John’s blog

QotD: Personality Trait = Trouble

nobody@vox.com(John) — Sat, 03 May 2008 19:40:36 -0400

What personality trait has gotten you in the most trouble?

That's easy - my assumption is always that when someone asks a question he wants an answer [1]. Thus, if I know the answer, I give it. You'd be surprised how many people resent having their questions answered.

My second most troubliferous [2] trait is my belief that curiosity is a divine mandate, not a sin [3]. Thus, my preference is to "run and find out" [4], which means that I will fearlessly wander through the hidden markets of Bangkok or the tomes of Nostradamus. This becomes a problem because of my trick memory, which allows me to retain an unusual amount of the information so gleaned and so provides me with the answers to all those annoying questions...

My third annoying trait is that the combination of curiosity and knowledge has led me to be able to answer most questions correctly. Even when I do not know the answer, my understanding of the semiotics of knowledge and knowledge systems helps me to find the answer quickly. The problem with this is two fold: first, my answers come fast [5], which can mean that others don't get to play the game. Second, my batting average is good, but not 1.000. As a result, sometimes I forget that my answers can be in error [6]. Fortunately, I have experienced enough embarrassing assertions of errant rightness that this is not the problem it was when I was much younger and much dumber.

John

[1] As opposed to sympathy or ditto-heading.

[2] A portmanteau of "trouble" and the geology all-purpose "-ferous", meaning "carrying".

[3] You'd be amazed how many people (religious or otherwise) feel that curiosity is evil. Or at least, a form of self abuse likely to drive you blind [a], insane [b], or into a hermitage [c].

[4] Geek points for the reference!

[5] And sometimes furiously.

[6] Either because the source was wrong, because my memory was wrong (and I failed to double-check), because my logic was wrong, or because the person wasn't asking what I thought they were asking.

[a] Insert snide comments on my visual acuity...

[b] And about my mental acuity...

[c] What do you know - three for three!

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Culture QotW: School Play

nobody@vox.com(John) — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:31:58 -0400

What role did you play in your school play?

Audience member.To paraphrase a famous composer, I can't sing, I can't dance, and I can't act - I'm a triple threat [1]!

John

[1] Musical geek points for the reference!

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It's only a model...

nobody@vox.com(John) — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 00:21:41 -0400

Shaw once wrote that “England and America are two countries separated by a common language.”. To a lesser extent, scientists and lay people are two similarly separated groups. The problem is that often the word one uses doesn’t mean what the other person thinks it means [1].

Take, for example, the word “theory”. To a lay person, the word “theory” is roughly equivalent to guess, idea, hunch, or glimmering. Thus, calling something a theory means that you aren’t sure what really happened, but this explanation is as good as any. To a scientist, the word “theory” means that an idea has been sharpened using multiple tests and developed until it offers the best possible explanation of the observations. Thus, when a scientist says that evolution is a theory, she means that evolution is the best explanation for the diversity and variation of the natural world, just as saying that relativity is a theory means that it best explains the way that matter behaves at very high speeds [2].

Another good example is the word “model”. To a lay person, a scientist’s model is just a crude approximation and shouldn’t be used until it can provide “perfect predictability”. For example, take these comments on the use of models in climate change research:

But when I requested facts, again, I didn't mean to put you on the spot. I only wanted to demonstrate that to my knowledge, no one can point to a single fact regarding man-made warming. It's all speculation no matter how "close" they get with their statistics and modeling.

It's only a model and models cannot account for everything, which actually causes whatever warming or cooling takes place in our atmosphere. Then there is the bias of the creator of the models and the motives behind their results

But just getting one to mimic the past would be a good start, but here's the problem even with that - it would have to track actual past events -perfectly- to even have a remote chance for predicting the future, and even if one did, it shouldn't be taken as... um... gospel, as members of the religion no doubt will.

To a scientist, models allow us to predict how things will behave. Thus, everything is a model, from the laws to the theories to the hypotheses to the very measurements that we make. A necessary result of this is that we must use the best models we have, but be aware of their limitations.

