The Ramblings of An Eternal Student of Life

Monday, February 8, 2016

Personal Reflections ...

I’m (hopefully) in the last few years of my full-time “professional” career, and at this point, I’m not putting as much effort into maintaining a “power wardrobe” as I used to. Oh, I still like nice suits and sports jackets and dress slacks, and I appreciate a good mix of plain and patterned shirts of different colors, and an assortment of interesting but tasteful ties. But in my heyday, I strove mightily to keep all of that battle armor in top condition. That meant regular visits to the local cleaners. But in recent years, those visits have become fewer and farther apart; unless a garment has an obvious stain or really starts smelling unpleasant, I’ve learned to tolerate a more rumpled and dusty look. To put my whole working wardrobe thru the cleaners now costs close to $200, and I can think of lots of other good things to do with that money.

Nonetheless, I recently pulled out a jacket that really was looking rather sad. So I gathered a few other of my workhorse jackets and two pairs of slacks, and headed over to the local cleaners (I’m lucky enough to have a decent one just up the street from me in easy walking distance). This past Saturday, I went back to pick up my newly dry-cleaned duds. It was mid-afternoon, and one or two other customers were in the shop, likewise dropping off or picking up something. The overall atmosphere was calm and relatively pleasant. The young woman at the register gave me a nice hello, took my ticket and went to the moving rack to dredge my stuff up from the basement. (As a kid, I was always fascinated by those moving clothes racks in cleaners).

While waiting for this, I did some people watching. This cleaners shop was a rather busy place behind the counter. Obviously it was doing a bit more than simple cleaning; a woman was busy at a sewing machine, and at an adjacent table, a gentleman wearing a sports coat and a tie was busy with a needle and thread, » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 6:19 pm No Comments Yet / Leave a Comment

Tuesday, February 2, 2016

◊ John McWhorter or Ta-Nehisi Coates?

Current Affairs ... Society ...

If you want to be a respected and respectable liberal today and your racial heritage is Euro-Caucasian, it’s pretty clear that you need to support Ta-Nehisi Coates (even if he wasn’t looking for your support; I suppose that fact makes it seem all the more real). Earlier in my life, I definitely wanted to be a respected and respectable liberal. But at the same time I was never a guy who likes to follow a crowd; and at some point in my life, it occurred to me that liberals like to follow trends as much as conservatives do. And they often made up complicated but questionable reasons to act like lemmings, post hoc. Just like any other tribe, little or big.

So, as you might guess, I’m not necessarily in awe of the writings and views of Ta-Nehisi Coates regarding modern American racial matters. I’ve been reading The Atlantic Magazine for about 20 years now, and thus I’ve been familiar with Mr. Coates’ writings for quite some time. He originally wrote small pieces reflecting on the American Civil War and its implications for black history — and how those implications weren’t always as sunny and positive for blacks as many non-black Americans might think. Eventually he was allowed to publish longer pieces addressing more modern racial issues, and his tone at first seemed to balance challenge with reserve. However, within the past two years or so, he’s come into his own, offering wholesale indictments of white America (see his recent blockbuster book, “Between the World And Me“), along with sentencing recommendations (i.e., his call for reparations).

There was a recent dust-up when Democratic-Socialist presidential nomination candidate Bernie Sanders rejected Coate’s reparations idea, and Coates immediately attacked Sanders (in an intellectual fashion, of course). It’s interesting to see that » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 9:21 pm Read Comments (2) / Leave a Comment

Sunday, January 24, 2016

◊ Nor’easter Mosaic

Photo ... Weather ...

