit (ALU).
Why do this? Retro-fun, mostly. There's a wide world of hobbyists who, for fun, practice obsolete skills. There are, assuredly, at least 10 people in my city who practice flint-work, even though flint as a tool material has been obsolete for well over 5 thousand years now. Similarly, analog computers are built from toy parts not for utility, but for bragging rights. And the knowledge that if civilization somehow collapses tomorrow, they can still run VisiCalc. On their own power. Awesome.
The most common part I hear constructed are half adders, and for the real obsessive types, whole adders. Whole adders are a complicated chain of half adders that can do addition of up to three numbers, as large as the word size of the processor. Half adders are only made of about five parts, and so can only add two single-digit binary numbers, and at most product a two digit result. Single digit binary numbers can't represent very much by themselves. A whole adder almost certainly exists in your processor, in electric gate format, as part of your central processor's Arithmatic and Logic Unit (ALU).
Why do this? Retro-fun, mostly. There's a wide world of hobbyists who, for fun, practice obsolete skills. There are, assuredly, at least 10 people in my city who practice flint-work, even though flint as a tool material has been obsolete for well over 5 thousand years now. Similarly, analog computers are built from toy parts not for utility, but for bragging rights. And the knowledge that if civilization somehow collapses tomorrow, they can still run VisiCalc. On their own power. Awesome.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Fighting Fire
We humans need oxygen to survive. An unfortunate chemical fact of oxygen is that it sometimes has this reaction that we don't want wherein it violently combines with materials that contain hydrocarbons of some sort, a reaction we know as "fire." (They're more prevelent than you think. Wood is made of a complex matrix of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and so on. Plastic is pure hydrocarbons. Think of how many things you own that contain some amount of either wood or plastic, or both.) Fire is bad for us. The heat damages us, the combustion products damage us, and if the temperature gets high enough, we can combust too. So it's best, if a fire does occur, to escape, and have insurance pay for all the stuff fire ruined.
In the early days, we found that water quickly smothered out fire. Partially because fire proved unable to extract the oxygen in fire, and also partially because water quickly absorbed much of the heat the fire needed to continue. This isn't always the practical way to fight it. Electrical fires don't react to water very well, and water in a grease fire, as may occur in a kitchen, will only make it worse as the burning grease manages to rise above the water's surface before it can be extinguished.
Later, work with computers produced carbon dioxide and halon exguishers that could end fire without damaging the water-sensitive electronics. Humans had to quickly evacuate, as any human near these would be suffocated in short order. Halon also proved bad for the environment after its release.
Firefighting experts tell us that fire is like a triangle. There are three factors for the continuation of a fire. If any one of them is removed, the fire stops. The three factors are: Fuel, Oxygen, and Heat. So you can fight fire by removing what would have burned, by smothering it under water, earth, or chemicals, or by chilling it. Most firefighting today works on the oxygen angle, as anything that displaces oxygen from the fire works.
Now, I can imagine a thermal-extinguisher that dropped well-insulated liquid nitrogen on fires, ending them, or some sort of brick-off machine that seals rooms that catch fire, perhaps from the top down to assist human escape, but I think the most important thing is to plan for fires. History tells me that Rome often caught fire, because it was made mostly of wood, was really crowded, and had a lot of people who could benefit from arson and didn't care who else was hurt by that. Rome would often burn down, because the fire department back then were bucket brigades, who could kind of ineffectually splash water on the blaze, which only slowed it down a bit. This was when they were not personally the arsonists! The modern world has way more burnable things...but also a fire hydrant once a block, fire departments who have all kinds of equipment, including hoses that spew water at ludicrious rates, chemical extinguishers, and tools to extract all humans from the area so that all kinds of chemical hell can be poured on the fire.
So to prepare, I think all areas that could conceivably catch fire have some sort of sprinkler, halon, or other firefighting system. If people leave the scenes of fire quickly, automated systems can rob the fire of oxygen with minimal damage to life and property. I'm also wondering about the safety of a liquid nitrogen based system.
Breaking news: It seems I wrote this article before. Whoops.
In the early days, we found that water quickly smothered out fire. Partially because fire proved unable to extract the oxygen in fire, and also partially because water quickly absorbed much of the heat the fire needed to continue. This isn't always the practical way to fight it. Electrical fires don't react to water very well, and water in a grease fire, as may occur in a kitchen, will only make it worse as the burning grease manages to rise above the water's surface before it can be extinguished.
Later, work with computers produced carbon dioxide and halon exguishers that could end fire without damaging the water-sensitive electronics. Humans had to quickly evacuate, as any human near these would be suffocated in short order. Halon also proved bad for the environment after its release.
