June 2013 – Page 2 – artdiamondblog.com

Cars Increase Our Individual Freedom

(p. A13) Cars appeal powerfully to one of the most important conservative values: individual freedom. Straphangers in public conveyances can only travel in groups, moving along with hordes of strangers according to schedules imposed by others. Bicyclists, free as they may be, are clearly limited by distance and time constraints. Once you get into a car, however, you go wherever you want, whenever you want, subject only to your ability to put gas in the tank.

For the full commentary, see:
MICHAEL MEDVED. “OPINION; Honk If You Were Ever Devoted to a Car; I asked for a chance to say a proper goodbye to our family Plymouth. The night before we traded the car in, I slept in it.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., March 9, 2013): A13.
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date March 8, 2013.)

Heart Disease Affected Ancients Who Differed in Culture, Class and Diet

“Egyptologist Dr. Gomaa Abd el-Maksoud prepares the mummy Hatiay (New Kingdom, 18th Dynasty, 1550-1295 BCE) for scanning. Hatiay was found to have evidence of extensive vascular disease.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A4) SAN FRANCISCO–It turns out there is nothing new about heart disease.

Researchers who examined 137 mummies from four cultures spanning 4,000 years said Sunday they found robust evidence of atherosclerosis, or hardening of the arteries, challenging widely held assumptions that cardiovascular disease is largely a malady of current times.
An international research team of cardiologists, radiologists and archeologists used CT scanners to evaluate the mummies, hunting for deposits of calcium in arterial walls that are a telltale sign of hardening of the arteries that can lead to heart attacks and strokes. They found that 47, or 34%, of the mummies had such deposits, suggesting, they said, that cardiovascular disease was more common in historic times than many experts think.
. . .
The same researchers reported similar findings in 2009 from Egyptian mummies. Because those specimens were believed to have been from the upper echelons of society, the researchers surmised their calcified arteries could have developed from high-fat diets. But by expanding the research to other cultures, including Puebloans of what is now the U.S. Southwest, the researchers believe all levels of society were at risk, regardless of diet.

For the full story, see:
RON WINSLOW. “U.S. NEWS; Telltale Finding on Heart Disease.” The Wall Street Journal (Mon., March 11, 2013): A6.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date March 10, 2013.)

Amish Factory Uses Pneumatics in Place of Electricity

(p. 219) The Amish also make a distinction between technology they have at work and technology they have at home. I remember an early visit to an Amish man who ran a woodworking shop near Lancaster, Pennsylvania. . . .
. . .
(p. 220) While the rest of his large workshop lacked electricity beyond that naked bulb, it did not lack power machines. The place was vibrating with an ear-cracking racket of power sanders, power saws, power planers, power drills, and so on. Everywhere I turned there were bearded men covered in sawdust pushing wood through screaming machines. This was not a circle of Renaissance craftsman hand-tooling masterpieces. This was a small-time factory cranking out wooden furniture with machine power. But where was the power coming from? Not from windmills.
Amos took me around to the back where a huge SUV-sized diesel generator sat. It was massive. In addition to a gas engine there was a very large tank, which, I learned, stored compressed air. The diesel engine burned petroleum fuel to drive the compressor that filled the reservoir with pressure. From the tank, a series of high-pressure pipes snaked off toward every corner of the factory. A hard rubber flexible hose connected each tool to a pipe. The entire shop ran on compressed air. Every piece of machinery was running on pneumatic power. Amos even showed me a pneumatic switch, which he could flick like a light switch to turn on some paint-drying fans running on air.
The Amish call this pneumatic system “Amish electricity.” At first, pneumatics were devised for Amish workshops, but air power was seen as so useful that it migrated to Amish households. In fact, there is an entire cottage industry in retrofitting tools and appliances to run on Amish electricity. The retrofitters buy a heavy-duty blender, say, and yank out the electrical motor. They then substitute an air-powered motor of appropriate size, add pneumatic connectors, and bingo, your Amish mom now has a blender in her electricity-less kitchen. You can get a pneumatic sewing machine and a pneumatic washer/dryer (with propane heat). In a display of pure steam-punk (air-punk?) nerdiness, Amish hackers try to outdo one another in building pneumatic versions of electrified contraptions. Their mechanical skill is quite impressive, particularly since none went to school beyond the eighth grade. They (p. 221) love to show off their geekiest hacks. And every tinkerer I met claimed that pneumatics were superior to electrical devices because air was more powerful and durable, outlasting motors that burned out after a few years of hard labor. I don’t know if this claim of superiority is true or merely a justification, but it was a constant refrain.