Old Man Winter finally got around to us here in metro New Jersey. Took him long enough! Because of the big El Nino event in the Pacific Ocean, we’ve had a relatively mild and dry winter. We reached the 3rd week of January without any snow on the ground. But that’s all changed this weekend, as a big nasty nor’easter came rolling up the coast and dumped over a foot of snow on us. Right at the mid-point of winter too (Jan 23-24 is the “meteorological middle” of winter, when the temperature trend tips ever so slightly away from getting colder and starts the long path to spring, getting slightly warmer every day — on average, anyway). The snow and wind decided to decorate my kitchen window, just to remind me that this winter still has plenty of life left in it. But then again, the advance forecast for next weekend is sunny and in the mid-40s. It’s all just part of the ups and downs of the weather, and of life.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 8:41 am Read Comments (2) / Leave a Comment

Thursday, January 21, 2016

◊ An Axion in Time . . .

Science ...

Ever since June, 2013 I’ve been discussing a possible new kind of fundamental particle that helps make to make up the universe, something that physicists call the “axion”. In a way, I am trying to anticipate the next big break-through in particle physics, something that you could perhaps look at as the next “Higgs particle” in terms of its impact on science and cosmology — and public understanding of all that stuff.

As you recall, the Higgs boson became a ’cause celebre’ in science a few years ago after the Large Hadron Collider in Europe had finally assembled conclusive proof that the little things actually exist. Many scientists had suspected that Higgs actually existed for many years before they were finally discovered (especially by the scientist who the particle was named after, i.e. Peter Higgs). The function by which they are most widely remembered by the public is the capacity to give certain kinds of particle the quality of having mass, i.e. that which causes them to accelerate gradually and resist sudden impulse when subjected to a mechanical force. Mass also allows a particle to be greatly influenced by gravity (although any particle with some sort of energy, be it mass or non-mass energy, will be affected by gravity). But they solve other problems too involving » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 8:03 am Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Saturday, January 16, 2016

◊ Oil Prices In Economics Wonderland

Current Affairs ... Economics/Business ...

Oil prices are currently hitting historic lows; hard to believe that they were above $100 per barrel not so long ago. Now they are struggling to stay at $30. As late as December, 2011, I said in one of my posts that “unfortunately, oil production doesn’t seem to be growing at all anymore”, and I anticipated that oil prices would remain high. I now need to eat my words.

So what’s going on? Oil production definitely has gotten a boost from new technologies that because usable over the past few years, e.g. fracking and super-deep sea drilling. On the demand side, most analysts cite the economic problems in China, i.e. its serious contraction of growth over the past 3 or 4 years. At the same time, the rest of the world in general isn’t doing so well either; world economic growth is expected to remain less than 3% per year. And then add in all of the energy conservation and alternative energy efforts that were started back when oil was above $100 per barrel. Overall world demand for oil is still rising, but not as fast as before, and less than many people had anticipated.

The classic economics 101 explanation for the oil situation is that there is an oversupply in the market, which has allowed oil users to bid down their purchase price. Under that textbook scenario, the producers will soon stop producing and offering so much oil to users, and the users will then have to start bidding more to get what they need. I.e., prices will rise once again, back to the lowest marginal cost of producing a new barrel of oil under present conditions (which is certainly above $30 at current usage levels, although that cost is much lower than it once was due to technology innovations such as fracking).

That’s the theory. But what appears to really be happening is » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 11:00 am Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Saturday, January 9, 2016

◊ Pseudo Spring

Nature ... Photo ... Weather ...

On the weather front, it’s an El Nino winter. Up here in eastern New Jersey, we’re definitely feeling it. Which is nice for us (not so nice in other places of the world, where needed rainfall is lacking or too much rain comes down), because the warm air coming up from the Pacific equatorial region (where El Nino mainly does its thing) has delayed the onset of cold and snow. The past two winters here were quite cold and snowy, and the temporary reprieve (only temporary, as we will soon get some true cold spells and a handful of snow storms) is definitely appreciated. By me, anyway; there are some “snow people” who have been upset about this, such as “Weather Willy” (who keeps a very good weather blog, despite his bias towards wintery weather).

