Starlings and Boids
Here's word on a new simulation of bird flight. I loved the Boids simulation published some time ago. I'm hoping for a youtube video soon. Thank Mandelbrot for cracking this door open.
Labels: simulation
This blog is my effort to puzzle out the world. I'll write whatever comes into my head, but probably return frequently to my obsessions. I seem to be interested in the workings of democracy, economics, the functioning of social groups, the future of humanity, scientific concepts, statistical concepts, logical thinking, nuclear power, evolution, space, the environment and most everything else. I'll try to post only when I think I have my own angle on something.
Here's word on a new simulation of bird flight. I loved the Boids simulation published some time ago. I'm hoping for a youtube video soon. Thank Mandelbrot for cracking this door open.
Labels: simulation
Instapundit posts on the unobserved impact of a comet or asteroid with the planet Jupiter.
This is an indirect appeal to the fine-tuned Universe argument, and it's really unnecessary for Dale Osborn to get so excited. Let us begin with the question as a question. Why are we here? We've learned enough hard lessons on this planet and seen enough things in the galaxy to know that it needn't be the case. Things could have gone otherwise, couldn't they? Actually, that's precisely the wrong answer. Things couldn't have gone otherwise, because they didn't. The anthropic principle says that the fact that we are asking the question is it's own answer. The fact that Jupiter is Hoovering up all the planet-killers is one reason, probably one among many reasons, that we are able to ask the question. Fred Bltziflc on planet number 4 and one half is not able to ask why he is there because planet number 4 and one half was reduced to rubble long ago and Fred never evolved from the slime mold. Maybe he wouldn't have evolved anyway, but it has nothing to do with the benevolence of Jupiter or even the intervention of any higher power than that. It is just that we are here because all these sensitive parameters and peculiar circumstances were lined up appropriately, and Fred isn't because they weren't. Hence, we ask why and Fred doesn't. If we are to invoke God's watchful protection, we need to have a little more respect for the subtlety of his Works.UPDATE: Reader Dale Osborn writes: “So, Jupiter’s role in the solar system is to be the Big Hoover, vacuuming up most of the big rocks that could head Earth’s way. It’s like Someone designed the solar system that way.” Well, but sometimes it slingshots ‘em our way, too . . . .
Labels: anthropic principle, catastrophe, evolution, religion
I just read a blog posted by an Army Sgt. about, among other things, the unseriousness of soldiers receiving promotions. I believe that good organizations have a natural tendency to degenerate over time, and this tendency must be resisted strenuously. Good organizations come about through a confluence of good luck and exceptional individuals with strong motivation. Neither will last very long. For that reason, the most important function of an ongoing organization is the recruitment and promotion of those people who will best preserve and extend the aspects of the organization that make it "good". Personnel evaluation is the most difficult and most easily corrupted aspect of that function. Disinformation and performance theater will gradually overcome integrity and actual performance. And once inappropriate assignments are made, the next cycle will be even more vulnerable to suboptimal choices.
Labels: Civilization, dysfunctional, governance, red-teaming, skepticism
The economy shows, according to various ostensibly independent news reports, some signs of recovery. New unemployment claims are down. That doesn't mean that anyone has got a new job yet; it just means that though the disaster is larger each week, the rate of increase of the disaster has subsided somewhat. One note that is usually struck -- we no longer seem to be in free-fall. I'm inclined to agree. We are a little more knowledgeable than we were in FDR's day, but we aren't doing much better on the political score.
Labels: Economic policy
Why the Green Program is Hypocritical and Doomed to Frustration
Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger have a new article in The New Republic called The Green Bubble comparing the waxing and collapsing of environmental sentiment, not coincidentally, to the labored breathing of the ailing business cycle. They point out than in actuality we have done nothing of significance to address the Global Warming problem, and that we are not likely to. All of our actions for the environment are symbolic, more addressed to guilt management than anything else. Several times since Earth Day was started, the American people have gotten all worked up about the issue, only to change their minds when the economy shifted.
The authors point out the hypocrisy of green-strutting (my word), posing their green poses like prairie partridges on the lek, as if their actions were significant. CFLs and Priuses are not going to do the job. Not when the systems that drive our daily lives burn on unchanged. Nobody is going to make significant sacrifices. Understand that. Nobody is really prepared to return to the idyllic pre-industrial life, where life was so noble ... as well as nasty, brutish and short.
Green philosophy would have the aspirations of the world's impoverished billions redirected into a Utopian myth. These people are not that dumb. Chinese people want to drive cars. Indonesians want air conditioners. Nobody really wants to work the fields by hand. They want what we have, and now we're telling them that they can't have it ... just when hope finally begins to seem justified. Good luck with that.
Cap and trade appears to be off the table. All suggestions of a carbon tax generate massive resistance from Americans of both parties, even when it is suggested that other taxes can be reduced. Americans get angry at HOV lanes for God's sake. No Daddy is big enough to make us take our medicine. The Kyoto treaty itself has not been successful at creating CO2 reductions. Don't expect that to happen any time soon either. IMO, only the nuclear treaty that Bush negotiated with India is of sufficient scale to matter. Nothing else presently under consideration addresses the concerns of the developing nations and provides any hope of addressing environmental concerns.
Americans, in spite of the example of French success, are unwilling to encourage nuclear energy as a clean alternative. Obama is afraid to bring it up. In fact, our irrational preference for solar and wind power, both expensive and unsuitable for base energy needs, has reduced the likelihood that new nuclear will be affordable. Nuclear is a suitable base, actually more reliable than coal, since it doesn't rely on frequent deliveries. Coal untaxed is, however, the cheapest form of energy. Any preferences applied to solar and wind will come at the expense of nuclear rather than coal.
It appears, when everything is weighed up, that what we must do, we cannot do. Environmentalists lack the necessary knowledge, vision and clout, and Americans in general lack the conviction and willingness to sacrifice. Under the current civic regime, it's not going to change.
I say that when you finally see that a problem cannot be solved, you are free to solve it. You do it by backing up a few steps and including the problem within the context of a larger system. The system that we must change is our collective method for generating decisions. Democracy is effective only in a contributory context, where the best of our thinking is collected and distributed. We are, today, being tyrannized by the Least Common Denominator.
-----------------------------------
Links:
http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/magazine/15-10/mf_burning
http://www.tnr.com/politics/story.html?id=6cd5578a-85ab-4627-b793-680ea8d44c7f
http://soundofthemushroom.blogspot.com/2009/03/stardrive.html
http://current.com/items/89963405_bushs-india-triumph.htm
http://www.hindu.com/2009/05/07/stories/2009050755551000.htm
http://soundofthemushroom.blogspot.com/2006/07/skeptics-discuss-wind-and-nuclear.html
Labels: carbon tax, disfunctional, energy, environment, information entity, The New Republic
So how is my idea different? What does it contribute? It looks just like a regular employees' union, don't you think? Who needs more unions?
Labels: information entity, labor, networks, voter unions, voting
The Swine Flu is spreading very efficiently. It seems like modern society has the ideal configuration for spreading it. So, just as a thought experiment, what would be the ideal organization for spreading the flu? It would not be, I think, like our goods distribution system.
Labels: disease, networks, political distance, Swine Flu, voter unions