[LIVE]: Chinese Pop Music w/ qingfeng with gaoliangcai
ASFO airs weekly at 19z00, with occasional bonus shows at 15z00 Tuesdays or Fridays. In this post you will find links to the shows from 2023, along with my attempts to describe each show.
To understand what this show is about, and for the shows from 2021, go here. For 2022 shows, go here.
Expand List of ShowsGlorious Future Year 2022 ends as it began, with A Step Farther Out. I could take this opportunity for a “Year In Review”, but asking the question “what use is a cut–price monarchy?” proved to be more fun. Then, having previously discussed the miseries of living in a metro area with a low enough density of development to actually allow for covering a great part of its energy needs from rooftop solar, and irritated by an (on–line) encounter with “solarpunks”, I draw an analogy between energy supply and transportation. Betweentimes, discussion of the problems raised by our dependency on financial markets… and hey, paper straws in paper wrappers!
Christmas Eve, and I am hard at work in my workshop… no, not at the North Pole! Have you met me? As you might infer from my frequent allusions to tapping off gigawatts of heat from large nuclear power stations, I prefer warm conditions. On the subject of “peace on Earth, goodwill toward men”, I contemplate the opportunities for peace which lie before us.
2022–12–30 The remainder of Chapter 5 of Rockets by Willy Ley, and the first part of Chapter 6, “Success, Failure, and Politics”
Two quotations, one moral imperative, and a great deal of extraneous noise form the matter of this show. I explore the problems, and some alternative views, of the concept of energy efficiency. This is overall a very tub–thumpy episode, in which I repeat a few key phrases over and over again instead of properly expounding my views. Partly that was due to frustration at the noise, the source of which I need to properly work out, if I am going to broadcast remotely with my netbook.
2022–12–20 Belatedly realizing that I didn’t really do anything for the 75th anniversary of the first artificial Earth satellite, back in October, I read the preface, by Hermann Oberth, from a 1956 book entitled Satellite! by Erik Bergaust and William Beller ― which leads me down the rabbit–hole of explaining why Oberth could legitimately be called a “Nazi rocket scientist”, and thus to Chapter 5 of Rockets : The Future of Travel Beyond the Stratosphere (third printing with additional information, 1945 January) by the great Willy Ley, The Battle of the Formulae. More of that anon.
Intercontinental air travel having its usual effects on me, compounded by having to be up early in the morning for an Apollo 17 commemorative event (see me at about 1h20m in), doesn’t make for the most coherent show I’ve ever presented. But I think there may nevertheless be a few items of interest, first and foremost, correspondence! from SDF user eskill. There is also some mention of possible upcoming program content, and new propaganda materials and merchandise I have planned. (Does anyone have a suggestion on an alternative to Etsy?) And the geopolitics of fossil fuels, the hollowness of climate commitments, and the possibilities of real progress through committed engineering effort, attract my attention once more.
Belgium, or more particularly a Belgian engineer named van Mele, provides me with the material for an extended meditation on global energy use, and especially the topic of energy efficiency, which many people look to for large gains. Having teased it last time, I remember to explain the practical application for Compressed Air Energy Storage which occurred to me. This in turn proves to be another chance to insist on considering the character of the demand for energy when discussing how to meet it. (A comment directed me to an interesting article peripherally related to the subject of district heating, which I often raise.) And I spend a moment talking about the upcoming Apollo 17 anniversary, of which more anon.
2022–12–06 Conclusion of the brief biography of Count Rumford, from the 2022–11–29 show. I then read Nuclear Energy and Southern Africa by BFJ Schonland from Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy volume 1, which leads me to ramble on about the origins of “apartheid”, possibly without really knowing enough about the topic.
Eighty years ago today, 2 December 1942, is an epochal date in the history of humanity : the first controlled nuclear fission chain reaction. The very existence of Chicago Pile 1, and the effort in which it was a central part, was a dire secret at the time. The measurements made on CP–1 would provide vital information for the designers of atomic bombs, and the Hanford production reactors for making bomb material. And yet…
Also in this programme, from Let’s Talk About the Atom, Volume 2 :
Two quotations form the theme of this episode, which starts a little late, because I had to duck out of a Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, I set a timer, but when it went off there was still food on my plate! The meat of the episode is a consideration of the confluence of social and material conditions which define our modern world. Also I muse about aspects of immigration to space settlements, the generic problems of assimilation and diversity, and the great question of escape from the patron–client model of society, which could reasonably be cast as the central social problem of our time. (It all sounds very elevated until I name–check “Professor Steamhead” from Ninja High School.) And at the very end I mention a technological idea I had, which I might explain some more next week.
2022–11–29 I begin reading a biography of Count Rumford, that eminent patron of the sciences and useful arts. This came to me in the form of a little pamphlet reprinted from The Contemporary Review, volume XLIV, which appears to date it to 1883, over the name of J Tyndall. This appears to denote John Tyndall FRS, who was at the time Professor of Physics in the Royal Institution, founded by Rumford. Tyndall was very much interested (as Rumford had been) in the subjects of light and heat, and made a lecture tour of America in 1872, which corresponds to a reference at the beginning of the article.
Normally I strive to avoid a–rantin’ and a–ravin’ and a–frothin’ at the mouth. I won’t say I consistently succeed, but this at least isn’t meant to be that kind of a show! So what has me all worked up this time? Just a little booklet sent around by the Statdwerke München, or city utility company, which reads like a brain aneurysm. Also the USA sends a rocket to the Moon (you can see me talking about it thirteen years ago), climate negotiators in Egypt continue to piddle, twiddle, and resolve, and I muse about constructive responses to the present world situation.
Wednesday saw me in Berlin, demonstrating in front of the Bundestag with the fine folks from Nuklearia eV over the “Stuttgarter Erklärung”, a petition for the continued use of atomic power in Germany. I discuss this experience, as well as the ghastly architecture of the Federal Government complex, before getting into the substantive part of the broadcast. And what, you might ask, is all that about? Well, in response to some comments a week or two ago, I talk about world population. It’s nothing I haven’t said before, but hopefully it’s put into a clearer form here. Simply put, no, I don’t think there are “too many people” ― but there certainly are too many people who deserve a better world than the one they have. We have the tools we need, and we know how to apply them ― as Sir John Hill said about the fast breeder reactor (itself not the least of those tools), all that is left now is to get on with the work. Will the warmongers and dictators allow us to do it?