Firefighting experts tell us that fire is like a triangle. There are three factors for the continuation of a fire. If any one of them is removed, the fire stops. The three factors are: Fuel, Oxygen, and Heat. So you can fight fire by removing what would have burned, by smothering it under water, earth, or chemicals, or by chilling it. Most firefighting today works on the oxygen angle, as anything that displaces oxygen from the fire works.
Now, I can imagine a thermal-extinguisher that dropped well-insulated liquid nitrogen on fires, ending them, or some sort of brick-off machine that seals rooms that catch fire, perhaps from the top down to assist human escape, but I think the most important thing is to plan for fires. History tells me that Rome often caught fire, because it was made mostly of wood, was really crowded, and had a lot of people who could benefit from arson and didn't care who else was hurt by that. Rome would often burn down, because the fire department back then were bucket brigades, who could kind of ineffectually splash water on the blaze, which only slowed it down a bit. This was when they were not personally the arsonists! The modern world has way more burnable things...but also a fire hydrant once a block, fire departments who have all kinds of equipment, including hoses that spew water at ludicrious rates, chemical extinguishers, and tools to extract all humans from the area so that all kinds of chemical hell can be poured on the fire.
So to prepare, I think all areas that could conceivably catch fire have some sort of sprinkler, halon, or other firefighting system. If people leave the scenes of fire quickly, automated systems can rob the fire of oxygen with minimal damage to life and property. I'm also wondering about the safety of a liquid nitrogen based system.
Breaking news: It seems I wrote this article before. Whoops.
Thursday, September 23, 2010
The Rack is Good for you
Generally speaking, torture is bad for you. The level of pain that a torturer wants you to feel generally only comes about by extreme injury.
Medieval Europe really had a thing for torture, inventing many horrible ways to do it. Things that crushed fingers, things that crushed skulls, things that terrified you with knives before stabbing the living daylights out of you, and "The Rack," which pulled your arms and legs until all your joints dislocated. All agonizing, incredibly evil tortures.
And yet, modern sports medicine practitioners point out that in lesser amounts,"The rack" would actually be good for you. Wait, what? Apparently if you did it slowly and stopped well before the first hint of discomfort, the gentle pull actually relaxed the joints and muscles. A slight pulling was like a chiropractic massage, only more in line with mainstream orthopedics. (The average chiropractor manipulates joints abruptly, whereas orthopedics suggest slow and gentle manipulation.)
Many things are only painful or pleasurable by degree. The brightness of sunlight on a warm summer's day is pleasant to look at. The brightness of sunlight from staring directly at the sun in unbearable. Music played at your favorite volume is something that we actively seek out and pay money for. Music played at twice that volume causes us pain. A jump in a cold pool on a hot summer's day is a welcome relief from the heat, but if I poured liquid nitrogen on you, you'd probably scream in agony, no matter how insufferably hot the day was.
If you need me, I'll be in the back room. Deploy ratchet!
Medieval Europe really had a thing for torture, inventing many horrible ways to do it. Things that crushed fingers, things that crushed skulls, things that terrified you with knives before stabbing the living daylights out of you, and "The Rack," which pulled your arms and legs until all your joints dislocated. All agonizing, incredibly evil tortures.
And yet, modern sports medicine practitioners point out that in lesser amounts,"The rack" would actually be good for you. Wait, what? Apparently if you did it slowly and stopped well before the first hint of discomfort, the gentle pull actually relaxed the joints and muscles. A slight pulling was like a chiropractic massage, only more in line with mainstream orthopedics. (The average chiropractor manipulates joints abruptly, whereas orthopedics suggest slow and gentle manipulation.)
Many things are only painful or pleasurable by degree. The brightness of sunlight on a warm summer's day is pleasant to look at. The brightness of sunlight from staring directly at the sun in unbearable. Music played at your favorite volume is something that we actively seek out and pay money for. Music played at twice that volume causes us pain. A jump in a cold pool on a hot summer's day is a welcome relief from the heat, but if I poured liquid nitrogen on you, you'd probably scream in agony, no matter how insufferably hot the day was.
If you need me, I'll be in the back room. Deploy ratchet!
Saturday, August 28, 2010
The Haber Process
Once upon a time, there was a German chemist named Fritz Haber. He had a process that could extract nitrogen from air, hydrogen from water, (but more likely from fossil fuels, because electrolysis of water is an expensive undertaking), and combine them into ammonia. It was kind of slow, and mostly a novelty. The net reaction was:
2N2 + 3H2 => 2NH3
Then one day, a representative of the German government came to his office.
"Dr. Haber! Dr. Haber! The Fatherland needs your help!"
