Gregory Clark believes that the Industrial Revolution occurred because of a change in the nature of the human population.
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Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Bellwether Mexico Election Goes Smoothly
TIJUANA, Mexico, Aug. 5 — Voters went to the polls on Sunday in Baja California to decide between a conservative economist from the president’s party and a colorful tycoon who owns betting parlors and comes from a storied political family in the once dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI.
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Monday, August 06, 2007
Negative Numbers
I like to tell students that negative numbers were invented to solve the equation:
1 + x = 0
There is a story line that goes with that introduction, I will spare you here from it.
What I write about here is one of the weird implications of some of these equations. Richard P. Feynman many years ago invited theoretical physicists to consider negative probabilities. Another application of these weird numbers are bank accounts. I own a big amount of negative money. Then you have negative temperatures hotter than positive infinity. Negative pressure that according to a friend of mine, solves several deep problems of modern physics. The particular negative numbers I consider here are the permeability and permittivity of metamaterials.
Professor Leonhardt and Dr. Philbin from the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland have recently written:
"Repulsive Casimir forces [16]-[22] have been predicted to occur between two different extended dielectric plates, in the extreme case [17] between one dielectric with infinite electric permittivity ε and another one with infinite magnetic permeability μ. They have not been practical yet and are subject to controversy [19, 20]. The closely related case of repulsive van der Waals forces has been studied as well [23]. Here we consider a different situation inspired by Casimir’s original idea [5]: imagine instead of two extended dielectric plates two perfect conductors with a metamaterial sandwiched in between for which ε = μ = −1 (Fig. 1A). Such materials can be made of nanofabricated metal structures [10]-[14]. One of the conducting plates may be very thin and movable, which gives a key advantage in observing repulsive vacuum forces."
With this proposal of negative electrical permittivity and magnetic permeability it may be possible to make levitating nanomachines. Somehow these machines may be pumping negative energy from vacuum fluctuations.
1 + x = 0
There is a story line that goes with that introduction, I will spare you here from it.
What I write about here is one of the weird implications of some of these equations. Richard P. Feynman many years ago invited theoretical physicists to consider negative probabilities. Another application of these weird numbers are bank accounts. I own a big amount of negative money. Then you have negative temperatures hotter than positive infinity. Negative pressure that according to a friend of mine, solves several deep problems of modern physics. The particular negative numbers I consider here are the permeability and permittivity of metamaterials.
Professor Leonhardt and Dr. Philbin from the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland have recently written:
"Repulsive Casimir forces [16]-[22] have been predicted to occur between two different extended dielectric plates, in the extreme case [17] between one dielectric with infinite electric permittivity ε and another one with infinite magnetic permeability μ. They have not been practical yet and are subject to controversy [19, 20]. The closely related case of repulsive van der Waals forces has been studied as well [23]. Here we consider a different situation inspired by Casimir’s original idea [5]: imagine instead of two extended dielectric plates two perfect conductors with a metamaterial sandwiched in between for which ε = μ = −1 (Fig. 1A). Such materials can be made of nanofabricated metal structures [10]-[14]. One of the conducting plates may be very thin and movable, which gives a key advantage in observing repulsive vacuum forces."
With this proposal of negative electrical permittivity and magnetic permeability it may be possible to make levitating nanomachines. Somehow these machines may be pumping negative energy from vacuum fluctuations.
Levitation breakthrough proposed
A way of making levitation possible using a mysterious force of nature has been proposed by two British physicists. Their ideas are now being looked at seriously by a leading American scientist who may put them into practice. The theory will not enable people to fly like Peter Pan but could revolutionise nanotechnology and the design of micro-mac
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
In Mexico City, Possible Discovery of an Aztec Ruler’s Grave
MEXICO CITY, Aug. 4 (AP) — Mexican archaeologists using ground-penetrating radar have detected underground chambers they believe contain the remains of Ahuizotl, who was the emperor of the Aztecs when Columbus landed in the New World. It would be the first tomb of an Aztec ruler ever found.
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read more | digg story
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Our Town
When I first met with Judy Sigwalt and her fellow village trustee Paul Humpfer this past April, they were, understandably, feeling assured, if not emboldened. A few weeks earlier, with the endorsement of the two local newspapers, they were elected to their village board on the platform that their town, Carpentersville, Ill., ...
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The Secrets of the World's Richest Man
Mexico's Carlos Slim makes his billions the old-fashioned way: monopolies. The 67-year-old tycoon controls more than 200 companies -- he says he's "lost count". In all, his companies account for more than a third of the total value of Mexico's leading stock market index, while his fortune represents 7% of the country's annual economic output.
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Friday, August 03, 2007
Negative Energy States
Gerard 't Hooft states:
"The disappearance of the negative energy modes is very troublesome, however. In a single oscillator, one might still say that energy is conserved, and once it is chosen to be positive, it will stay positive. However, when two or more of these systems interact, they might exchange energy, and we will have to explain why the real world appears to have interactions only in such a way that only positive energy states are occupied. This is a very difficult problem, and, disguised one way or another, it keeps popping up throughout our investigations. It still has not been solved in a completely satisfactory manner, but we can try to handle this difficulty, and one then reaches a number of quite interesting conclusions. In short, our problem is this: in a deterministic theory, one can reproduce quantum-like mathematics in a multitude of ways, but in many cases one encounters hamiltonian functions that are either periodic (in case time is taken to be discrete), or not bounded from below (when time is continuous). Can the real world nevertheless be approximated by, or rather exactly reproduced in, some deterministic model? What then causes the hamiltonian of the real world to be bounded below, with a very special lowest energy state, the ‘vacuum’, as a result? Without this positivity of H , we would not have thermodynamics. The hamiltonian is conjugated to time. Is there something about time that we are not handling correctly?"
"The disappearance of the negative energy modes is very troublesome, however. In a single oscillator, one might still say that energy is conserved, and once it is chosen to be positive, it will stay positive. However, when two or more of these systems interact, they might exchange energy, and we will have to explain why the real world appears to have interactions only in such a way that only positive energy states are occupied. This is a very difficult problem, and, disguised one way or another, it keeps popping up throughout our investigations. It still has not been solved in a completely satisfactory manner, but we can try to handle this difficulty, and one then reaches a number of quite interesting conclusions. In short, our problem is this: in a deterministic theory, one can reproduce quantum-like mathematics in a multitude of ways, but in many cases one encounters hamiltonian functions that are either periodic (in case time is taken to be discrete), or not bounded from below (when time is continuous). Can the real world nevertheless be approximated by, or rather exactly reproduced in, some deterministic model? What then causes the hamiltonian of the real world to be bounded below, with a very special lowest energy state, the ‘vacuum’, as a result? Without this positivity of H , we would not have thermodynamics. The hamiltonian is conjugated to time. Is there something about time that we are not handling correctly?"
In Mexico, Rebel Politician Courts the Law-and-Order Vote
The colorful former mayor of Tijuana, Mexico, stands an even chance of being elected governor of the state of Baja California, despite allegations against him.
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Thursday, August 02, 2007
Mexico's State of Discontent (Time Magazine)
Whatever it was that went "poof" at an entrance to the Sears outlet in the Plaza del Valle Mall in Oaxaca City was certainly not big enough to be called a "bomb." It did damage to the door and a couple of glass panes but an "explosive artifact" was the most threatening term local law enforcement were willing use to describe it.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
Gauge Symmetry and Information Loss
In his London Lectures, Professor t' Hooft gives a possible reason for the gauge principle.
One can change the gauge of a field theory and NOTHING HAPPENS. He thinks that this may be related to information loss. A huge amount of information is lost in our Universe.
One can change the gauge of a field theory and NOTHING HAPPENS. He thinks that this may be related to information loss. A huge amount of information is lost in our Universe.
There can be no ‘quantum cosmology’.
Gerard 't Hooft so states in his Imperial College Lecture. In the same lecture he said:
"We furthermore conjecture that information is not conserved in the deterministic description."
Furthermore he asserts:
The notion of ‘free will’ is given a meaning that deviates from most standard views on the subject;[5][6][7] ours[8] appears to go back as far as Benedict de Spinoza: an individual’s actions are completely dictated by laws of Nature, yet this does not exempt us from our responsibilities for our actions. The ‘free will postulate’ is presently seen as an axiom in the reconstruction of the interpretation of quantum mechanics. This postulate will not be needed in the form usually given. We replace it by the condition that a theory or model of Nature should give appropriate responses for every conceivable initial state.
So, in investigating our model, we have the ‘freedom’ to choose our initial state at will; whatever that state is, the model should tell me what will happen next. This is referred to as the ‘unconstrained initial state’ requirement.[9]"
He goes on to state that:
"Because of the periodicity, we must have
e−iHT = 1 → H = 2πn/T = ωn ; n = 0, ±1, ±2, . . . . (3.2)
This is exactly the spectrum of a quantum harmonic oscillator, except for the emergence of negative energy states. The states with n < 0 are forbidden, for some reason. Of course, we also do not have the ‘vacuum energy’ 1/2 ω , which would have emerged if we would have required e-iHT = −1 . This minus sign is as harmless as an overall addition of 1/2 ω to the hamiltonian, but perhaps it will mean something in a more complete theory; we will ignore it for the time being."
Maybe we will know the meaning of negative energies with the work of Professor 't Hooft.
"We furthermore conjecture that information is not conserved in the deterministic description."
Furthermore he asserts:
The notion of ‘free will’ is given a meaning that deviates from most standard views on the subject;[5][6][7] ours[8] appears to go back as far as Benedict de Spinoza: an individual’s actions are completely dictated by laws of Nature, yet this does not exempt us from our responsibilities for our actions. The ‘free will postulate’ is presently seen as an axiom in the reconstruction of the interpretation of quantum mechanics. This postulate will not be needed in the form usually given. We replace it by the condition that a theory or model of Nature should give appropriate responses for every conceivable initial state.
So, in investigating our model, we have the ‘freedom’ to choose our initial state at will; whatever that state is, the model should tell me what will happen next. This is referred to as the ‘unconstrained initial state’ requirement.[9]"
He goes on to state that:
"Because of the periodicity, we must have
e−iHT = 1 → H = 2πn/T = ωn ; n = 0, ±1, ±2, . . . . (3.2)
This is exactly the spectrum of a quantum harmonic oscillator, except for the emergence of negative energy states. The states with n < 0 are forbidden, for some reason. Of course, we also do not have the ‘vacuum energy’ 1/2 ω , which would have emerged if we would have required e-iHT = −1 . This minus sign is as harmless as an overall addition of 1/2 ω to the hamiltonian, but perhaps it will mean something in a more complete theory; we will ignore it for the time being."
Maybe we will know the meaning of negative energies with the work of Professor 't Hooft.
If There is a Higg Boson, Here is What you Might See.
The Chilean physicist, Ivan Schmidt, and his SLAC friends, show us in their recent paper at the LANL electronic repository, what we might see if we look.
In their abstract they write:
"The predicted cross section for the production of the Standard Model Higgs coming from nonperturbative intrinsic bottom Fock states in the proton is sufficiently large that detection at the Tevatron may be possible."
