artdiamondblog.com – Page 408 – Art Diamond's web log

Scientist Sees Benefits in Plan to Increase Global Warming

(p. D2) Plants are . . . part of one theoretical plan for turning Mars into a suitable environment for human beings, a process called terraforming.
. . .
Chris McKay, a Mars expert at the NASA Ames Research Center, theorizes that engineers would first have to encourage the kind of global warming they want to avoid on Earth. This could be done by releasing greenhouse gases, like chlorofluorocarbons or perfluorocarbons, into the atmosphere. The goal would be to increase the surface temperature of Mars by a total of about 7.2 degrees Fahrenheit.
. . .
With the rise in temperature, heat-trapping carbon dioxide would eventually be released from the planet’s south polar ice cap, producing a further average temperature rise of even greater magnitude, perhaps as much as 70 degrees Celsius, or 126 degrees Fahrenheit.
These high temperatures would melt ice to produce the water needed for living things.

For the full story, see:
C. CLAIBORNE RAY. “Q & A; At Home on Mars.” The New York Times (Tues., December 11, 2012): D2.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date December 10, 2012.)

McKay wrote up some of his ideas in:
McKay, Christopher P. “Bringing Life to Mars.” Scientific American Presents: The Future of Space Exploration (1999): 52-57.

Many Corporations Refused to Finance Semiconductors

“Shown in 1960, the eight engineers who founded Fairchild Semiconductor and revolutionized world technology in “Silicon Valley,” an “American Experience” documentary, . . . .” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT review quoted and cited below.

(p. C4) “Silicon Valley” is a deceptively grand title for the new “American Experience” documentary Tuesday night on PBS. “Fairchild Semiconductor” would be more accurate.
. . .
One startling image shows a handwritten list of the many corporations that declined to bankroll the eight pioneers before Fairchild Camera and Instrument said yes. If any of them had possessed more foresight, the silicon chip might have belonged to National Cash Register, Motorola, Philco, BorgWarner, Chrysler, General Mills or United Shoe.

For the full review, see:
MIKE HALE. “Men Who Took Silicon to Silicon Valley.” The New York Times (Tues., February 5, 2013): C4.
(Note: ellipses in caption, and in quoted passage, added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date February 4, 2013.)

The “Silicon Valley” program first aired on PBS on 2/5/13 and can be viewed at:
http://video.pbs.org/video/2332168287

“The Ante for Being in the Room” at Apple Was Brutal Honesty

The following passage is Steve Jobs speaking, as quoted by Walter Isaacson.

(p. 569) I don’t think I run roughshod over people, but if something sucks, I tell people to their face. It’s my job to be honest. I know what I’m talking about, and I usually turn out to be right. That’s the culture I tried to create. We are brutally honest with each other, and anyone can tell me they think I am full of shit and I can tell them the same. And we’ve had some rip-roaring arguments, where we are yelling at each other, and it’s some of the best times I’ve ever had. I feel totally comfortable saying “Ron, that store looks like shit” in front of everyone else. Or I might say “God, we really fucked up the engineering on this” in front of the person that’s responsible. That’s the ante for being in the room: You’ve got to be able to be super honest. Maybe there’s a better way, a gentlemen’s club where we all wear ties and speak in this Brahmin language and velvet codewords, but I don’t know that way, because I am middle class from California.

I was hard on people sometimes, probably harder than I needed to be. I remember the time when Reed was six years old, coming home, and I had just fired somebody that day, and I imagined what it was like (p. 570) for that person to tell his family and his young son that he had lost his job. It was hard. But somebody’s got to do it. I figured that it was always my job to make sure that the team was excellent, and if I didn’t do it, nobody was going to do it.

Source:
Isaacson, Walter. Steve Jobs. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011.

Adolphus Busch Was First to Pasteurize Beer

Source of book image: https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTAFP9Hrx5IMUu1VH2WgoGcF43prrX2QiZx1J770DEx8BcGm55p1g

(p. C9) The first King of Beers was a German immigrant who came to America just before the Civil War. Adolphus Busch set down roots in heavily Germanic St. Louis, used an inheritance to buy a brewery-supply business and married into the Anheuser family, which owned a struggling brewery of its own. Installed as president of the family business (re-christened Anheuser-Busch), Adolphus purchased a beer recipe–you have to love this–used by monks in a Bohemian village named Budweis. The crisp, pale lager was known as Budweiser.
. . .
Adolphus certainly knew how to sell beer. He was the first American brewer to pasteurize his product, meaning that he could store it longer and ship it greater distances. He bought his own rail-car company and glass bottler; in the age of trusts he was a one-man conglomerate. Anticipating the family taste for luxury, Adolphus maintained baronial mansions in St. Louis, Cooperstown, N.Y., and Pasadena, Calif. His style was grand or, as Mr. Knoedelseder puts it, “over-the-top gauche.”

For the full review, see:
Roger Lowenstein. “BOOKSHELF; Fall of the House of Busch.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., December 1, 2012): C9.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date November 30, 2012.)

