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Clayton Cramer's BLOG |
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Clayton's commentary on news and events of the day. Broadly speaking, I'm a conservative with libertarian sympathies (getting more conservative as my children get older).
 Never forget! I ran for Idaho state senate in 2008--didn't win I've written a number of history books, as well as scholarly and popular articles, (see my web page).
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Saturday, October 28, 2006
Astronomy I rolled out the 8" reflector this evening to finish off the roll of film in the camera. This time, I was using eyepiece projection with a 12.5mm eyepiece--meaning that all I could see was a portion of the Moon along the terminator. These can be spectacular photographs, if everything is sharply focused, as it seemed to be. The exposures I tried were 1/8h second, 1/4 second, and 1/2 second. I'll have Wal-Mart develop this tomorrow. Every time I use this reflector, I am reminded of what a fine piece of optics it is. Big Bertha, having more than twice the aperture, will usually show more detail at the same magnification (as you would expect), Big Bertha seldom tolerates more magnification, under the same conditions. The image through the 8" at 56x is breathtaking. The whole Moon is visible, with a bit of black sky around it, and one of the brighter stars visible off to the side. The features are tack sharp, with high contrast on everything. I kept putting in more and more powerful eyepieces, trying to find where the image broke down. Turbulence is a bit of a problem, but you can see the image waving because of it. For brief moments, the air stops moving completely, and the image is flawless. But other than the turbulence, wow! At 354x, the image was still tack sharp. The next step up, using a 9mm with a 3x Barlow, gave 471x. At this level, in addition to turbulence, the image was starting to soften--and no amount of focusing would make it sharp. But there was still a bit more detail visible compared to 354x. In particular, I was looking at a rille near the terminator. It was just a wiggling line at 354x--but at 471x, while the rille was not quite as crisply defined, there was definitely more detail at the bottom and the sides of the rille. In some stretches, I saw (or at least think I saw) differences in width and the shape of the bottom of the rille. The next step up, using a 7mm with the 3x Barlow, was 606x--and here the softening had gone too far. I was seeing less detail at the bottom of the rille than at 471x. I have decided that the Losmandy GM-8 mount is just a little light for the 8" reflector. If I adjust the focus, it can take a couple of seconds at least for the mount to stop shaking. There might be a CI-700 or a G-11 mount in my future, especially if I can find one used and cheap. Labels: astrophotography, telescopes Camille Paglia on What Has Gone Wrong Paglia is no conservative; she is definitely part of the left--but part of it that actually learns from history and thinks--as distinguished from that vast swarm of university faculty who think that learning is the ability to parrot what appears in The Nation. She is full of negative things to say about Bush in this recent interview, but she makes a number of important points about why the left is in trouble: What do contemporary intellectuals have to offer anyhow? What passionate engagement do they have to appeal to young people? Liberal secularism has become bourgeois and materialistic. It's snide, elitist, and politically marginalized. The chattering class clearly has no effect whatever on decision-making in Washington. Conservative radio hosts have been claiming that liberal criticism of Bush's decisiveness in invading Iraq mirrors the shilly-shallying of 1930s intellectuals during Hitler's rise. The intellectuals, with their cultivated internationalism, always counsel procrastination and leave it to the men of action to deal forcefully with fascist regimes. Friday, October 27, 2006
Astrophotography Again I believe that I mentioned the struggles that I have enjoyed in the cold, figuring out how to get the Losmandy mount aligned on the North Celestial Pole. I also discovered that the weight of the camera caused the diagonal on my reflector to unscrew--which had all sorts of shattering glass potential. So, I pulled off the shelf the reflector that my father and I put together many years ago. I know it works for astrophotography; I've used it for that purpose before--and it is a pretty impressive optical system, especially for something that is only 8" in aperture. I'm afraid that this telescope is at the upper end of what the Losmandy GM-8 can carry. Partly this is because of the weight; it weighs about 25 pounds. Partly this is because of its length, with the moment arm problem of something with a fair amount of mass at the ends of a fiberglass tube. (Fiberglass is stiff for its weight, but still not stiff in the sense of steel or carbon fiber composite.) Still, for visual use, it works, and if I gave the timer on the camera a few seconds to fire the shutter, there was no visible motion, even with the wind blowing. (The camera is a Pentax ME Super, so I have to get the film developed at Wal-Mart. How quaint!) Anyway, I shot some pictures of the Moon at prime focus, where you use the telescope by itself as the camera lens. Michael Covington's astrophotography exposure