The first limitation of models is that they need measurements. This is a limitation because every measurement is a model, too! For example, take out your ruler and measure a sheet of paper. What were the dimensions? Did you get 8.5” x 11” x .004”? Or did you get 8.51” x 10.58” x .003”? Or some other number? Try measuring another sheet of paper. Do you get the same dimensions? Or different ones? Now ask someone else to measure those same two sheets of paper –I’ll bet that they get different results.

The reason is that all measurements have two characteristics: accuracy and precision. An accurate measurement is one that comes close to the true value. For ordinary note paper, that’s 8.5” x 11” x .004” on average. But not everything is as easy to measure as paper! Scientists typically use different types of measurement to determine how accurate their measurements are. If all of the measurements give the same result (within the margins of error), then they know that the results are good enough to test their ideas with. If you have gotten a value of 6” x 13” x .1” when measuring the paper, then odds are your measurement wouldn’t have been very accurate.

Similarly, measurements of something are precise when they all cluster around the same value. If you have gotten a value of 6” x 13” x .1” when measuring the paper then 8.51” x 10.58” x .003” when you repeated the measurement, your measurements wouldn’t have been very precise. Precision is important because it allows us to lower the error bars on our measurements and know that we are truly measuring what we think we are measuring.

A classic example of this is the neutrino deficit problem in solar physics. According to the theory for our Sun’s fusion reaction, it should be producing more neutrinos than we detect. One of three things could be the answer:

I) Our measurements could be inaccurate

II) Our measurements could be imprecise

III) Our theory could be wrong

Scientists tested the measurements several ways and determined that they were precise. And they tested the theory using other data and decided that it was probably right. The only thing left was that the neutrino measurements weren’t accurate for some reason. So they shot a beam of neutrinos at a detector from various particle accelerators and have discovered that neutrinos change “flavor”. Because the detectors can only “see” one type of neutrino, they were missing the others, leading to the apparent deficit[3].

Why are accuracy and precision important to models? Because models are like viaducts – what you get out of them depends on what you put into them [4]. Let’s take a simple model with a linear function:

Y=X

This is what happens when measurement error is introduced:

Model1

The true answer lies somewhere inside the yellow zone. But all we can say from the model is that, for X=15, the result( Y) is somewhere between 13.5 and 15.5. This is part of why scientists spend so much time concentrating on reducing measurement errors; buy doing so, we can reduce the uncertainty zones.

Now let’s try it for something a bit more challenging – the non-linear function Y=X*X:

Model2

The error range has increased significantly. Now when we “know” X=15, we can only say that Y is somewhere between 182.25 and 272.25.

Let’s examine one more example of how measurement errors can make models more challenging. This time, we’ll use a simple trigonometric function:

Y=tan(X)

Model3

Notice that this time the errors make it very difficult to tell what the true value of Y should be. This function is what scientists call “chaotic” – a very small change in the inputs can cause a large change in the outputs. If we knew what the true value of X was, then it would simplify to this:

Model3a

Or would it? You see, there’s another bias that’s been built into the measurements – how often do we make them? The graph above shows what we get if we measure X only for the integers. This is what we get when we measure it twice as often (every 0.5):

Model3b

And this is what we get when we measure it every 0.1:

Model3c

Notice that the patterns are starting to resemble each other. That’s when we know that we are close to the best measurement interval for a particular phenomenon. If adding more measurements doesn’t make the pattern change significantly (i.e., doesn’t mean that you would predict something else based on the results), then you have enough measurements..

But even with enough measurements taken with enough precision and enough accuracy, can you achieve perfect predictability using a model? No.

The reason is that those limits pass through the model and create a level of blurriness that limits what can and cannot be said. That’s why scientists use multiple models run multiple ways and feed them with multiple measurements from multiple sources. Only when the majority of the models agree can we say that what is predicted is likely to happen [5]. The most that we can say about a model’s output is called its resolution. That tells us the dimensions that we can predict, including volume, time period, and outputs.

It isn’t just climate modeling that is subject to these problems with modeling resolution. It is seen in cosmology, seismology, biology, chemistry, and every other field of quantitative science.

