Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

Catastrophe Avoidance

2 Comments

…is not a one-sided threat. For those people who don’t understand discount rates, a graphical presentation.

This is a problem that just begs to have a regret analysis performed on it. Of course, we have a media that can’t even do simple division, so why would we expect them to understand net present value?

[Update on Tuesday morning]

It’s the economic growth, stupid:

Here are some other metrics. The percentage of the world’s population that is at risk for coastal flooding is well under 1% in the baseline, and is not projected to rise close to 1% in any scenario within the 95-year forecast. Malaria deaths have historically been in effect eliminated by societies that achieve several thousand dollars per year of per capita income — the key risk here is once again slower economic growth that keeps parts of the developing world poorer longer.

Again and again, we see the same pattern: At least for the next century, changes in human welfare, even on metrics that are not purely economic, are fundamentally driven by changes in economic development, not AGW damages. This is why it makes sense to be focused acutely on risks to economic growth when considering the overall effects of any emissions-mitigation program.

Most people who advocate nonsense like cap and trade are ignorant of the science, but even more are ignorant of economics, including the “scientists.”

Technology and Society

If I Had One Of These

10 Comments

..it would probably just chase women:

The person in the wheelchair wears a cap that can read brain signals, which are relayed to a brain scan electroencephalograph, or EEG, on the electrically powered wheelchair, and then analyzed in a computer program.

Research into mobility is part of Toyota’s larger strategy to go beyond automobiles in helping people get around in new ways.

The new system allows the person on the wheelchair to turn left or right and go forward, almost instantly, according to researchers.

Seriously, this will be a huge boon for the disabled. Faster please.

Political Commentary

Green Nazis

3 Comments

Unlike a lot of watermelon environmentalists, they’re honest about it. They want to adopt a highway, but the state won’t let them:

Representatives of the National Socialist movement in Missouri did not immediately return calls seeking comment about the legislation Sunday. But a statement on the movement’s Web site calls the renaming “a lame attempt to insult National Socialist pro-environment/green policies.”

Birds of a feather…

Political Commentary, Space

Advice For Augustine

2 Comments

Wes Huntress has some. I agree with a lot of what he says, but not all:

The directive to land on the Moon by 2020 is not achievable given the agency’s current limited out-year budget, costs for Constellation development, and the looming requirement to support the International Space Station beyond 2015. The best approach to lower cost and sustained development is to leverage existing space transportation infrastructure to the maximum.

I absolutely agree with the second sentence, but not the first. It is possible to get to the moon by 2020, within the available funding. But in order to do so, NASA has to focus its resources on getting to the moon, in an affordable and sustainable manner, using that existing infrastructure. As long, though, as they focus on developing their own launch systems, it will never happen. And not just because they’re not very good at developing launch systems.

I wouldn’t emphasize the international part, either. I don’t mind doing partnerships, if they make sense, but we shouldn’t do things internationally for its own sake. I wouldn’t abandon the moon–I think that NASA should be developing a lander, but that’s really the only major hardware element (at least in terms of transportation) that’s lunar specific. We need to develop a general deep-space transportation infrastructure, and it NASA had focused on that instead of Ares/Orion, they’d be a good way down that road now.

Humor, Popular Culture, Technology and Society

Back To The Stone Age

13 Comments

A thirteen-year-old boy goes retro:

My friends couldn’t imagine their parents using this monstrous box, but there was interest in what the thing was and how it worked.

In some classes in school they let me listen to music and one teacher recognised it and got nostalgic.

It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape. That was not the only naive mistake that I made; I mistook the metal/normal switch on the Walkman for a genre-specific equaliser, but later I discovered that it was in fact used to switch between two different types of cassette.

Another notable feature that the iPod has and the Walkman doesn’t is “shuffle”, where the player selects random tracks to play. Its a function that, on the face of it, the Walkman lacks. But I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down “rewind” and releasing it randomly – effective, if a little laboured.

I told my dad about my clever idea. His words of warning brought home the difference between the portable music players of today, which don’t have moving parts, and the mechanical playback of old. In his words, “Walkmans eat tapes”. So my clumsy clicking could have ended up ruining my favourite tape, leaving me music-less for the rest of the day.

How did we survive?

Political Commentary

Wrong On Ricci

13 Comments

SCOTUS says that Sotomayor screwed up, and screwed the firefighters. Kind of frightening that it’s only 5-4.

[Noon update]

“…not a single justice thought that Judge Sotomayor acted correctly in granting summary judgment for the City of New Haven.”

But let’s put her on the highest bench in the land.

[Update a few minutes later]

More thoughts:

She essentially committed judicial malpractice.

That even Justice Ginsberg and the dissenters would have remanded — undoing what Judge Sotomayor did — confirms that Sotomayor is a far-left liberal judicial activist who ignores the law and rules on her own personal agenda, even beyond the current liberals on the Court.

There is nothing moderate, mainstream, or nonideological about that. This demonstrates that the White House spin on this nominee is a pure fabrication.

Usually, poor performance in any profession is not rewarded with the highest job offer in the entire profession.

What Judge Sotomayor did in Ricci was the equivalent of a pilot error resulting in a bad plane crash. And now the pilot is being offered to fly Air Force One.

I hope that this is a major issue at confirmation hearings.

[Update about 5 EDT]
More thoughts from Richard Epstein.

Philosophy, Political Commentary, Popular Culture, Social Commentary

Things That You Think Will Make You Happy

37 Comments

But won’t.

I’ve never wanted to be famous — it looks like a miserable life to me. But I would have no problem being rich. The problem with most lottery winners is that they don’t have any sort of higher purpose to life, and don’t understand how to handle sudden wealth. I have no interest in making people envious of my possessions. I’m not a very materialistic person in general. I buy things that will provide enjoyment to me, for practical reasons, and give very little thought as to what others will think about them. But the main thing is that I know exactly what I’d do if I became suddenly wealthy. I’d do the same thing that Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos did, but I’d do it right, because I already know what I’m doing, and wouldn’t have to hire other people to figure it out.

Oh, and the one about power?

The thing is, it’s the desire itself that’s poisonous. You find that need for power most in the type of person who hates having to obey all of society’s social contracts, particularly the ones that require them to not act like cocks all day. These are the people who are only nice guys because of fear of retribution if they do otherwise, so their main goal is to become strong enough that no retribution is possible (this is why sociopaths tend to seek positions of power, by the way).

Anybody who wants to be president badly enough to go through everything that it takes is intrinsically not to be trusted. I think that we’d be a lot better off with a search committee, who sought out someone for their competence and character, and who didn’t really want the job, but was reluctantly willing to do it. He’d probably still get corrupted eventually, but at least he wouldn’t start off that way right out of the box. Actually, I think that a Fred Thompson would be a good candidate in that scenario.

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

The Democrats’ War On Science

33 Comments

The EPA has quashed a politically incorrect study. Meanwhile, Jim Hansen, non-climate scientist, goes around shouting from the rooftops that he’s being silenced.

More here:

Less than two weeks before the agency formally submitted its pro-regulation recommendation to the White House, an EPA center director quashed a 98-page report that warned against making hasty “decisions based on a scientific hypothesis that does not appear to explain most of the available data.”

The EPA official, Al McGartland, said in an e-mail message (PDF) to a staff researcher on March 17: “The administrator and the administration has decided to move forward…and your comments do not help the legal or policy case for this decision.”

After all the complaints about the Bush administration’s “war on science,” the self-righteous hypocrisy of these people is sickening.

Biting Commentary about Infinity…and Beyond!