Pondering – Page 7 – Outrun Change

Still more horrifying news from Venezuela – #13

Shipwreck standing on the beach with the sea in the background. Margarita Island. Venezuela. Photo courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com — Shipwreck standing on the beach with the sea in the background. Margarita Island, Venezuela. Photo courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com

The heartbreaking humanitarian crisis in Venezuela just keeps getting worse.

If only they had massive amounts of energy in the ground that they could sell.

Oh, I wonder what economic system caused this massive suffering?

9/4 – New York Times – Venezuelan President is Chased by Angry Protesters – After walking into a crowd during a political rally, the president was run off by the crowd screaming ‘we’re hungry’ accompanied with lots of banging on pots and kettles.

9/20 – New York Times – How Bad Off is Oil-Rich Venezuela? It’s Buying U.S. Oil – I don’t understand the process, but apparently you need to use light sweet crude in order to get thick sour crude out of the ground. Production in Venezuela has dropped so far that since early in 2016 the country has had to import 50,000 BOPD of light sweet from the US in order to maintain production.

Even with that, production is down to 2.4M bopd now from about 2.75M bopd a year ago. That reflects a 1M bopd drop from when Hugo Chavez took over as president in 1998.

9/26 – Fox News – Venezuelan children fainting in school because they are hungry – One very brave teacher is quoted by name. Last academic year about 10 children were absent from her class every day out of 30 students enrolled.

Continue reading “Still more horrifying news from Venezuela – #13”

Vast range of top level domains

Just in case you were wondering, here is a list of the domain name extensions I found that are available at GoDaddy, excluding several that are recognizably related to a specific country. Probably missed a few.

First, the old standbys:

.com

.org

.net

.info

.edu

.gov

Then there are the massive volume of new ones:

Continue reading “Vast range of top level domains”

Long sentences that work well

I want to look at a few samples of the writing of John D. Billings, when he told in 1887 of his experiences in the Civil War. He shared his recollections in Hard Tack and Coffee, currently $0.99 for the Kindle version. Previously mentioned his book here.

Consider the smooth flow of the following two sentences. Yes, two sentences:

Taps ended the army day for all branches of the service, and, unless an alarm broke in upon the stillness of the night, the soldiers were left to their slumbers; or, what was oftener the case, to meditations on home; the length of time in months and days they must serve before returning thither; their prospects of surviving the vicissitudes of war; of the boys who once answered roll-call with them, now camped over across the Dark River; or of plans for business, or social relations to be entered upon, if they should survive the war. All these, and a hundred other topics which furnished abundant field for air-castle-building, would chase one another through the mind of the soldier-dreamer, till his brain would grow weary, his eyes heavy, and balmy sleep would softly steal him away from a world of trouble into the realm of sweet repose and pleasant dreams.

Wow.

Let’s break apart those two sentences.

Continue reading “Long sentences that work well”

Lots of malnutrition in Venezuela and conditions will get worse – 12

Economic conditions continue to deteriorate in Venezuela. It will get worse.

8/5 – Miami Herald – Hunger haunts Venezuela, especially its children – Severe hunger is widespread in the country, causing children to pass out in class, killing some with malnutrition, leaving others vulnerable to malaria and mange due to lack of medicine.

Continue reading “Lots of malnutrition in Venezuela and conditions will get worse – 12”

Wind turbine fails, or, why they earn the title slice-and-dicers

Here are merely two of the many published videos showing wind turbines as they fail. Watch for the burning hunks of rare earth metals getting spread across the prairie. Look for the reason wind turbines rightfully deserve the name slice-and-dicer.

8-3 – Gizmodo – A Malfunctioning, Flaming Wind Turbine Is Actually Quite Beautiful – Video catches two burning turbines that won’t be slicing-and-dicing any more. One in foreground produces pretty smoke patterns when the tip catches fire. Fire slows down when turbine throws a blade a few hundred feet away.