In their abstract they write:
"The predicted cross section for the production of the Standard Model Higgs coming from nonperturbative intrinsic bottom Fock states in the proton is sufficiently large that detection at the Tevatron may be possible."
Ozomatli on State Dept. tour
Grass is still green. Rain still falls down. I still cant get laid. Rest assured the world hasn't gone completely mad, and yet..."The U.S. sends the antiwar L.A. band on a diplomatic mission to the heart of the Arab world." ... "Didn't they know that the two-time Grammy-winning band was born at a labor rights demonstration 12 years ago..."
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Greg Palast on The Crimes of the The Times
Cutely buried in the 18th paragraph in a story about Alberto Gonzales on Sunday was a slyly-worded updated confession by the New York Times that, in 2004, the Bush Administration leaned on its editors to spike a story about illegal invasions of citizens’ private records (”data mining”).
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Wikipedia:Today's featured picture (animation)/August 1, 2007
Territorial evolution of Mexico An animated image showing the territorial evolution of Mexico, showing each change to the internal and external borders of the country. The animation begins with the 1824 Constitution of Mexico and continues to the present-day configuration.
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read more | digg story
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
How Do We Know a Higgs Boson has Been Found?
I have been inside physicists' groups when searching for new facts on the world of particle physics. The point of the whole exercise is to find something. Nevertheless the attitude of mostly everybody in those groups is to prove that nothing has been found. Real professionalism is exercised to prove that the Higgs is not there.
This apparent contradiction, is the well honed method developed by physicists. On the other hand when the signal is strong and clear the message is out and sometimes Nobel prizes await the principal investigators.
We are all waiting for signals from Batavia, Ill. (Fermilab), or Geneva, Switzerland (LHC).
Keep tuned.
This apparent contradiction, is the well honed method developed by physicists. On the other hand when the signal is strong and clear the message is out and sometimes Nobel prizes await the principal investigators.
We are all waiting for signals from Batavia, Ill. (Fermilab), or Geneva, Switzerland (LHC).
Keep tuned.
Monday, July 30, 2007
Dr. Richard Carmona
In this blog I expressed my negative opinion on a Hispanic in the White House administration. Today I present a member of the same administration, but I consider him more of an example to Hispanics in this country.
Dr. Carmona, like Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, had a hard time succeeding here, but unlike Gonzales, he chose to speak out once out of the administration.
I will change my mind if Attorney General Gonzales likewise chooses to tell us what he found wrong while working for Mr. Bush. In this country everybody can repent.
Dr. Carmona, like Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, had a hard time succeeding here, but unlike Gonzales, he chose to speak out once out of the administration.
I will change my mind if Attorney General Gonzales likewise chooses to tell us what he found wrong while working for Mr. Bush. In this country everybody can repent.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
More Cubans Leaving By Sea Again, Many to Mexico
HAVANA (Reuters) - After a lull following Fidel Castro's illness last year, Cubans once again are taking to homemade boats or powerful speedboats manned by smugglers on a trip to the United States that often includes a detour through Mexico.
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NY Times calls for the impeachment of Alberto Gonzales
Americans have been waiting months for President Bush to fire Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who long ago proved that he was incompetent and more recently has proved that he can't tell the truth.
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read more | digg story
Why Am I not Popular at Digg?
I think I have a little more to say than diggers that are very popular in digg.com. I am not complaining, I am just trying to understand. Today I heard in the Tavis Smiley Show at npr, about FARK. The man that created this "news" outlet reports that news media outlets, order their news according to the number of visitors they have, just like in digg.com. Guess what? readers seem to want junk.
Maybe that explains why I am not popular.
Maybe that explains why I am not popular.
If that does not happen, Congress should impeach Mr. Gonzales.
The New York Times editorial today calls for a possible impeachment of the US Attorney General.
Mr. Gonzales is a disgrace to Hispanics in this country.
Mr. Gonzales is a disgrace to Hispanics in this country.
Thursday, July 26, 2007
Time Symmetric Quantum Mechanics (TSQM)
When one tries to put together two fundamental constants of nature, with their current interpretation, one gets into trouble.
These constants are Planck's constant and the speed of light.
ħ = 1.054 571 628(53) 10-34 J s
c = 299,792,458 m/s
One conflict is the absence of simultaneity implied by the constant value of the speed of light in vacuum. This absence implies that two measurements taken as simultaneous by two observers, are not simultaneous when considered by other observers. The first constant is understood to mean that every measurement affects the state of the measured object. The question then rises which event affected which?
One solution to this problem is provided by the TSQM.
This new interpretation of QM is based on two axioms:
1)Past and future events affect the present.
2)There is causality.
In order to make these two apparently contradictory statements, the description is uncertain. It seems that God plays dice because he has to, otherwise free-will disappears from the picture.
These constants are Planck's constant and the speed of light.
ħ = 1.054 571 628(53) 10-34 J s
c = 299,792,458 m/s
One conflict is the absence of simultaneity implied by the constant value of the speed of light in vacuum. This absence implies that two measurements taken as simultaneous by two observers, are not simultaneous when considered by other observers. The first constant is understood to mean that every measurement affects the state of the measured object. The question then rises which event affected which?
One solution to this problem is provided by the TSQM.
This new interpretation of QM is based on two axioms:
1)Past and future events affect the present.
2)There is causality.
In order to make these two apparently contradictory statements, the description is uncertain. It seems that God plays dice because he has to, otherwise free-will disappears from the picture.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
University of Colorado fires controversial professor
The Boulder, Colo., school's regents say Ward Churchill was dismissed over fraud and plagiarism, not a post-9/11 essay.By Nicholas Riccardi, Times Staff WriterJuly 25, 2007
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read more | digg story
Drug Lord Caught Near Washington...Buying Immunity?
Zhenli Ye Gon, the naturalized Mexican of Chinese descent, was caught by the DEA at a restaurant near Washington. Why would he go to Washington to flee from Mexican authorities? Do drug dealers think they can pay off corrupt politicians? It worked for the Saudis afterall...
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Tuesday, July 24, 2007
At Fermilab, the Race Is on for the ‘God Particle’
For physicists, this is a summer of rumors, hope and hype as rival collaborations race to capture the legendary particle known as the Higgs boson. Do I understand correctly that this research is looking for a 'God particle.? If so, check out a Dr.William Reich'sfindings on 'Orgonomy.' Perhaps this would make the search a little easier. Good
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Monday, July 23, 2007
Is There a Solution to a Finite Universe?
These ideas are not mine, but I will try to add something some time from now.
"I'd like to talk about what I think is already proven to happen to the
gravity of the universe when we make particles from negative-energy
states, and the effect that this has on the thermodynamic structuring of
our universe.
In quantum field theory, a postiron has the same gravitational
properties as an electron because the negative energy states are really
the postivite energy states of antiparticles. That means that pair
production makes no difference to the gravity of the universe and even
general relativity supports this conclusion if the universe is infinite,
since gravity is essentially curvature that caused by the energy that's
contained in a region of space. In this situation, pair production
changes this energy from photons to the mass of other particle pairs,
but the energy curvature and gravitation of the universe remain the same.
Okay, but what happens to the gravity of the universe if the universe is
finite?
Doesn't this drastically change the effect on the gravity of the
universe when... rho+3P/c^2=0 in a finite universe?
You can't take vaccum energy from a finite universe and then contain the matter energy-density to a finite region of space without increasing negative pressure in proportion to the local increase in positive gravitational curvature, because the graviational acceleraton is zero when the density of the vacuum is -0.5*rho(matter).
You have no choice but to condense this energy in order to attain the
matter density when the negative energy states have negative pressure,
because... P=-u=-rho*c2
So there is no net change on the gravity of the universe, because the
effect is two-fold... an increasing antigravitational *effect* is offset
by increase in positive gravitational curvature.
But that means that tension between the vacuum must increase as particle pair creation drives vacuum expansion if the universe is finite, and the offset increase in both, negative pressure, and positive gavitational curvature necessarily holds the vaccum flat and stable as it expands, so it cannot run-away! Increasing tension between the vacuum and ordinary matter leads to a prediction that the integrity of the forces that bind this finite structure will surely eventually be compromised by this process and we will have another big bang.
So the second law of thermodynamics is never violated when the entropy of the universe always increases via the described perpetually inherent thermodynamic structuring, which enables the universe to continuously "evolve"."
"I'd like to talk about what I think is already proven to happen to the
gravity of the universe when we make particles from negative-energy
states, and the effect that this has on the thermodynamic structuring of
our universe.
In quantum field theory, a postiron has the same gravitational
properties as an electron because the negative energy states are really
the postivite energy states of antiparticles. That means that pair
production makes no difference to the gravity of the universe and even
general relativity supports this conclusion if the universe is infinite,
since gravity is essentially curvature that caused by the energy that's
contained in a region of space. In this situation, pair production
changes this energy from photons to the mass of other particle pairs,
but the energy curvature and gravitation of the universe remain the same.
Okay, but what happens to the gravity of the universe if the universe is
finite?
Doesn't this drastically change the effect on the gravity of the
universe when... rho+3P/c^2=0 in a finite universe?
You can't take vaccum energy from a finite universe and then contain the matter energy-density to a finite region of space without increasing negative pressure in proportion to the local increase in positive gravitational curvature, because the graviational acceleraton is zero when the density of the vacuum is -0.5*rho(matter).
You have no choice but to condense this energy in order to attain the
matter density when the negative energy states have negative pressure,
because... P=-u=-rho*c2
So there is no net change on the gravity of the universe, because the
effect is two-fold... an increasing antigravitational *effect* is offset
by increase in positive gravitational curvature.
But that means that tension between the vacuum must increase as particle pair creation drives vacuum expansion if the universe is finite, and the offset increase in both, negative pressure, and positive gavitational curvature necessarily holds the vaccum flat and stable as it expands, so it cannot run-away! Increasing tension between the vacuum and ordinary matter leads to a prediction that the integrity of the forces that bind this finite structure will surely eventually be compromised by this process and we will have another big bang.
So the second law of thermodynamics is never violated when the entropy of the universe always increases via the described perpetually inherent thermodynamic structuring, which enables the universe to continuously "evolve"."
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Putting Time in A (Leaky) Bottle
By Sharon BegleyNewsweekJuly 30, 2007 issue - You can tell a lot about a subject by who its muses and mascots are. Neuroscience has philosophers who wax profound about the mind, geology has intrepid explorers and subatomic physics has ... Alice in Wonderland. "Curiouser and curiouser,"
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read more | digg story
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Aurora Illinois and New York City
I am teaching a summer class at Waubonsee Community College in Aurora Il. On Monday there was an explosion near the college early in the morning. They directed traffic to alternate routes. By the time I went to teach, traffic was a nuisance but not a catastrophe. Yesterday at night the same underground cause of the problem produced another explosion. You can read about this in the Digg posts below.
Today there was pandemonium in New York City. Geysers in 41st Street and Lexington Avenue. People running and crying.
It seems that the infrastructure of the US is not being maintained properly.
