Category Archives: Bohemian

Thus Begins Cold War II

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Russia celebrated a holiday recently with a large scale military parade on Red Square. Just like the bad old days. Putins sock puppet, President Dmitri Medvedev, smiled while Putin stood stern-faced at his side at the annual Parade of Hardware.  Insiders claim that Russia’s effort to modernize its military forces is anemic and plagued with corruption. Putin and followers are plainly appealing to that voice in the Russian soul that longs for strongman leadership.

China, on the other hand, is quietly constructing a secret underground nuclear submarine base on Hainan. Hmmm. A secret underground lair. Sounds like Dr. No.  I doubt there are miniskirted nubiles with machine guns. Bummer.

Whereas Russia is fighting infrastructural inertia in its return to the platform, China is methodically ramping up its military with an economy flush with cash. With funding from its exports of Wal-Mart inventory and other Cheap Plastic Crap (CPC) marketed through its many outlets in the USA, China is moving closer to a blue water Navy and an SSBN fleet.

In the next 20 years, we are likely to see China flexing its muscle by positioning naval (carrier ?) groups and hints of Chinese submarine fleets prowling the continental shelves of the world.  Just like us.

While the USA shadow boxes with multiple terrorist threats around the world, China plods forward minding its own business and funding its own growth.

Four US presidential terms were squandered following the fall of the Soviet Union- 2 x Clinton and 2 x Bush.  US efforts to engage Russia in economic cooperation were weak at best. The highlight was perhaps the downgrading of Soviet era nuclear materials.  Instead of building friendships and trade cooperation, US presidents were distracted by faulty nation building exercises and dubious foreign adventures. Mikhail Gorbachev himself recently lamented that “… every US president has to have a war…”. 

US government needs to spend a 4 year term focused inwards. We must address US infrastructure as eagerly and aggressively as we land troops on the sandy reaches of the earth. The US needs an upgrade in electrical power distribution, bridges, its rail “system”, and its ports.

Collectively, we must find ways to keep factories and businesses in the USA. We need to reconsider the structure of the Code of Federal Regulations. Our regulatory structure is now so complex and extensive that we face the real risk of killing innovation. Our tax code is too complex and too burdensome on citizens and businesses. The government is funding far too many activities.

In short, the USA must get back to basics. The country is in a existential crisis and we need to get grounded again. We need fewer rules in our lives, not more. We need fewer people telling us how to live an authentic life. More of us need to spend a bit more time in the pursuit of happiness.

A Fly in the Ointment. A Chemist Among the Astronomers.

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This is a re-post of a 2008 seminar I attended by speaker Dr. Carolyn Porco.

28 April, 2008. University of Colorado at Boulder.  Dr. Carolyn Porco of the Space Science Institute gave a public lecture at CU Boulder on the highlights of the Cassini Mission to Saturn. Porco gives a lively presentation and- dare I say it- is mildly charismatic. The website of the imaging group, ciclops.org, is quite well done and even includes downloads of many of the papers from the team. The paper on Enceladus is particularly interesting.

As a chemist sitting anonymously in a crowd of space science enthusiasts and professionals, I cannot help but compare the tenor of the experience to my own field of chemistry.

Space science people are funded in proportion to the general public enthusiasm for space.  The universe is big. Really, really big. And it is full of breathtaking scenery and wondrous objects. Space science almost always causes people to experience a deeply emotional sense of awe and wonder. This has not been lost on the space science community. The display of majestic photos with a bit of space music in the background goes a long way to rally public support.

Chemistry on the other hand, rarely induces this kind of raw response from the limbic system.  Whereas chemistry induces shock, astronomy induces awe.

The most common exhortation made on exposure to the chemical sciences is “How in the hell am I going to pass this course?”

Students take intro to astronomy classes as an enjoyable way to get their science credits. Students take chemistry because they have to. We all know this. Science aversion is even more extreme for the poor sots in physics.

The SI unit for humility is the “sagan”.  Public astronomy talks usually have a high sagan factor. I would estimate last nights talk was 8.5 out of 10 sagans.

Of particular interest to Porco was the Saturnian moon Enceladus. This moon has substantial water on it with evidence of “tectonic” activity on the uncratered surface. On closer inspection, it is apparent that this body is spewing water into space with fair vigor. Indeed, a vapor torus of water tracing the orbit can be seen on some of the images. The suggestion is that there may be liquid water under a water ice crust. IR images show hot spots that coincide with surface fissures on Enceladus.  This moon would be a good place to land some drilling equipment.

