Category: anonradio

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.