Down with the government
That's a tempting idea, but this article got me thinking it is just not true. Small Change Why the revolution will not be tweeted. by Malcolm Gladwell http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/bios/malcolm_gladwell/search?contributorName=malcolm%20gladwell Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/04/101004fa_fact_gladwell#ixzz12BH0HcYw Gladwell's observation is that social media is a great place for people who don't want to put much energy into their activism. Nick The article started out to say the opposite and that the Internet actually help organize revolts in Moldova and Iran, then it contradicted those claims, but not very convincingly. It's probably true that my generation was more active without the Internet, but we had television. I hitched cross country to attend every single anti-Vietnam moratorium. I was in Ohio in an 18 wheeler listening to CB radio chat about a demonstration at Kent state, so I had my ride let me out. The campus was barricaded. I hitched a ride to L.A. from some really freaked out organizers!~) One reason why this generation is less than enthusiastic about protesting the government is they feel powerless. That's why they woke up briefly and got behind Obama. There was tremendous buzz about him on the Internet and now there is apathy about his presidency. Before that millions turned out to protest Bush's policies. Another reason for the lack of solidarity in America is people are growing weary of all the negativism and polarization. They just want to nerd out online, play video games or watch Jersey Shore. Maybe I've wasted twenty years of my life advocating for a Virtual Town Hall. I think this will be my last election. Jon ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
Re: Down with the government
I am enjoying these discussions just lurking around. I am an example of a great many, I fear. I got really involved in politics for the first time in my life working as a trainer in the Obama campaign. Since then it seems that I have been on sabbatical from life. I just can not believe that the opposition strategy of the big lie told over and over using repostings of old claims recycled from before the election has worked to marginalize this very intelligent and capable president. His inexperience can explain some disillusionment but the vitriol thrown out using every media available is unprecedented in my lifetime. I believe that cable news and talk radio, controlled by right wing advocates, are the major contributors, not the internet. Email spam may have an effect. I suspect a poll of internet savvy voters would support rational policies and in general Obama. I agree with Dan M. and Pogo, I have met the enemy and he is us. I am trying hard to get up and moving to help reeducate the Fox Koolaid drinkers but it is difficult to stay motivated. Chris F. On Oct 13, 2010, at 2:28 PM, Dan Minette wrote: One reason why this generation is less than enthusiastic about protesting the government is they feel powerless. Well, they are powerless to do what they want. According to recent polls, most Americans feel that we can balance the budget without raising taxes by cutting waste alone. By cutting waste, they are not talking about that local program that creates jobs, national defense, Medicare, Social security, etc. It's those folks over there wasting money. Wingnuts makes a fairly convincing argument that most Americans believe convenient falsehoods. For example, most folks of the greatest generation believed that they put far more into Social Security and Medicare than they received. I've pushed people on this and they fell to arguing that they would have invested in 3M, switched to Microsoft at the right moment, and then into Talbs funds if only they didn't pay those taxes. I think Pogo is right. We have met the enemy and he is us. Remember, in the early '70s, Archie Bunker was closer to the average American than Abbie Hoffman. Dan M. ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
RE: Down with the government
I agree with Dan M. and Pogo, I have met the enemy and he is us. I am trying hard to get up and moving to help reeducate the Fox Koolaid drinkers but it is difficult to stay motivated. The education is not just that, IMHO. It's seeing the eschewing of hard consequences from things one has been evaluating oneself. I try to counter this by finding intelligent, reasonable people with different points of view. For the last 10+ years I've had Dr. Mukunda to debate with, first on this list, and then via IM when he felt it was time to leave here. (I usually don't drop titles, but his still squeaks it's so new). The point of wingnuts is that there are plenty of crazies on the left and on the right, and leftists tend to believe leftist wingnuts, right winger tend to believe right wingnuts, and independents believe some combination, depending on the circumstances. Let me give you one example of something neither party is talking about. There is a good reason new jobs are not being created now, and why few were created under Bush II. It's a hard problem to face, and any politician that gave an honest assessment would lose any chance of election. In short, I'd argue the government is so dysfunctional because it represents national thinking well. Now, that may be a bit overstated, but I'd be happy to start a discussion of how we need to face unpleasant facts. But, I don't think all is loss. I think China is very much like Japan in the '80s. Dan M. ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
