Here is a link to “Watts Up With That?” This is a very interesting blog on weather related matters. The writer has a very level headed view of climate change. This particular link relates to recent trends in atmospheric water content as a function of altitude (in millibars).
Last night I found myself sitting at a restaurant with astronomers for the occasion of viewing a meteorite. Customarily, a few observatory folk have dinner with the speaker and then we go to the observatory for a public star night. While waiting for our entrees we passed the object carefully amongst ourselves, cherishing a few moments of close contact with this rare object.
Astronomers seem to be prone to public displays of humility. I would estimate that the humility quotient was near 0.8 (8 out of 10 Sagans- the Sagan is the international unit of humility). It is generally agreed that the Buddha achieved a Sagan quotient of unity. Okay, I’m kidding.
The curious 936 gram achondrite is from the recent Berthoud, Colorado, fall. Meteor enthusiasts refer to the arrival of a meteorite as a “fall”. This is one of only 5 witnessed falls in Colorado. A section of the meteor has been cut off and has been the subject of investigation at the University of Arizona.
Based on the composition of the object (olivine, plagioclase, ilmenite, chromite) and based on the reflectance spectra of various asteroids, the Berthoud meteorite is thought to be a fragment of the asteroid Vesta. Imagery of Vesta suggests that a portion of this object may have been shattered by an impact in the past.
The family whose property the stone landed on are somewhat bewildered by the event. They have been the subject of much unwanted attention, so the object is kept secure at an unknown location. In October of 2004, in the early afternoon several family members were standing outside their home when they heard a whistling sound and thump. Following the direction of the sound, they found the impact site less than 100 feet from where they were standing and in a spot where one member had just walked through. Only a small part of the object protruded upward through the disturbed topsoil.
Reportedly, it was cool to the touch immediately after arrival. This is counter-intuitive given the fiery appearance of most meteors. However, the object was quite cold prior to entry into the atmosphere and the rapid transit through the air didn’t allow for heat saturation. And, ablation carries away much of the friction energy.
The low iron object has a dark fusion crust over a grey, mottled composition. Other than the crust, it is not that unusual in its appearance.
The summer 2008 issue of the Lewis & Clark (Vol 12, No. 2) Law Review is dedicated to the matter of nonobviousness in patent law- Business Law Forum: Nonobviousness — The Shape of Things to Come.
The papers are scholarly articles and are very densely written (sorta like some posts in this blog!!). But if you can tolerate that style or are an insomniac, some of the work seems to be worth plowing through.
Nonobviousness is one of the most vexing aspects of patent law. I find that my natural inclinations about what constitutes obviousness are completely inapplicable to patents. Perhaps one day I’ll get it.
Below is a comment that I left on the Volokh Conspiracy some time ago. Rather than squander perfectly good ramblings there, I have reproduced it here and attached a link. Th’ Gaussling
Broadly, we have two kinds of marriage in the USA. One is before a god and the other is before the state. Marriage before a god is a supernatural arrangement that is beyond the scope of this letter.
It would seem that the states compelling interest in marriage is mostly confined to the disposition of debts, assets, and minor children during the marriage and in the event the marriage fails. Married partners have an obligation to the welfare of minor children born to them or adopted. Married partners also have a status that allows for decision-making in critical care situations. It seems to be a kind of partnership whereupon responsibility for the secular aspects of married life are defined. After all, the state is called in to make decisions as to the disposition of civil matters in the event of a divorce. Surely the state can clearly define certain basic responsibilities and privileges in advance.
The moral/spiritual aspects of marriage “can” be interpreted as being perpendicular or orthogonal (like the x and y axes in a graph) to the legal dimension of property rights and other secular aspects of married partners. The state is without supernatural powers, thankfully, so it is inherently impotent in the spiritual dimension. If that is the case, and in the absence of a uniform interpretation of supernatural governance, it should be silent on spiritual matters.