Homeland Security has to repair New Orleans, New York, and my little town of Aurora, which by the way, is the second largest city in Illinois, after Chicago.
Mr. Bush, please stop dreaming up problems, and solve the real ones we are facing.
Today there was pandemonium in New York City. Geysers in 41st Street and Lexington Avenue. People running and crying.
It seems that the infrastructure of the US is not being maintained properly.
Homeland Security has to repair New Orleans, New York, and my little town of Aurora, which by the way, is the second largest city in Illinois, after Chicago.
Mr. Bush, please stop dreaming up problems, and solve the real ones we are facing.
Steam Blast Jolts Midtown, Killing One
By JAMES BARRON
New York Times
New York City - A steam pipe explosion beneath a street near Grand Central Terminal yesterday propelled a giant scalding jet of brownish steam toward the sky, sending commuters who had been heading home stampeding to safety.
Officials said that one person died and more than 30 were hurt, two of them critically. The city said that three firefighters and one police officer were among the injured.
The blast, near 41st Street and Lexington Avenue, raised fears of terrorism, but officials were quick to dismiss that possibility. “There is no reason to believe this is anything other than a failure of our infrastructure,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said.
The explosion sent up a foul cloud of hot steam mixed with mud, rust-colored gunk and pieces of pavement just before 6 p.m. in one of the busiest parts of the city. The mayor said that some telephone lines had been knocked out, but that electric power had not been.
As people on the sidewalks scrambled to flee and office workers in the buildings above looked down in horror, debris from the geyser pelted nearby skyscrapers. Then it rained on the streets like a sudden hailstorm. Some witnesses said the jet of steam roared like Niagara Falls.
Some people ran so fast their shoes came off. Others dropped their briefcases and purses. Men in tailored suits were caught in a lapel-singeing cloud. At a health club high up in the Grand Hyatt hotel next to Grand Central Terminal, people working out on the treadmills said the explosion was so powerful they worried the building would collapse. The steam shot up from a crater that looked like that of a volcano, with orange flames and bubbling mud around the edges. The explosion packed enough force to flip over a tow truck that ended up in the crater, which was about 35 by 40 feet. Several hours after the blast, officials said the crater could grow even larger because pavement at the edges was in danger of collapse.
The cloud of steam — and the hail of debris that followed — lasted more than two hours and raised concerns about asbestos, which was used when the pipe was laid in the 1920s. Officials advised people who had been in the neighborhood to discard their clothes and bathe carefully.
The mayor said the explosion appeared to have been caused by cold water that reached the pipe, which measured more than a foot and half in diameter and dated to 1924. “Cold water apparently causes these to explode,” he said.
Con Edison, which maintains the steam pipes beneath the city’s streets, said the pipe ruptured at 5:56 p.m. Kevin Burke, the chairman of Con Edison, said crews had checked the pipe after the thunderstorm that soaked the city in the morning. He said a heavy rain can cause a “vapor condition” if rainwater seeps onto a steam pipe, causing the steam to condense. He said the inspection earlier in the day had given no indication that anything was amiss.
Michael S. Clendenin, a spokesman for the utility, said tests would be conducted for asbestos. “We always assume there’s asbestos in a steam pipe,” he said, “so we are treating these materials sent up by the rupture, including piping, as if asbestos were in them.”
There have been more than a dozen steam pipe explosions in the city in the last 20 years. One of the largest shook the neighborhood around Gramercy Park in 1989 and did millions of dollars in damage. Three people were killed, two of them Con Edison employees who had been working in the street before the explosion.
Within hours of the blast yesterday, Con Ed and the city’s Department of Environmental Protection began taking air samples to determine whether asbestos had been released. They were also checking the debris that littered the street. Mr. Bloomberg said subway entrances and exits would also be tested.
The mayor urged people who might have come into contact with mud or soot from the blast to wash carefully, and to have their clothes cleaned separately as soon as possible.
Jessica Leighton, a deputy commissioner at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, also cautioned people inside buildings near the blast to close windows and set air-conditioners to recirculate the air inside instead of drawing in air from outside.
Asbestos is a known carcinogen. Most health officials say there is no safe level of exposure. But asbestos-related diseases generally are linked to sustained exposure in industrial settings over many years.
The explosion yesterday began with a deep, rumbling noise. “It was, like, surreal, man, this rumbling, like Old Faithful,” said Randy Rocha, a bus driver who was pulling away from a stop on 42nd Street with about 20 passengers aboard when the pipe ruptured.
He described plunging into the suddenly dark street. His uniform was splattered with mud the way a housepainter’s clothes are splattered with color. Mr. Rocha could not read his wristwatch — it too was covered with mud.
In the skyscrapers that surround Grand Central, office workers realized that what they were hearing were not the usual sounds of the evening rush, of buses hitting manhole covers or dump trucks changing gears.
“It sounded at first like thunder, but it just didn’t end,” said Andrew T. Frankel, a lawyer whose office is at Lexington Avenue and 43rd Street.
Tabi Freedman, an information technology specialist who was walking out of Grand Central, said, “The ground was moving, the windows were rattling, and me and everybody else, we all looked up.” She added, “I’ve been to Yellowstone, and that’s what I thought of — the pitch, the volume, the shrieking, the steam and the vibration.”
Ken Houghton, a consultant who works at 101 Park Avenue, between 40th and 41st Streets, said he first thought what was coming down was hail. “Then we saw rocks hitting the window on the seventh floor,” he said. Officials said later that six nearby buildings sustained minor damage, mainly to windows on the lower floors.
More than 250 firefighters and 300 police officers were sent to the area. The Fire Department treated the blast as if it were a five-alarm blaze, and firefighters who approached the geyser had breathing tanks on their backs. Before long, ambulances were slicing past the stalled cars and buses, and were taking people who had been caught in the shower from the geyser to hospitals.
A trauma worker at Bellevue Hospital Center estimated that a dozen patients suffering minor injuries were taken there. Most of the injuries appeared to have been caused by falling debris; one person sustained a broken ankle, he said. As a precaution, patients were stripped and showered when they arrived.
The one death reported from the explosion was apparently caused by a heart problem. The victim, a woman, had apparently been close to the explosion, he said.
Mr. Burke of Con Edison said a number of 13,000-volt feeder cables for the utility’s electric system had been damaged in the explosion. He said crews would lay new cables under the streets to bypass the damaged ones. He said that 15 to 20 buildings that tap into the steam pipes had been taken out of service.
Five hours after the explosion, wisps of steam continued to rise from the crater. Lexington Avenue remained closed, with barricades keeping onlookers two to four blocks away and emergency vehicles lining the street — ambulances, fire trucks, tractors and fork lifts. The Lexington Avenue subways were running, but were not stopping at 42nd Street.
Reporting was contributed by Diane Cardwell, Sewell Chan, Glenn Collins, James Estrin, Cassi Feldman, Thomas J. Lueck, Michael Luo, Dylan Loeb McClain, Patrick McGeehan, Colin Moynihan, Anthony Ramirez, William K. Rashbaum, John Schwartz, Nicholas W. Skyles, Dalton Walker and Ethan Wilensky-Lanford.
New York Times
New York City - A steam pipe explosion beneath a street near Grand Central Terminal yesterday propelled a giant scalding jet of brownish steam toward the sky, sending commuters who had been heading home stampeding to safety.
Officials said that one person died and more than 30 were hurt, two of them critically. The city said that three firefighters and one police officer were among the injured.
The blast, near 41st Street and Lexington Avenue, raised fears of terrorism, but officials were quick to dismiss that possibility. “There is no reason to believe this is anything other than a failure of our infrastructure,” Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said.
The explosion sent up a foul cloud of hot steam mixed with mud, rust-colored gunk and pieces of pavement just before 6 p.m. in one of the busiest parts of the city. The mayor said that some telephone lines had been knocked out, but that electric power had not been.
As people on the sidewalks scrambled to flee and office workers in the buildings above looked down in horror, debris from the geyser pelted nearby skyscrapers. Then it rained on the streets like a sudden hailstorm. Some witnesses said the jet of steam roared like Niagara Falls.
Some people ran so fast their shoes came off. Others dropped their briefcases and purses. Men in tailored suits were caught in a lapel-singeing cloud. At a health club high up in the Grand Hyatt hotel next to Grand Central Terminal, people working out on the treadmills said the explosion was so powerful they worried the building would collapse. The steam shot up from a crater that looked like that of a volcano, with orange flames and bubbling mud around the edges. The explosion packed enough force to flip over a tow truck that ended up in the crater, which was about 35 by 40 feet. Several hours after the blast, officials said the crater could grow even larger because pavement at the edges was in danger of collapse.
The cloud of steam — and the hail of debris that followed — lasted more than two hours and raised concerns about asbestos, which was used when the pipe was laid in the 1920s. Officials advised people who had been in the neighborhood to discard their clothes and bathe carefully.
The mayor said the explosion appeared to have been caused by cold water that reached the pipe, which measured more than a foot and half in diameter and dated to 1924. “Cold water apparently causes these to explode,” he said.
Con Edison, which maintains the steam pipes beneath the city’s streets, said the pipe ruptured at 5:56 p.m. Kevin Burke, the chairman of Con Edison, said crews had checked the pipe after the thunderstorm that soaked the city in the morning. He said a heavy rain can cause a “vapor condition” if rainwater seeps onto a steam pipe, causing the steam to condense. He said the inspection earlier in the day had given no indication that anything was amiss.
Michael S. Clendenin, a spokesman for the utility, said tests would be conducted for asbestos. “We always assume there’s asbestos in a steam pipe,” he said, “so we are treating these materials sent up by the rupture, including piping, as if asbestos were in them.”
There have been more than a dozen steam pipe explosions in the city in the last 20 years. One of the largest shook the neighborhood around Gramercy Park in 1989 and did millions of dollars in damage. Three people were killed, two of them Con Edison employees who had been working in the street before the explosion.
Within hours of the blast yesterday, Con Ed and the city’s Department of Environmental Protection began taking air samples to determine whether asbestos had been released. They were also checking the debris that littered the street. Mr. Bloomberg said subway entrances and exits would also be tested.
The mayor urged people who might have come into contact with mud or soot from the blast to wash carefully, and to have their clothes cleaned separately as soon as possible.
Jessica Leighton, a deputy commissioner at the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, also cautioned people inside buildings near the blast to close windows and set air-conditioners to recirculate the air inside instead of drawing in air from outside.
Asbestos is a known carcinogen. Most health officials say there is no safe level of exposure. But asbestos-related diseases generally are linked to sustained exposure in industrial settings over many years.
The explosion yesterday began with a deep, rumbling noise. “It was, like, surreal, man, this rumbling, like Old Faithful,” said Randy Rocha, a bus driver who was pulling away from a stop on 42nd Street with about 20 passengers aboard when the pipe ruptured.
He described plunging into the suddenly dark street. His uniform was splattered with mud the way a housepainter’s clothes are splattered with color. Mr. Rocha could not read his wristwatch — it too was covered with mud.
In the skyscrapers that surround Grand Central, office workers realized that what they were hearing were not the usual sounds of the evening rush, of buses hitting manhole covers or dump trucks changing gears.
