Acid Test

Acid Test

The statistics show that there was unfunny business in recent elections. They show it far past scientific levels of certainty. The statistical likelihood of fraud (”nonrandom events” in statspeak) is billions to one. (Links to the original research here.) But what keeps too many of us looking the other way — we’re not some backward Berzerki republic, for God’s sake! — is that not enough culprits have been nabbed in the act.

Well, the plot thickens. From The Raw Story

The first red flag went up when the computer patch was installed in person by Diebold CEO Bob Urosevich, who flew in from Texas and applied it in just two counties, DeKalb and Fulton, both Democratic strongholds. . . .

The whistleblower said another flag went up when it became apparent that the patch installed by Urosevich had failed to fix a problem with the computer clock, which employees from Diebold and the Georgia Secretary of State’s office had been told the patch was designed specifically to address.

Some critics of electronic voting raised questions about the 2002 Georgia race even at the time. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Max Cleland, who was five percentage points ahead of Republican challenger Saxby Chambliss in polls taken a week before the vote, lost 53% to 46%. Incumbent Democratic Governor Roy Barnes, who led challenger Sonny Perdue in the polls by eleven points, lost 51% to 46%. However, because the Diebold machines used throughout the state provided no paper trail, it was impossible to ask for a recount in either case. . . .

[The security expert] took the evidence to the Cyber-Security Division of the Department of Justice and reported the series of events to authorities. The Justice Department has not yet acted on his report.

As Alice said, “Curiouser and curiouser.”

Technorati Tags: election, tampering, Diebold

I was at the Santa Barbara Orchid Fair last weekend. (It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.) One of the huge growers there, SB Orchid Estates does an open house at the same time. This striking species caught my eye:

Platystele misera

And this one:

Stanhopea tigrina cultivar

The Central and South American Stanhopea and Catasetum orchids produce what amounts to perfume used by male euglossine bees to communicate with female euglossine bees. Everybody wins. The orchids get highly specific pollinators who find them from, literally, miles away. And they get that at very little cost in terms of the energy it takes to produce a few pheromones. The male bees don’t have to make their own. And the females get attractive males.

The euglossines are on the spectacular side themselves:

Euglossa viridis, photo: Benjamin Bembe

Technorati Tags: orchids, Platystele, Stanhopea, euglossine bees

I have birds. I use newspapers to line the bird cages. However, I haven’t bought a newspaper since November of 2004. It’s too depressing. So I’m getting to the bottom of the stack that was going to be recycled when I realized I better save it. Who knew when the world would be in a fit condition to provide not-sick-making bird cage liners?

So I bumped into these mortgage ads from my corner of Southern California in the heady days of 2003 . . .

[click on image for larger size]

The circled “No Tax Return” promises that this lender won’t want to see any real evidence of income. It translates to, “Please come and lie to us so that we can get loan origination fees off you! Puhleeeze!”

This wasn’t unusual. Au contraire. A couple more ads from the same page of Aug. 17, 2003 classified ads in the Real Estate section of the Ventura County Star:

Technorati Tags: housing, boom, 2003

This time it really is a Friday, but the picture isn’t a photo, no matter how much it looks like one. It’s one of Kees Veenenbos’s amazing renderings of other worlds based on the available data from space flights. His work has appeared in National Geographic (print edition ). Go to Veenenbos’s site and lose yourself.

To give you an idea of what you’ll be missing if you don’t go, here’s a picture of Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, based on data from the Voyager Imaging Team.

Technorati Tags: space, art, Veenenbos

I think this should be a motivational poster. You know, the kind with captions like “Determination,” and “Perseverance,” and “Achieve Your Goals.” This one should be: “Energy Conservation.”

The elephant seals are working hard, regenerating all-new skin. It’s called a catastrophic molt and it takes several weeks. When molting, they’re too susceptible to the cold to go into the water, so they don’t feed or drink during those weeks. They spend the whole time conserving energy. (More info at Wikipedia.) The photo was taken at–logically enough–Seal Beach on California’s Central Coast.

	The fur side of a piece of molted skin found lying on the beach.
	The once-living side of the skin.

Technorati Tags: elephant seals, molt, Seal Beach

Photovoltaics do take energy to make and use toxic elements that can cause nasty pollution unless they’re contained. We knew that. But what I didn’t really bother to think about is that those same rare elements that are toxic are also, well, rare. We’re using them like they’re not rare. So . . . doh! . . . they’ll run out soon. Meaning soon. Times like “five years” and “2017″ come out of the number-crunchers.

From New Scientist, reporting on Gordon, Bertram, and Graedel’s recent paper (abstract, pdf).

It’s not just the world’s platinum that is being used up at an alarming rate. The same goes for many other rare metals such as indium, which is being consumed in unprecedented quantities for making LCDs for flat-screen TVs, and the tantalum needed to make compact electronic devices like cellphones. . . . Even reserves of such commonplace elements as zinc, copper, nickel . . . will run out in the not-too-distant future. . . . [T]he metal gallium, which along with indium is used to make indium gallium arsenide . . . is the semiconducting material at the heart of a new generation of solar cells . . . . Reserves of both metals are disputed, but . . . René Kleijn, a chemist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, . . . estimates gallium and indium will probably contribute to less than 1 per cent of all future solar cells - a limitation imposed purely by a lack of raw material.