"What? How?"
"You know how we're fighting the great war? (The one the future would know as "World War I," but it wasn't known then that it would involve pretty much the whole world, nor that there would be a sequel.) England has cordoned off our supply of seagull poop!"
"Uhuh, remind me why you'd want that."
"Don't you see? It's our only source of ammonia! With no ammonia, we can make neither fertilizer nor explosives, so we'll starve and lose the war!!!!"
"Okay, so you'll need all my notes on my air-extracted ammonia process, then? Here you go."
So Dr. Haber worked with another chemist, Dr. Bosch, for the BASF company, to scale up his process. As Dr. Haber first wrote it, a cup of ammonia could be produced every 2 hours. Not very much. With Dr. Bosch's help, this turned into a veritable flow of ammonia, and Germany didn't starve. It still lost the war, though.
After the war, the allies were very interested in the Haber-Bosch process, and applied it to farming, which also needs ridiculous amounts of ammonia, because plants make their proteins from it. Before, you had to get it from poop, usually seagull poop from Chile. Now, you could have all the ammonia you want and the process is responsible for feeding 1/5th the world today due to massively increased farm yields. Chile was thrown into unemployment, until they discovered that they also have massive amounts of copper.
Dr. Haber went on to invent gas warfare, to extract gold from the sea, and to give the Nazis the finger and move to England. (Significant because he was the sort of patriotic German who they expected to fully back them. ) Dr. Haber died a year later, involved in work in the middle east, but his process is still used today, and still feeding the world.
2N2 + 3H2 => 2NH3
Then one day, a representative of the German government came to his office.
"Dr. Haber! Dr. Haber! The Fatherland needs your help!"
"What? How?"
"You know how we're fighting the great war? (The one the future would know as "World War I," but it wasn't known then that it would involve pretty much the whole world, nor that there would be a sequel.) England has cordoned off our supply of seagull poop!"
"Uhuh, remind me why you'd want that."
"Don't you see? It's our only source of ammonia! With no ammonia, we can make neither fertilizer nor explosives, so we'll starve and lose the war!!!!"
"Okay, so you'll need all my notes on my air-extracted ammonia process, then? Here you go."
So Dr. Haber worked with another chemist, Dr. Bosch, for the BASF company, to scale up his process. As Dr. Haber first wrote it, a cup of ammonia could be produced every 2 hours. Not very much. With Dr. Bosch's help, this turned into a veritable flow of ammonia, and Germany didn't starve. It still lost the war, though.
After the war, the allies were very interested in the Haber-Bosch process, and applied it to farming, which also needs ridiculous amounts of ammonia, because plants make their proteins from it. Before, you had to get it from poop, usually seagull poop from Chile. Now, you could have all the ammonia you want and the process is responsible for feeding 1/5th the world today due to massively increased farm yields. Chile was thrown into unemployment, until they discovered that they also have massive amounts of copper.
Dr. Haber went on to invent gas warfare, to extract gold from the sea, and to give the Nazis the finger and move to England. (Significant because he was the sort of patriotic German who they expected to fully back them. ) Dr. Haber died a year later, involved in work in the middle east, but his process is still used today, and still feeding the world.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Anti Submarine Warfare
Once upon a time, submarines were a major threat to the world's navies. They were hard to see, and could suddenly attack out of apparently nowhere, and disappear beneath the waves before retaliation was possible. So finding and destroying them became a very very big priority.
This is less a priority now, because all the modern enemies of the United States are insurgent groups that cannot afford submarines, and would have no use for them if they had them.
But back to the original topic, how do you find something that spends most of its time underwater, is painted the same color as the ocean, and is designed to be as hard as possible to see? Well, look into its characteristics. First, some past solutions:
* Light
Submarines might be painted ocean colors, but they're still metal. When they're on the surface, and before nuclear and aqua-lung technology that was rather frequent. (Diesel powered engine needs fresh oxygen and smoke disposal, plus need to refresh the air so the crew doesn't, you know, suffocate), shine a bright light from an airplane. If it hits a sub, it reflects, and then you know where to shoot.
This is only really effective when the sub is near the surface. A deep sub is obscured by the water, which absorbs light with depth.
* Sonar
Sound bounces. Bats learn where everything is by emitting a high pitched sound that bounces off of things, and notices where things are by the reflections. Bats use this to find bugs. Anti-submarine people run sound through the ocean, which bounces off rocks and subs, and they tend to be subtly different. Once you've seen it, or rather, heard it, depth charges away.
This is only effective when the submarine is below the surface. A surfaced submarine is indistinguishable from, say, a whale, or a glob of seaweed.