Does this therefore mean that we can’t use the predictions of climate change models to decide what is happening now and what might happen later? Not unless you are also willing to refuse to use the medical models that tell us how to use vaccines, and the chemical models that formulate your vitamins, and the physics models that power your lights.

Does it mean that we should blindly accept what the models say? Heck no – no more than you would blindly accept the advice of a doctor. Instead, you should check, and be skeptical. Just don’t expose your ignorance and ask for impossible things.

John

[1] This is not the Humpty-Dumptyism of groups such as politicians. Nor is it the simple erroneous usage of the well-meaning but ill-read that give use such egregious boo-boos as “octopi” [a] and “enervatingly strong” [b]. Rather, it is in the Vizzini-inspired sense.

[2] Amusingly, the word “hypothesis” has almost exactly opposite meanings in the two groups as well. To a scientist, a hypothesis is just a working idea that has some support but really, really needs to be tested to get the bugs out. To a lay person, calling something a hypothesis frequently elevates it to near “law” status.

[3] The good news about this is, as one physics wag put it, “Now we know the Sun isn’t going to go out any time soon.”

[4] Geek points for the reference!

[5] This is another one of those words that means different things to lay people and scientists. To lay people “likely” typically means better than even odds that something will occur. To a scientist, “likely” means that there is a 95% probability that something will happen (unless they state lower likelihood, such as the 90% probability that is common in climate modeling or the 80% that is seen in many education works).

[a] As any good linguist will tell you, the proper plural of “octopus” is either “octopodes” or “octopuses”. The word “octopus” comes from the Latin “octo” for eight and the Greek “pus” for foot. Greeks do not conjugate their nouns the way the Latins did; thus, using “octopi” for the plural of “octopus” is as erroneous as using “womans” for the plural of “woman”.

[b] “Enervatingly” means lacking in strength; however, a surprising number of erstwhile scholars use it to mean the exact opposite.

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Sad but true

nobody@vox.com(John) — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 15:04:08 -0400

Once upon a time, we had statesmen; people who would take a stand because it was right, not because it was a plank in their party platform or might get them elected. Nowadays, we have politicians that are afraid to vote their beliefs because they value their position more than they value their nation.

The most egregious example of this is earmarks - bits of the budget set aside by politicians to buy votes back home, whether or not the programs they support make any sense. The bridge to nowhere. Creationist doctrine. Tap-dancing classes for mulatto dwarves [1].

However, no matter how bad earmarks are [2], there is something worse. The simple abandonment of their ideals for job security by politicians, en masse. For example, the New York Times reports that Democrats are likely to pass the wiretap bill that extends the [3] existing law allowing the President to wiretap on anybody, anytime without needing a court's permission - despite their promises to the contrary. Why? Because the Democrats don't want to seem "soft on terror". They may even give the administration immunity for past misdeeds! Similarly, Republicans are voting against a child welfare bill, not because they disagree with the purpose, but because they don't want to be seen as "expanding government health care".

So what does that mean in the next administration [4]? Simple - if you want the United States to get out of Iraq anytime in the next five years, you'll probably have to vote for a Republican, as no Democratic candidate has the guts to say "Enough already! We need to get out now!". And if you want a balanced budget, you'll need to vote for a Democrat as no Republican will have the guts to say "Admit it, folks - we're broke and need to reduce spending and raise revenues". For almost every issue, you will have to vote the opposite of what the parties say - and try to find a candidate strong enough to actually speak truth to power [5].

Good luck on that.

John

[1] OK, I made that one up. But you almost bought it, didn't you - which just shows how out of touch these idiots are.

[2] And they are bad - worse than a Farrelly brothers remake.

[3] Probably unconstitutional and definitely unAmerican

[4] Yes, I'm already counting the days. If Rush Limbaugh can do it, why can't I?

[5] Geek points for the reference!

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Ethical quandary

nobody@vox.com(John) — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 18:43:15 -0400

Three times in the past month, I have been invited to apply for positions at different companies. All three were non-profits and all three were essentially what I'm doing now. So I have been flattered, but not compelled. All three companies have gotten about the same "Thank you, but I'm very happy here" note. This has been partly self-interest [1] and partly because I feel that I owe my current employer some loyalty [2].