“It sounded at first like thunder, but it just didn’t end,” said Andrew T. Frankel, a lawyer whose office is at Lexington Avenue and 43rd Street.
Tabi Freedman, an information technology specialist who was walking out of Grand Central, said, “The ground was moving, the windows were rattling, and me and everybody else, we all looked up.” She added, “I’ve been to Yellowstone, and that’s what I thought of — the pitch, the volume, the shrieking, the steam and the vibration.”
Ken Houghton, a consultant who works at 101 Park Avenue, between 40th and 41st Streets, said he first thought what was coming down was hail. “Then we saw rocks hitting the window on the seventh floor,” he said. Officials said later that six nearby buildings sustained minor damage, mainly to windows on the lower floors.
More than 250 firefighters and 300 police officers were sent to the area. The Fire Department treated the blast as if it were a five-alarm blaze, and firefighters who approached the geyser had breathing tanks on their backs. Before long, ambulances were slicing past the stalled cars and buses, and were taking people who had been caught in the shower from the geyser to hospitals.
A trauma worker at Bellevue Hospital Center estimated that a dozen patients suffering minor injuries were taken there. Most of the injuries appeared to have been caused by falling debris; one person sustained a broken ankle, he said. As a precaution, patients were stripped and showered when they arrived.
The one death reported from the explosion was apparently caused by a heart problem. The victim, a woman, had apparently been close to the explosion, he said.
Mr. Burke of Con Edison said a number of 13,000-volt feeder cables for the utility’s electric system had been damaged in the explosion. He said crews would lay new cables under the streets to bypass the damaged ones. He said that 15 to 20 buildings that tap into the steam pipes had been taken out of service.
Five hours after the explosion, wisps of steam continued to rise from the crater. Lexington Avenue remained closed, with barricades keeping onlookers two to four blocks away and emergency vehicles lining the street — ambulances, fire trucks, tractors and fork lifts. The Lexington Avenue subways were running, but were not stopping at 42nd Street.
Reporting was contributed by Diane Cardwell, Sewell Chan, Glenn Collins, James Estrin, Cassi Feldman, Thomas J. Lueck, Michael Luo, Dylan Loeb McClain, Patrick McGeehan, Colin Moynihan, Anthony Ramirez, William K. Rashbaum, John Schwartz, Nicholas W. Skyles, Dalton Walker and Ethan Wilensky-Lanford.
Up in smoke
ComEd's attempt to restore power fizzles, leads to more outages
AURORA -- Smoke again billowed from the manhole covers and parts of a light fixture launched 50 feet into the air Tuesday night just as the last 28 downtown power customers were supposed to come back online in the wake of a Monday morning fire in a ComEd power vault.
read more | digg story
AURORA -- Smoke again billowed from the manhole covers and parts of a light fixture launched 50 feet into the air Tuesday night just as the last 28 downtown power customers were supposed to come back online in the wake of a Monday morning fire in a ComEd power vault.
read more | digg story
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
The Witnesses lied, the cops lied and the Prosecutor was crooked...BUT
the defendant was BLACK. GUILTY!!!Oh yeah and there was NO Physical evidence or a weapon found! What the hell? How can anyone stand by and watch this guy die on such little evidence. Man, what have we become, the kill & torture country. God forgive us.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Monday, July 16, 2007
The Waiting Game
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Being without health insurance is no big deal. Just ask President Bush. “I mean, people have access to health care in America,” he said last week. “After all, you just go to an emergency room.”
This is what you might call callousness with consequences. The White House has announced that Mr. Bush will veto a bipartisan plan that would extend health insurance, and with it such essentials as regular checkups and preventive medical care, to an estimated 4.1 million currently uninsured children. After all, it’s not as if those kids really need insurance — they can just go to emergency rooms, right?
O.K., it’s not news that Mr. Bush has no empathy for people less fortunate than himself. But his willful ignorance here is part of a larger picture: by and large, opponents of universal health care paint a glowing portrait of the American system that bears as little resemblance to reality as the scare stories they tell about health care in France, Britain, and Canada.
The claim that the uninsured can get all the care they need in emergency rooms is just the beginning. Beyond that is the myth that Americans who are lucky enough to have insurance never face long waits for medical care.
Actually, the persistence of that myth puzzles me. I can understand how people like Mr. Bush or Fred Thompson, who declared recently that “the poorest Americans are getting far better service” than Canadians or the British, can wave away the desperation of uninsured Americans, who are often poor and voiceless. But how can they get away with pretending that insured Americans always get prompt care, when most of us can testify otherwise?
A recent article in Business Week put it bluntly: “In reality, both data and anecdotes show that the American people are already waiting as long or longer than patients living with universal health-care systems.”
A cross-national survey conducted by the Commonwealth Fund found that America ranks near the bottom among advanced countries in terms of how hard it is to get medical attention on short notice (although Canada was slightly worse), and that America is the worst place in the advanced world if you need care after hours or on a weekend.
We look better when it comes to seeing a specialist or receiving elective surgery. But Germany outperforms us even on those measures — and I suspect that France, which wasn’t included in the study, matches Germany’s performance.
Besides, not all medical delays are created equal. In Canada and Britain, delays are caused by doctors trying to devote limited medical resources to the most urgent cases. In the United States, they’re often caused by insurance companies trying to save money.
This can lead to ordeals like the one recently described by Mark Kleiman, a professor at U.C.L.A., who nearly died of cancer because his insurer kept delaying approval for a necessary biopsy. “It was only later,” writes Mr. Kleiman on his blog, “that I discovered why the insurance company was stalling; I had an option, which I didn’t know I had, to avoid all the approvals by going to ‘Tier II,’ which would have meant higher co-payments.”
He adds, “I don’t know how many people my insurance company waited to death that year, but I’m certain the number wasn’t zero.”
To be fair, Mr. Kleiman is only surmising that his insurance company risked his life in an attempt to get him to pay more of his treatment costs. But there’s no question that some Americans who seemingly have good insurance nonetheless die because insurers are trying to hold down their “medical losses” — the industry term for actually having to pay for care.
On the other hand, it’s true that Americans get hip replacements faster than Canadians. But there’s a funny thing about that example, which is used constantly as an argument for the superiority of private health insurance over a government-run system: the large majority of hip replacements in the United States are paid for by, um, Medicare.
That’s right: the hip-replacement gap is actually a comparison of two government health insurance systems. American Medicare has shorter waits than Canadian Medicare (yes, that’s what they call their system) because it has more lavish funding — end of story. The alleged virtues of private insurance have nothing to do with it.
The bottom line is that the opponents of universal health care appear to have run out of honest arguments. All they have left are fantasies: horror fiction about health care in other countries, and fairy tales about health care here in America.
Being without health insurance is no big deal. Just ask President Bush. “I mean, people have access to health care in America,” he said last week. “After all, you just go to an emergency room.”
This is what you might call callousness with consequences. The White House has announced that Mr. Bush will veto a bipartisan plan that would extend health insurance, and with it such essentials as regular checkups and preventive medical care, to an estimated 4.1 million currently uninsured children. After all, it’s not as if those kids really need insurance — they can just go to emergency rooms, right?
O.K., it’s not news that Mr. Bush has no empathy for people less fortunate than himself. But his willful ignorance here is part of a larger picture: by and large, opponents of universal health care paint a glowing portrait of the American system that bears as little resemblance to reality as the scare stories they tell about health care in France, Britain, and Canada.
The claim that the uninsured can get all the care they need in emergency rooms is just the beginning. Beyond that is the myth that Americans who are lucky enough to have insurance never face long waits for medical care.
Actually, the persistence of that myth puzzles me. I can understand how people like Mr. Bush or Fred Thompson, who declared recently that “the poorest Americans are getting far better service” than Canadians or the British, can wave away the desperation of uninsured Americans, who are often poor and voiceless. But how can they get away with pretending that insured Americans always get prompt care, when most of us can testify otherwise?
A recent article in Business Week put it bluntly: “In reality, both data and anecdotes show that the American people are already waiting as long or longer than patients living with universal health-care systems.”
A cross-national survey conducted by the Commonwealth Fund found that America ranks near the bottom among advanced countries in terms of how hard it is to get medical attention on short notice (although Canada was slightly worse), and that America is the worst place in the advanced world if you need care after hours or on a weekend.
We look better when it comes to seeing a specialist or receiving elective surgery. But Germany outperforms us even on those measures — and I suspect that France, which wasn’t included in the study, matches Germany’s performance.
Besides, not all medical delays are created equal. In Canada and Britain, delays are caused by doctors trying to devote limited medical resources to the most urgent cases. In the United States, they’re often caused by insurance companies trying to save money.
This can lead to ordeals like the one recently described by Mark Kleiman, a professor at U.C.L.A., who nearly died of cancer because his insurer kept delaying approval for a necessary biopsy. “It was only later,” writes Mr. Kleiman on his blog, “that I discovered why the insurance company was stalling; I had an option, which I didn’t know I had, to avoid all the approvals by going to ‘Tier II,’ which would have meant higher co-payments.”
He adds, “I don’t know how many people my insurance company waited to death that year, but I’m certain the number wasn’t zero.”
To be fair, Mr. Kleiman is only surmising that his insurance company risked his life in an attempt to get him to pay more of his treatment costs. But there’s no question that some Americans who seemingly have good insurance nonetheless die because insurers are trying to hold down their “medical losses” — the industry term for actually having to pay for care.
On the other hand, it’s true that Americans get hip replacements faster than Canadians. But there’s a funny thing about that example, which is used constantly as an argument for the superiority of private health insurance over a government-run system: the large majority of hip replacements in the United States are paid for by, um, Medicare.
That’s right: the hip-replacement gap is actually a comparison of two government health insurance systems. American Medicare has shorter waits than Canadian Medicare (yes, that’s what they call their system) because it has more lavish funding — end of story. The alleged virtues of private insurance have nothing to do with it.
The bottom line is that the opponents of universal health care appear to have run out of honest arguments. All they have left are fantasies: horror fiction about health care in other countries, and fairy tales about health care here in America.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Some Ways to Cash my Chips
When we are born we come with a set of gifts. Some of us have logico-mathematical intelligence, others kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and a slew of others classified by the Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner.
Unfortunately (or fortunately) life is not like a casino, where you could just show up at the counter and cash your chips. You actually have to do something with your gifts. Here are some of the ways I am thinking of cashing in:
Teach Physics
Join Lynk Labs Inc.
Start a Company
Unfortunately (or fortunately) life is not like a casino, where you could just show up at the counter and cash your chips. You actually have to do something with your gifts. Here are some of the ways I am thinking of cashing in:
Saudis make up 1/2 of insurgents, suicide bombers in Iraq
Although Bush officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents, about 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians are from Saudi Arabia. The situation has left the U.S. military in the awkward position of battling an enemy whose top source of foreign fighters is a key ally.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Some Thoughts
When this blog becomes famous, I may have to pay copyrights to the New York Times, along with some other sources I have freely used in my posts. So far nobody seems to be reading these posts anyway.