* Sea microphone
Submarines aren't completely silent. They move by propeller, which makes noise. They attack with torpedos, which makes a noise when launched, and while moving. They require electric power, and back in the diesel age, that made quite a lot of noise. (Nuclear reactors are nearly silent.) Various life support machines make noise too.
Submarines usually detect each other by listening to the sea. Experienced sound operators can tell the difference between a submarine and a whale by sound alone.
* Escorts
Submarines are like ninjas -- their strength is that they attack very suddenly and without warning. So send ships out in groups, and when one of them is attacked by the submarine, the others attack the submarine, whose position has been revealed in the attack.
* Radio Snooping
Submarines communicate with their parent organization through two means: One is radio, and the other are specially built submarine-communication cables, by a shorter-distance radio. Radio can be tracked by triangulation. Snoop enough signals and one can be reasonable sure where the submarine is. At which point, depth charges ahoy.l
* Hunter Killers
Why wait for the submarines to come to you? Hunter killers are boats with many of the above technologies, who actively search for enemy submarines, and destroy them.
* Magnetism
Submarines are made of metal, almost certainly steel. The movement of steel subtly warps the magnetic field of the earth. Keep a map of major ocean areas and their magnetic fields at all times. When something changes, it's a submarine. If you can't find records of it on any side friendly to you, it's depth charge time.
* Espionage
The parent organization of a submarine knows where it is at all times, mostly because it's the one issuing orders. Records must be kept. Have a spy steal these records. You now know where the submarine is.
* Possible other techniques
Navies around the world probably have other methods that they're not going to tell me. (After all, if your enemy discovers the nature of your technique, countermeasures can be developed.)
And to this list, I can suggest one other technique:
* Water Shadow Analysis
If you drag an object through the water, then let a seal into the area, they can use their whiskers to tell exactly what path the object took. If the object is one that interests them (because it's a toy, or contains fish), they'll almost assuredly make a beeline for it. However, their whiskers must be unobstructed to do this. A seal wearing a mask is not able to detect water shadows.
So, submarines must also make water shadows as they move. If you know where the submarine has ever been, and have water shadow detecting equipment, then you can follow it long enough to shoot it full of torpedos.
This is less a priority now, because all the modern enemies of the United States are insurgent groups that cannot afford submarines, and would have no use for them if they had them.
But back to the original topic, how do you find something that spends most of its time underwater, is painted the same color as the ocean, and is designed to be as hard as possible to see? Well, look into its characteristics. First, some past solutions:
* Light
Submarines might be painted ocean colors, but they're still metal. When they're on the surface, and before nuclear and aqua-lung technology that was rather frequent. (Diesel powered engine needs fresh oxygen and smoke disposal, plus need to refresh the air so the crew doesn't, you know, suffocate), shine a bright light from an airplane. If it hits a sub, it reflects, and then you know where to shoot.
This is only really effective when the sub is near the surface. A deep sub is obscured by the water, which absorbs light with depth.
* Sonar
Sound bounces. Bats learn where everything is by emitting a high pitched sound that bounces off of things, and notices where things are by the reflections. Bats use this to find bugs. Anti-submarine people run sound through the ocean, which bounces off rocks and subs, and they tend to be subtly different. Once you've seen it, or rather, heard it, depth charges away.
This is only effective when the submarine is below the surface. A surfaced submarine is indistinguishable from, say, a whale, or a glob of seaweed.
* Sea microphone
Submarines aren't completely silent. They move by propeller, which makes noise. They attack with torpedos, which makes a noise when launched, and while moving. They require electric power, and back in the diesel age, that made quite a lot of noise. (Nuclear reactors are nearly silent.) Various life support machines make noise too.
Submarines usually detect each other by listening to the sea. Experienced sound operators can tell the difference between a submarine and a whale by sound alone.
* Escorts
Submarines are like ninjas -- their strength is that they attack very suddenly and without warning. So send ships out in groups, and when one of them is attacked by the submarine, the others attack the submarine, whose position has been revealed in the attack.
* Radio Snooping
Submarines communicate with their parent organization through two means: One is radio, and the other are specially built submarine-communication cables, by a shorter-distance radio. Radio can be tracked by triangulation. Snoop enough signals and one can be reasonable sure where the submarine is. At which point, depth charges ahoy.l
* Hunter Killers
Why wait for the submarines to come to you? Hunter killers are boats with many of the above technologies, who actively search for enemy submarines, and destroy them.
* Magnetism
Submarines are made of metal, almost certainly steel. The movement of steel subtly warps the magnetic field of the earth. Keep a map of major ocean areas and their magnetic fields at all times. When something changes, it's a submarine. If you can't find records of it on any side friendly to you, it's depth charge time.
