Mail 513 April 7 - 13, 2008 (original) (raw)
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Subject: Cooking whales
Hi Jerry
It is easy to assume that speeding up the air flow will have a small linear effect on heat delivery into the Arctic Sea. The other variable is the changing ice disposition. Last year the winds pushed a lot more of the heat weakened perennial ice out of the Arctic Sea, essentially unexpectedly amplifying the original effect. It will now take several years of very cold winters to reverse this effect and rebuild the perennial ice inventory that has been lost.
There may be two year lag between a surplus heat build up in the tropics as reflected by excessive hurricane seasons and a heat discharge in the Arctic all tied to a long forty year cycle. This is galloping speculation but it feels right. And any mathematical model that attempted to actually predict this would be buried in the climate noise as is the CO2 conjecture.
regards
arclein
http://globalwarming-arclein.blogspot.com/
2008/04/earthen-terra-preta-kilns-and-pollen.html
PS: i did a fresh posting on making terra preta and changing the world.
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Subject: Today's post to the Amazon Shorts self publlishing boards
Well folks, I've ended up doing it the old fashioned way. A conventional offset print run rather than POD. Electronic publishing on Kindle, of course, but I don't expect much in the way of sales there. The price I got for a minimum run of 2,000 copies and the services of a fulfillment agent means that I will break even at less than a thousand copies sold, and I certainly expect to sell more than that. This is a Civil War military intelligence feminist spy thriller. The Amazon Shorts version got five star reviews. The new promotional campaign is already in gear, with a speech before the L.A. Chapter of the Association of Former Intelligence Officer on April 17th and an interview on BlogTalkRadio on May15th. Brass Cannon Books new web site will be up soon, and you can even buy a t-shirt or coffee cup to go with your book from CafePress.
POD would be a nice way to go if I were still a poor starving writer and it will be the way we go on some future books, like the 20th anniversary edition of my stage play MARLOWE: An Elizabethan Tragedy. Having worked the problem I now know why so many POD books look so bad. Costs are dictated by page count. The more lines per page, the less the number of pages and the lower the base cost. Against that one has to weigh the tyranny of the standard 55% discount (The book you price at ten bucks brings you only $4.50). You can't fight that without really limiting your sales. There is a lot of front end work in rolling out a book and no one can do it all themselves, nor should they. It getting this edition of "The Shenandoah Spy" out, I used the services of my long time editor, an illustrator, a designer, a map maker, a fulfillment agent and printing broker, and the guy who is building our web site. That's six people besides me. Six very talented people. If you are going to self-publish and have it look like anything you need a support team.
The reason for holding off on doing a POD edition with Amazon CreateSpace ProPlan, as I originally intended is that Amazon has recently shown itself to be anything but a team player. They seem more interested in creating barriers than easing the process. My own experience includes selling books on Amazon Marketplace. That ended last year when I went on a long vacation, set my vacation settings, and came back to find that they had dumped my entire 300 title catalog. I simply was not going to sit here and reenter 300 books on their system. I made a little money, sure, but my main reason for doing it was to learn online marketing. I'm an Amazon Shorts author, but that publishing outlet is not currently taking submissions and information about the future of the program is noticeably absent. I tried to do our web site on Amazon Webstore, only to dump it when I found that they would not allow me to link to my CafePress affinity merchandise page; a key part of my marketing strategy. I tried to do POD through Amazon CreateSpace, only to get a snotty note that they would have to "investigate" whether or not I have the rights to use the Brass Cannon Books logo ; something which I had designed and paid for myself. You see the problem here? Amazon.com, as currently run, seems more interested in demonstrating its power than actually making any money. The current dust up with them trying to force people to use their BookSurge subsidiary for POD has created nothing but negative publicity, and the fact is that, if I do an offset run, I don't need them for that. I don't really need POD at all, except as a fill-in. Given the experiences outlined above, I am inclined to do business with Amazon only when there is no alternative and there is also a clear economic advantage to doing so. For me, self-publishing is not an ego exercise, but simply another way to make money from my writing.
Amazon.com has been so successful that they seem to have forgotten who the customers are. That's a very dangerous posture. It erodes the trust they have built with the author community and makes us doubt their word and their intentions.
Francis Hamit
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RE: Mac networking - servers displaying in Finder
Dr. Pournelle,
Command+, (comma) in a Finder window, as in most other Apple programs, will bring up the Preferences. At the top choose Sidebar, and there you will find a number of checkboxes for what you would like to see in the Sidebar.
Having said that, my iBook (running Leopard) did something similar without any settings in that Preferences screen being changed two or three weeks ago, and I completely lost the "Shared" category in my Finder sidebar. It did not return until I manually connected to my Windows PC using the Command+K shortcut (or, from the Finder menu bar choose the Go menu and then Connect To Server at the bottom of the list). Since then I have had no issues being able to see available servers under the Shared heading in the sidebar.
--Matt Knecht
Now if I can just remember all this arcana...