The state should have no interest in how married partners conduct their lawful affairs beyond the normal confines of civil and criminal law.
A code defining the responsibilities of married partners in a variety of configurations could be modeled easily. If you accept the premise that secular marriage is confined to the mundane matters that are already contestable in a court, then it is a simple matter to imagine same sex or plural marriages under the same constraints. What is the compelling interest of the state in barring same sex partners from having automatic authority in giving comfort to a dying partner? We already have codes regulating many other kinds of complex relationships between people- corporations, partnerships, LLC’s, government, etc. Minimally, the state should entertain the prospect of recognizing limited entry of some new definitions of marriage to adult parties wanting to be responsible members of society with the rights and responsibilities thereto appertaining.
German manufacturing culture does many things very well, but a few things particularly stand out. One of these items pertains to the concept of verbund manufacturing. Verbund simply means “integrated” or “linked”. Verbund manufacturing sites are clusters of manufacturing units that take advantage of proximity. Clustering can offer certain logistic and energy advantages if done intelligently.
A cluster of manufacturing sites can operate and share a co-generation plant for the distribution of steam, waste heat, and electricity. Large capital items like steam plants can be shared so funds can be plowed into larger scale for better economy. Rail operations and other transportation resources can be shared as well. Clustering also provides for the possibility of vertically integrated manufacturing on site and a reduction in transportation costs.
Clustered manufacturing may also have the effect of concentrating the supply of skilled workers for the labor pool. A manufacturing nexus can attract community colleges and other vocational opportunities for the next generation of employees.
The USA has many manufacturing sites where similar industries congregate. Look at the Gulf coast with all of the refinery locations. But the extent to which there are synergistic interactions between companies is unclear.
In the US, corporations tend to behave as the Republic of Exxon or the Republic of the Union Pacific. This kind of a fragmented confederation of corporate states is becoming obsolete as we go up against nationalized business entities that control key resources and trade. The key to future vitality is greater efficiency with resources. Synergistic cooperation is one model that is available. But to do this requires trust and the desire to cooperate for mutual benefit. Competition begets gamesmanship and posturing which works against the verbund model for US businesses.
US corporations have much to learn from this business model.
There is tempest in a teapot brewing in regard to the chemical safety of shower curtains. It seems that someone got curious about the composition of the “new shower curtain smell”. The alert has sounded and the troops are scrambling to general quarters. A lurking menace in the bathroom hangs there unnoticed, quietly off-gassing a cruel industrial bouquet of death vapors.
A Google survey of the issue turns up quite a number of hits, all reporting the same meager bowl of gruel. Over 100 toxic chemicals have been detected in the fragrance, they say. It would be interesting to see the actual data.
OK. This is the feedback that the manufacturer needs to reformulate the composition of their product. PVC is extremely useful in manufacturing. But the deal with the devil you have to make if you want durable and flexible PVC is the incorporation of plasticizers. The PVC industry has steadfastly outlived many predictions of its demise. It will outlive this toxic curtain episode as well. However, they will have to address this matter of odor in their products, hazardous or not.
I smell opportunity for manufacturers of other polymers to step in and exploit the fear and loathing over PVC curtains.
It may be foolish to offer an opinion here, but it seems to me that the population at greatest risk are the factory and warehouse workers. They face potentially chronic occupational exposure.
From June 1 to November 30, 2008, manufacturers have the opportunity to register under REACH, the EU program of Registration, Evaluation, and Authorization of Chemicals. Failure to do so may result in having a product banned from the EU. So says Joe Acker, president of the Synthetic Organic Chemicals Manufacturers Association (SOCMA), according to the latest issue of ICIS Chemical Business (June 2-8, 2008, pp 14-15).
Non-EU chemical manufacturers have been slow to realize the effect of REACH regulations. According to the ICIS article, Acker explains that 8,000 to 10,000 chemicals now sold into the EU may be pulled back. The reason is that many low profit specialty products will be discontinued owing to the expense of registration and manpower needed to manage compliance.