* Espionage
The parent organization of a submarine knows where it is at all times, mostly because it's the one issuing orders. Records must be kept. Have a spy steal these records. You now know where the submarine is.
* Possible other techniques
Navies around the world probably have other methods that they're not going to tell me. (After all, if your enemy discovers the nature of your technique, countermeasures can be developed.)
And to this list, I can suggest one other technique:
* Water Shadow Analysis
If you drag an object through the water, then let a seal into the area, they can use their whiskers to tell exactly what path the object took. If the object is one that interests them (because it's a toy, or contains fish), they'll almost assuredly make a beeline for it. However, their whiskers must be unobstructed to do this. A seal wearing a mask is not able to detect water shadows.
So, submarines must also make water shadows as they move. If you know where the submarine has ever been, and have water shadow detecting equipment, then you can follow it long enough to shoot it full of torpedos.
Monday, July 19, 2010
Chinese correlation
China has some 5000 or so years of history, most of which have very detailed records. The current government took censuses, recorded astrological events, described major issues, and stored a massive library of literature that grew over time. And periodically, it collapsed and was replaced with a different one, the details of the rebellion also being added to the records. A historian reports that the records all had something in common, namely, they all occured during periods of local climate cooling.
Now, correlation isn't causation. Ice cream sales are linked to riots, but to claim that ice cream causes riots is insane. There's a common factor in those, namely the hot weather. (People buy ice cream during hot weather to enjoy the cool sensation, but the hot weather also makes them way crankier.) The historian believes that the colder weather caused more crop failures, which lead to social instability ("I'm starving! Why's that jackass eating?!?!") which lead to revolution. And conquest, as China's neighbors became more interested in conquest when their own positions were undermined.
If the historian's findings were correct, then threatened dynasties could have saved themselves with some sort of food relief program. Tragically for them, this never occured to them, and they now reside in the dustbin of history.
Now, correlation isn't causation. Ice cream sales are linked to riots, but to claim that ice cream causes riots is insane. There's a common factor in those, namely the hot weather. (People buy ice cream during hot weather to enjoy the cool sensation, but the hot weather also makes them way crankier.) The historian believes that the colder weather caused more crop failures, which lead to social instability ("I'm starving! Why's that jackass eating?!?!") which lead to revolution. And conquest, as China's neighbors became more interested in conquest when their own positions were undermined.
If the historian's findings were correct, then threatened dynasties could have saved themselves with some sort of food relief program. Tragically for them, this never occured to them, and they now reside in the dustbin of history.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Doggy Dumbasses
Discovery News has some bad news about one of my favorite animals, Dogs. I've always loved them for being one of the first animals to be domesticated, and total suck-up kiss-asses who delight at your every thought, no matter how insipid or stupid. But it seems some of the many changes we've made to them since we started with their timber wolf ancestors have made them morons.
Dogs differ greatly mentally from their wild cousins, wolves, coyotes, and dingos. For one, dogs inherently see humans as top of the pack. For another, they understand pointing, which makes no physical sense to a wild canine. But the increase in social skills came with a loss of survival skills. Dogs have trouble finding food if abandoned. A test of spacial ability in which a dog must find its way through a maze with windows to find a food reward confuses the dog, as they get immensely confused by the way that the window can be seen through but not walked through, and paw at it and whine for help, while a wild canine would note that it was inaccessible and look for ways around it.
Of course, dog stupidity is likely not a problem for them, as they've paired up with the most intelligent species on the planet: humans. From the beginning, our relationship has been symbiotic. The first dogs lead humans to prey, which we killed from afar with weapons and then shared. Its like this one children's story I vaguely half-remember in which a very strong but very stupid child teams up with a very intelligent but very frail one, and together they completely dominate every problem they come across.
People may think of evolution as rewarding strength and punishing weakness, but symbiosis is the real trend. Cooperate with others for a synergistic, 1+1=3, type of effect.
Dogs differ greatly mentally from their wild cousins, wolves, coyotes, and dingos. For one, dogs inherently see humans as top of the pack. For another, they understand pointing, which makes no physical sense to a wild canine. But the increase in social skills came with a loss of survival skills. Dogs have trouble finding food if abandoned. A test of spacial ability in which a dog must find its way through a maze with windows to find a food reward confuses the dog, as they get immensely confused by the way that the window can be seen through but not walked through, and paw at it and whine for help, while a wild canine would note that it was inaccessible and look for ways around it.
