Satire

Saddam Gets New Attorney, Seeks Change Of Venue

July 7, 2004

BAGHDAD (APUPI) Accused mass murderer and tyrant Saddam Hussein has hired Mark “Attorney-to-the-Extremely-Guilty” Geragos to defend him in his upcoming trial. As his first act, Mr. Geragos immediately filed with the court for a change of venue, on the grounds that it would be impossible for Mr. Hussein to get a fair trial in Iraq, a place in which he is widely known, and has been for decades.

“Go out in the street, and try to find someone who hasn’t heard of Saddam Hussein, or who is unfamiliar with this case,” he demanded. “Every family in Baghdad claims to be able to recount some horror story of a friend or relative who was supposedly imprisoned and tortured or murdered, ostensibly at the orders of my client. How are we supposed to find an impartial jury here?”

When asked if he had any suggestions for a new location, he replied, “It’s pretty tough, given all the bad press Mr. Hussein has received all over the world, for years. I guess my preference would be to move the trial to Redwood City to reduce my commute time. It would also provide a useful contrast with my other clients, Scott Peterson and Michael Jackson. I mean, compared to Saddam, a child molestor and uxoricidal sociopath don’t look all that bad.”

“But if we can’t move it to California, then perhaps we could get a better hearing in France.”

General Science

That’s So September 10th

So anyway, it turns out that Wood’s Hole, being one of the nations finer scientific establishments, actually has internet access. Who’d a thunk it? A technological widget developed for the transmission of porn, spam, and offers from deposed Nigerian dictators, being used by scientists as a means of remote collaboration. Just goes to show the innovative and unexpected uses to which researchers can turn everyday objects.

Obviously I’m being a little ironic above. More seriously, my wife just showed me a really cool little trick that allows a >$10,000 piece of scientific equipment to be replaced by common items costing under $100. It’s a neat little illustration of nonlinear thinking and creative problem solving on the part of a graduate student who simply did not have enough money to buy the high end gear, so she tried to figure out a way to do it on the cheap. Nobody told her it wouldn’t work, and she was really keen on getting the work done, so she kept trying until she made it work. It’s a very cool little application, so why am I being evasive about details? Well, it involves a basic technique for genetic engineering. If this was September 10th 2001, I’d blissfully blog away. In the current environment I think dropping the cost of making genetically modified organisms by over $10,000 is not necessarily in the best interest of anyone. I had a nice little post all lined up to talk about technology and creativity and the importance of persistence, but I think I’ll just leave well enough alone.

It’s only a matter of time before genetic engineering techniques come within reach of basically anyone with a couple million dollars. The long pole in the tent right now is just the sheer amount of time it takes to carry out all the work, and the scattershot nature of the results. Given time, and especially given volunteers willing to die, a terrorist attack using GMOs is a real possibility. Technology is advancing rapidly, and established technologies are becoming cheaper and more accessible. The only effective way of reducing the risk of a mass casualty attack is to undermine the ideas behind the ideologies that drive the attackers. There will always be people who want to cause destruction, but the fewer collaborators they have the lower their chances of success.

General Science

That’s So September 10th

So anyway, it turns out that Wood’s Hole, being one of the nations finer scientific establishments, actually has internet access. Who’d a thunk it? A technological widget developed for the transmission of porn, spam, and offers from deposed Nigerian dictators, being used by scientists as a means of remote collaboration. Just goes to show the innovative and unexpected uses to which researchers can turn everyday objects.

Obviously I’m being a little ironic above. More seriously, my wife just showed me a really cool little trick that allows a >$10,000 piece of scientific equipment to be replaced by common items costing under $100. It’s a neat little illustration of nonlinear thinking and creative problem solving on the part of a graduate student who simply did not have enough money to buy the high end gear, so she tried to figure out a way to do it on the cheap. Nobody told her it wouldn’t work, and she was really keen on getting the work done, so she kept trying until she made it work. It’s a very cool little application, so why am I being evasive about details? Well, it involves a basic technique for genetic engineering. If this was September 10th 2001, I’d blissfully blog away. In the current environment I think dropping the cost of making genetically modified organisms by over $10,000 is not necessarily in the best interest of anyone. I had a nice little post all lined up to talk about technology and creativity and the importance of persistence, but I think I’ll just leave well enough alone.

It’s only a matter of time before genetic engineering techniques come within reach of basically anyone with a couple million dollars. The long pole in the tent right now is just the sheer amount of time it takes to carry out all the work, and the scattershot nature of the results. Given time, and especially given volunteers willing to die, a terrorist attack using GMOs is a real possibility. Technology is advancing rapidly, and established technologies are becoming cheaper and more accessible. The only effective way of reducing the risk of a mass casualty attack is to undermine the ideas behind the ideologies that drive the attackers. There will always be people who want to cause destruction, but the fewer collaborators they have the lower their chances of success.

General Science

That’s So September 10th

So anyway, it turns out that Wood’s Hole, being one of the nations finer scientific establishments, actually has internet access. Who’d a thunk it? A technological widget developed for the transmission of porn, spam, and offers from deposed Nigerian dictators, being used by scientists as a means of remote collaboration. Just goes to show the innovative and unexpected uses to which researchers can turn everyday objects.