Now a friend has been flogging my name to an oil company. He just left me a message that they would pay twice what I'm getting now [3], plus probably give me an incredible signing bonus [4] plus moving expenses. I'm not hurting financially [5], and my career choices have never been about the money. But it never hurts to get all that you are worth, plus 10%.

The new job would be like my last job with an oil company - find as much oil as quickly and cheaply as possible. I've got a couple of tricks that I have been dying to try out with AVO, and this would give me the chance to use them. And it would also include some supervisory duties, which means that my MBA would once more become useful. And the discovery is overseas, which means lots and lots of travel (always a strong attractor for me).

Which now puts me in the awkward position of a married man in a singles bar. Unless my spouse knows that I'm there, do I have any excuse? And should I make eye contact if I am not willing to carry through? In other words, do I tell my current employer about the opportunity? And do I send in my resume?

Life sure is interesting...

John

[1] I don't want to move again. Ever. Nine times in eleven years is far too many! Only one of those, btw, was at my request. The others were either because the company I worked for at the time closed down its local operations (7 times) or because the company went out of existence (1 time). The one at my request was so I could further my career by learning a new part of the business.

[2] They have been remarkably loyal to me - to the extent that my boss told me she would hate to lose me but would understand if I left when one of the people making a job offer let her know about it.

[3] "You and I will have more money than God!" [a] Not an exact quote, but close in spirit. My current salary is near the top of the range for non-profits, but is only middle-level for oil companies.

[4] That originally came out as a "singing bonus". Trust me - the only bonus I'd get that way is if I didn't sing!

[5] Things are a bit tight while I wait for the *$%@ place in DC to sell, but I'm making ends meet without drawing down my "rainy day funds" other than to go visit Ken.

[a] Geek points for the reference

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QotD: My Best Friend

nobody@vox.com(John) — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 08:59:47 -0400

What makes your best friend so special?
Submitted by Jessmiloo.

I have two best friends (John and Ken), and they are both special for the same reason - they accept me as me. They understand that I'm not like the other bears [1], and don't care. Even better, they first did this when I was most in need of a good friend.

You see, my folks had just moved us from OKC to Norman, because my mom wanted us to grow up in the "country" [2]. So we move into a new neighborhood in June; so new that there are only about five other families living there. Some older kids, some younger, and only one kid my age - who happens to hate me because I'm different [3].

Move forward three miserable months, when the only kids I've got to play with are my older brothers, Trace and David, whom I adored [4]. It is the morning of my sister's birthday, and we are all playing down the street in a big sand pile that has been left in front of an empty lot; next week it will be part of the foundation. Everyone but my oldest brother David goes back to the house to get ready for the party. About half an hour later, I went out to get David, because my father is working himself into a towering mad that not everything is ready. And find David buried under the sand. I pull him out and he's not breathing; I ran to get my mother, who drives him to the hospital, but it is no use - David is gone.

Now go through an entire miserable school year. Not only am I the freak blowing the curves in class and correcting the teachers, I'm the freak who killed his brother [5]. And then, that summer at a walk-a-thon, a miracle happens - I meet someone who has just moved in and who doesn't care that I'm a freak; John just likes that I can explain things. Three months later, he introduces me to another new kid, who thinks that it is pretty cool that I'm trying to read chemistry texts so I can make an explosion [6].

For the next few years, we are inseparable. Amusingly enough, I am the one defending them from bullies; heavy books make awesome weapons. And they are the ones teaching me about girls, and spitting, and all the other things that adolescents need to know but can't find in Tom Sawyer because of the censors.

Even after Ken and John moved away, we stayed in touch. Once a year, we'd go camping for a week or two. I'd buy the beer [7] and they'd supply the tents [8]. We'd call each other for the important events and get together as often as we could. We helped each other move [9] and mourn [10] and just generally to be human [11].

And that's what makes them so damn special.

John

[1] Geek points for the reference, complete with pic-a-nik baskets!

