The Slamlander

I gleaned these from the BBC. When you are out of the office …

• “I will be unable to delete all the unread, worthless e-mails you send me
  until I return from holiday. Please be patient and your mail will be deleted in
  the order it was received.”
• “The e-mail server is unable to verify your server connection and cannot
  deliver this message. Please restart your computer and try sending again.”
• “I’ve run away to join a different circus.”
• “You are receiving this automatic notification because I am out of the
  office. If I was in, you wouldn’t have received anything at all.”
• “I am out of the office for two weeks for medical reasons. When I return please refer to me as Margaret instead of Steve.”

Start a thread with a haiku post. Although it’s usually found in 5-7-5 format, Haiku only has to be 17 sylabels, total. Neither does it have to be koan-esque but, it’s more fun that way Discuss interpretation in your sub-threads. Have fun!

Middle-English is tough, not!
Cockney truely alien is!
Welsh inverse.

and how they take good research, purposely leave out the really good points, and jump to the conclusion they wanted to make anyway.

Yes, the Arctic is getting warmer, that’s absolute fact. They even list some causes but conspicuosly forget mentioning that the Sun is increasing it’s output. They even mention that CO2 will be released from the ice pack and permafrost. Then they jump to the ASS-U-ME-ption that our civilization is the cause of all of it and we must reduce CO2 emissions. Nowhere in that report is there any evidence supporting that conclusion. In fact, the primary data that you need is conspicuosly absent.

A large dose of cold water will be dumped on their arguments with just a few facts. Facts like, How much CO2 is actuall produced by our civilization vs natural sources (spoiler: not much) or How much percent increase in solar rads v. percent increase in climate effects (spoiler: almost a direct 1:1 correlation).

The only thing I can figure is that these dimwits want us to destroy our own civilization so that the global climate changes throw is back into the dark ages completely.

Have they finally gone too far?

A space plane or a capsule? Meanwhile, the only reusable ship we have ever built is being retired.

Yeah, I can agree that the shuttle is a bad design. Even back in the day (1970′s), in Downey, California, (where the space shuttle was designed and built) engineers were arguing that the space-tile approach was the wrong thing to do. I personally knew some of them, they were my neighbors (La Palma, CA). However, that doesn’t mean that you abandon the concept because of a faulty design decision in the first article.

A true shuttle is cheaper to operate (per lifted ton) than using throw away rockets. But you have to have a true shuttle. The US shuttle is a hybrid, not a true plane and not a pure rocket either. The proposed EU/Russian space plane will be a smaller version of the same thing, with a separate payload launch for cargo. What is sad is that Hypersonic SCRAM jets point the way towards a true orbit capable space plane technology and everyone is cutting funding for research there.

That out of the way, they are taking a step backward on the moon-mars thing too. Proposals, from the 1970′s, were to start building interplanetary exloration vessels in orbit, after a space station was built. These would be multi-mission craft capable of being refitted between missions. They would be built in orbit and never see the surface of a planet. Their whole purpose would be to transport material between orbital venues. Overall, this is a whole lot cheaper than the Apollo 2.0 approach that NASA is proposing now. Yes, the one-time cost may be more but spread over 10-15 missions, a real reusable interplanetary space ship is a lot cheaper, as you only have to build it once.

However, politically, reusable craft make it harder for the politicians to back out of any future missions and most people understand sunk-cost recovery at an intuitive level. The good part is that reusable vehicles are a legacy going forward, helping to ensure future activity.

CO2 being reduced and CO2 being pumped into the air.

Take all the CO2 emissions from all the jet planes, for one year. You might get close to reducing the CO2 output from these lakes. Here’s the spoiler, the CO2 is volcanic and these lakes aren’t the only source.

It’s the ultimate hubris to think that us puny humans can make even a tiny dent in global CO2 emissions. Our entire civilization gets eclipsed by even the tiniest of eruptions.

We need to accept the fact that it’s going to get warmer and that there is not a damned thing that we can do about it except to get out of the way! The sun is getting warmer, this increases the total energy being pumped into our planet. As our climate heats up and geological changes take place, volcanic pollutants will exacerbate the problem and maybe even accelerate it some. Anything that our total civilization does is like a fart in a hurricane and is just about as effective.

The US isn’t the only one. This guy was convicted and sentenced for a crime he never commited. In fact, it never occured. It only might have occured, had they not arrested him.

This ranks right on up there with the Jose Padilla case. In both cases and both countries, civil right and legal principle are being ignored. To be fair to the UK, they never claimed to be pure. In fact, it is such convictions and egregious injustice that lead to the American Revolution and the US Constitution in the first place.

What does the prosecution present? An encoded list, some smelly socks, and a long story of maybe he’ll do this. This is basically prosecution of what someone might do, rather than what they did do. In the final analysis it is a chilling effect on free speech.Under these circumstances, a novelist can be arrested and jailed for writing the wrong sort of novel.

I got back from my Bristol trip last night.

The job is Archtect for a Business ISP, developing their next generation product and thereby obsoleting all their current spaghetti code. A brand new “blank paper” design. I’ll also be the XO for the development team.

It went well. The only issue that I have is that it’s in the UK. I have three other leads, in Bern, only one of which is a better fit than this one. Of course, it’s the hardest one to get <sigh> so I might be off to Bristol soon. and I talked it over and we’ve decided to keep this place for at least another year, if this turns out, in addition to the place that I’ll have to set up in Bristol.

Yes, in case it might not have been noticed, the UK is not my favorite country and no part of my heritage is derived from the UK. I am a Continental European by birth and breeding and only partially American raised. A lot of the conservative ministers, arguing against UK inclusion with the EU, are indeed correct; Culturally, the UK isn’t entirely European. The UK is certainly different from Continental Europe.

The job, on the other hand, is the best fit I’ve seen in years. It’ll give me the money and time that I’ll need to get the rest of my act together. From that perspective, it doesn’t matter what country it’s in.

I got brain patterns

Your Brain’s Pattern

Your mind is a creative hotbed of artistic talent. You’re always making pictures in your mind, especially when you’re bored. You are easily inspired to think colorful, interesting thoughts. And although it may be hard to express these thoughts, it won’t always be.