[youtube=https://youtu.be/Q5COAi6KM8o?t=38]

Title of video: Windmill Fire Live Video Palladam Tamilnadu 2016; link: https://youtu.be/Q5COAi6KM8o?t=38

Another video demonstrates why every turbine needs to constructed many hundreds of feet away from anything of value, like houses, farm buildings, livestock, transmission lines, or roads.

With luck, the turbine, tower, and massive blades will fall straight down upon failure.

Without luck, those hundred foot long blades will go airborne like a javelin. In the video, when launched at a roughly 45 degree down angle, it looks like one blade travels 4 or 5 times its length, which would be somewhere between 400 and 700 feet. How far would a blade travel if launched at a 45 degree up angle?

At worst, the three blades disintegrate into small chunks of shrapnel, flying every direction, imitating an explosion from World War II anti-aircraft artillery.

Warning: the clip of a vulture getting hit, falling to the ground mortally wounded, struggling to regain its footing, is nauseating. That only happens to raptors, what, many thousands of times a year in the U.S.?

Yeah, wind turbines have worked hard to earn the well-deserved title of slice-and-dicer.

[youtube=https://youtu.be/wfzgIxMEo8g?t=19]

Title: Best Wind Turbine Crash/Fail Compilation HD 2016; link: https://youtu.be/wfzgIxMEo8g?t=19

Oh, tornadoes and wind turbines don’t play well together. Ponder the overlap of where tornadoes and wind turbines are concentrated.

This is what the lack of freedom looks like (Venezuela #11)

The cost of freedom. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

(Cross-posted from my other blog, which was originally posted on 5/31/16.)

This freedom stuff is not just some abstract concept. The lack of economic, political, or religious freedom is ugly and painful.

If you want to see what the lack of economic and political freedom looks like, consider Venezuela today.

5/20 – Yahoo News – Venezuela, where a hamburger is officially $170 – That hamburger priced at 1,700 bolivars is US$170 at the official exchange rate. At black market exchange rates it is about a buck and a half.

Article reports that the middle class is sliding into poverty. Keep in mind people are essentially paid at the official exchange rate.

Stores that sell anything other than food are closed. Article says nobody is buying anything other than food.

What is going on in Venezuela?

5/28 – New York Times – Venezuela Drifts Into New territory: Hunger, Blackouts and Government Shutdown – The New York Times notices the devastation afflicting the people of Venezuela.

Government offices are only open two half-days each week.

Article says protests at empty grocery stores are turning violent.

The bottler producing Coca-cola products cannot find sugar so it is halting production.

Other suffering this article doesn’t mention:

No toilet paper on the grocery store shelf and no international phone service.

The country’s largest beer producer can’t get enough foreign currency to buy hops so it has stopped making beer.

Water is rationed.

Electricity is only available sometimes and randomly at that.

Infants are dying in hospitals because of lack of medicine and respirators.

Back to the NYT article.

When water is on, people are gathering some in spare buckets for use later. The water (when available) is brownish and is making members of one quoted family sick. Many people say either lack of washing or the water itself is causing illness.

What is the cause of this suffering?

Continue reading “This is what the lack of freedom looks like (Venezuela #11)”

Level of human suffering still increases in Venezuela – 10

The country with the more oil reserves that Saudi Arabia is going through the following suffering. Image courtesy of Adobe Stoc. — A country with more oil reserves that Saudi Arabia has death-causing shortages of food and medicine. Image courtesy of Adobe Stock.

The humanitarian disaster in Venezuela keeps getting worse. Ponder for yourself what form of government created this crisis since no news reports will make the connection.

6/26 – Slate – How Much Worse Can Venezuela Get? / The country’s problems are profound and complex, with no easy answers in sight. – After the New York Times front page article noticed the humanitarian travesty, even Slate has an article by writers who noticed the suffering.

A few indicators of suffering these authors see? Food riots breaking out all over. Caracas is now the most violent city in the world. The government-owned and run oil company is seeing production drop because of neglect. Lack of medical supplies is causing unknown numbers of death. Dozens of political prisoners are in jail.

Article goes into more detail than usual as to the cause of the suffering. Corruption and general mismanagement are the most notable reasons cited.