Of course, dog stupidity is likely not a problem for them, as they've paired up with the most intelligent species on the planet: humans. From the beginning, our relationship has been symbiotic. The first dogs lead humans to prey, which we killed from afar with weapons and then shared. Its like this one children's story I vaguely half-remember in which a very strong but very stupid child teams up with a very intelligent but very frail one, and together they completely dominate every problem they come across.
People may think of evolution as rewarding strength and punishing weakness, but symbiosis is the real trend. Cooperate with others for a synergistic, 1+1=3, type of effect.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Denied by history
There are a lot of things that cannot be done anymore because of the negative weight in history. Ideas so abused that we dare not try them ever again.
Like Literacy testing for voting. Good idea to prove that the electorate can read and write, so that they have a good understanding of what the hey they're voting for in the first place, yes? Unfortunately, we've had a history of it being applied in a racist fashion. A white would-be voter would be given an extremely easy question, a black would be voter would be asked a question with no real answer. (Like "How many bubbles are there in a bar of soap?") Any answer he gave would result in him being told that he was illiterate, and he would be rather impolitely told to leave. Usually with a racial slur thrown in. So, it is now illegal to have literacy tests for voting, because we can't trust some people not to pull that shit again.
Same deal with poll taxes. Elections do cost some money. Have to print up the forms, collect the results, pay someone to count it, (and count it fairly dammit), booths, workers to explain instructions and make sure no one votes twice, and so on. So the idea being that paying to vote would recoup the expenses, as well as strongly discouraging double-vote cheating. Except that again black people were charged and turned away if unable to pay, but white people always got it mysteriously "waived." So, several court decisions later, it's not legal to do that. (And besides, it's kind of unfair to the very poor.)
There's a lot of ideas out there that might have worked out very well, but for historical reasons, are untenable today. We just can't trust people not to screw them up somehow.
So when people tell me about this law in Arizona, the one that where any "reasonably suspicious" person can be subject to arbitrary deportation, same sort of problem emerges. The technical language of the law may be reasonably neutral, but it's fairly obvious at this point that it will be enforced with "Latino-looking" substituted for "reasonably suspicious." Which kind of torpedoes the entire thing. Already 20 people with US citizenship have been deported. Without a chance to gather the paperwork that would allow them to, you know, return.
Mexico's not pleased about suddenly having a bunch of American refugees when they're already suffering a whole host of other problems.
Like Literacy testing for voting. Good idea to prove that the electorate can read and write, so that they have a good understanding of what the hey they're voting for in the first place, yes? Unfortunately, we've had a history of it being applied in a racist fashion. A white would-be voter would be given an extremely easy question, a black would be voter would be asked a question with no real answer. (Like "How many bubbles are there in a bar of soap?") Any answer he gave would result in him being told that he was illiterate, and he would be rather impolitely told to leave. Usually with a racial slur thrown in. So, it is now illegal to have literacy tests for voting, because we can't trust some people not to pull that shit again.
Same deal with poll taxes. Elections do cost some money. Have to print up the forms, collect the results, pay someone to count it, (and count it fairly dammit), booths, workers to explain instructions and make sure no one votes twice, and so on. So the idea being that paying to vote would recoup the expenses, as well as strongly discouraging double-vote cheating. Except that again black people were charged and turned away if unable to pay, but white people always got it mysteriously "waived." So, several court decisions later, it's not legal to do that. (And besides, it's kind of unfair to the very poor.)
There's a lot of ideas out there that might have worked out very well, but for historical reasons, are untenable today. We just can't trust people not to screw them up somehow.
So when people tell me about this law in Arizona, the one that where any "reasonably suspicious" person can be subject to arbitrary deportation, same sort of problem emerges. The technical language of the law may be reasonably neutral, but it's fairly obvious at this point that it will be enforced with "Latino-looking" substituted for "reasonably suspicious." Which kind of torpedoes the entire thing. Already 20 people with US citizenship have been deported. Without a chance to gather the paperwork that would allow them to, you know, return.
Mexico's not pleased about suddenly having a bunch of American refugees when they're already suffering a whole host of other problems.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Brownian Motion
It's been a while, hasn't it? Job hunting kinda drained away my ideas, so I'm going to describe a basic principle today.
Brownian motion is the hardest means of harnessing energy, but also in a way the most useful. Brownian motion is the random molecular motion from heat, and it can technically be harnessed to do useful work.
I once read a piece (I forget where, like most things I know), asking the reader to imaging having a car with no engine, perfect brakes, and in the middle of a massive hailstorm. The car is in front of a hill. When the brakes are deployed, the car doesn't move, when not deployed, the car is pushed by the momentum imparted by the hail. Using the brakes cleverly, depressing them when hail lands in front and releasing when hail lands in the back, the car can go up the hill. Even go up the hill reasonably quickly. This is how brownian motion can work for you.