Porco spoke of the hope of eventually finding life on Enceladus or on Jupiter’s Europa. She suggested that this would finally “break the spell” and allow the assumption that life may be relatively common on worlds with liquid water.

What this kind of planetary exploration affords are insights into the evolution of planets and ultimately, what circumstances are likely and necessary for the ignition of life.  But the circumstances that promote life formation are chemical in nature. The origin of life is not an astronomical problem. It is a chemical network problem and for that we need the involvement of chemists.

Good Morning, NOLA. Pass Me Some Advil.

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The math of Bourbon Street is painfully evident this morning. 1 Hurricane = 1 hangover. The sliders with the hot peppers didn’t help, either. I should probably start thinking about chemistry again. Bourbon Street is a very naughty place. The prospect of beads can cause ordinarily prudent people to expose their anatomy. A fellow can get into serious trouble here.

Speaking of pain, I’m reminded of a recent dinner conversation with an astrophysicist. This fellow is a senior player in the astrophysics circuit. He has been involved in the development and use of many “science packages” that are now hurtling through the vacuum of space.

Like physicists often do, he took delight in reminding me that chemistry is derived from physics. When asked why a chemist was interested in astronomy, I blurted out that I thought there was a goodly bit of chemistry happening in the universe and much for a chemist to try to understand. Between bites of beef medallions and the chomping of his bearded jowls, he shot a patronizing glance over his glasses at me and suggested that it was all ultimately physics. 

Ah, a reductionist! Not wanting to make a scene, I let this comment float into the ether where it belonged. But I would offer that if one had a headache and needed to wait for a physicist to invent and make some aspirin, you’d still be waiting.

The Corporation

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LinkTV has been running a documentary called The Corporation. I find it rather thought provoking and would recommend it to others.

The quote that sticks with me is from a business ethics seminar I took. Our prof said “sometimes it is dumb to be too smart” in business.  Witness the pesent banking disaster.  Some of our B-school geniuses have devised instruments of finance that are so convoluted and complex that the mechanism and magnitude of failure was not widely appreciated.

What has always puzzled me is that conservatives who profess open scorn and distrust of big government are somehow able to accept the privatized power of big business.  Big government extracts the wealth of our labor and disperses it in ways that are not economically efficient. But at least there are constitutional means of remedy.  If you do not like the way a business operates, you are free to quit buying their widgets.

Big business extracts wealth from labor and resources and disperses it to shareholders.  Government pays for national infrastructure to support business activity and business practices tax avoidance. Government has gotten too big and business has learned to game the tax system.  Taxpayers are left to subsidize both big government and corporate welfare.  The system is wildly out of balance.

The essence of power is in the ability to allocate resources. Governments and businesses are centralized organizations that have large resources to allocate. Consumers are dispersed and disorganized units that have microscopic resources to allocate.  The consumers biggest leverage is the ability to make politicians fearful with respect to their re-election prospects.

And then I woke up

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And it came to pass that a Being appeared to Th’ Gaussling one afternoon in the laboratory. But this was not a Being in the league of the Angel Michael or Gabriel. This was a somewhat lesser Being. Call him “Ed”. 

While Th’ Gaussling was tending to some matter in the lab, the Being Ed made his presence known by speaking through the vacuum line.

“Gauss-ling“, hissed the disembodied voice through the Buchner filter.

Gaussling startled, dropping a few grams of precious crystals on the benchtop, and looked in full circle around him trying to find the source of the voice.  Puzzled, Gaussling stood still for a few moments listening for more sound and then, with a shrug, began to clean up the mess.

“Gaussling, I’m down here” said the voice, a bit more impatiently. “Set the spatula down and look in the filter”.

Sensing a practical joke, Gaussling replied sarcastically “Bugger off! I’m busy. Buncha NIM-rods …”.

With unmistakable urgency, the voice commanded “Look in the Filter!” At that moment, the vacuum pump changed its sound to a quiet tap-tap-tap, indicating that the pressure had dropped. The mercury column in the manometer collapsed and the pump noise became just a whisper.

Gaussling promptly stopped what he was doing and leaned towards the Buchner filter while scanning sideways for pranksters. But the room was empty and the voice had a decidedly raspy edge to it now. As Gaussling peered into the filter he noticed that a voice appeared to eminate from the vibrating filter paper. As the funnel spoke, crystal fragments danced across the flat paper like rice on a snare drum. Gaussling froze and couldn’t manage a breath.