Obviously I’m being a little ironic above. More seriously, my wife just showed me a really cool little trick that allows a >$10,000 piece of scientific equipment to be replaced by common items costing under $100. It’s a neat little illustration of nonlinear thinking and creative problem solving on the part of a graduate student who simply did not have enough money to buy the high end gear, so she tried to figure out a way to do it on the cheap. Nobody told her it wouldn’t work, and she was really keen on getting the work done, so she kept trying until she made it work. It’s a very cool little application, so why am I being evasive about details? Well, it involves a basic technique for genetic engineering. If this was September 10th 2001, I’d blissfully blog away. In the current environment I think dropping the cost of making genetically modified organisms by over $10,000 is not necessarily in the best interest of anyone. I had a nice little post all lined up to talk about technology and creativity and the importance of persistence, but I think I’ll just leave well enough alone.

It’s only a matter of time before genetic engineering techniques come within reach of basically anyone with a couple million dollars. The long pole in the tent right now is just the sheer amount of time it takes to carry out all the work, and the scattershot nature of the results. Given time, and especially given volunteers willing to die, a terrorist attack using GMOs is a real possibility. Technology is advancing rapidly, and established technologies are becoming cheaper and more accessible. The only effective way of reducing the risk of a mass casualty attack is to undermine the ideas behind the ideologies that drive the attackers. There will always be people who want to cause destruction, but the fewer collaborators they have the lower their chances of success.

General

Massachussetts

I made it safely to Wood’s Hole after driving for nine hours. A good stereo system is a bulwark against madness.

One observation I’ve made every time I come here (this is the fourth summer) – Massachussetts drivers suck. It’s not that they are incompetent a-holes like the drivers in DC. It’s that they yield with absolutely no rhyme or reason. For some reason the basic principle that safety in traffic is enhanced by everyone behaving in a predictable manner is just lost on them[*]. My sample is pretty biased, so maybe this is just a Cape Cod phenomenon, but I’ve already had two incidents in which a dangerous situation was created by someone deciding that despite the fact that they have right of way, they’ll stop and let me go. They are trying to be nice, oblivious to the fact that the people behind them think they are turning, so move to pass, just as the benevolent dimwit is waving me to move into a position to be T-boned. Perhaps its that this area is a vacation spot, so there are people from all over the place, each bringing their own local interpretation of how to behave in traffic.

[*] Incidentally, if you ever get a chance to drive in Brazil – don’t do it. At least don’t do it until you’ve aclimatized to the local driving customs. I thought Africa was bad, but Brazilians drive according to an unwritten set of rules which are universally understood by other Brazilian drivers and which bear only a passing relationship to the written traffic laws. The lack of carnage on the streets is due to the fact that everyone knows the unwritten rules, knows what to expect, and knows how other drivers will react.

Administrative

Hard To Keep Up

Sigh…

Well, I see that Andrew has gone off on vacation without my permission. He can be sure that I’ll dock his pay nonetheless. Either that, or I may double it. Either way, his bank account won’t know the difference.

His only way out of this impotent punishment will be to provide some interesting posts on his visit to Woods Hole.

It’s particularly annoying because I’m too busy to post as well. I’m busy conjuring up affordable and sustainable architectures for exploring the solar system, made all the more difficult by innumerable (and probably incommensurable) political constraints. While I’m doing this more than full time, I’m also trying to get the California house ready to rent, and I’m going down to Florida in a couple days to help Patricia (who I haven’t seen since the beginning of the month) continue to unpack there and get the house ready to live in.

I’ll try to get up a post or two up in the next couple days, nonetheless. In the meantime, go over to Hobbyspace and RLV News (which still needs a new name), where Clark Lindsey always seems to have enough time to check out what’s going on.

General

Off to Wood’s Hole

I’m going on vacation for a week, so I may not post anything for a while. OTOH, I’m going to Wood’s Hole, where my wife is doing research at the Marine Biological Institute and there are all kinds of fascinating people to talk to, so there may be interesting stuff to blog about when I get back.

General

Off to Wood’s Hole

I’m going on vacation for a week, so I may not post anything for a while. OTOH, I’m going to Wood’s Hole, where my wife is doing research at the Marine Biological Institute and there are all kinds of fascinating people to talk to, so there may be interesting stuff to blog about when I get back.

General

Off to Wood’s Hole

I’m going on vacation for a week, so I may not post anything for a while. OTOH, I’m going to Wood’s Hole, where my wife is doing research at the Marine Biological Institute and there are all kinds of fascinating people to talk to, so there may be interesting stuff to blog about when I get back.

General Science

Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion

The reason I’ve been a little quiet these past few days is that I’ve been preparing a talk for presentation at the IEEE International Conference on Plasma Science, held in Baltimore this year. I presented yesterday, and it was generally well received. The topic was technical and boring, so I won’t gn into details here. The talk that ended the session I was at was particularly interesting, though, so I thought I’d blog about it.

The talk in question was presented by J. E. Brandenburg of the Florida Space Institute, titled Microwave Enhancement of Inertial Electrostatic Confinement of Plasma for Fusion: Theory and Experiment. Inertial Electrostatic Confinement (IEC) uses two (or more) nested spherical grids charged to a high relative voltage to accelerate ions towards the common center of the grids, where they collide and fuse. Philo Farnsworth patented an IEC concept he called the Fusor, and there are all the usual conspiracy theories about suppression of his research surrounding the history of the Fusor, though I suspect the truth of the matter has a lot to do with the fact that it didn’t really work very well, at least for power generation.

Continue reading Inertial Electrostatic Confinement Fusion →

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