Source:
Kelly, Kevin. What Technology Wants. New York: Viking Adult, 2010.
(Note: ellipses added.)

Behind the Iron Curtain, Those Who Opposed “Were to Be Destroyed by “Cutting Them Off Like Slices of Salami””

Source of book image: http://www.opednews.com/populum/uploaded/iron-curtain-20882-20130113-95.jpg

(p. 16) That Soviet tanks carried Moscow-trained agents into Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia and East Germany was known in the West at the time and has been well documented since. When those agents set out to produce not only a friendly sphere of Soviet influence but also a cordon of dictatorships reliably responsive to Russian orders, Winston Churchill was moved to warn, just days after the Nazis’ surrender in 1945, that an Iron Curtain was being drawn through the heart of Europe. (He coined the metaphor in a message to President Truman a full year before he used it in public in Fulton, Mo.) And Matyas Rakosi, the “little Stalin” of Hungary, was well known for another apt metaphor, describing how the region’s political, economic, cultural and social oppositions were to be destroyed by “cutting them off like slices of salami.”

Applebaum tracks the salami slicing as typically practiced in Poland, Hungary and Germany, and serves up not only the beef but also the fat, vinegar and garlic in exhausting detail. She shows how the knives were sharpened before the war’s end in Soviet training camps for East European Communists, so that trusted agents could create and control secret police forces in each of the “liberated” nations. She shows how reliable operatives then took charge of all radio broadcasting, the era’s most powerful mass medium. And she demonstrates how the Soviet stooges could then, with surprising speed, harass, persecute and finally ban all independent institutions, from youth groups and welfare agencies to schools, churches and rival political parties.
Along the way, millions of Germans, Poles, Ukrainians and Hungarians were ruthlessly driven from their historic homes to satisfy Soviet territorial ambitions. Millions more were deemed opponents and beaten, imprisoned or hauled off to hard labor in Siberia. In Stalin’s paranoid sphere, not even total control of economic and cultural life was sufficient. To complete the terror, he purged even the Communist leaders of each satellite regime, accusing them of treason and parading them as they made humiliating confessions.
It is good to be reminded of these sordid events, now that more archives are accessible and some witnesses remain alive to recall the horror.

For the full review, see:
MAX FRANKEL. “Stalin’s Shadow.” The New York Times (Sun., November 25, 2012): 16.
(Note: the online version of the review has the date November 21, 2012.)

The book under review, is:
Applebaum, Anne. Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956. New York: Doubleday, 2012.

Cuban Government Employees “Are Known for Surly Service, Inefficiency, Absenteeism and Pilfering”

(p. A10) However small, . . . , the private sector is changing the work culture on an island where state employees earn meager salaries and are known for surly service, inefficiency, absenteeism and pilfering.
Sergio Alba Marín, who for years managed the restaurants of a state-owned hotel and now owns a popular fast-food restaurant, said he was very strict with his employees and would not employ workers trained by the state.
“They have too many vices — stealing, for one,” said Mr. Alba, who was marching with his 25 employees and two large banners emblazoned with the name of his restaurant, La Pachanga. “You can’t change that mentality.”
“Even if you could, I don’t have time,” he added. “I have a business to run.”

For the full story, see:
VICTORIA BURNETT. “HAVANA JOURNAL; Amid Fealty to Socialism, a Nod to Capitalism.” The New York Times (Thurs., May 2, 2013): A6 & A10.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date May 1, 2013.)

Federal Food Regs Drive Sharon Penner to Stop Baking for Nebraska Children

“Sharon Penner slices fresh bread, which she bakes a few times a week for Hampton, Neb., students. Penner, who has fed the town’s schoolchildren for 43 years, saw new school nutrition rules that cut many of her goodies as a sign it was time to retire. With her in the school kitchen is assistant Judy Hitzemann.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the Omaha World-Herald article quoted and cited below.

Have we gone too far when the preferences of Michelle Obama rule over the preferences of the parents of Hampton, Nebraska? And is it clear that the parents are wrong in thinking that fresh-baked bread (see photo above) and a timely pat on the shoulder (see photo below), are worth some extra calories?