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servers in the finder, part 2
Dr. Pournelle,
For what it's worth, I don't think it has anything to do with how smart anyone is - I think these little Mac frustrations have a lot to do with how thoroughly you have been steeped in the Windows paradigm of accomplishing things. I ran a Novell/Windows network for years, and have done Windows technical support for friends and family since pre-Win95 days, and despite my near-total conversion to the Mac over 2 years ago, there are still things that perplex me because they are dealt with from a very different perspective in the Mac UI/Worldview/Way Of Doing Things.
--Matt Knecht
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Subject: Algae...
"CP" in Connecticut talked about using a few thousand square miles of desert for algae-based fuel production.
Let me point out that you still have to do the Environmental Impact Statement. I find it difficult to believe that an EIS for a few thousand square miles of algae ponds would be less bothersome than an EIS for a few square miles (three orders of magnitude less land) for a nuclear facility.
You still need power to refine the fuel out of the algae. You still have waste from the process. (A study that went past Slashdot some years ago indicated that AT LEAST 50% of the algae would become waste matter.) You have to do something with the waste.
You still have to transport the fuel out, and you still have to do maintenance, which means roads in and out and traffic.
And on and on and on...
--John
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Subject: Understanding vs. Grading
Dr. Pournelle,
You and many of your correspondents have repeatedly stated that No Child Left Behind, and other test- and grade-focused programs, are not a solution to this country's educational problems. Rather, the consensus seems to be that the correct approach to education is to ensure that a student learns and understands the subject, not that he test well. While I certainly agree that students need to understand their subjects, this begs the question: how does one determine that a student has actually acquired an understanding of a subject without testing him on it?
I have yet to see a satisfactory (or any) answer to this question, but perhaps I'm overlooking an obvious solution. If you or your readers would care to expound on it I'd greatly appreciate the enlightenment.
Thank you.
Jason Bontrager
You are making the assumption that (1) there is a "correct" education policy that will fit all schools in this nation, and (2) the Federal Educrats know what that is. Neither assumption is close to true.
The problem with No Child Left Behind and central financing of local schools is that there i no longer any local control. The school bureaucracy has one and only one goal: to keep attendence up because that's how they get money. Educational effectiveness is left far behind and the school is pretty well unresponsive to the parents and school boards.
The way to determine if schools are effective? Is they serving the needs of their community. And I can guarantee you that one size fits all will not work for inner city, suburbs, small cities, farm communities, etc. Suburbs differ for that matter. Studio City is not Sherman Oaks is not Arleta is not Watts (which used to look like any other suburb but with towers). The needs of local schools are different. No Child Left Behind assures that No Child Will Get Ahead.
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Subject: being a patron
I am building the Platinum Subscribers <http://www.jerrypournelle.com/view/2008/Q2/view512.html#Platinum> as a hedge against the "free books" and "information wants to be free" surge; I know of no other real defense. It's a bit arrogant to ask my readers to support me so that I can choose what I want to write (with some consultation with the Platinum group of course), but I am not sure, given the craziness of publishing now, what else I can do. Subscriptions have kept me alive during this radiation and recovery period.
Jerry,
Back in aristocratic days, some aristocrats took real pride, and got real pleasure, from being patrons of scholars, musicians, artists, poets. Today, ordinary people like me can take this pride, and enjoy this pleasure, by supporting you and your work. Thank you for giving me, and many like me, the opportunity to take part in your work by helping to support you financially. I hope this does give you a freedom to think about and write about what you consider most interesting and important.
FrM
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Teaching, Learning, and Teaching to Tests...
Dear Dr. Pournelle:
I am sorry for how your day has been going. I won't tell you to have faith; you do. You also have many sets of prayers on your behalf, including my own.
As a tenure-track assistant professor, I often have to deal with immature student evaluations. Sure, I get lots of good ideas and suggestions from students. But the last three years or so, I have been seeing several students in each of my classes writing this:
"The professor often teaches material that does not appear on the tests; that is not fair."
Yeah, life isn't fair. But the comment confused me. Did the student not know that tests confirm that you have learned the material; tests are NOT the material taught?
Then it struck me. That is precisely the experience that many students have had in middle and high school, with the "teaching to the test" approach.
If everything I taught was on the test, it would be a llllooonnnngggg test indeed.
I can't blame the kids, rude or polite. It's *our* fault, for letting political types monkey with education. After all, students learn so much more effectively now than they did forty years ago, right? Blech.
On that subject, check out this site if you have time. The fellow makes a lot of sense (as does his entire website):
http://www.uwgb.edu/DutchS/nosymp.htm
The one that stings the most---because I hear it every semester---is the one titled: "I Know The Material - I Just Don't Do Well on Exams."
Fingers crossed for improvement soon.
Best,
Mark O. Martin, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor Department of Biology
At a college level you have a pretty good idea of what you want them to learn, and tests are a way to find out if you have been effective.
At a grade and high school level, the very nature of what is to be learned changes: there are skills to be learned by some; a combination of skills and education -- symbol manipulation, learning how to learn, learning principles rather than skills -- for a large middle group; and college prep which is mostly education in learning principles and symbol manipulation for the college bound. You get mostly the third group, assuming that this is done right.