Tom Friedman's piece gives me a foothold on the following thoughts. Since I was at school I felt that I had a valuable asset, my intelligence, and I do, I got a Ph.D. in Theoretical High Energy Physics. But I feel that the people with money don't care. After reading that piece on the importance of high end jobs, requiring knowledge and brains, I feel reinvigorated. I hope I can cash my chips and pay my debts.
Tom Friedman's piece gives me a foothold on the following thoughts. Since I was at school I felt that I had a valuable asset, my intelligence, and I do, I got a Ph.D. in Theoretical High Energy Physics. But I feel that the people with money don't care. After reading that piece on the importance of high end jobs, requiring knowledge and brains, I feel reinvigorated. I hope I can cash my chips and pay my debts.
The Green Road Less Traveled
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Whoever knew — I.B.M. is managing traffic congestion in Stockholm. Well it is, and therein lies a story.
Probably the biggest green initiative coming down the road these days, literally, is congestion pricing — charging people for the right to drive into a downtown area. It is already proving to be the most effective short-term way to clean up polluted city air, promote energy efficiency and create more livable urban centers, while also providing mayors with unexpected new revenue.
Imagine a day when you will go online and buy a pass to drive into any major urban area and the price of your pass will be set by whether you are driving a hybrid or a Hummer, the time of day you want to drive, the road you want to use and how much carbon your car trip will emit. And if there is an accident on the route you normally take, an alert will be sent to a device in your car warning you to go a different way.
Well, that day is pretty much here for London, Stockholm and Singapore — and New York City could be next. In a few years, the notion that you will be able to get into your car in the suburbs and drive downtown for free will be as old-fashioned as horses and buggies.
But what does this have to do with I.B.M.? To make congestion pricing work, you need technology — cameras, software and algorithms that can read auto license plates as they flash by and automatically charge the driver or check whether he or she has paid the fee to enter the city center. (The data is regularly destroyed to protect privacy.) That is what I.B.M. is providing for the city of Stockholm, which, after a successful seven-month trial in which traffic dropped more than 20 percent, will move to full congestion pricing in August.
“In Stockholm, we built a system where we have a ring of cameras around the city — 18 entry points with multiple lanes,” explained Jamie Houghton, I.B.M.’s global leader for road charging, based in London. “I.B.M. Stockholm runs the whole system.”
O.K., Friedman, so I.B.M. is now in the traffic biz. Who cares?
I care, because it underscores a fundamental truth about green technology: you can’t make a product greener, whether it’s a car, a refrigerator or a traffic system, without making it smarter — smarter materials, smarter software or smarter design.
What can many U.S. companies still manufacture? They can manufacture things that are smart — that have a lot of knowledge content in them, like a congestion pricing network for a whole city. What do many Chinese companies manufacture? They manufacture things that can be made with a lot of cheap labor, like the rubber tires on your car. Which jobs are most easily outsourced? The ones vulnerable to cheap labor. Which jobs are hardest to outsource? Those that require a lot of knowledge.
So what does all this mean? It means that to the extent that we make “green” standards part of everything we design and manufacture, we create “green collar” jobs that are much more difficult to outsource. I.B.M. and other tech companies are discovering a mother lode of potential new business for their high-wage engineers and programmers thanks to the fact that mayors all over the world are thinking about going green through congestion pricing systems.
“Congestion pricing of traffic is emerging as a completely new services market for I.B.M.,” said Mr. Houghton. “I.B.M. is in discussion with major cities worldwide, including some in China.”
Hopefully, if the New York State Legislature acts, New York City will get access to a $500 million Department of Transportation grant for a pilot congestion pricing system. The more U.S. cities adopt congestion pricing, the more U.S. companies will quickly develop the expertise in this field, which is going to be a huge growth industry on a planet where more and more people will be living in cities. Congestion pricing is the only way to make them livable without trillions of dollars of new infrastructure.
As New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who’s trying to bring this system to his city, put it to me: “The percentage of your working day spent in a commute will go down and the time you spend being productive and being paid, or simply relaxing, will go up. Also, more people will do business in the city, because they can get to stores, offices or the theater more easily.”
So if you hear a politician say that we can’t afford to impose green standards because it will cost us jobs, tell them: “Hogwash.” The more we elevate, expand and globalize green, clean-power standards the more we play to the strengths of the American economy, American jobs and American-based companies.
Whoever knew — I.B.M. is managing traffic congestion in Stockholm. Well it is, and therein lies a story.
Probably the biggest green initiative coming down the road these days, literally, is congestion pricing — charging people for the right to drive into a downtown area. It is already proving to be the most effective short-term way to clean up polluted city air, promote energy efficiency and create more livable urban centers, while also providing mayors with unexpected new revenue.
Imagine a day when you will go online and buy a pass to drive into any major urban area and the price of your pass will be set by whether you are driving a hybrid or a Hummer, the time of day you want to drive, the road you want to use and how much carbon your car trip will emit. And if there is an accident on the route you normally take, an alert will be sent to a device in your car warning you to go a different way.
Well, that day is pretty much here for London, Stockholm and Singapore — and New York City could be next. In a few years, the notion that you will be able to get into your car in the suburbs and drive downtown for free will be as old-fashioned as horses and buggies.
But what does this have to do with I.B.M.? To make congestion pricing work, you need technology — cameras, software and algorithms that can read auto license plates as they flash by and automatically charge the driver or check whether he or she has paid the fee to enter the city center. (The data is regularly destroyed to protect privacy.) That is what I.B.M. is providing for the city of Stockholm, which, after a successful seven-month trial in which traffic dropped more than 20 percent, will move to full congestion pricing in August.
“In Stockholm, we built a system where we have a ring of cameras around the city — 18 entry points with multiple lanes,” explained Jamie Houghton, I.B.M.’s global leader for road charging, based in London. “I.B.M. Stockholm runs the whole system.”
O.K., Friedman, so I.B.M. is now in the traffic biz. Who cares?
I care, because it underscores a fundamental truth about green technology: you can’t make a product greener, whether it’s a car, a refrigerator or a traffic system, without making it smarter — smarter materials, smarter software or smarter design.
What can many U.S. companies still manufacture? They can manufacture things that are smart — that have a lot of knowledge content in them, like a congestion pricing network for a whole city. What do many Chinese companies manufacture? They manufacture things that can be made with a lot of cheap labor, like the rubber tires on your car. Which jobs are most easily outsourced? The ones vulnerable to cheap labor. Which jobs are hardest to outsource? Those that require a lot of knowledge.
So what does all this mean? It means that to the extent that we make “green” standards part of everything we design and manufacture, we create “green collar” jobs that are much more difficult to outsource. I.B.M. and other tech companies are discovering a mother lode of potential new business for their high-wage engineers and programmers thanks to the fact that mayors all over the world are thinking about going green through congestion pricing systems.
“Congestion pricing of traffic is emerging as a completely new services market for I.B.M.,” said Mr. Houghton. “I.B.M. is in discussion with major cities worldwide, including some in China.”
Hopefully, if the New York State Legislature acts, New York City will get access to a $500 million Department of Transportation grant for a pilot congestion pricing system. The more U.S. cities adopt congestion pricing, the more U.S. companies will quickly develop the expertise in this field, which is going to be a huge growth industry on a planet where more and more people will be living in cities. Congestion pricing is the only way to make them livable without trillions of dollars of new infrastructure.
As New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who’s trying to bring this system to his city, put it to me: “The percentage of your working day spent in a commute will go down and the time you spend being productive and being paid, or simply relaxing, will go up. Also, more people will do business in the city, because they can get to stores, offices or the theater more easily.”
So if you hear a politician say that we can’t afford to impose green standards because it will cost us jobs, tell them: “Hogwash.” The more we elevate, expand and globalize green, clean-power standards the more we play to the strengths of the American economy, American jobs and American-based companies.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Paul Davies
The Cosmic Jackpot recently written by Paul Davies presents some new ideas, but also covers basic physics concepts. Today I highlight the probability that any one of us is here right now. Some writing, like me, others reading like you. My father did not die, until I was conceived, his father did not die until my father was conceived, and so on up to the beginning of life. Whatever big number you want to give to any of those probabilities, it is impressive that their product is not more close to zero than it is.
There is something odd about this. What comes to my mind is that probabilities have a different meaning when talking about the past than when talking about the future.
Nevertheless when thinking of the anthropic principle, it is hard for me not to feel odd.
Right now my position is that if I can predict something unknown based on the principle and it works, I shouldn't look a gift horse on the mouth.
There is something odd about this. What comes to my mind is that probabilities have a different meaning when talking about the past than when talking about the future.
Nevertheless when thinking of the anthropic principle, it is hard for me not to feel odd.
Right now my position is that if I can predict something unknown based on the principle and it works, I shouldn't look a gift horse on the mouth.
It Had to Be a Computer Company
When I was working at Lucent, arguably the most successful industrial research laboratory ever existed up to then, I was mystified by the slow progress on the development of IP products in general, and a new telephone paradigm in particular.
Now I know, it had to be a computer company.
I expect the iPhone to become the new telephone that Bell Labs couldn't create.
Now I know, it had to be a computer company.
I expect the iPhone to become the new telephone that Bell Labs couldn't create.
GED Graduation 1
"This is not the first time that I attend to the "final" stage of the GED process, the reception of public recognition for the effort involved. When I first meet the students in the classroom, I see them coming a bit disoriented on how to proceed, as time passes they seem more clear on their goals and how to attain them, and finally as they attend the graduation ceremony they are very satisfied and making plans for the future. This then, is the end of the cycle, I would not miss it. I feel happy like the students, even if they did all the work not me.
One particular part I like is when one student tells us his or her story, my eyes get watery, and I feel reinvigorated.
When the ceremony is over, sometimes the students want to take pictures with me, and share some desserts and soft drinks. I enjoy these occasions.
These experiences help me in my work with the students. I know that some of them are going to finish their work and I am there ready to help them. Unfortunately not all the students that come to classes pass their test. Sometimes it is because they stop going to the classes, sometimes because they only work in the classroom, and don't have time to work at home, but in most cases, I believe the ones that pass are the most committed.
I have learned to help the students, and I make it clear to them, that they have to work convinced that they can do it, and the instructor and I as a volunteer, are happy to help them if they ask us."
One particular part I like is when one student tells us his or her story, my eyes get watery, and I feel reinvigorated.
When the ceremony is over, sometimes the students want to take pictures with me, and share some desserts and soft drinks. I enjoy these occasions.
These experiences help me in my work with the students. I know that some of them are going to finish their work and I am there ready to help them. Unfortunately not all the students that come to classes pass their test. Sometimes it is because they stop going to the classes, sometimes because they only work in the classroom, and don't have time to work at home, but in most cases, I believe the ones that pass are the most committed.
I have learned to help the students, and I make it clear to them, that they have to work convinced that they can do it, and the instructor and I as a volunteer, are happy to help them if they ask us."
Friday, July 13, 2007
Late at Night, Listening to C-Span
Members of the House of Representatives of the US are concerned about the security of this country. They invited experts from the National Intelligence Agency to help them understand security. To me these issues seem unknowable.
Do I have to listen to them?