(p. 1A) HAMPTON, Neb. — Blame the broccoli. Blame the mandarin oranges. Blame all their cousins, from apples to yams, for removing Mrs. Penner’s butter bars from the school lunch counter.

Then blame Mrs. Obama for removing Mrs. Penner.
So goes the thinking in this no-stoplight village of 423 people about 20 minutes northwest of York.
When the new federal school nutrition mandates went into effect this year, championed by first lady Michelle Obama, fresh-baked brownies, cookies and other sugary goodies disappeared from the school menu. And Sharon Penner, who has been feeding schoolchildren here for 43 years, decided it was a sign from above to retire.
Friday [May 17, 2013] will be the last school lunch the 70-year-old prepares for the Hampton Hawks.
Mrs. Penner is hanging up her apron.
“She is?” asked an incredulous sixth-grader named Treavar Pekar. (p. 2A) He stopped cold from scrubbing some of the six tables in the small cafeteria when I broke the news after lunch.
“NOOOOO!!!!!”
That about sums up the community response.

For the full story, see:
Grace, Erin. “Time to Hang Up Her Purple Apron.” Omaha World-Herald (FRIDAY, MAY 17, 2013): 1A-2A.
(Note: ellipses, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the article has the title “Grace: Hampton lunch lady ready to hang up apron.”)

“Sharon Penner with Bryce Joseph, who needed some help after dropping his breakfast tray.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the Omaha World-Herald article quoted and cited above.

If Anarcho-Primitives Destroy Civilization, Billions of City-Dwellers Will Die

(p. 211) . . . , the . . . problem with destroying civilization as we know it is that the alternative, such as it has been imagined by the self-described “haters of civilization,” would not support but a fraction of the people alive today. In other words, the collapse of civilization would kill billions. Ironically, the poorest rural inhabitants would fare the best, as they could retreat to hunting and gathering with the least trouble, but billions of urbanites would die within months or even weeks, once food ran out and disease took over. The anarcho-primitives are rather sanguine about this catastrophe, arguing that accelerating the collapse early might save lives in total.

Source:
Kelly, Kevin. What Technology Wants. New York: Viking Adult, 2010.
(Note: ellipses added.)

Patents Turned Steam from Toy to Engine

Source of book image: http://img2.imagesbn.com/p/9781400067053_p0_v1_s260x420.JPG

(p. 20) The obvious audience for Rosen’s book consists of those who hunger to know what it took to go from Heron of Alexandria’s toy engine, created in the first century A.D., to practical and brawny beasts like George and Robert Stephenson’s Rocket, which kicked off the age of steam locomotion in 1829. But Rosen is aiming for more than a fan club of steam geeks. The “most powerful idea” of his title is not an early locomotive: “The Industrial Revolution was, first and foremost, a revolution in invention,” he writes, “a radical transformation in the process of invention itself.” The road to Rocket was built with hundreds of innovations large and small that helped drain the mines, run the mills, and move coal and then people over rails.
. . .
Underlying it all, Rosen argues, was the recognition that ideas themselves have economic value, which is to say, this book isn’t just gearhead wonkery, it’s legal wonkery too. Abraham Lincoln, wondering why Heron’s steam engine languished, claimed that the patent system “added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius.” Rosen agrees, offering a forceful argument in the debate, which has gone on for centuries, over whether patents promote innovation or retard it.
Those who believe passionately, as Thomas Jefferson did, that inventions “cannot, in nature, be a subject of property,” are unlikely to be convinced. Those who agree with the inventors James Watt and Richard Arkwright, who wrote in a manuscript that “an engineer’s life without patent is not worthwhile,” will cheer. Either way, Rosen’s presentation of this highly intellectual debate will reward even those readers who never wondered how the up-and-down chugging of a piston is converted into consistent rotary motion.

For the full review, see:
JOHN SCHWARTZ. “Steam-Driven Dreams.” The New York Times (Sun., August 29, 2010): 20.
(Note: ellipsis added; italicized words in original.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date August 26, 2010.)

The book under review, is:
Rosen, William. The Most Powerful Idea in the World: A Story of Steam, Industry, and Invention. New York: Random House, 2010.