But which combinations, and how many of the class are in each group, are not things that can be determined by Washington, nor even in the state capital. These are matters for local school boards; and while local school boards are not highly competent, the problem, is to come up with some better decision makers. So far I don't know of any. They're certainly better than Washington, DC.
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Subject: Amazonics -
Jerry (and Francis),
Looking at the stuff they're doing, and trying to find a rational explanation... well, it's hard to find a rational explanation.
Known facts *do* suggest a possibility, the rationality of which I leave as an exercize to the reader (along with the likelihood that it's anything other than sheer conjecture, which is all I present it as).
* They are pushing a (proprietary) ebook reader -- hard.
* They have given the reader a cutsiepoo name -- a name that evokes images best left to The Realm of Godwin.
* They are apparently going out of their way to penalize third parties who wish to sell deadtree books.
* Their costs (logistical expenses) for ebooks can be assumed to be much lower than the expenses for handling deadtree books (for ebooks, bits on a hard drive, bits over a network, all entirely customer-driven, untouched by human hands, vice costs of storing, inventorying, locating, packing and shipping deadtree editions).
* Hardly a day goes by in which we are not assured by various and sundry pundits that the era of the deadtree book is passing, and the era of the ebook is dawning.
Is there any perceived advantage to helping push the deadtree book into its perceived grave?
Is there any perceived advantage to setting certain pieces in order prior to the end of the current see-no-evil administration in DC, possibly to be replaced by a "new broom" that might not be so inclined to look the other way as various corporate interests, ahem, "consolidate" their positions in the marketplace?
Ron
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Telecom April 3, 2008, 5:00PM EST text size: TT So Maybe Apple Was onto Something - Rivals trying to come up with an iPhone slayer will need more than fancy features to outdo the leader
by Cliff Edwards and Bruce Einhorn
Since the iPhone hit the market in mid-2007, competing phonemakers and wireless-service providers that don't have a deal to sell the Apple (AAPL) device have tried their best to betray no envy. They rolled out a few devices mimicking the iPhone's touch screen, but they mostly hoped the phone, offered exclusively by AT&T (T), wouldn't become a hit. Too bad. By the fourth quarter of last year, Apple had grabbed more than a quarter of the U.S. market for what are known as smartphones, the mobile phones that handle computer-like tasks such as e-mail and Web browsing.
A new crop of would-be iPhone slayers is about to hit the market. To help them compete with AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint Nextel (S) are working with some of the biggest names in the industry, including Nokia (NOK) and Samsung Electronics, to develop new handhelds. On Apr. 1, Sprint unveiled an iPhone lookalike from Samsung called Instinct that will debut later this year. "[Apple] is not going to own the space themselves," says Danny Bowman, Sprint's vice-president. "They're going to have a lot of competition."
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April 4, 2008 Mobile Phone Industry Takes Aim at the iPhone By LAURA M. HOLSON
LAS VEGAS � Last year, the wireless industry obsessed over the iPhone. This year, the industry is buzzing about how to beat it.
Touch screens, the mobile Internet and devices packed with multimedia capabilities dominated the discussion here this week at CTIA Wireless 2008, the industry�s largest trade show.
Mobile phone makers seem interested in throwing just about everything into their new models as they try to compete with Apple by making phones that look very much like its iPhone. But there were few blockbuster products or major announcements. Nevertheless, the Nokia booth was packed on Tuesday as Beyonc� and Madonna songs blared from overhead speakers.
Show visitors huddled around a long white table where Nokia, the Finnish company, was demonstrating its N series mobile phones, including the N78, a multimedia phone introduced recently in Europe (for about $500) that is expected to go on sale in the United States in June.
Like many phones on display at the show, the N78 is bursting with features. Not only does it have a 3.2-megapixel camera, but it runs on a high-speed network, includes a navigation function and eight gigabytes of memory, and has Internet radio and easy access to multimedia Web sites like YouTube and Flickr.
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April 6, 2008 In Web World of 24/7 Stress, Writers Blog Till They Drop By MATT RICHTEL
SAN FRANCISCO � They work long hours, often to exhaustion. Many are paid by the piece � not garments, but blog posts. This is the digital-era sweatshop. You may know it by a different name: home.
A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.
Of course, the bloggers can work elsewhere, and they profess a love of the nonstop action and perhaps the chance to create a global media outlet without a major up-front investment. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the last few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly.
Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla., funeral services were held for Russell Shaw, a prolific blogger on technology subjects who died at 60 of a heart attack. In December, another tech blogger, Marc Orchant, died at 50 of a massive coronary. A third, Om Malik, 41, survived a heart attack in December.
Other bloggers complain of weight loss or gain, sleep disorders, exhaustion and other maladies born of the nonstop strain of producing for a news and information cycle that is as always-on as the Internet.
To be sure, there is no official diagnosis of death by blogging, and the premature demise of two people obviously does not qualify as an epidemic. There is also no certainty that the stress of the work contributed to their deaths. But friends and family of the deceased, and fellow information workers, say those deaths have them thinking about the dangers of their work style.
The pressure even gets to those who work for themselves � and are being well-compensated for it.