I feel more like going to sleep, and build my own scare scenarios by myself, without giving to my thoughts more validity than to theirs.
Do I have to listen to them?
I feel more like going to sleep, and build my own scare scenarios by myself, without giving to my thoughts more validity than to theirs.
BREAKING: House passes troop withdrawal for April 2008
The House of Representatives voted 223-201 Thursday to require most U.S. troops to leave Iraq by April 1, 2008.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
Iraq on Fire, Pakistan Bubbling, and Mexico Simmering
Maybe I should add that Sub Saharan Africa is really hot. What did President Bush tell us yesterday about all this? Nothing. His plan is working in Iraq, and we should wait until September to pass judgment on his efforts.
Not only Bush, but all heads of state should lead us out of the ever increasing instability approaching us. Pakistan's Musharraf, and Mexico's Calderon, did not tell their people that there was trouble until it was impossible to hide the state of their countries' problems.
What am I supposed to do?
At least be prepared. I see a storm coming.
Not only Bush, but all heads of state should lead us out of the ever increasing instability approaching us. Pakistan's Musharraf, and Mexico's Calderon, did not tell their people that there was trouble until it was impossible to hide the state of their countries' problems.
What am I supposed to do?
At least be prepared. I see a storm coming.
Mexico Increases Pipeline Security After Recent Rebel Bomb Attacks
MEXICO CITY, July 10 — President Felipe Calderón stepped up security around gas pipelines on Tuesday after a long-dormant rebel group claimed responsibility for several explosions along pipelines in the state of Guanajuato in recent days.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
VIDEO: Michael Moore slams CNN, Wolf Blitzer on live TV
Moore argued that CNN has such a lousy track record of reporting the truth about the war in Iraq and asking tough questions, that Americans should be skeptical of their reporting on health care.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Physicists detect new type of electron wave present on metal surfaces
July 9, 2007 Scientists have proved the existence of a new type of electron wave present on metal surfaces that could assist in the development of nano-optics and high-temperature superconductors.Known as the “acoustic surface plasmon”, the phenomenon has previously been predicted in theory but has been difficult to prove because of the incredi...
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read more | digg story
Sunday, July 08, 2007
Italian Scientists build Atomic Laser - predicted by Einstein back in 1925
A Florence University research team led by Massimo Inguscio and Giovanni Modugno used potassium isotopes to build an "atomic condensate" squeezed into a harmonious whole by a magnetic field, similar to a theoretical model envisaged by Einstein and fellow physicist Satyendra Nath Bose, ANSA said.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Time-symmetric Quantum Mechanics
Prof. Aharonov and Dr. Tollaksen recently published an article on Time-symmetric Quantum Mechanics. This is a logical physical theory, that treats past and future on an equal footing.
This theory can lead us to better descriptions of reality and maybe to unexpected conclusions. Also recently Prof. Paul Davies published a note in the British magazine, The New Scientist, implying that Aharonov et al.'s theory, makes the past dependent on the future, and maybe explaining why the Universe we inhabit is so bio-friendly.
My interpretation of what these scientists have written is that we wish to stay around, so the Universe is being shaped by us.
This theory can lead us to better descriptions of reality and maybe to unexpected conclusions. Also recently Prof. Paul Davies published a note in the British magazine, The New Scientist, implying that Aharonov et al.'s theory, makes the past dependent on the future, and maybe explaining why the Universe we inhabit is so bio-friendly.
My interpretation of what these scientists have written is that we wish to stay around, so the Universe is being shaped by us.
Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Pierre Auger at Merida Mexico
The members of the international collaboration, Pierre Auger, present their results this week and the next, at Merida, Yucatan, Mexico.
The main point, as I see it, is that several groups were wrong, there are not many mysteries in the signal coming from space. It is what is expected. If the cosmic ray has a lot of energy, the microwave background radiation, acts as a shield, and protects us. Another component of the Goldilocks effect discussed in Paul Davies book, Cosmic Jackpot.
We are just in the right place, protected by ....
I guess you have to choose who is protecting you, my preferred choice is my Dad that died twenty seven years ago.
The main point, as I see it, is that several groups were wrong, there are not many mysteries in the signal coming from space. It is what is expected. If the cosmic ray has a lot of energy, the microwave background radiation, acts as a shield, and protects us. Another component of the Goldilocks effect discussed in Paul Davies book, Cosmic Jackpot.
We are just in the right place, protected by ....
I guess you have to choose who is protecting you, my preferred choice is my Dad that died twenty seven years ago.
Highlights from the Pierre Auger Observatory
The Pierre Auger Observatory is now ~80% completed with all of the fluorescence detectors and 1300 tanks in operation. The exposure accumulated since January 2004 is ~ 5000 km^2 sr yr, approximately 3 times that reached by AGASA and about twice the exposure of HiRes. The hybrid nature of the detector and unparalleled attention to systematic uncertainties has allowed an accurate measurement of the energy spectrum above 10^18 eV. The spectra derived from hybrid events, from the surface detectors and from very inclined showers will be discussed. Interpretation of the data on the energy spectrum requires a detailed knowledge of the mass composition and progress towards acquiring this has been made through measurements of the elongation rate. Thus far, the cosmic ray sky has been found to be isotropic with no evidence for clustering on small angular scales or of correlations with BL Lacs, in contrast to what has been seen with other instruments.
Tuesday, July 03, 2007
Keith Olberman's Special Comment: You ceased to be the President of
From C&L: Keith Olbermann delivers arguably his most pointed and most powerful Special Comment yet on the ramifications of Bush’s commutation of Libby’s sentence.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Paul Davies
The New Scientist magazine recently published an article by the physicist Paul Davies. This thinker, now working at Arizona State University in Tempe, has been trying to make sense of our place in the Universe. Some of us are interested in this subject, but unlike some of us, Prof. Davies has been able to make a living out of this.
His latest work, available at the electronic archive maintained by the Los Alamos National Laboratoy, argues that there is a way to find out why do we have the laws we have and not some others. As I understood the idea, laws depend on matter and matter depend on laws, not so different as how Einstein taught us, that space tells matter how to move and matter tells space how to curve.
Maybe we are closing to know our place in the Universe and what is the best use of our time while we are alive.
His latest work, available at the electronic archive maintained by the Los Alamos National Laboratoy, argues that there is a way to find out why do we have the laws we have and not some others. As I understood the idea, laws depend on matter and matter depend on laws, not so different as how Einstein taught us, that space tells matter how to move and matter tells space how to curve.
Maybe we are closing to know our place in the Universe and what is the best use of our time while we are alive.
We Are Meant To Be Here
People are not the result of a cosmic accident, but of laws of the universe that grant our lives meaning and purpose, says physicist Paul Davies.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Sunday, July 01, 2007
800 Elephants on the Move [image]
Striking aerial image of an unusually large herd moving through Chad toward the Tinga.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Friday, June 29, 2007
Are there Business Models for the Singularity?
If the Singularity is here, what kind of a business model best benefits from it?
Maybe user friendly products and services design. The compexity could go into the hardware, and simplcity to the front end.
Maybe user friendly products and services design. The compexity could go into the hardware, and simplcity to the front end.
Barcelona
AMD is playing against Intel and now offers the Barcelona chip for next August. 2GHz processing speed. Sun Microsystems is building a new supercomputer using a new architecture.
Could it be that the Singularity advocating by some people is going to be sooner than some thought?
Today many people are using a new telephone. Do they feel like the Singularity is here?
I hope so.
Could it be that the Singularity advocating by some people is going to be sooner than some thought?
Today many people are using a new telephone. Do they feel like the Singularity is here?
I hope so.
AMD's quad-core 'Barcelona' launching in August
Advanced Micro Devices in August will begin selling its quad-core "Barcelona" Opteron processors, models that answer Intel's current products but soon will face stiffer competition.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
US Social Forum, Day 2: Immigration and the 2008 election
By Elizabeth DiNovella June 29, 2007In a small conference room on the fourteenth floor of the Westin Hotel on Peachtree Avenue in downtown Atlanta, dozens of activists sat on chairs--some squatted on the floor--and discussed immigration and the 2008 election.
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read more | digg story
What Next?
It seems now that until 2008 everything is going to stay still on immigration. Can this be so?
I doubt it.
I do not know what is coming, maybe a big storm, maybe a little rain. Human behavior is harder to predict than the weather.
One think I am sure of, come November 2008, and we will have more than the twelve or so million illegal aliens in this country now.
I doubt it.
I do not know what is coming, maybe a big storm, maybe a little rain. Human behavior is harder to predict than the weather.
One think I am sure of, come November 2008, and we will have more than the twelve or so million illegal aliens in this country now.
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Sun Super Computer May Hit 2 Petaflops
Sun Microsystems on Monday revealed the Constellation System, a high-performance computing platform that company executives claim will vault the company back into the top ranks of supercomputer manufacturers.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Who is Running the US?
Definitely not George W. Bush.
He could not even force his party to discuss an Immigration Bill he favors.
He could not even force his party to discuss an Immigration Bill he favors.
Immigration Bill Blocked in Senate
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate drove a stake Thursday through President Bush's plan to legalize millions of unlawful immigrants, likely postponing major action on immigration until after the 2008 elections.
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read more | digg story
Senate Refuses to Discuss Immigration
A moment ago the Senate did not approve the continuation of discussions on the Immigration Bill proposed by a bipartisan committee. They needed 60 votes, they were short fourteen votes; for lack of a nail, a shoe was lost,...
This is a sad moment in the history of the US Senate, now I am hearing Senator Byrd from West Virginia, lecturing on how old people can still help us in our lives.
This is a sad moment in the history of the US Senate, now I am hearing Senator Byrd from West Virginia, lecturing on how old people can still help us in our lives.
Monday, June 25, 2007
Gore Coins the Word: Climate Refugees
I have not read before today the word Climate Refugees, that is how Al Gore described in Spain the Africans leaving the heat coming from the Sahara Desert and going to different African countries.
If you read Spanish, take a look at my previous post that I took from "La Jornada", a Mexican newspaper.
If you read Spanish, take a look at my previous post that I took from "La Jornada", a Mexican newspaper.
Al Gore: Cambio climático es responsable de migración africana
DPA
25/06/2007 11:52
Santa de Cruz de Tenerife, España. El ex vicepresidente de Estados Unidos Al Gore aseguró este lunes en España que el cambio climático es responsable de la emigración africana.
El cambio climático, explicó el político demócrata, provoca sequía y hambre en el continente y ello lleva a la emigración de sus habitantes, que arriesgan en muchas ocasiones su vida tratando de entrar de forma ilegal en territorio español sobre embarcaciones precarias con las que cruzan desde la costa africana a las Islas Canarias.
"Canarias puede decir al mundo lo que significan los refugiados climáticos", manifestó Gore en la isla de Tenerife, en la inauguración de unas jornadas sobre "Sociedad del conocimiento y cambio climático".
La tesis sostenida por el ex vicepresidente norteamericano fue que "los refugiados climáticos" ya son una realidad y su número puede ir en aumento como consecuencia del calentamiento global.