Book under review:
Knoedelseder, William. Bitter Brew: The Rise and Fall of Anheuser-Busch and America’s Kings of Beer. New York: HarperBusiness, 2012.

Unemployment Increases Risk of Heart Attack

As a defender of the process of innovation through creative destruction, I try to be alert to evidence on creative destruction’s benefits and costs. The highest cost is usually viewed as technological unemployment. The evidence below will have to be examined and, if sound, added to the costs.

(p. D6) Unemployment increases the risk of heart attack, a new study reports, and repeated job loss raises the odds still more.
. . .
After adjusting for well-established heart attack risks — age, sex, smoking, income, hypertension, cholesterol screening, exercise, depression, diabetes and others — the researchers found that being unemployed also increased the risk of a heart attack, by an average of 35 percent.

For the full story, see:
NICHOLAS BAKALAR. “Job Loss Raises Threat of Heart Attack.” The New York Times (Tues., November 27, 2012): D6.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date November 26, 2012.)

The Dupre article mentioned above, is:
Dupre, Matthew E., Linda K. George, Guangya Liu, and Eric D. Peterson. “The Cumulative Effect of Unemployment on Risks for Acute Myocardial Infarction.” Archives of Internal Medicine 172, no. 22 (Dec. 10, 2012): 1731-37.
(Note: the Archives of Internal Medicine has been re-named JAMA Internal Medicine.)

Many New Tech Entrepreneurs Shun “Fast Cars and Fancy Parties”

“Phil Libin, chief of Evernote, at its headquarters in Redwood City, Calif.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the NYT article quoted and cited below.

(p. B1) SAN FRANCISCO — The number of privately held Silicon Valley start-ups that are worth more than $1 billion shocks even the executives running those companies.

“I thought we were special,” said Phil Libin, chief executive of Evernote, an online consumer service for storing clippings, photos and bits of information as he counted his $1 billion-plus peers.
He started Evernote in 2008 on the eve of the recession and built it methodically. “A lot of us didn’t set out to have a big valuation, we’re just trying to build something that lasts,” Mr. Libin said. “There is no safe industry anymore, even here.”
. . .
(p. B2) Silicon Valley entrepreneurs contend that the price spiral is not a sign of another tech bubble. The high prices are reasonable, they say, because innovations like smartphones and cloud computing will remake a technology industry that is already worth hundreds of billions of dollars.
. . .
The founders of the highly valued companies are old enough to remember past busts, and many shun the bubble lifestyle of fast cars and fancy parties.
Mr. Libin, who said he grew up on food stamps as the son of Russian immigrants in the Bronx, became a millionaire when he sold his first company, Engine5, to Vignette in 2000.
“The company I sold to, there were purple Lamborghinis in the garage. I got into watches,” he said. “Maybe a half-dozen, nothing over $10,000, but I needed this glass and leather watch winder.”
Evernote started as the financial crisis hit. “One night I was almost busted again,” he said, “and there was that watch winder on the shelf, mocking me.”
“Every job out there is insecure now,” he said. “People sell 10 percent of their stock, and they have an incentive to make the other 90 percent worth more. They are still working, but not worrying about what will happen to their home or their kids.”

For the full story, see:
QUENTIN HARDY. “A Billion-Dollar Club, and Not So Exclusive.” The New York Times (Weds., February 5, 2013): B1 & B2.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date February 4, 2013.)

Real Entrepreneurs Do Not Launch a Startup in Order to Cash In and Move On

The following passage is Steve Jobs speaking, as quoted by Walter Isaacson.
I agree with the part about real entrepreneurs not going public quick in order to cash in. But I disagree that the real entrepreneurs are mainly interested in building a lasting company. I think that often they are mainly interested in getting a project, or a series of projects, done (and done reasonably well). Recall that when Walt Disney couldn’t convince Roy Disney to pursue the Disneyland project, Walt left the main Disney company to pursue the project through a secondary rump Disney company.

(p. 569) I hate it when people call themselves “entrepreneurs” when what they’re really trying to do is launch a startup and then sell or go public, so they can cash in and move on. They’re unwilling to do the work it takes to build a real company, which is the hardest work in business. That’s how you really make a contribution and add to the legacy of those who went before. You build a company that will still stand for something a generation or two from now. That’s what Walt Disney did, and Hewlett and Packard, and the people who built Intel. They created a company to last, not just to make money. That’s what I want Apple to be.

Source:
Isaacson, Walter. Steve Jobs. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011.