StratoSolar
Keith Henson wrote: On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 11:00 AM, Dan Minette danmine...@att.net wrote: To: 'Killer Bs \(David Brin et al\) Discussion' We probably will never know if this StratoSolar method works. ... David Hobby hob...@newpaltz.edu wrote: I see bigger problems with losses in the light pipe. The plan seems to be to have a flexible tube lined with reflective material to guide the solar radiation down to steam turbines or whatever on the ground. Most of the light would have to reflect off the sides many times, losing at least a few percent of its intensity at each reflection. So nothing makes it to the ground, and the light pipe melts. There may be solutions to this too, but they're going to be tricky. How many reflections are you assuming light will make as it goes down the pipe, and how glancing are they? Keith-- Hi. Thanks for the details. I started thinking about the problem. It depends on the acceptance angle and the diameter of the light pipe. I'll give you that the spread for light come out of the whole array and into the pipe is 30 minutes, the same as the sun subtends in the sky. So that would be an average deviation of something like 10 minutes, or .003 radians. (Actually achieving that may be a headache, but I bet it could be done if it mattered. Although I believe that it doesn't matter that much, since even if light went into the pipe with only small angular errors, the average incidence angle would rapidly increase due to somewhat random reflections off the walls. See below.) This stuff: http://www.revelationlighting.co.uk/OLF%20Spec.pdf has a .99 reflectivity for angles less than 27 deg, That's pretty good reflectivity. Plastic tends to crinkle, though, so you'll need some sort of backing to help keep it flat. and almost all the loss comes from the points not being sharp. Lost me there. What points? At .999, which the optical guys say is not hard, and a 30 meter diameter light pipe, the loss is about 7%. One option is to fill the pipe with argon which reduces the Rayleigh scattering. Working backwards, you're assuming around ln(.93)/ln(.999) = 73 reflections? For a 30 km light pipe, that's around one reflection every 400 meters, for an average angle of 30/400 = .075 radians, or 4 degrees. It would take a thorough analysis, but I'm betting that successive reflections from the slightly crinkly walls of the light pipe would gradually increase the average incidence angle, pretty much like a random walk. O.K., I'll buy that, if you can get .999 reflectance at angles of a few degrees. There is 4 GW coming down the pipe. At 7% loss, 280 MW. The area of a 30 meter x 20 km pipe is 2 million square meters so the loss would be 140 W per square meter. In open air it is only going to get slightly warm. O.K., but what about localized losses? Suppose there's a sharp bend when the light pipe hits the jet stream, or something? If the pipe bends something like 45 degrees over 300 meters, then you'd have basically all the light hitting one side of the pipe over around 100 meters. And it would hit at a 10 or 15 degree angle, which probably decreases reflectivity to .995 or so? Then you've got .005 of 4GW hitting an area of around 100*30 square meters, giving .005*4GW/3000 = 7000 watts per meter. So that's as hot as grabbing a 60 watt incandescent bulb? It might still work, but things are getting tricky. For instance, after that one bend the average light ray is going to be hitting the sides of the pipe at 10 or 15 degree angles all the way down. (Unless you've got a mechanism to straighten out rays that are bouncing off the sides too much? I can't think of an easy one.) If you have a ray permanently at an angle of .2 radians, it hits every 150 meters, which would be around 100 times over 20 km. And if reflectivity is down to .995 at that angle, you're left with .995^100 = 60% of the light at the bottom. Another problem could be fluttering. If you have enough transient surface waves running over the light pipe, each one giving large random reflections to rays unlucky enough to hit it, you could rapidly have almost all of the rays bouncing off the walls at 20 or 30 degrees. That gives you more reflections per ray, each at larger angles with lower reflectance. Something like that could really cause big losses. It's an interesting problem. Thanks. ---David ___ http://box535.bluehost.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l_mccmedia.com