"No hemos llegado tarde", aseguró Gore, defendiendo que aún es posible luchar contra el cambio climático. "Tenemos lo necesario para resolver la crisis" pero hay que espabilar "con una patada en el trasero", manifestó.
25/06/2007 11:52
Santa de Cruz de Tenerife, España. El ex vicepresidente de Estados Unidos Al Gore aseguró este lunes en España que el cambio climático es responsable de la emigración africana.
El cambio climático, explicó el político demócrata, provoca sequía y hambre en el continente y ello lleva a la emigración de sus habitantes, que arriesgan en muchas ocasiones su vida tratando de entrar de forma ilegal en territorio español sobre embarcaciones precarias con las que cruzan desde la costa africana a las Islas Canarias.
"Canarias puede decir al mundo lo que significan los refugiados climáticos", manifestó Gore en la isla de Tenerife, en la inauguración de unas jornadas sobre "Sociedad del conocimiento y cambio climático".
La tesis sostenida por el ex vicepresidente norteamericano fue que "los refugiados climáticos" ya son una realidad y su número puede ir en aumento como consecuencia del calentamiento global.
"No hemos llegado tarde", aseguró Gore, defendiendo que aún es posible luchar contra el cambio climático. "Tenemos lo necesario para resolver la crisis" pero hay que espabilar "con una patada en el trasero", manifestó.
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Bush, Perkins, and You
I posted today in digg.com an article from the NYT explaining George W. Bush's admiration for Mexicans he met in Midlands, Tex., the town where he grew up. I just saw John Perkins give his presentation of "The Secret History of the American Empire" for booktv.org. Now what about you, and me?
I want to believe that George W. Bush is a real human being, as well as John Perkins. They are telling us to take action, but sometimes in different directions. Like everything in life we have to make our minds and do what we think is right.
I do not even have a job at this point. What I want to do is to be useful in leading all of us to take the best decisions for our benefit and that of our children.
I want to believe that George W. Bush is a real human being, as well as John Perkins. They are telling us to take action, but sometimes in different directions. Like everything in life we have to make our minds and do what we think is right.
I do not even have a job at this point. What I want to do is to be useful in leading all of us to take the best decisions for our benefit and that of our children.
Bush's Secret Campaign To Deny Global Warming Revealed
Earlier this year, the world's top climate scientists released a definitive report on global warming. It is now "unequivocal," they concluded, that the planet is heating up. Bush no likey.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Friday, June 22, 2007
How Do You Know the World is Ending?1
I already asked this question before:
Part 1
Today I add another test. The world is ending when more political parties act in unprecedented ways, more genocides are committed, and more of us feel more and more unsettled.
Part 1
Today I add another test. The world is ending when more political parties act in unprecedented ways, more genocides are committed, and more of us feel more and more unsettled.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
James Hansen et alia
Dr. Hansen and collaborators from NASA and other universities published last May an article in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A from England, the abstract of the article is in the previous post.
These are serious warnings that should be heeded by all of us to take the measures necessary to save the planet.
These are serious warnings that should be heeded by all of us to take the measures necessary to save the planet.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Climate Change and Trace Gases
Palaeoclimate data show that the Earth’s climate is remarkably sensitive to global forcings. Positive feedbacks predominate. This allows the entire planet to be whipsawed between climate states. One feedback, the ‘albedo flip’ property of ice/water, provides a powerful trigger mechanism. A climate forcing that ‘flips’ the albedo of a sufficient portion of an ice sheet can spark a cataclysm. Inertia of ice sheet and ocean provides only moderate delay to ice sheet disintegration and a burst of added global warming. Recent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions place the Earth perilously close to dramatic climate change that could run out of our control, with great dangers for humans and other creatures. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the largest human-made climate forcing, but other trace constituents are also important. Only intense simultaneous efforts to slow CO2 emissions and reduce non-CO2 forcings can keep climate within or near the range of the past million years. The most important of the non-CO2 forcings is methane (CH4), as it causes the second largest human-made GHG climate forcing and is the principal cause of increased tropospheric ozone (O3), which is the third largest GHG forcing. Nitrous oxide ( N2O) should also be a focus of climate mitigation efforts. Black carbon (‘black soot’) has a high global warming potential (approx. 2000, 500 and 200 for 20, 100 and 500 years, respectively) and deserves greater attention. Some forcings are especially effective at high latitudes, so concerted efforts to reduce their emissions could preserve Arctic ice, while also having major benefits for human health, agricultural productivity and the global environment.
Geronimo's great-grandson wants bones returned
Geronimo's great-grandson wants bones returnedAP | June 20, 2007SANTA FE, N.M. --Legend has it that Yale University's ultrasecret Skull and Bones society swiped the remains of American Indian leader Geronimo nearly a century ago from an Army outpost in Oklahoma.
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read more | digg story
Humans can justify almost anything
Cognitive dissonance is the extreme emotional discomfort we feel when two important beliefs, attitudes or perceptions collide. Humans cannot tolerate dissonance for long, so they ease the tension by making a change in belief or attitude—and justifying the change.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
US General Says Rumsfeld Allowed Abu Ghraib Torture
A New Yorker article is raising uncomfortable questions for the White House about what President Bush knew about the horrific abuse at Abu Ghraib, and when he knew it. General Taguba says Donald Rumsfeld has always known about the torture at Abu Ghraib and that the same policy was used in Guantanamo.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Monday, June 18, 2007
General Antonio Taguba investigated Abu Ghraib, became a casualty
The General’s Report: How Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib scandal, became one of its casualties - by Seymour M. Hersh, The New Yorker, 25 Jun 2007
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read more | digg story
Saturday, June 16, 2007
Information and Black Swans
Shannon defined information received in a message as the logarithm of the inverse probabilty of the message. If the Sun comes tomorrow, the probability of that event is close to one, the inverse probability is also close to one, so the information received is close to zero.
A Black Swan has a low probabilty of occurrence , almost zero; so the inverse of that number is close to infinity and likewise with the logarithm. These low probabilty events could have a big impact, like the the collapse of the World Trade Building on September 11, 2001.
Shannon's definition does not incorporate the consequences of the event happening, he worked for the American Telephone and Telegraph company, his bosses did not care about the consequences of the message, only with the faithfullness with which their system would deliver the message, any message.
One could define a new measurement of probability that takes into account consquences, in this measure, Black Swans are heavy.
A Black Swan has a low probabilty of occurrence , almost zero; so the inverse of that number is close to infinity and likewise with the logarithm. These low probabilty events could have a big impact, like the the collapse of the World Trade Building on September 11, 2001.
Shannon's definition does not incorporate the consequences of the event happening, he worked for the American Telephone and Telegraph company, his bosses did not care about the consequences of the message, only with the faithfullness with which their system would deliver the message, any message.
One could define a new measurement of probability that takes into account consquences, in this measure, Black Swans are heavy.
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
This Lebanon born thinker recently published the book "The Black Swan". He defines events of low probability and high consequence as Black Swans, besides, once they occurred most of us think that we understand them.
It seems to me that what he has discovered is the way our mind handles the external world. This way of thinking was more useful in the past when things did not happen as fast as now nor were of the high variety of types that cross our lives these days.
It may be possible to re-tune our brains to this new world. If I can re-tune my mind, I will write it here how.
It seems to me that what he has discovered is the way our mind handles the external world. This way of thinking was more useful in the past when things did not happen as fast as now nor were of the high variety of types that cross our lives these days.
It may be possible to re-tune our brains to this new world. If I can re-tune my mind, I will write it here how.
Tuesday, June 12, 2007
GZK Puzzle
Professor Sokolsky from the University of Utah claims today in an article published at the Los Alamos Electronic Archive, that the GZK puzzle has been solved.
The puzzle is that events that should not have happened seemed to have happened.
Now with better equipment, like the AUGER Observatory in Argentina, there is no puzzle. High Energy Cosmic Rays have a cutoff around 1019 eV, as predicted by Greisen, Zatsepin, and Kuzmin, more than forty years ago.
The puzzle is that events that should not have happened seemed to have happened.
Now with better equipment, like the AUGER Observatory in Argentina, there is no puzzle. High Energy Cosmic Rays have a cutoff around 1019 eV, as predicted by Greisen, Zatsepin, and Kuzmin, more than forty years ago.
Pierre Sokolsky New submissions for Tue, 12 Jun 07
While it appears that the GZK puzzle has now been set to rest, the underlying questions are as urgent and burning as ever: what are the sources of UHE cosmic rays, what is the nature of the acceleration mechanism and what is the composition of the particles? Tantalizing hints of point sources have begun to appear in the last decade. Significant measurements of anisotropy, both on large and small scales, seem just within reach. The new generation of detectors, with order of magnitude larger sensitivities and excellent angular resolution should make a great impact in this area.
Sunday, June 10, 2007
Auger Report for Mérida 2007
The Pierre Auger Observatory is located in the province of Mendoza in western Argentina (35.5o S, 69.3o W). Construction will be complete at the end of 2007, but production data have been collected by the growing observatory since January 2004. At the time of writing,over 1200 of the 1600 water Cherenkov particle detector tanks have been deployed on a 1.5 km triangular grid [1] (Figure 1). Each surface detector (SD) tank contains 12 tonnes of water (10 m2 area), and each is equipped with local digitizing electronics (400 MHz sampling rate), solar power, GPS receiver and a radio communication system[2]. The final fluorescence detector (FD) site came into operation in February 2007 on the northern edge of the SD array. Now four sites view the atmosphere above the array, with each site consisting of 6 Schmidt telescopes, a design chosen for improved optical performance. The telescopes each have a field of view of approximately 30o × 30o ,mirror area of 12 m2, aperture area of 3.8 m2 and 440 hexagonal pixels of 1.5o diameter. Pixel signals are digitized with 100 MHz sampling [2].
GED Graduation
I met a neighbor from Mexico City here in Illinois yesterday. He moved here in 1992, I in 1998. He got his High School Diploma, I was there to see the result of my volunteer work.
Everybody that has finished the program studies conscientiously. I hope more of them come in the future.
Also this week President Bush abandoned his immigration bill, now millions of workers have to keep working without the protection of the law. One can argue that since they did not asked for it, that since they forfeited their rights by braking the law, they do not deserve better conditions. I myself don't think so. Life is complicated and what we observe at this point is not only their fault.
In any case if any of the GED graduates is not here legally, I hope that their employers will pay them more now that they have proven themselves as students.
Everybody that has finished the program studies conscientiously. I hope more of them come in the future.
Also this week President Bush abandoned his immigration bill, now millions of workers have to keep working without the protection of the law. One can argue that since they did not asked for it, that since they forfeited their rights by braking the law, they do not deserve better conditions. I myself don't think so. Life is complicated and what we observe at this point is not only their fault.
In any case if any of the GED graduates is not here legally, I hope that their employers will pay them more now that they have proven themselves as students.
Saturday, June 09, 2007
As Immigration Plan Folded, Grass Roots Roared
WASHINGTON, Mich., June 8 — The undoing of the immigration bill in the Senate this week had many players, but none more effective than angry voters like Monique Thibodeaux, who joined a nationwide campaign to derail it.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
AGASA v.s. AUGER
The 30th International Cosmic Ray Conference is scheduled for next month in Mérida, Yucatán, México.