The current turmoil is painted as conflict between the government and opposition in the legislature with both sides blaming the other as the cause of the problems. Most of the power is in the hands of the government with little likelihood of early resolution.

Continue reading “Level of human suffering still increases in Venezuela – 10”

Last 2 zero-emission power plants in California will be shut down.

Natural gas turbine power plant. Replacement power source for 75% of the power from Diablo Canyon nuclear plants. Photo courtesy of Adobe Stock. — Natural gas turbine power plant. Replacement power source for 75% of the electricity from Diablo Canyon nuclear plants. Photo courtesy of Adobe Stock.

PG&E agrees to close Diablo Canyon in 2025. San Luis Obispo Tribune reports on 6/21 that PG&E decided not to apply for another 20 year license and will close the two nuclear reactors in 2025.

The massive loss of electricity generation capacity will be replaced by intermittent renewables, both solar and wind. At least that is the company line being feed to the public.

These are the last nuclear power plants in California after San Onofre closed in 2012.

The Diablo Canyon facility provides 9% of the power that is generated in the state. One out of every ten watts.

Here is what I learned by stretching my brain while browsing Wikipedia:

Continue reading “Last 2 zero-emission power plants in California will be shut down.”

More on the foolish Malthusian mindset that we’re gonna’ run out of everything

Here are three more stories in just the last week proving yet again the foolish of Malthusian thinking. The experts in a field have no clue, absolutely no clue, of the total amount of any resource available on this amazing planet. Whether it is water, crude oil, or helium, the experts don’t know what previously unknown field they will find next.

7/1 – The Million Dollar Way – Peak Oil? What Peak Oil? Huge Discovery For Hess, Exxon; $70 Billion at Current Prices – This post points to an article at Yahoo: Exxon Might Have Just Made The Largest Oil Find In Two Years. ExxonMobil and Hess Corp are in a joint venture that just discovered a huge field in deep water 120 miles off the coast of Guyana.

The new field, called Liza, likely has somewhere between 800M and 1.4B oil-equivalent barrels. Yeah, that’s somewhere in the range of one and a half billion barrels of oil. That nobody knew about. Until now.

To put this in context, there have been only five brand-new discoveries in the last four years with recoverable amounts of over 500M barrels. Only five? ONLY? To my little brain that is astounding.

Continue reading “More on the foolish Malthusian mindset that we’re gonna’ run out of everything”

Accelerating collapse of the Venezuelan economy – 9

The economic devastation and human suffering in Venezuela is getting worse by the day. Every article I see shows the economy has taken one more step towards utter collapse.

6/9 – Washington Post – As hunger mounts, Venezuelans turned to trash for food – A man who used to work at a bakery now searches garbage cans for food because he will starve if he doesn’t find something to eat in the trash.

He is joined by small business owners and retired people in the search for enough food to merely stay alive.

Number of people below the poverty line has skyrocketed from 52% as recently as 2014 up to 76% today.

I wonder what could have caused that devastation?

In the 535 word article, the only hint of the reason for this human suffering is citing the government’s claim that the political opposition is intentionally causing this suffering in order to throw the president out of power.

While the WP reporters are incapable of seeing the cause, at least they are able to see the suffering.

6/10 – AFT at Yahoo News – Venezuela lets Maduro recall advance, with threats – Article reports looting is increasing and more protests involve violence.

A protest by opposition legislators resulted in several of them getting beat up. Yes, legislators are getting beaten when they protest.

Continue reading “Accelerating collapse of the Venezuelan economy – 9”

Great news on the open frontier, private space exploration edition

Amazing news on the open frontier of private space exploration:

SpaceX recovers another two boosters at sea.

What to do with all those warehoused ICBM boosters?

Another investment in mining asteroids.

5/6 – NPR – SpaceX Lands Falcon 9 on a Barge at Sea (Again) – This is the second successful recovery of a Falcon 9 booster at sea. Another successful recovery was on land. After several failed efforts to recover on a floating barge, SpaceX has two successes in a row. Very cool.

