Category Archives: Technology and Society

Administrative, Technology and Society, Weird

A High-Pitched Whistle In My Office

9 Comments

It’s driving me crazy. Not a smoke alarm, not the computer. I can’t echo-locate it. Cant really hear it much outside the room, but very distracting within it. Any ideas?

[Update a few minutes later]

Turned out to be the UPS. Off to Frys to replace it.

[Update a while later]

Spent about $60 for 425 VA. It’s charging now, meanwhile, I’m just operating without one. Peace and quiet.

Generally, my need for them isn’t that great. My machine can survive a sudden power loss, and most of the stuff I do backs up automatically periodically. The main reason to have one these days, for me, is to keep my internet alive. The main fiber router in the garage has its own UPS, but I need to keep my wireless routers up if I want to use a laptop with power out.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Space, Technology and Society, War Commentary

Risk Aversion

8 Comments

…costs more than fast failure.

This is about defense, but it applies to space as well. NASA in particular suffers from paralysis by analysis, as demonstrated by how long and how much money it took to do that stupid Orion test flight last year (and how long and how much more money it will be until the next one). But it doesn’t matter, because Congress doesn’t really care if anything is accomplished as long as the jobs don’t go away. I may expand on this in the next edition of the book.

Culinary, Health, Media Criticism, Science And Society, Technology and Society

Coffee

10 Comments

Yes, it really does seem to be good for you. I don’t consider myself an “addict,” though. I can take it or leave it. I don’t like it that much, and it has no discernible effect on me. I drink it only for health reasons.

But this isn’t really true:

The bad news? Frappuccinos and lattes are not included. You have to drink it black, because added sugar, cream, and milk can pack on the calories.

The experts aren’t very “expert” if they continue to push the calorie myth. The sugar is bad because, well, sugar is bad. Cream and milk are fine though (though I do drink mine black). I do add some sea salt in the filter to take the bite out of the bitterness.

Mathematics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Space, Technology and Society

Freeman Dyson

4 Comments

…on climate:

When I was in high-school in England in the 1930s, we learned that continents had been drifting according to the evidence collected by Wegener. It was a great mystery to understand how this happened, but not much doubt that it happened. So it came as a surprise to me later to learn that there had been a consensus against Wegener. If there was a consensus, it was among a small group of experts rather than among the broader public. I think that the situation today with global warming is similar. Among my friends, I do not find much of a consensus. Most of us are sceptical and do not pretend to be experts. My impression is that the experts are deluded because they have been studying the details of climate models for 30 years and they come to believe the models are real. After 30 years they lose the ability to think outside the models. And it is normal for experts in a narrow area to think alike and develop a settled dogma. The dogma is sometimes right and sometimes wrong. In astronomy this happens all the time, and it is great fun to see new observations that prove the old dogmas wrong.

Unfortunately things are different in climate science because the arguments have become heavily politicised. To say that the dogmas are wrong has become politically incorrect. As a result, the media generally exaggerate the degree of consensus and also exaggerate the importance of the questions.

It’s not a new interview, but if anything, it’s even more true now than then. The “consensus” has broken down considerably in the interim.