Technically, this means that you could recycle heat directly into useful work, but you'd have to be very clever to do so. Probably more clever than current engineering allows. (Although biologists tell me that our own cells have some Brownian motion utilization systems, which is interesting.) But for now, the closest we have to this technology is Stiller's engine.
The reverend Stiller lived in a highly industrial town, and many of his parishioners were maimed in boiler explosions. Boilers didn't explode very often, but there were so many in town that somebody inevitably was around one. So he studied mechanical engineering to try and find a better way to transfer power. One that could not explode. He eventually produced a heat-differential type engine that had no moving parts. The user put one end into a fire, and the other hung in the room, and the temperature difference made power. This was useful, completely silent (except for the fire, but fires are reasonably quiet), and most importantly, didn't explode under pressure. Stiller's parishioners were safe. Since then, the technology is often used in submarines, to produce completely silent operation. I recommend them for any power system that needs to be quiet, and has a readily available heat difference. (Or where you can build a fire, which is the beauty of it -- any heat source at all works.)
Brownian motion is the hardest means of harnessing energy, but also in a way the most useful. Brownian motion is the random molecular motion from heat, and it can technically be harnessed to do useful work.
I once read a piece (I forget where, like most things I know), asking the reader to imaging having a car with no engine, perfect brakes, and in the middle of a massive hailstorm. The car is in front of a hill. When the brakes are deployed, the car doesn't move, when not deployed, the car is pushed by the momentum imparted by the hail. Using the brakes cleverly, depressing them when hail lands in front and releasing when hail lands in the back, the car can go up the hill. Even go up the hill reasonably quickly. This is how brownian motion can work for you.
Technically, this means that you could recycle heat directly into useful work, but you'd have to be very clever to do so. Probably more clever than current engineering allows. (Although biologists tell me that our own cells have some Brownian motion utilization systems, which is interesting.) But for now, the closest we have to this technology is Stiller's engine.
The reverend Stiller lived in a highly industrial town, and many of his parishioners were maimed in boiler explosions. Boilers didn't explode very often, but there were so many in town that somebody inevitably was around one. So he studied mechanical engineering to try and find a better way to transfer power. One that could not explode. He eventually produced a heat-differential type engine that had no moving parts. The user put one end into a fire, and the other hung in the room, and the temperature difference made power. This was useful, completely silent (except for the fire, but fires are reasonably quiet), and most importantly, didn't explode under pressure. Stiller's parishioners were safe. Since then, the technology is often used in submarines, to produce completely silent operation. I recommend them for any power system that needs to be quiet, and has a readily available heat difference. (Or where you can build a fire, which is the beauty of it -- any heat source at all works.)
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Propaganda
I've been reading an article on military propaganda a few days ago. The term "propaganda" came from an early attempt to do so, the Catholic "propaganda de fe" or "Propagating the faith," hence the name. I note that there's a science part and an art part.
In the science part, you have to deliver the message, intact, to the intended recipient. And in wartime, you do not have access -- your target is usually behind the enemy lines where their government explicitly does not want you handing them fliers! So you have to somehow deliver it, intact, into your target's hands. No one reads destroyed, burned, or damaged leaflets.
On the art part, it has to be in your target's language, preferably with illustrations (because words alone are boring) (Yes, I realize the irony of that statement in a blog that has few pictures) and using your target's symbolisms. This is harder than it sounds. Cartoonists conventions like dialog balloons and thought bubbles are completely unknown in major segments of the world. Puns and wordplay almost never translate and have to be built in the target language from the ground up. Even heroes and villains vary greatly from group to group. PsyWarrior points out an embarrassing failure in an American attempt to influence Iraqis, in which a leaflet attempted to insult Saddam Hussein by comparing him to Hitler. Unfortunately for them, Iraqi knowledge of Hitler is that he was an anti-British and anti-Jewish leader, both of whom are seen as archenemies of Iraq. Whoops, it bolstered him instead.
The site, and others like it, go on to mention some general principles. The target of your propaganda is a hero, of course, or at worst a victim. Avoid playing into your enemy's hands. Try to sell your position. You won't succeed every time, but a good psychological operation wins battles without firing a single shot.
And bad psychological operations can lose a war. Case in point: Vietnam. Even a cursory glance into the propaganda shows that the American effort was scattered and disorganized, while the Vietnamese one managed to sow a continuous stream of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. American efforts were often demonstrably wrong, while the Vietnamese stuck to slightly more plausible claims. America won every battle and it didn't matter in the slightest.