EU manufacturers are facing the grim prospect of yet more regulatory compliance expense added to their portfolio of products. This kind of expense only reduces competitiveness for EU manufacturers.
Suppliers who elect to discontinue supply of specialty products will leave users of these materials in need of a new supply or face the shutdown of the end use.
To add to the pain, REACH authorizes the European Chemicals Agency (ECHA) to charge for registration, updates, appeals, and most maddeningly, charge an extra fee for confidential disclosures.
My lament here is not that I am hoping for a chinese night market of chemical sales to the EU. My lament is that REACH seems likely to accelerate the chemical deindustrialization of the EU. The uptick in petrochemical raw material costs unfortunately coincides with the startup of REACH and the paper storm that it will cause. It is very bad timing.
I viewed the new version of The Andromeda Strain recently. The miniseries is directed by brothers Ridley and Tony Scott and was broadcast on A&E. I really like and respect Michael Crichton for the book and the original movie was quite good. And, Ridley Scott is one of my favorite directors.
But this remake is a problem. The production value is excellent and the cinematography is quite inspired in a few places. I couldn’t do better than Ridley Scott, so who am I to complain? But there is the rub. While it is technically competent and visually stimulating, the storyline is a bit … well, I’ll just say it … overwrought. The updated storyline is just too bloody complex. Too many little cul-de-sacs and backstories to keep track of. It has that same manic, runaway train feel as ER. Just like Crichton’s most recent books. I can’t finish them.
Part of the problem with much of contemporary movie making is the persistance of formulaic and over used themes. Tired, threadbare archetypes of reluctant heroes, corrupt politicians, and busty nubiles who are handy with martial arts and firearms. I enjoy watching Angelina Jolie spraying machine gun fire as much as the next guy, but enough! Lets move on to something new.
Which brings me to the latest Indiana Jones movie. This movie proves that even George Lucas is subject to the Peter Principle. The storyline is a patchwork of whatever few baby-boomer oriented euphamisms that haven’t already been hijacked by the trolls at Industrial Light and Magic. It’s a contrived piece of cinema that was apparently designed by MBA’s and industrial psychologists to extract money from your debit card. (But I did enjoy some Milk Duds during the show.)
For Gawd sakes, George, go out back and dig up some of that money you have buried in the back yard and buy a better script next time.
Sunday evening on 60 Minutes on CBS there was a segment on dust explosions. For the most part, it was an expose on the failings of OSHA. It is hard to avoid the conclusion that OSHA is lead by a bunch of dullards who are under the enchantment of an administration reluctant to impose new regulations on industry.
The thrust of the program was that OSHA is completely unable to recognize incipient dust hazards on their site inspections, partly due to a lack of training and partly due to a slack-jawed lack of direction. It wasn’t pretty.
As a dramatic backdrop, numerous instances of major plant explosions were trotted out for all to see. The message is that plants keep blowing up from dust explosions, but OSHA isn’t holding companies to higher standards- because there aren’t any. The Secretary cited OSHA’s housekeeping requirement as broad enough to cover the dust explosion scenario. It was less than convincing.
I couldn’t help but notice that the subtext was that there can only be safety if more regulations were written. I didn’t see any company officials grilled in the same manner that the Secretary was grilled.
In fairness to OSHA, someone needed to clarify just what that agency is free to do in regard to rule making and what must be done by the Congress. I know there are smart people in OSHA, but being federal employees, there is little incentive to champion new regulations. Between institutional inertia, lobbyists, and an antagonistic executive branch, who wants to charge ahead of the parade on new rules?
Crimony. There was a new coat of snow on the mountains yesterday down to the 9 or 10 thousand foot level.
I’m living the Chinese curse “May you live in interesting times”. The good thing about my job is that I get to wear a lot of hats. The bad thing is that I get to wear a lot of hats.
Reunite Gondwana!
Lamentations on Chemistry 