Plans by the Many

Dr. Ioannidis, chair in disease prevention at Stanford, thinks that our public health planners lack perspective. They have been working very hard to optimize one small problem, slowing the spread of COVID-19. But have very little consideration for other problems, like preserving livelihoods, continuing medical care, mental health, quality of life or mass starvation.

Even on COVID-19, they are focused on slowing transmission but show no indication they have an end goal in mind. How do we bring this to a close?

FEE relates this to the big and recurring principle raised by Hayek: do we want one plan made by an expert or a thousand plans made by individuals and small groups?

The Original Earth Day

Whew! If you think the future is bad now, be glad it isn't 1970.

Thirteen predictions* from Earth Day, 1970.

(more Earth Day predictions: Simon and Ehrlich's famous bet)
*(Apr'17) Mark Perry says: eighteen.

Living in a Time of Wonders

Note that 1970 is just about exactly when your average North American decided that world poverty was a hopeless problem. 1990 was when international socialism collapsed.
Sept'16-Dierdre McCloskey hazards a guess as to why.

Poison-injecting robot submarines

Queensland University of Technology has developed an autonomous, poison-injecting robot submarine to kill sea stars and save coral reefs.

The 21st century is upon us and autonomous assassination robots are here.

The Amazing New Space-Age Material is ...Wood?

OK, not exactly wood. If you take wood and extract cellulose, then extract from that nanocrystalline cellulose, you get a fiber that is as strong as steel but as light as water (1/3 as heavy as aluminum.)

Fusion Comes Together

I see two big headlines in the fusion world currently. Both of them rely on the idea of producing energy in pulses. The biggest project in the world, ITER, continually squeezes hydrogen until it fuses, then continuously removes the waste while continuously supplying more fuel. These smaller, private organizations hold the fuel in place magnetically and compress it with a pulse of mechanical inertia. Dan Gelbart (Laberge's boss when he was hatching his plan) used to say that innovative technologies proceed in batches and efficient development moves toward continuous processes.

Steam Punk Fusion

General Fusion's innovation is that they crowd-sourced the solution to a tricky sealing problem. Progress seems to be proceeding according to the plan they boasted of three years ago: break-even* will be achieved in 2016 with viable power plant construction in the 2017-2022 range.

Helion Energy's big announcement is that it has raised $11 million and will raise $21M on the stock market. They claim they'll build a break-even machine in 2016! and a commercially viable machine in 2019! The final machine will be the size of a Mack truck, will produce 50 MW of power and will burn a combination of hydrogen (deuterium) and helium (He-3).

Helion spun off from this firm that wants to make fusion rocket engines.

*break-even (aka net-gain) means that it produces more energy in the fusion reaction than it takes to squeeze the atoms together.

The Key to Understanding the World

In 1958, Leonard Read wrote a couple of pages on the seemingly mundane subject of how to make a pencil. “I, Pencil”, though an essay, works like Robert Frost's idea of a poem: it “begins in delight and ends in wisdom.”

If you had all the elements of a pencil right in front of you, could you make a pencil? It's not as easy as you might think. In fact, no single person on the face of the earth could do it without the help of countless others. And this is the key to understanding the world.

Here is a video adaptation.

A Little Airline Attempt at Green Redemption

This is an interesting claim that it takes more energy to drive than to fly. No doubt the devil is in the details. And not all the details are clearly stated.

For example, I doubt if the associated costs of air travel are included: driving to the airport, building an airport and parking lot, handling baggage, training airline staff. Should the energy of manufacture of cars and airplanes be included? I am making it awfully complex, but pretty clearly the details favor the car.

It is also based on the average types of trips taken. Cars log most of their miles on short trips with single occupants. This is a worst-case scenario for cars (ridiculously so for airplanes. No-one flies to the corner store. Hardly anyone flies an airplane solo.) The conclusion that airplanes are a more efficient means of doing a car's transportation doesn't follow.

Even so, the progress is evocative. It prompts some interesting questions. How long does a trip need to be to make a plane more efficient? What if the car had two occupants? ...three? ...five? ...seven? How long can the trend continue?

Mining Opportunities in the New Frontier

Whether in South America, California, the Yukon or Fort MacMurray, Mining has always been a challenging and rewarding opportunity for ambitious youth.


Last week, the US congress decided that any material recovered from an asteroid belongs to the people that recovered it. In other words, asteroid mining is legal. Now, by all appearances, asteroid mining is real. (Sept'14)

Update (Oct'14): How mining might work 

(Nov'15): The senate passes a bill.

Environment Leaping Forward, If...

The earth's natural environment keeps getting better at supporting life, especially human life.Thanks to new technology we are about to make major progress in carbon emissions, medical science and relief for the poor. The progress would be felt first on this continent. Then, once the technology is common and established, it will be practical for the third world as well.

The problem is that there is an entrenched group of influential and politically connected people who, fearing a loss in their current privilege, obstruct progress.

Making a Lush, Green Planet

Increased CO2 is helping plants grow around the planet. It seems that there are two effects at play. CO2 is good for plants, a type of fertilizer. CO2 also helps plants use water more efficiently. A third effect of CO2 is on rainfall. This one is so far unresolved: many models (and nearly all the press) predict that a hotter planet will be dry. Others (and the evidence so far) say that warmer means wetter. Beyond dispute, is that so far the increase in carbon has correlated to a greener planet.

Update (Nov23'14) Test are coming in improved photosynthesis mechanisms. Cyanobacteria are related to C4. I'm not sure about the High Yield Rice.

Scientist with the Greatest Legacy?

The greatest impact on the world of science would have to go to Newton, possibly Bacon or Aristotle. The greatest benefit to mankind from scientific work? I guess that would be Norman Borlaug.

Who?

Borlaug was a farmer and a researcher into farming practices. His main idea was to adapt the best practices of the western farmer to the third world: first Mexico, then Pakistan and India. His most famous work was to breed a "semi-dwarf" wheat that could be grown strong and full without growing too tall, then falling over and rotting.

In doing so, he allowed millions of people to live who would have starved to death, probably hundreds of millions. He may have saved more lives than were taken by Mao, Stalin, Hitler and Pol Pot, combined. In the early 70's, the smart set had agreed that mass starvation was a fact of life that could only get worse. Intellectual discussions were how to manage the suffering.

Even as they published, Borlaug had already proven the technology and was implementing the green revolution.

Norman Borlaug passed away three years ago, today. He was 95.

(Or this video has a little more technical content)

Operation Red Flag

48 min IMAX video of modern dogfight simulation.
Inspired? Flight Simulators: Flight Gear, YS Flight Simulator (works will on slower computers), Microsoft Flight Simulator X (Demo or paid versions), or X-Plane (the best?)