Iridium is the material that blankets the planet in a thin layer, left over from the asteroid strike that bothered the dinosaurs. Some of the other elements are found in sand in nano-quantities. However, grinding up the whole planet to make solar panels doesn’t seem like a much better idea than turning it inside out to burn it.

Time to get extremely serious about organic (in the sense of carbon-based) photovoltaics. It’s complicated, though. To begin with, organic molecules break down easily. And then, as Terry Pratchett might say, it’s quantum. However, plants do it. Bacteria do it. You’re not going to tell me we’re stupider than plants, are you? (Don’t answer that.)

Technorati Tags: solar power, photovoltaic, PV, gallium, resources, shortage, Graedel

I keep wanting to do something with pictures, and I keep procrastinating dreadfully. But just because I drop the ball all the time is no reason not to pick up again. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have anything to drop, would I?

This is a close-up of Dracula venefica taken at the Leiden Botanical Garden in 2000. (A bit more on Dracula at — where else? — Wikipedia.) It’s a small plant that grows in the Colombian Andes. The little “face” is smaller than a centimeter.

Technorati Tags: orchids, Colombia, Dracula venefica

Time to go all King-Arthur-and-Knights and do something about this. What, I have no idea. It’s such an arcane bureaucratic maneuver, I don’t know which levers apply. Those who do know, please comment or contact me and I’ll update the post. I saw this on Slashdot.

“The US Bureau of Land Management, overwhelmed by applications for large-scale solar energy plants, has declared a two-year freeze on applications for new projects until it completes an extensive environmental impact study. The study will produce ‘a single set of environmental criteria to weigh future solar proposals, which will ultimately speed the application process.’ The freeze means that current applications will continue to be processed — plants producing enough electricity for 20 million average American homes — but no new applications will be accepted until the study is complete. Solar power companies are worried that this will harm the industry just as it is poised for explosive growth. Some note that gas and oil projects are booming in the southwestern states most favorable to solar development. Another threat looming over the solar industry is that federal tax credits must be renewed in Congress, else they will expire this year.”

This has all the signs of studying solar power to death. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that this ruling follows a golf game among BLM honchos and oil execs. Or some damn thing. I mean, these are the same people who have to be sued because they let Federal lands turn into deserts and superfund sites. Since when has the BLM been so concerned about the environment that it seeks to prevent damage?

Technorati Tags: BLM, solar power, FUD

WisCon is billed as “the world’s leading feminist science fiction convention.” “That’s easy,” you might be saying. “It’s the world’s only feminist sf con.” But you’d be wrong. There are others and this one is the biggest. I have to admit, I went to it for the first time with some trepidation. You never know, when there’s an angle, whether you aren’t going to be dropped down in the middle of a bunch of serious people looking at it from all sides. I mean, sf cons are about running around shouting in Klingon, not, um, well, discussing whether the correct term is womanist or feminist.

We learned useful things. For instance, Kate Schaefer helped us fold towels.

There was also a table where you could learn how to concoct your own Sri Lankan curry powder from roasted spices. Mary Ann Mohanraj had done several hours of work, roasting cumin, fenugreek, chili, cloves, and about ten other ingredients. We measured out the amounts she indicated, with variations based on what individual people said they liked, and she ground them up in a little Krups coffee grinder so we could take our own special curry powder home with us. I was too busy sniffing the out-of-this-world aromas to remember to take a picture.

While organic beings did their organic thing, the machine intelligences congregated in a room of their own and talked to each other.

(Actually, we had a lot of trouble getting the mesh networks to do the work part!)

Sunday, May 25th, during the con, was also when the Phoenix Mars Lander was due to touch down. Does it get better than a spacecraft landing on another planet in the middle of a science fiction convention? No, it does not. The geekier set clustered around a laptop tuned to NASA TV and watched a bunch of ecstatic scientists jump up and down with each bit of news about how well things were going. You could hear us yelling, too, from as far away as the hotel’s elevators. (Vulcan seemed more appropriate for the occasion than Klingon. Nobody shouted in Klingon.)

It wasn’t all fun and games. A visitor dropped in, asking to be taken to our leader. Unfortunately, there was a rather sticky diplomatic moment — note the expression of suppressed annoyance and incredulousness with the eyes bugging out — when we said we couldn’t. We currently don’t have one.

But the strangest, the most memorable, the most not-of-this-world thing that happened was meeting some of the other human beings there. Not so much the women who, though memorable, weren’t strange. I’ve been lucky in having met plenty of women who know their own minds and how to enjoy life. But WisCon is the only large gathering I’ve ever seen that had a large number of men in it, and they were just . . . I’m not even sure how to describe it . . . . Normal. Not one-upping, not worrying about bits falling off, not assuming that they’re the center of the universe. And not bothered by it. That really did feel like the future. Sign me up.

