Author: publius

Fools! I will destroy you all!!

ASFO 2023–08–26

Chestnuts? (Not the literary kind, either.) It seems there are few subjects on which I don’t have at least a little to say. Also why a Mars colony needs good AI ― and LLMs will kill you out there ; a long digression on the American mode of providing medical services (which is still not a “health care system”) ; and a possible visit to Loscon in late November.

Supplementary Show

  • 2023–08–29 More from ST ’87, mostly regarding the Venera–15 and –16 and Veha/Vega missions, and the then–planned but ultimately unsuccessful Phobos missions.
  • 2023–09–01 Probably the last I will read from ST ’87, including a note by Valery Legasov about Chernobyl and its implications. Did not archive.

ASFO 2023–08–19

When you don’t pay, that’s piracy, and it’s a crime. When we don’t pay, it’s just good business. Also, “grain disposal systems” in America, and fertilizer in Africa ; the surprising connection between mushrooms, Texas school libraries, and California math classes ; and a note on the continuing (largely pointless) controversy over the use of nuclear weapons against Japan in 1945.

Supplementary Shows

  • 2023–08–22 Further from ST ’87 : Soviet Science and Technology : Thirty Years of the Space Age, a chronology.
  • 2023–08–25 A somewhat aimless quasi–random walk through ST ’87 : Soviet Science and Technology. There are quite a few good segments in this book, as well as some I read in a spirit of irony, talking about the next 30 years of the CMEA and so on. (May not have archived properly)

ASFO 2023–08–12

Back from vacation! Do I have anything new to say? Complaints about landlords, economists, and bad reasoning probably don’t qualify. Also a brief description of some of my recent activities, and a reflection on the failure of oil to spur broader economic and social development even in some of the largest producing countries.

Supplementary Show

  • 2023–08–15 ATOM 302 (1981 December) supplies the material : a summary of a lecture in October of that year by the incoming President of the Institution of Electrical Engineers, Sir Francis Tombs, under the head of Misunderstanding Nuclear Power ; a report on a colloquium in Paris on Energy and Society, organized by the deeply antinuclear “Groupe de Bellerive” ; and a couple of short items.
  • 2023–08–18 Selections from a Novosti Press Agency Almanac ST ’87 : Soviet Science and Technology. I read the captions to the two color glossy photo sections, and then most of From the First Satellite to Orbital Research Complexes, a contribution by cosmonaut and engineer Georgi Grechko DSc, to a section headed Jubilees, Memorable Dates, Reminiscences.

ASFO 2023–08–05

Transit poverty, a new name (perhaps) for a common observation. Also the Bazalgette Problem, or, did you oversize your infrastructure, and if not, what are you going to do? Another show beginning late because I lost track of time at the beach. And I entirely missed doing a show on the 29th of August.

ASFO 2023–07–22

Report from Pemmi–con, describing my displays, and bemoaning the computer problems (partly self–inflicted) which have caused a key part of my atomic energy display, built around circa–1990 German payphones, not to work. From here I jump off into a brief discussion of the problems of control interfaces, opining that the reasons which make touchplates a very bad choice for cars are much stronger for spacecraft, and indeed space settlements.

Luna Project display at Pemmi-con in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In the centre of the image a display of postal covers hangs over a table draped with a cloth displaying the blue-and-yellow Luna Project "rocket" logo at front. Along the panels to both sides are hung a set of six prints by Frank Kelly Freas.
Luna Project display at Pemmi-con as described in the show
A view of part of the "Man and Atom" display at Pemmi-con in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Two tables can be seen, one facing the viewer and draped with the "radiant atom clutched in a fist" logo and the slogan "Atomic Power to the People". A variety of nuclear-related posters and other materials is displayed along sections of fencing covered with pegboard.
Man and Atom display at Pemmi-con, as described in the show
A view of the "Man and Atom" display at Pemmi-con in Winnipeg, Manitoba. A table can be seen draped with the "atomic flower" logo and the motto "Split Atoms Not Wood". On it there is a portable video player. Along four sections of fence panelling, and on freestanding grid constructions, are posterboards with panels covered with text and images, including many pages scanned from public-information documents.
Another view of the Man and Atom display at Pemmi-con

ASFO 2023–07–08

Probably the last new show until August 12th, although I might be able to use the call–in feature while I’m at the beach in Manitoba. Mostly I talk about transport ― filling stations for motorcars versus charging stations for battery–electric cars, hydrogen propulsion for trains or perhaps airships, and especially the remarkable scaling properties of steel wheels on steel rails with overhead–wire electrification.

Supplementary Show

2023–07–11 Dialing in this time, to check that this should work for ASFO shows while I’m in Canada the next few weeks (I’ll leave the HNtW timeslot for repeats), I finish the Hoyle et al piece from last time, and then read Nuclear Reactions in Stars Without Hydrogen (Astrophysical Journal, 1952) by EE Salpeter and Primeval Helium Abundance and the Primeval Fireball (Physical Review Letters, 1966) by PJE Peebles, from the same source, and a bit of Hans Bethe’s famous 1938 “Solar Phoenix” paper, Energy Production in Stars (Physical Review).

ASFO 2023–07–01

Comparisons between the recent first revenue flight of a Spaceship Two for Virgin Galactic, and the now–infamous submersible Titan, are examined to discover how justified they may be. Also, Canadian space money, possibly soon to go out of circulation, and my recommendations for a new US coinage ; and the turmoil in Russia and popular indignation against the United States Supreme Court lead me to consider (once again) to what extent the problems of government can be solved.

Supplementary Show

2023–07–07 Tanabata! After a great deal of rambling about what is going on in my life, and why I find it unsatisfactory, as well as a bit of dead air, I finally read some selections from a booklet of reprints entitled Synthesis & Abundances of the Elements. Origin of Actinium and Age of the Earth by Ernest Rutherford (from Nature, 1929), and the better part of Origin of the Elements in Stars by Fred Hoyle et al (from Science, 1956).

ASFO 2023–06–24

Everyone must be tired of hearing about the ghoulish tourism vehicle turned billionaire crushing machine, but I think I make a couple of points which you may not have heard yet, and might be worth listening to ― whether it be about the sociology of wealth, or the ASME Boiler Code. Also I use a little simple arithmetic to explore assumptions about energy policy. And there are some intriguing fillers at the end.

ASFO 2023–06–17

The “Juneteenth” holiday, and the recent death of disgruntled mathematician Ted Kaczynski, bring me back to the question of the as–yet unfinished work of emancipation, which somehow requires me to cast aspersions on the literary works of Herman Melville and James Joyce. Regardless of that, however, I consider the Marxist idea of historical inevitability, and the doctrines of economics as taught in the business schools, as modern equivalents to the old idea that the existing order of society is the direct manifestation of the Will of God, and it is not only impious but futile to imagine that it could be any other way. This I regard as extraordinarily dangerous and destructive, because we humans are at this time more masters of our own destiny than has ever been true in the past.

Supplementary Shows

  • 2023–06–20 I commence reading the South Sea Bubble chapter of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
  • 2023–06–23 Conclusion of the South Sea Bubble, and my reflection on its relevance to current affairs. Probably all I will read from this book. Also, at the beginning, one brief extract from Science–Fiction : The Early Years by Bleiler.