Aside from a handful of upset winter-weather fans, the El Nino has also caused some consternation in the natural world. We had a relatively cool and normal November, so the 50 and 60 degree temps in mid-December confused a lot of trees and plants. Just a few blocks from my house are these fruit trees, which took the bait. These photos were taken last Saturday, the day after New Years Day. A few days later it was down in the teens and twenties, and the little taste of “way too early spring” was over.

We might still get a handful of temperate afternoons with temps in the lower 40s, but for the most part, the party is over. It’s time to get on with winter.

◊ posted by Jim G @ 3:58 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Monday, January 4, 2016

◊ Taking Trump Seriously, Part 2

Current Affairs ... Politics ...

Damon Linker recently wrote a great article about the whole Trump phenomenon, an article that is both reassuring and scary. Linker repeats the growing wisdom that Trump’s support comes mainly from the down and out working-class white population. As I noted in my previous post on Trump (Time to Take the Donald Seriously?), a growing number of writers are taking the time to think this whole Trump thing through, given that it doesn’t seem to be fading quite as quickly as was expected. As Linker points out, there is a growing consensus that non-professional / non-college whites are the intended target of Trump’s message, and that they have been buying it in bulk.

So, it turns out that Trump is indeed a “populist”, a politician who speaks directly to the problems of an unhappy population and promises direct relief for each malady. But here’s the rub — if Trump’s working class whites only wanted better economic circumstances, Bernie Sanders should be their man. Sanders is making all sorts of promises (which I doubt that he could actually keep)(not in the long run anyway) to improve the lot of those who have been excluded from the dynamic growth of the American economy over the past decade or two. Sanders is willing to address the travesty of an America growing richer and richer and yet sharing its riches with fewer and fewer each year, promising to us whatever means seem necessary. Mostly those means would be a highly interventionist, quasi-socialist government.

Personally, I don’t think that a socialist political economy would be good for us in the long run. But certainly in the short run, a Sanders administration would manage to take from the rich and give to the not-so-rich. You would think that might be attractive to non-professional whites struggling to get by on » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 7:57 am Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Thursday, December 31, 2015

◊ Teaching Children to Code, Down Under

Current Affairs ... Society ... Technology ...

I recently read about how some western nations (including Great Britain and Germany) are teaching elementary school students computer coding and programming as part of their required curriculum. Back in September, Australia made computer coding and programming a required part of the school curriculum from 5th grade on up. These lessons aren’t an occasional project or a one-semester deal; starting from the age of 10, computer programming skills become an integral part of the Australian student’s school-day. In order to make time for this, the Australian schools are cutting back on their geography and history lessons; these topics will no longer be “stand alone” subjects. A new “Humanities and Social Sciences” subject will merge the existing topics of history, geography, economics, business and civics and citizenship into a single learning area from the 5th grade on.

I don’t know all of the details of Australia’s plan, but I’ll go out on a limb and say that I don’t like it. I consider myself a science and computer geek, and I’m all in favor of using our education system to prepare today’s children for the world in which they will live (and try to make a living). And that clearly means more emphasis on science, technology, engineering and math (“STEM” as the popular acronym goes). And yet . . . we can’t shortchange the classic mission of preparing our youth to be thinking citizens who can appreciate and defend the noble and yet frail ideal of civilization. Perhaps I’m wrong, but the general drift of the new Australia plan seems to put less emphasis into “humanities and social sciences”, by placing a greater share of school resources into science, tech and computer skills.

In my humble opinion, teaching 10 year olds the ins and outs of do-loops and IF/THEN statements and database queries and object instantiation is not going to guarantee them a place in the modern high-tech world. Sure, some introduction into computing logic at that age is needed; schools need to build the learning foundations that future computer people will need. But really — like an 8th grader should or even could become ready for a job with Apple or Google? Or be able to » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 10:56 pm Read Comment (1) / Leave a Comment

Saturday, December 26, 2015

◊ Cold Fusion: Hope Regained?

Science ... Technology ...