“What do you want?”, Gaussling gasped.  “How can this be happening? Who are you?”

“You may call me Ed. Some of your kind have referred to my species as ‘Angel’ “, Ed replied matter-of-factly. “I think you’ll find that description to be inaccurate.” 

At that moment Ed apparated beside Gaussling in front of the fume hood. There was a rattling pop and the crackle of static discharge with a brown puff of nitrogen dioxide and ozone. Disconcertingly to the traveler, this type of conveyance caused the accumulation of static charge. Gaussling momentarily wondered how many Coulombs of static an Angel could withstand, but then snapped back to matter at hand. 

Still quite shocked, Th’ Gaussling managed to squeek out a few questions. “How did you do that? Where are you from? What do you mean by Angel?”

Ed was always annoyed with such questions. The gosh-wow-sense-of-wonder reaction from these creatures wore thin after a while. As Ed took a moment to adapt to the atmosphere and the pressure, Gaussling looked up and down at the visitor.  It was apparently a he from the outward mannerisms and dress.  Gaussling wouldn’t push the issue of gender right away.

“Dear fellow” Ed said in an impatient and distinctly British tone, “would you kindly relax and set that bottle down? I need to speak with you.  I’m only able to stay for a moment. This kind of travel causes extreme parity violations in the cosmos and is possible only by rather large energy consumption elsewhere, not to mention great discomfort for me.”

“So, you’re Ed? ” Gaussling said awkwardly. “What are you doing here?”

“I have a gift for you,” Ed replied in a matter of fact tone and reached inside his vest. “In fact, here it is.”

Ed pulled out a small vial that appeared to be of glass construction. At the bottom of the glass vial was a powder. It was unremarkable in every way and initially resembled ten thousand other colorless powders.

Ed held up the small vial and grinned. “See, here it is. Oh, my my my. You are going to be very amused.” He could barely contain his glee. Ed held the vial up toward the light but now the powder appeared somewhat different. Gaussling thought he saw a faint iridescent glint to it. A flash of a shimmer of spectrum against the cold fluorescent lights.

“I have come a long distance to give this to you. It is a substance capable of great wonders for those with the curiosity and wisdom to use it properly. But it is also capable of doing great harm. Soon you will see.”

Gaussling stood there, attentive but unable to utter a single word. After a few moments, Gaussling sputtered “What does it do?” 

Ed stood for a moment and then gushed with great delight, “I though you’d never ask. Get me a flask with some liquid in it, any liquid.”

Gaussling grabbed a 250 mL beaker and splashed a bit of acetone in it- 50 mL or so. Gaussling handed the beaker to Ed.

“Gaussling, I am going to put a single crystal of this substance into your liquid. Watch …” And with that fluorish, Ed expertly shook a single crystal of this substance into the beaker. The result was immediate and spectacular.

As Gaussling watched in amazement, the list of uses washed over his mind like a storm surge over a levee.  “How can this be happening?” Gaussling gasped.

Shermer’s “Mind of the Market”

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Google has been posting a series of interesting talks by contemporary authors. This talk is by Michael Shermer, author of Mind of the Market, and editor of the popular magazine Skeptic. It is a lengthy 53 minute video, but I would highly recommend it. I think Shermer has a good grasp on the anthropology of our present world.

This is off-topic, but useful. This link gives a bunch of really good hints on how to save money for your start-up company.

Send your Gluteal Scan to the FBI

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It is hard to believe with all of the “good” news lately that the US gvernment is on our side. The Bush II Y2009 budget proposal comes in at a stunning $3.1 Trillion against an estimated $2.5 Trillion in receipts.

The FBI wants to collect biometric data on US citizens. It wasn’t clear to me as to whether they want to collect this data as law abiding citizens go about their business at airports with iris scans and electronic fingerprints, or if they will limit the effort to people taken into custody.  In any case, the notion of our government collecting ever more data on its citizens should bring chills to everyone.  It is all about control. Once taken, never returned.

I, for one, would be only too happy to fax a photocopy of my biometric gluteal cleft to the FBI to post wherever it suits them. It shines like a mackerel in the moonlight. In fact, there is a protest movement I could get on board with- The Million Man Moon on Washington.