Vietnam's still a touchy subject.
I'm in favor of Psychological warfare, because it leads to better and more productive peace agreements.
In the science part, you have to deliver the message, intact, to the intended recipient. And in wartime, you do not have access -- your target is usually behind the enemy lines where their government explicitly does not want you handing them fliers! So you have to somehow deliver it, intact, into your target's hands. No one reads destroyed, burned, or damaged leaflets.
On the art part, it has to be in your target's language, preferably with illustrations (because words alone are boring) (Yes, I realize the irony of that statement in a blog that has few pictures) and using your target's symbolisms. This is harder than it sounds. Cartoonists conventions like dialog balloons and thought bubbles are completely unknown in major segments of the world. Puns and wordplay almost never translate and have to be built in the target language from the ground up. Even heroes and villains vary greatly from group to group. PsyWarrior points out an embarrassing failure in an American attempt to influence Iraqis, in which a leaflet attempted to insult Saddam Hussein by comparing him to Hitler. Unfortunately for them, Iraqi knowledge of Hitler is that he was an anti-British and anti-Jewish leader, both of whom are seen as archenemies of Iraq. Whoops, it bolstered him instead.
The site, and others like it, go on to mention some general principles. The target of your propaganda is a hero, of course, or at worst a victim. Avoid playing into your enemy's hands. Try to sell your position. You won't succeed every time, but a good psychological operation wins battles without firing a single shot.
And bad psychological operations can lose a war. Case in point: Vietnam. Even a cursory glance into the propaganda shows that the American effort was scattered and disorganized, while the Vietnamese one managed to sow a continuous stream of fear, uncertainty, and doubt. American efforts were often demonstrably wrong, while the Vietnamese stuck to slightly more plausible claims. America won every battle and it didn't matter in the slightest.
Vietnam's still a touchy subject.
I'm in favor of Psychological warfare, because it leads to better and more productive peace agreements.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Historical Chemistry Irony
When one, in the past, wrote a nasty letter, people would describe this as a "pen dipped in vitriol," vitriol being sulfuric acid, an immensely caustic compound that worked well in ink, but burned the hell out of anyone who touched it directly. The chemical burning property led people to connect it directly to the idea of vehemous anger. Older inks amounted to essentially carbon dissolved in water, and lacked the permanence of vitriolic inks. These older inks were the baseline comparison, since they were less offensive to the touch and quicker to fade away.
Vitriolic ink is now very much a thing of the past, with more effective mixes of dyes and pigments providing the same permanent coloration without the risk of chemical burns, and for significantly less money. That and most text these days is no longer on paper, but in electronic signals, like emails, blogs, and webpages.
sulfuric acid, however, has not gone away, and aside from being the primary acid in batteries, a rust remover, an effective pH lowering agent for fertilizers, a laboratory acid for dissolving compounds, part of pharmaceuticals, and it's used with iron to produce ferrous sulfate, a preservation agent in foods. Especially processed foods. In fact, engineers claim that a nation's sulfuric acid production is a good baseline to describe how industrialized it is.
A common stereotype of internet addicts is that they sit around all day eating processed foods, namely "Cheetos," a puffed corn snack with a powdered cheese coating, and, you guessed it, iron sulfate for preservation. Such people are also said to amuse themselves by producing angry messages on the internet about everything they dislike. Their pen may have been replaced by a cursor, but the vitriolic dipping remains.
So going by these assumptions, they've become a vitriol-processing device. Chemical vitriol goes in, information vitriol comes out. I found that hilariously ironic.
Vitriolic ink is now very much a thing of the past, with more effective mixes of dyes and pigments providing the same permanent coloration without the risk of chemical burns, and for significantly less money. That and most text these days is no longer on paper, but in electronic signals, like emails, blogs, and webpages.
sulfuric acid, however, has not gone away, and aside from being the primary acid in batteries, a rust remover, an effective pH lowering agent for fertilizers, a laboratory acid for dissolving compounds, part of pharmaceuticals, and it's used with iron to produce ferrous sulfate, a preservation agent in foods. Especially processed foods. In fact, engineers claim that a nation's sulfuric acid production is a good baseline to describe how industrialized it is.
A common stereotype of internet addicts is that they sit around all day eating processed foods, namely "Cheetos," a puffed corn snack with a powdered cheese coating, and, you guessed it, iron sulfate for preservation. Such people are also said to amuse themselves by producing angry messages on the internet about everything they dislike. Their pen may have been replaced by a cursor, but the vitriolic dipping remains.
So going by these assumptions, they've become a vitriol-processing device. Chemical vitriol goes in, information vitriol comes out. I found that hilariously ironic.
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