Noah’s Flood?

Posted on by

December 21, 2012  · 

Shared with Your friends

Friends

ABC News mentioned new scientific evidence tonight that Noah’s flood happened. Its been dated at 5000 BC. It was a melting of the ice caps that swelled the Mediterranean and when it broke through it flooded the Black Sea and covered a great deal of Asia Minor. It flooded almost all the ancient world of humans. The old coastline is about 400 feet below the surface.

Honey, you are such a Peach.

Posted on by

“The difference between you and a pear is you think you are important and the pear does not.”

— Dennis Prager.



He gets this from current events about a movement of people wanting to bequeath their bodies to nourish the earth.

Dennis says, (paraphrasing):

If humans are not made in the image of God then they are no different than fruit. They are just compost.
It comes down to whether you are merely physical. If humans are merely physical then they can be compost. They are compost. Any difference is just imaginary.

I would add this is the philosophy of atheism. Dennis calls it the nihilism of the secular western world. What I would call the secular western fundamentalist religion. It really is the logical conclusion of reductionism.

To the atheist your real meaning, in any ultimate sense, is you will become fertilizer and will help plants grow. Anything you do before that is … well, you are just having a nice fantasy.


Atheists will tell us they have moral codes and build moral societies. They have been saying that for years. What they cannot tell us is WHY. Who could possibly even care about the moral code of a pear? Or fof fertilizer? It is not logical. Not even rational. But they insist the theist’s interest in the transcendental is irrational. Surely they base this on a metaphysical assumption. They will tell you that the flaw in theism is that it is based on metaphysical assumptions. But will deny their own world view is based on a metaphysical assumption.

One atheist recently called me a nutcase for even asking the question. Instead of answering the question they just name-call. One can only assume that is because they cannot give reasons. Their philosophy is vacuous. If they could give reasons then everyone could consider the reasons.

Meanwhile, everywhere one encounters such people they scream that theists are believing in imaginary things. And they truly believe that too!

I think the atheist needs to explain why he is meta-physics free. Otherwise, why is he believable?




Why EU Ministers should resign in shame.

Posted on by

Melissa Fleming, the UN’s under secretary general for global communications, said she was “deeply disturbed” by reports that journalists were being “arbitrarily” suspended from Twitter.

“Media freedom is not a toy,” she said. “A free press is the cornerstone of democratic societies and a key tool in the fight against harmful disinformation.”

Earlier on Friday, EU commissioner Vera Jourova threatened Twitter with sanctions under Europe’s new Digital Services Act which she said requires “the respect of media freedom and fundament rights”.

“Elon Musk should be aware of that. There are red lines. And sanctions, soon,” she added.

Banning Trump and conservatives … NOT a threat to democracy.
Banning DOXers … threat to democracy.


Lefties say private companies can ban whomever they want to … unless its Musk … then it is a political crime.

Is there a Minister of Hypocrisy?

Neurodiversity. Brains that think differently.

Posted on by


Interesting article.

Some people, says Winter, only tend to do what they’re interested in – “what lights up our brains” – which causes them to de-prioritise other urgent tasks.

“ADHD traits can be really badly misinterpreted,” says Shelford. “If I struggle with timeliness, you’re going to think I don’t care about my job. If I forget something, you might just conclude I’m dumb.” 


I am a neurodivergent person. I have INTP and HSP characteristics. When writing code I often write code for a solid 4 hours without looking up or even getting a drink. That’s called “concentrating” or “thinking” and what I cannot stand is an “agile” office environment where I am interrupted every 5 minutes. It takes 20 minutes for a brain to start “concentrating”. In today’s corporate offices they won’t let you do that. They think you need to “interact” to be productive, not “think.” So most employers actually paid me $$$ to not give them my brain power.

I cannot tolerate dances, loud music, parties, or crowds. After 15 minutes my brain just switches off. And I am bored and disconnected and lonely in a crowd. It is very disturbing.

This is a standard HSP characteristic.

Can God Redeem Soldiers?

Posted on by

I wrote this on a facebook thread to an ex-army person. They were discussing the subject of cussing.
To me that goes under the doctrine of experiential sanctification.