The Customs and Border Patrol agency has proposed the new “10 + 2” rule which should be a real delite to deal with. We’re already scrambling to figure out what the hell this means for the purchasing people.  Lots of detailed info will have to be timed properly to keep things moving through customs.  It’s going to be a big mess and the only benefit will be that the government will collect more duties.

Chinese Cyberwar and US Interests

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An intelligence report posted by International Relations and Security Network (ISN) at the Center for Security Studies at ETH in Zurich reveals what appears to be a widening and systematic program of cyber attacks on US government data infrastructure by elements within the military organ of China.

Rachel Kesselman at ISN Security Watch writes-

According to a 2006 US Defense Department report, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) began developing information warfare reserves and militia units in 2005, often incorporating them into broader exercises and training. The establishment of this elite Chinese unit is evident by a likely increase in sophisticated attacks on high-risk targets.

Reports in Chinese newspapers also suggest that the Chinese are actively attempting to establish a cybermilitia. A Time Magazine article entitled “Enemies at The Firewall” purports that the military has put forth a concerted effort to carry out nationwide recruiting campaigns in hopes of discovering the country’s most brilliant hackers. 

Like so many Americans, I live in a bubble. The extent and brazenness of the activity reported by ISN and other sources only serves to stimulate the paranoid cortex of my brain.

What seems likely is that most nations are engaged in systematic probing of the data resources of the upper tier states. Chinese enthusiasm for this activity may or may not be exceptional among the nuclear states. Certainly, computer spycraft is nothing new and that China practices it shouldn’t be a surprise.

Henry Kissinger once remarked that nation states do not have friends. They only act in parallel with states having similar interests. In this vein, we should not be lulled into thinking that China, or any other state for that matter, is our friend. China is certainly not our friend. The US is a fountain of wealth that they aim to tap through government backed market activity.

Economic idealogues in the US prattle on tirelessly about the virtues of the free market and the merits of regulatory deconstruction. But on the global scale, markets are unavoidably tied to regulatory constructs as a result of notions about security and dominance.

Just try to get a shipment of anything to China or to South Africa or into the USA. There is no free market. Every single aspect of a transaction is highly regulated or controlled by some apparatus that is highly controlled. Tariff codes, tariffs, shipping reglations, wire transfers, and customs clearance- the reality of a free market barely extends past the canopy of a fruitstand in a farmers market.

I believe that the US should cast off this free market puritanism and act in a manner so as to protect its economic interests. Yes, we’d like to keep as free a market as possible. But American culture, not government, has to be the locus of change. American culture should de-emphasize its fascination with pure wealth and look askance at the sterile detachment many influential businessmen have with regard to their profit motive. We want to be profitable. But we do not want to hand over the keys to our technological toolshed for a quick buck. If we cannot afford to manufacture here, there should be an expectation that we try to innovate around the economic barriers rather than just resort to abandonment.

We should be wary about using the language of friendship with China. This nation has its own sense of where it is headed and has become quite refractory to admonitions and paternalistic brow beatings by the US and others.  It has its own momentum and will do what is in its best interest. Americans should do what is in their best interest as well. That is, avoid trading the farm to foreign interests who have much more discipline with their attention span. 

America’s Achilles heel seems to be the inability to be patient and plan for results over the long term. We live in a NOW culture. Advances in computer technology has only engorged our expectation that we can and should have everything now. The mortgage and credit crises are only the latest examples of this.

American culture has gotten fat and lazy. Our rotund wastelines are only the exterior. Within our culture is a kind of bacchanalian sloth that has drifted like a fog into our collective yard party. Everyone is too busy eating and drinking to notice that the greed-heads have set the house on fire.

Gaussling’s Curio Shop of Links

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Ever notice how the seats in the gate waiting areas at the airport usually have arm rests next to every position? There is a reason for that. The Blog Architectures of Control, Design with Intent is devoted to the design of artifacts in our public spaces that encourage or discourage certain kinds of use. 

The use of the apostrophe is detailed in this site. According to author, yours truly could be an actual moron.

Concerned that the government isn’t adequately monitoring schizophrenics?

I knew that Leonard Euler had a number, but I didn’t know he had a disk too.

Looking for something new in the Vampire genre? Try “the Nymphos of Rocky Flats“. The adventures of Felix Gomez, Vampire and PI.  So far, friends who spent their careers at the Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant near Denver have been strangely neutral on the book. I smell conspiracy.