Much of “A Charlie Brown Christmas” Was Funded Out of Producer’s Own Pocket

Source of book image: http://www.awn.com/files/imagepicker/23/artofpeanuts-cover-620.jpg

(p. C10) Of all the “Peanuts” television specials ever made, the first–“A Charlie Brown Christmas” (1965)–was the Charlie Browniest. The 25-minute special was an underdog, just like its hapless protagonist, and barely made it on the air. CBS gave producer Lee Mendelson so minuscule a budget, we learn in Charles Solomon’s “The Art and Making of Peanuts Animation,” that he was forced to fund the rest out of his own pocket–even though Coca-Cola had already guaranteed sponsorship. When “A Charlie Brown Christmas” pulled in sensational ratings, CBS grudgingly asked for follow-ups. “We’re going to order four more,” a network executive told Mr. Mendelson, “though my aunt in New Jersey didn’t like it either”–a line that Schulz might have written.
. . .
“A Charlie Brown Christmas” established the template, mixing morals and gags in a way that made the peachiness seem endearing. The perfectly pitched dialogue, written by Schulz himself, was voiced (at his insistence) by actual children. The expressionist use of line and color was introduced by director Bill Melendez, and the understated yet supremely catchy Latin jazz scores were the work of pianist-composer Vince Guaraldi and his combo. The tune Guaraldi called “Linus and Lucy” came to be synonymous with “Peanuts” for the generations that grew up on the specials.
While the movements of the characters–especially Snoopy–could be antic, Guaraldi’s scores set a cool counterpoint and provided a sense of serenity that was utterly unique. The characters weren’t always moving–sometimes they would stop and simply listen to each other–and Schulz insisted that there be no laugh track. He made the climax of the drama Linus walking to the center of the school stage to recite from the gospel of Luke–a decision daring even in its day, not least because it stopped the action for an extended period to show a hand-drawn character delivering a lisping speech.

For the full review, see:
WILL FRIEDWALD. “BOOKSHELF; Cheers for Chuck.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., December 22, 2012): C10.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the review has the date December 21, 2012.)

Book under review:
Solomon, Charles. The Art and Making of Peanuts Animation: Celebrating Fifty Years of Television Specials. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books, 2012.

NYT Climate Blogger Sees Evidence “Trending” Toward Less Global Warming

“Worse than we thought” has been one of the most durable phrases lately among those pushing for urgent action to stem the buildup of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.
But on one critically important metric — how hot the planet will get from a doubling of the pre-industrial concentration of greenhouse gases, a k a “climate sensitivity” — some climate researchers with substantial publication records are shifting toward the lower end of the warming spectrum.
There’s still plenty of global warming and centuries of coastal retreats in the pipeline, so this is hardly a “benign” situation, as some have cast it.
But while plenty of other climate scientists hold firm to the idea that the full range of possible outcomes, including a disruptively dangerous warming of more than 4.5 degrees C. (8 degrees F.), remain in play, it’s getting harder to see why the high-end projections are given much weight.
. . .
In fact, there is an accumulating body of reviewed, published research shaving away the high end of the range of possible warming estimates from doubled carbon dioxide levels.
. . .
(. . . recent work is trending toward the published low sensitivity findings from a decade ago from climate scientists best known for their relationships with libertarian groups.)
Nonetheless, the science is what the science is.

Revkin, Andrew C. “CLIMATE CHANGE; A Closer Look at Moderating Views of Climate Sensitivity.” Dot Earth: New York Times Opinion Pages Climate Blog. (posted February 4, 2013).
(Note: ellipses added.)

Antarctica Has 595,000 Emperor Penguins–Double Previous Count

“Using satellites, researchers counted Antarctica’s emperor penguins at 46 colonies like this one near the Halley Research Station, finding numbers twice as high as previously thought.” Source of caption and photo: online version of the WSJ article quoted and cited below.

(p. A2) Antarctica has twice as many emperor penguins as scientists had thought, according to a new study using satellite imagery in the first comprehensive survey of one of the world’s most iconic birds.

British and U.S. geospatial mapping experts reported Friday in the journal PLoS One that they had counted 595,000 emperor penguins living in 46 colonies along the coast of Antarctica, compared with previous estimates of 270,000 to 350,000 penguins based on surveys of just five colonies. The researchers also discovered four previously unknown emperor-penguin colonies and confirmed the location of three others.
“It is good news from a conservation point of view,” said geographer Peter Fretwell at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, England, who led the penguin satellite census. “This is the first comprehensive census of a species taken from space.”
Although all of Antarctica’s wildlife is protected by international treaty, the emperor penguins are not an officially endangered species. But they are considered a bellwether of any future climate changes in Antarctica because their icy habitat is so sensitive to rising temperatures.

For the full story, see:
ROBERT LEE HOTZ. “Emperor Penguins Are Teeming in Antarctica.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., April 14, 2012): A2.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date April 13, 2012.)

Jobs Believed Great Companies Decline When Salesmen (Rather than Engineers and Designers) Take Over

The following passage is Steve Jobs speaking, as quoted by Walter Isaacson.

(p. 568) I have my own theory about why decline happens at companies like IBM or Microsoft. The company does a great job, innovates and becomes a monopoly or close to it in some field, and then the quality of (p. 569) the product becomes less important. The company starts valuing the great salesmen, because they’re the ones who can move the needle on revenues, not the product engineers and designers. So the salespeople end up running the company. John Akers at IBM was a smart, eloquent, fantastic salesperson, but he didn’t know anything about product. The same thing happened at Xerox. When the sales guys run the company, the product guys don’t matter so much, and a lot of them just turn off.

Source:
Isaacson, Walter. Steve Jobs. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011.