“I once had a manager who had been in command of, now that I think of it, it was anti-aircraft batteries (was originally thinking field artillery). He was deployed in Kosovo. One day his colonel called him in and said “I am field promoting you 2nd Lt, what school do you want to go to?” Instead of telling the colonel “I actually work for a living so i cannot be an officer”, he actually said “Armor.” So, he became a tank commander. I learned a lot about armored vehicles from him. As a captain he was running a tank platoon with 4 M1 Abrams and some strykers and support vehicles. After that he became a software manager and hired me to develop the human interface for an embedded controller for chemical processing used in hospitals and in industrial washing machines. He was one of only two people field promoted to officer since 1970. What’s weird was my very next project actually was on armor. I designed the crew station instrumentation for the ground combat vehicle.

Anyway, I just discovered my best friend retired as a Lt Col, and was a battalion commander, but the last six years has been … a pastor! So, it just goes to show the army does not always totally ruin a person, in spite of rumors to the contrary. Chuck Swindoll told me he had once been a colonel. Gasp!”

Goodness and a Good Life.

Posted on by

About this wisdom and good deeds thing spoke of in the bible. Having proper boundaries is a good thing. Not having them, and letting others violate your boundaries in order to “just get along” actually harms them. You need to be able to speak the truth and tell others when they violate your boundaries. And when they are being inappropriate. Otherwise you are not promoting goodness, you are promoting confusion and dysfunction.


Shame driven families are families where boundaries are not allowed, and truth is not allowed, and secrets are kept and shame is brushed under the rug. This isn’t a good life, rather it is a miserable life that leads to despair.

From the book of James in the Bible.

Two Kinds of Wisdom

13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. 14 But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. 15 Such “wisdom” does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

17 But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. 18 Peacemakers who sow in peace reap a harvest of righteousness.

Shadow Banning and Democracy.

Posted on by

Shadow Banning and Democracy are Incompatible.
Shadow Banning and Democracy are Opposites.
Shadow Banning Harms Democracy.

For example, if ordinary citizens cannot run for school board and be noticed because of the opposing political views of a publisher this violates equal time principles. It really is a matter of making an entire group of citizens invisible to the public. You cannot have a democracy under those circumstances.

It gets worse when one party in power tells the media what ideas can be suppressed or which class or type of citizens to suppress. There are constitutionally protected class of citizens.

Religious belief is one of those classes.

So, is social media a public service? Or not? Is it in the public square or do people pay to access it? (i.e., is it a private club or private service?).

Ted Lieu said “everyone can pay to advertise their message on social media.” Untrue!!! Can Donald Trump? Trump campaign? Trump supporters? Ted Lieu AFAIK has not answered such questions.

There used to be FCC regulations about media based on air waves, and equal time. Is the radio to you cell phone a regulated “air wave”? Licensed space, licensed by the government, to the telco provider? Should it be?

There was legislation about whether carriers could charge extra for premium service to those willing to pay. Under that scheme those who do not pay get minimum or no service and have diminished rights.

An article on Forbes about “Digital Equal Access” says:

This digital equal time rule puts the ability to respond to disinformation campaigns in the hands of the party with the greatest interest in timely, persuasive and effective corrections. With this rule in place, the original audience would receive countervailing information, without requiring social media companies or government agencies to act as truth police. 

 The social media companies involved know who received the original candidate’s targeted message.  All they need to do is replicate this audience for the opposing candidate’s response, avoiding the need to share the identities or contact information of the targeted audience and thereby protecting their privacy. 

Above quote is from Mark McCarthy, an adjunct professor in Georgetown University’s Communication, Culture & Technology Program, a non-resident senior fellow in the  

Institute for Technology Law and Policy at Georgetown Law, and a non-resident senior fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Center for Technology Innovation, Previously, I was Senior Vice President for Public Policy at the Software & Information Industry Association


My view: (to promote democracy)

The solution is MORE SPEECH, not less. And no arbitration by the broadcaster.

Lithium Mining in Thacker Pass?

Posted on by

Looks like a Nice Place.

The environmental movement says “No” to mining lithium here. But listen to him repeat the “drumbeat” on lithium battery powered cars. Yes, that is the common drumbeat.

But when you have environmentalists join conservatives in opposing lithium, what will the outcome
really be? I don’t know. But things are not what they seem.

Elsewhere

I personally know someone who stopped a wind farm development by the state of Virginia in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Half the counties in Iowa have moratoria on wind farms. The reason? Bird kills are opposed by environmentalists.

Things are not as they seem.