5/27 – Florida Today – SpaceX lands fourth booster after successful Falcon 9 launch – This is the third consecutive recovery of a booster. These three recoveries were on a platform out at sea. One previous recovery was on land.

4/14 – Behind the Black – The history of Falcon 9’s recoverable first stage – Check out this cool video showing the less-than-four-year history of going from the first tiny test by Grasshopper to successful recovery of the Falcon 9 booster at sea:

Robert Zimmerman says:

Continue reading “Great news on the open frontier, private space exploration edition”

This is what the lack of freedom looks like

This freedom stuff is not just some abstract concept. The lack of economic, political, or religious freedom is ugly and painful.

If you want to see what the lack of economic and political freedom looks like, consider Venezuela today.

Article reports that the middle class is sliding into poverty. Keep in mind people are essentially paid at the official exchange rate.

Stores that sell anything other than food are closed. Article says nobody is buying anything other than food.

What is going on in Venezuela?

5/28 – New York Times – Venezuela Drifts Into New territory: Hunger, Blackouts and Government Shutdown – The New York Times notices the devastation afflicting the people of Venezuela.

Government offices are only open two half-days each week.

Article says protests at empty grocery stores are turning violent.

The bottler producing Coca-cola products cannot find sugar so it is halting production.

Other suffering this article doesn’t mention:

No toilet paper on the grocery store shelf and no international phone service.

The country’s largest beer producer can’t get enough foreign currency to buy hops so it has stopped making beer.

Water is rationed.

Electricity is only available sometimes and randomly at that.

Infants are dying in hospitals because of lack of medicine and respirators.

Back to the NYT article.

What is the cause of this suffering?

Continue reading “This is what the lack of freedom looks like”

When we think through an issue far enough to develop a considered opinion, that gives us a bias that everyone else is wrong.

Ponder the implications for how you look at the world:

When you have developed a perspective or opinion or conclusion on some issue after having thought through all the relevant factors, there is a serious danger that reaching such a conclusion leaves you thinking that anyone with a different perspective is incorrect.

If your carefully drawn, considered opinion is reasonable, then the inference is that other opinions aren’t reasonable.

Continue reading “When we think through an issue far enough to develop a considered opinion, that gives us a bias that everyone else is wrong.”

What ails the newspaper industry?

Recently read several articles pondering what is going on in the collapse of newspaper revenue and the collapse in circulation. One is a lamentation over the loss of life-long career opportunities. Another describes doubling down as strategy to survive. Finally, a different idea on what might be driving the collapse in circulation.

3/2 – The Nation – These Journalists Dedicated that Their Lives to Telling Other People’s Stories. What Happens When No One Wants to Print Their Words Anymore? – A heartsick lament that bemoans the drop from 55,000 full-time journalists in 2007 to 32,900 in 2,015. That drop of 22,000 doesn’t include big layoffs in 2016.

The shrinkage will likely continue – A J-school prof at USC thinks if trends continue for the next three years like the last three, there could be somewhere between one-third and one-half of the 50 largest papers disappear.

Continue reading “What ails the newspaper industry?”

With all the radical technology changes over the last few decades, have the essentials remained the same?

Unless you have gunpowder and a delivery system for it, I suggest you not mess with this guy and his buddies. Image courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com — Unless you have lots of gunpowder or thousands of buddies , I suggest you not mess with this guy and his 6,000 buddies. Image courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com

My friend John Bredehoft provides a different perspective on technology change. On 1/22 at his blog tymshft, he asked Do the essentials change?

He discusses a podcast comparing life today to about 35 years ago. For perspective, that puts us in 1981, or the range of the first year of the Reagan administration.

One of many points I draw from the discussion is related to Jon’s last comment:

But the speed of the processing chip in my smartphone is relatively meaningless.

Phrased differently, the smart phone in your hand may have an operating speed that is thousands or millions of times faster than 30 years ago but that increase doesn’t have an impact on your life in proportion to the increase in speed. Increased operating speed in the last decade probably hasn’t affected your life much at all.

Continue reading “With all the radical technology changes over the last few decades, have the essentials remained the same?”