[2] Which Norman was at that time; there was a cow pasture behind my house.

[3] OK, enough pussy-footing around. I'm smarter than he is. And back then, I hadn't learned enough to be able to hide it so well.

[4] Not unusual in an 11 year old, but probably annoying as hell to my 13- and 16-year old brothers.

[5] Something I heard whispered more than once.

[6] Nitrogen tri-iodide, to be exact. I'd read about it in a fiction work and wanted to know if it was really that easy to make. It is...

[7] Being legal under Oklahoma's weird laws, whereas they were not legal. For three years it stayed that way, even though we are all almost exactly the same age.

[8] That started out as one of my weird ideas that they adopted - we all rode our bikes the 30 miles to the lake and spent the week camping. Had so much fun we kept it up even after we all had driver's licenses.

[9] Got my ticket for the highest speed I'd ever done while helping John move back from California after he got out of the Marines. Going 127 mph - and a $35 ticket, because the traffic cop was a former Marine, too.

[10] John didn't leave me alone for a week after Shelly died.

[11] Remind me to tell you sometime about my "Dirty Thirty" birthday party - one of the few birthdays I've had that didn't suck. Or my "You're going to Chicago!" party, after I got my MS. Tied up naked to a tree was the least of the fun that evening...

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What the hell is so scary about Heaven?

nobody@vox.com(John) — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 14:53:00 -0400

A nascent friend and I were talking yesterday. He’s got a friend in the same position as Ken; it is all over but the shouting, and the doctors are about ready to admit that there is nothing more that they can do [1].

So what happens next? Well, that’s where the discussion got interesting. You see, a terminally ill person [2] has the right to decide if extraordinary measures should be taken. Say, for example, you have brain cancer and suffer from a heart attack. Do you want them to try to bring you back, just to die all over again? Or do you want to take the first express train to your eternal reward [3]? Have you signed a "Do Not Resuscitate" order (a DNR in hospital-speak)?

However, even if you have signed a living will and included a DNR, the doctors may not honor it. Why not? Blame your relatives [4]. If any relative (parents, siblings, or {in some extreme cases} even cousins) objects to the DNR, then the doctors will go ahead and try to resuscitate you. Partly this is because doctors hate to admit that they have lost, but partly it is because hospital administrators know that if they don’t try to save you after a relative has requested it, then they’ll get sued. If you make it and get upset, they have a much easier case (“Hey, we saved his life” “No, you ruined my death” [5]) than the other way around (“They just stood there and did nothing” cried sobbing mother). If they are going to get sued either way, then they may as well do what they want to…

Which brings me to the question that led off this polemic: What the hell is so scary about heaven, anyway? Why delay that last ride if there's no chance of a cure? Let’s assume that the Christian God exists and that the person in question has met all the entry requirements for Heaven [6]. If this is the case, then why delay the takeoff flight [7]? Isn’t it better to be in the arms of Heavenly Father [8] than down here struggling to breather?

Why do soi disant “Right to Life” organizations campaign so hard to keep people, especially brain dead people, on ventilators and other tools to force those bodies to keep slogging along? Why do they feel they have the obligation [9] to butt into a deeply personal decision? Why can’t they just “let go and let God”? Why do they want to keep the poor schlemiel from going to Heaven?

Logically, this makes no sense to me. If I know you’ve got the winning lottery ticket, I’m not going to say “Sorry, but you’ve got to play the game a few more times before you can collect.” If you’ve got a tax rebate coming, I’m not going to insist that you pay taxes on it before you can cash the check [10]. So why do this on something that is so much more important?

Any ideas?

John

[1] In the meantime, of course, they are putting my friend’s friend through all sorts of painful tests. The height of this absurdity is the test to see if my friend’s friend is a candidate for surgery that the doctors have admitted she isn’t strong enough to endure. Doctors hate to admit that they’ve lost.

[2] Or a perfectly healthy person, for that matter. I have a living will, complete with a DNR order. When I die, it will be over and that is final. Just toss me into a baggie and burn me as a memorial to my cooking. Scatter the ashes. No cenotaph, no tomb, no memorial plaque. Take nothing but memories, leave nothing but footprints - taken to its logical extreme.