Wind Draughts

Posted on by

Primary Category: …Energy…

An investor writes:

“I wrote this article  for the Australian edition of the British magazine Spectator a couple of weeks back. In essence, academics are FINALLY starting to realise that wind droughts are an issue with intermittent systems and studying them. As the article notes some work has been done in the UK, where it is known, for example, that some years back the wind made no contribution to the UK grid for nine days, and there were serious deficits during another drought at the end of last year. These wind droughts are an extreme event like cyclones or rain droughts. I saw some material recently on wind droughts in the US but I seem to have mislaid it. Perhaps someone has access? As for Australia there has been limited work to suggest that wind droughts in a given year might last for up to 36 hours. But that’s just from one year of data. As noted in the article there is no way to store enough power to tide the grids over such long periods. Australia is building one water dam project called Snowy 2.0 (after the region) but a fully renewables network would need at least six of seven. In any case the blindness of policy makers to this issue to date is just extraordinary. “

This got me to thinking.


   
My take: Storage of transient energy remains an issue. Tesla’s power wall is based on lithium battery technology and what counts here is Mega-Joules/Kg. ie, energy density of the storage mechanism. Also the economics of the life cycle of mining all the way through waste disposal and the the cost of each step.


I recently mentioned a physicist who remarked on TV about the subject of chemical based “replaceable energy storage cells”, ie, battery units, for personal road vehicles. There is a physical limit to that energy density. This was in a conversation about Tesla, which uses lithium battery technology. I simply pointed out the existence of the physicist’s remarks. And was instantly set upon by a protagonist of the original poster who was “triggered” by the point. We never did get around to addressing the actual issue, mainly because I do not respond to off the wall aspersions and argumentum ad-hominum attacks directed at third party people. And there were plenty of those from this particular protagonist.

The physicist had a real point. There are physical limits to chemical energy density and there is no “magic technology” that will save chemical batteries. There are alternative replaceable storage cell designs based on non-chemical energy storage and these are in research phases. And one could discuss those. But for the time being Tesla as a current product is not based on any of these.

And we have to beware red-herring arguments and be careful to compare apple to apples (not apples to oranges).

There are possibilities for building personal electric vehicles if the energy density problem could be solved. It is not going to be Iron Man’s fusion battery strapped to your chest, however. Wouldn’t that be nice if it were?

Major issues in personal vehicles are:

  • How far can you drive before recharging?
  • How much time is required to recharge?
  • Availability of recharging equipment?
  • Ultimate energy source of the recharge. Where did it come from? Where was it stored?


The Beat Goes On

The public is being told that in the near future everyone will be driving a vehicle powered by electric motors which run off chemical based batteries and these in turn will be powered by wind power and solar panels which store the energy in an energy infrastructure that easily distributes to resupply the personal vehicles. That is the main drumbeat. And humanity will be saved from climate change. Problem is, this is not credible. The drumbeat also includes elements of “if you don’t believe the drumbeat you must be a trog who is against science.” That is a non-sequitor.

Of course there are other sources of energy. among these are:

  • Hydro
  • Geothermal
  • Nuclear
  • Fossil Fuels

Systems Analysis

As a physics major turned engineer I believe these issues require an approach of systems analysis. In other words they are problem sets in systems analysis. All aspects must be solved simultaneously for society to be able to utilize any given solution set. Systems engineering is one of the types of jobs that I do. This type of thinking is particularly important for policy makers. Unfortunately most public debate ignores systems analysis and focuses on just one aspect of the problem set. This is naive thinking. When someone demonstrates such thinking I usually refuse to speak with them because it becomes a waste of time.

Areas I am interested in:

Capacitive power cells powered by fuel cells. Why? Higher energy density. Higher energy discharge capability. Fueling is rapid and fueling stations can be made readily available.

Hydrogen power.

Something more exotic.

These are completely separate discussions than vehicles powered by lithium power cells.

The above might answer how to build personal vehicles. But neither of the above answer the question of where the initial power comes from or how is the energy stored and transferred for availability to vehicles.

My experience is that folks who are in love with electric cars tend to focus only on the one aspect they care about and ignore the other issues entirely. And they seem to resent any questions about those aspects.

Now, wind draughts are one tiny aspect of energy gathering systems. Wind power freezing over in Texas or Minnesota is another such topic. These systems tend to be under-engineered and fail. The overall energy grid needs to be able to deal with such transient effects.

I plan to say something about large stationary power storage systems … soon.


Meanwhile:

This is interesting commentary.