Technorati Tags: science fiction, WisCon, feminism

I’ve been giving much thought lately to ads, or, to be more exact, brainless repetitive messages generally. What with some very smart people (Dyson, Krugman 1996, 2008) predicting an ad-supported future, and what with the way that future is already among us, it’s high time to start thinking about how much free stuff costs.

But this is only tangentially about that. This is really just to share with you what those priceless Brits get up to.

About ads for drugs.

The biggest single market is in drugs that deal with erectile dysfunction. My favourite features a group of men who gather together to play in a band.

I think it is meant to show them looking relaxed and happy, but they are such good musicians you cannot help noting that impotence has left them with plenty of time on their hands to practise their instruments.

About brainless messages.

One of the big banks is currently advertising for [call center] workers saying “we seek passionate banking representatives to uphold our values.” This is a lie. Actually what the bank is seeking is competent people to follow instructions and answer the phones.

. . .

Passion, says the dictionary, means a strong sexual desire or the suffering of Christ at the crucifixion. In other words it doesn’t really have an awful lot to do with a typical day in the office - unless things have gone very wrong indeed.

Technorati Tags: advertising, newspeak

With this election, that is. Kate’s post brought it boiling back up, but so does practically everything right now. Just so you know we’re really out there: I’m mad as hell, and I’m not taking it any more. Not only can the Democrats not take my vote for granted, they’ve lost it. It doesn’t matter that with mindboggling generosity Hillary Clinton urges her supporters to vote in November. She’s not the one who caused the problem. The problem is the fauxgressives who think sexist bullying is okay, and the audiences who giggle nervously at best, and the candidates who ignore it. I don’t know how big a mea culpa it would take from all those people to bring me back in. I just know for sure that I’m not going to get it.

For some background to this rant, I want to tell you about something that happened in the high and far off times, when we were helping defend abortion clinics from fundie loonies down in the Deep South. Read more »

Talk about not knowing. I live in the country that did it. I was living in that country when they did it. I knew the US bombed Laos. I had no idea it was so bad.

From the BBC:

Laos is the most bombed country on earth. The US dropped 2.4 million tonnes of bombs on it during the Vietnam War - more than the allies dropped on Germany and Japan combined in World War II.

The photo essay shows what Laotians have done with the litter of war.

Technorati Tags: Laos, bombs, human ingenuity

Except to say notice the URL, passed without comment.

Continuing my vehicular series . . .

the flying car from the MIT-grown geniuses at Terrafugia . . .

Maybe the deeper meaning here is that I want to get away from it all?

Technorati Tags: flying car, drivable airplane, Terrafugia

reality has a well known depressing bent just now.

Via the BBC, I noticed this article in Nature Geoscience by Zeebe & Caldeira.

They’ve absolutely nailed down a carbon cycle some mouthbreathers were hoping didn’t explain much. Volcanoes spew vast quantities of greenhouse gases into the air, so their thinking — the mouthbreathers’ thinking, not the volcanoes — was that greenhouse gases are natural and couldn’t possibly be a problem. Mother Nature would take care of everything. Thus it ever was. Thus it ever shall be. (No, I’m not being fair to the scientists, as opposed to the politicians, who held the contrarian point of view. It’s way more complicated than that. But it’s still just as wrong.)

The evidence pointed toward a cycle in which the atmospheric carbon is eventually fixated into rocks. Corals, for instance, fix CO2 when they form calcium carbonate which makes limestone. Sedimentary rocks trap carbonates as they pile up. (That’s what the BBC means when they write that carbon is “removed from the air by rock weathering,” which, as written, doesn’t make any sense.) Then, by the processes of tectonic movement, the rock containing all that carbon moves toward subduction zones and is eventually forced down under the crust. The volatiles in those rocks, including some containing carbon, rise and force their way up through the volcanoes that run with the subduction zones.

If you’re sitting there thinking, “But, my God, that’s got to take nonillions of years!” that’s exactly the point. It takes over a hundred million years for the whole cycle, and during all that time the carbon is not in the atmosphere and not greenhousing.

So far, so good. We’ve known about this (well, some of us have known about this) for decades. The shocking thing to me about their research was the data on how much long term variation in atmospheric carbon there has been. This is data from ice cores. This is not a guess, or a pessimistic estimate, or a liberal fantasy to make the Republicans look bad. This is data.

The mean long term variation in atmospheric carbon has been 22 parts per million. Individual measurements have varied more than that, but overall, for the last 610,000 years, that’s been the variation.

Except for the last 200 years. We’ve already upped the concentration by 100 ppm. We’re going to increase it by another couple of hundred before we have any chance of stopping it. The big argument is whether we need to bother stopping it then, or whether another few hundred on top of that will really make any difference. Why ding the GDP a percentage point or two when there’s no need?

The mind boggles.

Twenty two parts per million has been the extent of the real variation for longer than modern humans have existed. But some of us can’t figure out that shoveling on way, way more than that will have any impact.

I hereby rename our species Homo stupidens.

Technorati Tags: global warming, climate change