[3] Assuming that you have one coming to you, of course. As for myself – well deity and I are going to have a few words about how things have been run…

[4] And the doctors. Doctors hate to admit that they’ve lost.

[5] Geek points for the reference!

[6] This simplifies the discussion considerably, especially as it is groups associated with this cult [a] that typically raise the largest stink over this issue.

[7] Nota bene: I do not refer to assisted suicide here. That is an incidental issue that we can discuss in another post.

[8] As the Mormon sect of the Christian cult [a] calls their supreme deity.

[9] Leaving the question of “Do they have the right?” out of this as well.

[10] Insert obligatory Nigerian scam story here…

[a] “Cult” being used in the exact, anthropological sense. If you don’t like it, then get another term into the literature.

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The worst

nobody@vox.com(John) — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 11:02:16 -0400

is here. Ken's doctors spoke with him yesterday and told him that he had two years, at the most. And that assumes that he takes aggressive chemo and radio therapy treatments which are almost guaranteed to rob his life of any enjoyment. Fortunately, his doctors are well aware of that, and will probably not push him to those extremes.

Which means that the hard part is now on us, Ken, Ken's Mom and Dad [1], Ken's friends, and Ken's co-workers. We need to find out from Ken what he wants to do now that he knows his time is running out [2], and make it happen. What does he want to accomplish in the time he has left? What does he want to experience [3]?

And of course, we have to do this in a way that helps him feel content and to move through the stages of dying as easily and completely as possible [4]. My personal goal for the next two years is to help my friend die happy; my other best friend John has the same one.

John

[1] Who lost their only other son to brain cancer about ten years ago. Their grief and sheer courage in standing up to this so well is a shining example of how good people can be.

[2] That he will die soon is truly no different than the rest of us. It is just that he can no longer hide this knowledge from himself, and we can.

[3] What would you? I'd love to write one good play and one good novel and go into space. Accomplishing that would mean that my life wasn't just about converting food into shit [a]. What would do it for you?

[4] Yes, Kubler-Ross's work has come under criticism for over-simplifying the process and for being misused to force people into an artificially happy place. But it works as a convenient framework, provided folks remember that "it's only a model" [a].

[a] Geek points for the reference!

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The Law of Unintended Consequences

nobody@vox.com(John) — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 09:28:37 -0400

There is a law that shapes our ends, rough hew them how we will [1]. It is the Law of Unintended Consequences -
"There is no solution so good that it will not cause a problem."

Think I'm kidding? Take a few examples from history [2]:

A) Lead plumbing. The Romans were great engineers. They built roads that crossed the (known) world, they built aqueducts that brought water hundreds of miles across deserts, and they built a system of law that still governs us today. They also developed the modern plumbing system, based on lead. Lead is a handy little substance. Highly malleable, easily mined, it turned the water sweet and it had a great antiseptic effect on the water is carried [3]. The problem was that that same antiseptic effect was also killing the citizens of Rome through lead poisoning. Though Rome did not fall because of her plumbing, it certainly stood no more certainly with it in place. Rome slowly poisoned itself by making one simple, easy, and wrong choice in the plumbing.

B) Car brakes. Brakes on early cars were bad. Actually, awful would be a better description. That's why Bugatti built his cars to go - because they could not stop. In the early models, drivers were safer if they sped up to avoid an accident, rather than slowing down to reduce the damage. There wasn't as much traffic [4] and the speeds were relatively slow (under 20 mph for the most part), so speeding up was safe. In order to encourage that behavior, the gas pedal was placed lower than the brake pedal, so that a driver could slip off the brake and jump onto the gas. Fast-forward to today, when brakes are great and speeds are three times higher [5] - and brake pedals are still designed to encourage you to go fast to get out of an accident. So a simple engineering design choice becomes standard and we all pay the price [6].