In one off my past blog entries from way back in 2004, I admitted my interest in cold fusion, along with my hope that there might be something to it. Recall that cold fusion became a big topic of interest for the public back in 1989 when two chemical scientists named Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons claimed to have come up with an electrically powered table-top device that produced more energy output (heat generation) than would be expected from any known chemical reaction. Their device consisted of palladium metal dunked in heavy water, i.e. water which has a lot of deuterium; deuterium is a “heavy” isotope of hydrogen, because its atomic nucleus contains both a proton and neutron, while the regular hydrogen found in plain water has only a proton in its core. Deuterium is a necessary material in the process of nuclear “fusion”, the process which keeps the sun burning and which converts regular nuclear bombs into super-powerful “H-Bombs”. Fleischmann and Pons made a bold and ultimately unsustainable claim: that they had come up with a simple way to exploit nuclear fusion for small-scale power and energy producing applications.

If you have followed the story of science’s attempts over the past 50 years or so to harness the power of fusion in a controlled manner so as to generate heat and electricity (without blowing everything sky-high), you know that it’s a rather sad story. Since the 1960’s there have been various government and internationally funded projects attempting to devise a commercial fusion reactor; but despite all the experiments and test reactors that have been set up, fusion turned out to be a “wild maverick” that could not be tamed by “standard” technological methods. The standard methods either involve creating a super-hot bottle of gas (a “plasma”) held together in mid-air by magnetic fields, or by aiming a whole slew of laser beams at a small pellet of deuterium fuel and trying to create the crushing pressures and temperatures needed to force the neutron reactions that would break the barriers and unleash the reservoir of energy stored in heavy hydrogen’s atomic nucleus.

Why put all the money and effort into developing fusion? Well, if it could be made to work, fusion would be a relatively low-pollution energy source that wouldn’t need much input fuel; the hydrogen in a gallon of seawater would give the equivalent energy of 300 gallons of gasoline or around 16 barrels of oil. Since the USA now uses about 7 billion barrels of oil » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 6:31 am Read Comments (2) / Leave a Comment

Sunday, December 20, 2015

◊ Time To Take The Donald Seriously?

Current Affairs ... Politics ...

According to the 15-day moving average of poll results for the GOP presidential nomination found on Real Clear Politics, Donald Trump has been in the lead since July 19. Many pundits at first speculated that he would be another “flavor of the week” phenomenon such as Rick Santorum, Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich were in the 2008 primary season. But OK, we’re now going on 5 months, and the first primaries in Iowa and New Hampshire are only a month and a half away. Trump’s RCP average just hit a new high at 34%, and one poll from last week (Monmouth) put him at 41%. An increasing number of political junkies have decided that we’d better take a closer look at what’s going on here and figure out whether something is changing among Republican voters (and possibly among the American population in general). I’m going to get on board with that trend and have a look myself.

Two recent articles by journalist Thomas Edsall make a good start at analyzing the Trump phenomenon from a political science point of view. In the first article, Edsall says that even though Trump’s future as a presidential candidate is uncertain (we don’t know yet if all those people who say they love him will really show up at the polling booths and party caucuses once the primaries begin), “we still need to understand the roots of his current success”. In order to get a start on that, Edsall cites a recent Pew Center research paper showing that “Trump’s backing from voters with a high school degree or less is twice as high as is it is from those with college degrees; the percentage of men lining up behind him is eight points higher than the percentage of women; voters from households making $40,000 or less are 12 points more likely to cast a Trump ballot than those from households making more than $75,000.”

According to Edsall, “Trump appeals to the anger, discontent and sense of entrapment that plague contemporary voters . . . ” As with most, if not all GOP presidential candidates, Trump’s support comes primarily from Euro-Caucasians, i.e. white people; but Trump specializes in discontented, down-on-their-luck whites. “Trump makes white working-class voters, the core of his support, feel safe . . . ” In his second article, Edsall states that “three current trends — » continue reading …

◊ posted by Jim G @ 5:16 pm Read Comments (2) / Leave a Comment

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