Berkshire Agrees to Buy No More than 25% of DaVita, Firm Accused of Medicare Fraud

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has agreed to cap its ownership of DaVita Healthcare Partners at 25%. A previous entry on this blog quoted a story saying that Ted Weschler is behind Berkshire’s purchases of DaVita stock. An even earlier entry on this blog discussed accusations that DaVita Healthcare Partners has committed substantial healthcare fraud by charging the taxpayer millions of dollars for medicine that is needlessly thrown away.

(p. 2D) Berkshire agreed not to buy more than 25 percent of DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc., a national network of medical infusion clinics.
Berkshire investment manager Ted Weschler has been buying DaVita stock for Berkshire since joining the Omaha investment company last year, totaling about 14 percent of the company, Bloomberg reported.
Weschler and DaVita President Javier Rodriguez signed a “standstill agreement” last week, a document often intended to clarify whether an investor wants to acquire controlling interest in a business. Some have speculated that Berkshire wants to acquire all of DaVita’s stock, which artificially inflates the price of its shares.
DaVita legal officer Kim Rivera said Berkshire is a “supportive investor with a long-term view.”

For the full story, see:
Steve Jordon. “WARREN WATCH; At Berkshire meeting, See’s candymaker outshines Warren Buffett.” Omaha World-Herald (SUNDAY, MAY 12, 2013): 1D & 2D.

After Failing to Enslave Indians, Starving Jamestown Colonists Ate 14-Year-Old Girl

“A facial reconstruction of a 14-year-old girl whose skull shows signs that her remains were used for food after her death and burial.” Source of caption and image: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

Acemoglu and Robinson in the long, but thought-provoking, opening chapter of their Why Nations Fail book, discuss starvation at the Jamestown colony. Only they don’t mainly attribute it to a harsh winter or a slow rescue from England, as does the article quoted below (it is from the New York Times, after all).
Economists Acemoglu and Robinson (p. 23) instead criticize the colony’s initial plan to thrive by enslaving natives to bring them gold and food. Eventually John Smith made the bold suggestion that the colonists should try to work to produce something to eat or to trade. The rulers of the colony ignored Smith, resulting in starvation and cannibalism.

(p. A11) Archaeologists excavating a trash pit at the Jamestown colony site in Virginia have found the first physical evidence of cannibalism among the desperate population, corroborating written accounts left behind by witnesses. Cut marks on the skull and skeleton of a 14-year-old girl show that her flesh and brain were removed, presumably to be eaten by the starving colonists during the harsh winter of 1609.

The remains were excavated by archaeologists led by William Kelso of Preservation Virginia, a private nonprofit group, and analyzed by Douglas Owsley, a physical anthropologist at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington. The skull bears tentative cuts to the forehead, followed by four strikes to the back of the head, one of which split the skull open, according to an article in Smithsonian magazine, where the find was reported Wednesday.
It is unclear how the girl died, but she was almost certainly dead and buried before her remains were butchered. According to a letter written in 1625 by George Percy, president of Jamestown during the starvation period, the famine was so intense “thatt notheinge was Spared to mainteyne Lyfe and to doe those things which seame incredible, as to digge upp deade corpes outt of graves and to eate them.”

For the full story, see:
NICHOLAS WADE. “Girl’s Bones Bear Signs of Cannibalism by Starving Virginia Colonists.” The New York Times (Thurs., May 2, 2013): A11.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date May 1, 2013.)

The Acemoglu book mentioned above is:
Acemoglu, Daron, and James Robinson. Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty. New York: Crown Business, 2012.

“Human remains from the Jamestown colony site in Virginia bearing evidence of cannibalism.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited above.

Moore’s Law: Inevitable or Intel?

I believe that Moore’s Law remained true for a long time, not because it was inevitable, but because an exemplary company worked very hard and effectively to make it true.

(p. 159) In brief, Moore’s Law predicts that computing chips will shrink by half in size and cost every 18 to 24 months. For the past 50 years it has been astoundingly correct.

It has been steady and true, but does Moore’s Law reveal an imperative in the technium? In other words is Moore’s Law in some way inevitable? The answer is pivotal for civilization for several reasons. First, Moore’s Law represents the acceleration in computer technology, which is accelerating everything else. Faster jet engines don’t lead to higher corn yields, nor do better lasers lead to faster drug discoveries, but faster computer chips lead to all of these. These days all technology follows computer technology. Second, finding inevitability in one key area of technology suggests invariance and directionality may be found in the
rest of the technium.

Source:
Kelly, Kevin. What Technology Wants. New York: Viking Adult, 2010.