C) Gasoline. Back in the mid 1800's, whale oil was running scarce, and people were in a panic - what would they use to light their homes at night? Then Gesner invented a process that distilled "rock oil" (now known as petroleum) into kerosene. An industry was born overnight. One of the side-effects of Gesner's process was a light, easily flammable substance that was too dangerous to use in lamps. Because it was cheaper and more plentiful than alcohol, the early car designers decided to use this "gasoline" [7] to power their horseless carriages - after all, the car was a luxury item that few could afford, so there should never be a shortage of this stuff, right? Fast forward to today, when there are more than 1.2 billion cars. The world demand for gasoline is estimated at 30,660,000,000 barrels each year, and is expected to grow at 1,200,000 barrels per day. We can't go on, the oil must run out - and yet we can stop either, not without catastrophic consequences.

Now let's move onto one "solution" [8] that is being hailed in today's papers - desalinization. There is no doubt that we are running out of potable water. The Colorado River is so oversubscribed that little more than sludge makes it to the end of the river. Aquifers are being depleted at record rates [9]. Obviously another source must be found [10]. And we have it in desalinization [11], the process of removing the salt and other contaminants from the water to make it safe to drink. But what are you going to do with those contaminants that you've just removed? Store them on site, ala Kazakhstan crude? No, that's too dangerous; we'll toss them into the world's toilet - the ocean!

Never mind that the Gulf of Mexico, where this particular experiment is taking place, is already over-polluted and is the source of a large percentage of our food. Never mind that brine in high concentrations is a poison that will kill sea life. [12]. These folks need water and are willing to do whatever it takes.

At least until the Law of Unintended Consequences catches up. And then they'll tell us that nobody could have foreseen this.

On that day, I want you to join with me in a giant shout of "WE TOLD YOU SO!"

John

[1] Geek points for the original quote and source!

[2] Insert obligatory Santayana quote here.

[3] Though, of course, the Romans wouldn't have phrased it that way; they thought that disease was carried by odors. That's why the fever common to swamps was called "bad air" - malaria.

[4] Though I am reminded of the (possibly apocryphal) tale of the only two cars in Kansas City having an accident.

[5] Which means that the amount of energy, and thus damage, in an accident is nearly TEN times great. Energy goes as the square of the speed, so upping the speed limit from 55 to 75 increases the damage and injuries in an accident not by 36% but by nearly 90%.

[6] Microsoft, anyone?

[7] Frequently sold under the brand name of Petrol.

[8] Pun intended

[9] An unintended consequence of the "green revolution" that allowed all of us to be fed, BTW...

[10] The alternative of finding better ways of using the water we have seems to have escaped the notice of most of these ~~idiots~~ politicians.

[11] Let's hope that the other widely hoped-for solution of dragging icebergs around never makes it to fruition; that would speed up sea-level rise like nobody's business, both directly (through water melting off the berg) and indirectly (through the burning of fossil fuels to tow the damn things).

[12] And never mind that they can use the brine solution to generate electricity!

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Bad John - no biscuit!

nobody@vox.com(John) — Thu, 14 Jun 2007 10:55:15 -0400

It isn't nice and it isn't right, but every so often I just have to laugh at some poor schmuck getting what he deserves from the Universe. For example, there's the 20-something yobo who threw a chunk of ice at me while I was riding my bike down the street - and then ran into the car in front of him because he was laughing so hard at what he had done.

But it is even better when the comeuppance happens to someone I've never interacted with, because then it's pure comedy [1]. Take this case. This prize character dumps his wife and runs off with another woman. He cuts the ex off with nothing and expects her to crumple under the load. Instead, she thrives and succeeds beyond his wildest imagination, and manages to hold onto a house that was worth $6,000 when he abandoned her [2]. So the schmuck decides he is too clever by half and mortages the home through a dummy corporation, again expecting a doormat [3]. Instead, when she finds out about it, she takes him to court - and wins. He gets $3,000 (half the value of the house when he split) and has to pay $300,000 in court costs - plus he'll probably be facing charges for fraud.

Now that's funny!

John

[1] Or, as was once said "Tragedy is when I cut my finger. Comedy is when you walk into an open sewer and die." [a]

[2] Cue up "I will survive!"

[3] The man just cannot take a hint!

[a] Geek points for the reference!

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