A Japenese group has claimed very high energy cosmic ray particles above the energy calculated more than thirty years ago as a limit for these energies. AGASA has reported particles with energies bigger than 6x1019 eV. This if true, is a great discovery, because based on everything we know should not happen.
Nevertheless after more than one year of observations, the Auger International Collaboration has not seen any of these particles on their detectors in Argentina.
Which group is right?
It may be too soon to tell, very likely there will be some argumentation in Mérida, but for now I can say that finally, Argentina, México, and other Third World countries are making their voice heard in the international arena.
A Japenese group has claimed very high energy cosmic ray particles above the energy calculated more than thirty years ago as a limit for these energies. AGASA has reported particles with energies bigger than 6x1019 eV. This if true, is a great discovery, because based on everything we know should not happen.
Nevertheless after more than one year of observations, the Auger International Collaboration has not seen any of these particles on their detectors in Argentina.
Which group is right?
It may be too soon to tell, very likely there will be some argumentation in Mérida, but for now I can say that finally, Argentina, México, and other Third World countries are making their voice heard in the international arena.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Science for the New Millenium
I am a scientist. The Universe makes sense to me more than it did thirty years ago. I am interested in politics, but my judgment in that area has not been good. I thought that neo-liberal policies were good for poor countries, I did not expect the collapse of those ideas as we are witnessing now in Mexico and South America. Instead of Mexico being more competitive due to the North American Free Trade Agreement, now China has more of the market planned for Mexico than Mexico does. Nevertheless I feel more satisfied with my understanding of the physical Universe now than I was in 1977.
Now I see that climate change is likely due to human intervention. I saw the rivers of Mexico turned into sewage channels. I see the importance and the uniqueness of the human history for the future evolution of the Earth. I hope I can act on this knowledge and do my part in saving the Earth.
Now I see that climate change is likely due to human intervention. I saw the rivers of Mexico turned into sewage channels. I see the importance and the uniqueness of the human history for the future evolution of the Earth. I hope I can act on this knowledge and do my part in saving the Earth.
John Perkins
I am reading "The Secret History of the American Empire"
In general I do not like conspiracy theories, because even if true, they are useless to promote change.
Nevertheless this seems better; his description of the Latin American recent history besides been true, does describe a situation of hope. This can turn the American conspirators into well known criminals in those countries, and maybe the American Indians there can get rid of them.
Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa, give me hope that the needed changes in South America are starting.
In general I do not like conspiracy theories, because even if true, they are useless to promote change.
Nevertheless this seems better; his description of the Latin American recent history besides been true, does describe a situation of hope. This can turn the American conspirators into well known criminals in those countries, and maybe the American Indians there can get rid of them.
Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales, and Rafael Correa, give me hope that the needed changes in South America are starting.
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
Is the World a Slow Burning Flame?
Yes.
What matters to me, and I guess my readers, is when does the flame go away?
This is the 64 million dollar question.
I do not know when our civilization will end.
What matters to me, and I guess my readers, is when does the flame go away?
This is the 64 million dollar question.
I do not know when our civilization will end.
From Lucent to Lucifer through a Slow Burnig Flame
Why was I let go from Lucent? Were the Masons the founders of the US? Am I a slowly burning flame?
The word Lucent has Latin roots, light in Spanish is luz. Lucifer has similar roots, and some Masons believe in more than one acting god in the Universe, one of them would be Lucifer. Lucifer is a Latin word meaning "light-bearer".
From Wikipedia we can read:
"Freemasonry and Luciferianism
Freemasons have been accused by various Christian organizations of worshipping Lucifer, despite the fact that Freemasonry does not consider itself religion, and has members from many religions including Christianity. This theory originates with the famous Taxil hoax perpetrated by Léo Taxil, who had himself been expelled from Freemasonry within months of joining. According to the hoax, leading Freemason Albert Pike had addressed "The 23 Supreme Confederated Councils of the world" (Taxil's invention), instructing them that Lucifer was God, and was in opposition to the evil god Adonai. Taxil also promoted a book by Diana Vaughan (actually written by him) that purported to reveal a highly secret ruling body called the Palladium which controlled the organisation and had a Satanic agenda. As described by Freemasonry Disclosed in 1897:
With frightening cynicism, the miserable person we shall not name here [Taxil] declared before an assembly especially convened for him that for twelve years he had prepared and carried out to the end the most sacrilegious of hoaxes. We have always been careful to publish special articles concerning Palladism and Diana Vaughan. We are now giving in this issue a complete list of these articles, which can now be considered as not having existed.[3]
Despite the fraud having been revealed for over a century, Pike's spurious address and other details of the hoax continue to be quoted by anti-masonic groups.[4]
Arthur Edward Waite wrote an exposé of this hoax, titled Devil-Worship in France. Waite produces evidence that this was what today we would call a tabloid story, replete with logical and factual inconsistencies.
[3] Freemasonry Disclosed April 1897
[4] Leo Taxil: The tale of the Pope and the Pornographer. Retrieved on 14 September 2006."
The burning flame metaphor in this note has to do with my belief that all of us are slowly burning flames. We are born, we slowly burn, and then we die, just like a flame disappearing.
From Lucent to Lucifer through a Slow Burnig Flame
Here I try to put these three disparate ideas together.
Lucent is no more. Now there is a French company called Alcatel-Lucent that took over. I was not needed anymore. I worked there for three years, and have not worked in telecommunications since 2001. Freemasons might have founded the US, and I do benefit from the privileges of a permanent US residency. I am still slowly burning and I hope to accomplish something before I puff away.
Lucent, the US, and I may disappear in this unstable Universe of us. Nevertheless I believe that something was there before we appeared, and will still be there once we are gone.
That something, for lack of a better name I call Information.
The word Lucent has Latin roots, light in Spanish is luz. Lucifer has similar roots, and some Masons believe in more than one acting god in the Universe, one of them would be Lucifer. Lucifer is a Latin word meaning "light-bearer".
From Wikipedia we can read:
"Freemasonry and Luciferianism
Freemasons have been accused by various Christian organizations of worshipping Lucifer, despite the fact that Freemasonry does not consider itself religion, and has members from many religions including Christianity. This theory originates with the famous Taxil hoax perpetrated by Léo Taxil, who had himself been expelled from Freemasonry within months of joining. According to the hoax, leading Freemason Albert Pike had addressed "The 23 Supreme Confederated Councils of the world" (Taxil's invention), instructing them that Lucifer was God, and was in opposition to the evil god Adonai. Taxil also promoted a book by Diana Vaughan (actually written by him) that purported to reveal a highly secret ruling body called the Palladium which controlled the organisation and had a Satanic agenda. As described by Freemasonry Disclosed in 1897:
With frightening cynicism, the miserable person we shall not name here [Taxil] declared before an assembly especially convened for him that for twelve years he had prepared and carried out to the end the most sacrilegious of hoaxes. We have always been careful to publish special articles concerning Palladism and Diana Vaughan. We are now giving in this issue a complete list of these articles, which can now be considered as not having existed.[3]
Despite the fraud having been revealed for over a century, Pike's spurious address and other details of the hoax continue to be quoted by anti-masonic groups.[4]
Arthur Edward Waite wrote an exposé of this hoax, titled Devil-Worship in France. Waite produces evidence that this was what today we would call a tabloid story, replete with logical and factual inconsistencies.
[3] Freemasonry Disclosed April 1897
[4] Leo Taxil: The tale of the Pope and the Pornographer. Retrieved on 14 September 2006."
The burning flame metaphor in this note has to do with my belief that all of us are slowly burning flames. We are born, we slowly burn, and then we die, just like a flame disappearing.
From Lucent to Lucifer through a Slow Burnig Flame
Here I try to put these three disparate ideas together.
Lucent is no more. Now there is a French company called Alcatel-Lucent that took over. I was not needed anymore. I worked there for three years, and have not worked in telecommunications since 2001. Freemasons might have founded the US, and I do benefit from the privileges of a permanent US residency. I am still slowly burning and I hope to accomplish something before I puff away.
Lucent, the US, and I may disappear in this unstable Universe of us. Nevertheless I believe that something was there before we appeared, and will still be there once we are gone.
That something, for lack of a better name I call Information.
Secret History of American Empire (or Why They Really Hate Us)
John Perkins is back with a new book on the heels of his best-seller "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man." Amy Goodman interviews him for the better part of the hour. It's a very informative discussion that I wish the average American would see and comprehend.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Mexican Court’s Media Ruling Shows Support for Competition
In a defeat for Mexico’s television duopoly, the Supreme Court struck down crucial provisions of a media law on Tuesday, sending a clear message in favor of greater economic competition.
read more | digg story
read more | digg story
Televisa
Yesterday these Mexican rich kids lost one battle. They think they own the country. Two names that come to mind are, Emilio Azcárraga Jean, and Bernardo Gómez Martínez. The Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional some of the main parts of the law recently enacted in the Mexican Congress and Senate, to regulate Mexican media.
Mexico is separated along economic classes more than it appears to happen here in the US. These officers of Televisa are as Americans or European as many in this country, but they do not leave Mexico because they own the place, almost. Azcárraga's mother is French, and he studied here in the US. The majority of Mexicans are of mixed race, American Indian and European.
Mexico demonstrated yesterday that it is a democratic country.
Mexico is separated along economic classes more than it appears to happen here in the US. These officers of Televisa are as Americans or European as many in this country, but they do not leave Mexico because they own the place, almost. Azcárraga's mother is French, and he studied here in the US. The majority of Mexicans are of mixed race, American Indian and European.
Mexico demonstrated yesterday that it is a democratic country.
Tuesday, June 05, 2007
Nostalgia
Today I went to a community college nearby to sign my contract to teach mathematics to high school students during the summer.
While I was walking through campus, the humid and fresh air reminded me when I was at Santa Barbara in the early seventies. Everything about the US was new to me and I liked it so much.
Today I felt a little bit as thirty four years ago when I first set foot in this great country.
No classes tomorrow. I will miss my students a little.
While I was walking through campus, the humid and fresh air reminded me when I was at Santa Barbara in the early seventies. Everything about the US was new to me and I liked it so much.
Today I felt a little bit as thirty four years ago when I first set foot in this great country.
No classes tomorrow. I will miss my students a little.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Grading
Finals were not successful. Only ten percent or less did as I expected. The rest were not into it. It was not different when I taught college, but somehow I feel more responsible for younger people, I had more power over them than I used.
Next time.
Next time.
Saturday, June 02, 2007
Friday, June 01, 2007
I'm Going to Miss those Kids!
My class at the high school this year was a mixed bag. There was a student that aced the final, in a class with several bad students. I am glad that that student learned.
Some other kids do not have discipline, they could've done better.
I will miss them all!
I told a few, that they have to finish high school. I got an understanding look back. I hope they listen.
Some other kids do not have discipline, they could've done better.
I will miss them all!
I told a few, that they have to finish high school. I got an understanding look back. I hope they listen.
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