calculator says that I should use 1/250th of a second, so I did 1/500th, 1/250th, and 1/125th second exposures. I dragged Big Bertha out as well, and since it can't track across the sky, this limits exposure time to 1/4 of a second or less. But hey, it's got plenty of light for the Moon. I used a 3x Barlow lens in between the camera and the telescope, not because I wanted the magnification, but because the focuser won't go far enough in to put the focal point into the camera body. A Barlow lens effectively pushes the focal point out a few inches. Covington's calculator suggested 1/30th of a second, so I did exposures at 1/60th, 1/30th, and 1/15th of a second. With the combination of Big Bertha's 2000mm focal length, and the 3x Barlow, I could not get all of the Moon on a single frame, so I may have a little less brightness than optimal. The last set was to use eyepiece projection on the 8" reflector, where you attach the camera to an adapter that carries an eyepiece. In this case, a 25mm Plossl eyepiece made the Moon fit nicely within the film size. The calculator suggested 1/15th of a second, so I did 1/30th, 1/15th, and 1/8th of a second exposures. I don't know if viewing conditions are better, or if my glasses are better than they used to be, but I had no problem getting what seemed like a very sharp focus with the Pentax. Focus is critical in astrophotography, and I have often found myself frustrated at this, but these seemed pretty decent. Viewing conditions weren't great, primarily because the Moon was headed down, and there seemed to be quite a bit of turbulence above about 250x. At lower magnifications, however, such as 56x with the 8" reflector, and 80x with Big Bertha, the level of detail was breathtaking! Labels: astrophotography, telescopes When Life Begins: No, This Isn't About Abortion It involves something even a bit more miraculous. I mentioned a while back recently published research suggesting that the Earth already had an oxygen-rich atmosphere 3.8 billion years ago--which pushes photosynthetic life to earlier than 3.8 billion years ago. This cuts the time available for inorganic molecules to randomly, without direction, make the transition to life--and then evolve the really astonishingly sophisticated and complex ability to convert sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into oxygen and glucose. Now I see mentioned in the October 2006 Astronomy this new piece of evidence pushing back the first complex life to a surprisingly early stage: Scientists studying the mysterious mounds along a 6-mile-long (10 kilometers) formation in Western Australia's Pilbara region say microbes formed the structures 3.4 billion years ago. The research, led by Australian Centre for Astrobiology doctoral student Abigail Allwood and published in the June 8 issue of Nature, challenges the idea that chemical processes formed the rocks.If this is correct--and it corroborates the other evidence suggesting that life was already present 3.8 billion years ago--it creates what I call the anti-Young Earth problem. A lot of Creationists are absolutely insistent that the Earth is only a few thousand years old, even though the Bible doesn't ever make such a claim. (Hint: taking the Bible as literally true when you are reading a translation from a langugage with less than ten thousands words in its vocabulary creates some interesting problems.) They get insistent about this because if the Earth is 10,000 years old, there's no time for evolution. At the other end, if these pieces of evidence demonstrate that life was already of surprising complexity at 3.8 billion or 3.4 billion years ago, then evolution starts to run into problems of "not enough time" from the other end. Evolutionary theory is built on random, undirected processes, relying on mutations, the vast majority of which are lethal, and many of the rest provide no advantage. The transition from inorganic chemicals to something capable of self-replication is a major leap--one that evolutionary biologists are wise to avoid discussing too much, because it is a major step (dare I call it a leap of faith?) that makes evolutionary advancement seem pretty simple. Then to make the leap to photosynthesis--and have microbial fossils sufficiently abundant that we manage to find examples that are 3.4 billion years old? Remember that skeletal fossil formation requires fairly unusual geological conditions, and microbial fossil formation, because it does not involve hard materials, is even more unusual--and from that far back? For everything to fall together so that in somewhere between 700 million and 1.1 billion years we have evidence of widespread and fairly complex life on this planet implies an astonishingly rapid development for a random, undirected process reliant on a mechanism (mutuation) that more 99% of the time produces a non-viable result. A bit less arrogance from evolutionary biologists would seem wise. Labels: intelligent design Why Haven't I Heard of This Guy? Vernon Robinson is running for Congress in North Carolina's 13th Congressional district. This ad here is uproariously funny, and demonstrates that yes, there are black conservatives out there who are prepared to take on liberalism. Not surprisingly, the liberals are endorsing his "progressive" Democratic opponent. Unfortunately, it would appear that this is one of those Southern districts so far to the left that a black conservative doesn't even have a ghost of a chance. Oh well. Why Feminists Are Solidly on George Bush's Side in the War on Terror This discouraging item from one of the Australian newspapers: Every minute in the world a woman is raped, and she has no one to blame but herself, for she has displayed her beauty to the whole world," Sheikh Feiz Muhammad told a packed public meeting in the Bankstown Town Hall last month. "Strapless, backless, sleeveless - they are nothing but satanical. Mini-skirts, tight jeans - all this to tease men and to appeal to (their) carnal nature."And more recently:
It is these sort of values that are the reason that feminists everywhere have rallied to the cause of defeating Islamic extremism, recognizing that whatever differences they might have with Republicans, there is a shared set of values about the right of women to not be raped. Oh? You mean that I am mistaken? Feminists, for the most part, have sided with those who regard Bush as the greater evil? Feminists regard multiculturalism as the greater good? Why, that's irrational! Thanks to Tim Blair for the pointers to these disturbing news articles. Thursday, October 26, 2006
Election Surveys Real Clear Politics has the latest and greatest local race surveys for the races that are hotly contested. In the Virginia House 2 seat: the Republican is two points up on the Democrat. In the New York House 26 seat: the Republican, Reynolds, who was badly hurt by the Foley scandal when it broke, is again in the lead, five points up on the Democrat. In the New Jersey Senate race: one poll shows the Democrat one point up on the Republican; the other shows a tie. And this was before the New Jersey Supreme Court ordered the legislature to recognize same-sex marriage. The Republican has been strongly in favor of a federal marriage amendment to define marriage. This has got to help him, especially among black voters, who overwhelmingly vote Democrat--and are not happy about gay marriage. In Missouri, the Republican incumbent, Senator Jim Talent, continues to hold a small lead over the Democrat. In Virginia, Senator Allen has a one point lead on the Democrat. As I have pointed out in the past, if past election cycles continue to hold, race where the Republican is tied will be easy victories on election day (three to five points); where the Republican is within two or three points of catching the Democrat in pre-election surveys, the chances are strong that the Republican will win the election by a very small margin. Turnout is crucial. Republicans can make up in determination what we lack in "vote early, vote often," the Democrat's strong point in a number of the bigger cities. Slippery Slopes, Gay Marriage, and the Camel's Nose My father used to tell me the story of the camel who begged his Bedouin master, one cold night in the Sahara, for permission to put his nose inside the tent. "It's so cold out here, and if I could just warm up my nose, I think I could handle it a bit better." Well, as you might expect, with time, more and more of the camel ends up in the tent, just to get warm--and eventually, there wasn't room for the Bedouin in the tent anymore--the camel had taken it over. Conventional wisdom in some circles is that the New Jersey Supreme Court's decision ordering the legislature to create gay marriage--or something that is the same with a different name--is going to help Republicans at the poll in a couple of weeks. I think that's probably true, especially in those states where there are marriage amendments on the ballot. But Professor Volokh has pointed out that at least part of what the New Jersey Supreme Court used to justify its actions was that New Jersey's legislature had already passed other measures that treated homosexuals just like normal people, and this was also true in Massachusetts: Volokh quotes from the New Jersey decision at even more length, pointing out that New Jersey's many actions to accord many rights to homosexuals were actually an argument to the New Jersey Supreme Court that homosexuals deserved full equality with heterosexuals, including marriage. So, by being tolerant and willing to bend a little about homosexuality in some areas, but not in others, states open themselves up to this argument: if you don't consistently treat homosexuals like scum, the courts will force you to grant them full legal equality at some later time. Any state legislature that is considering removing any legal disability that affects homosexuals, in light of both the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and New Jersey Supreme Court decisions, would be well-advised to not do so. Indeed, this slippery slope result argues that state legislatures that do not want to have same-sex marriage imposed on them by the courts, would be advised to repeal any of the laws already on the books that allow gay adoptions, civil unions, or that prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation. You know, I am not really interested in having the government in the business of harassing homosexuals, or making their lives unnecessarily difficult. These decisions, however, create a strong incentive for social conservatives to rollback laws that have had the net effect of being nice to homosexuals. In the long run, this insistence on imposing same-sex marriage on the states is likely to make the legal situation for homosexuals more difficult, not easier. Labels: homosexuality Idaho Initiatives: Proposition 1 This is one of those measures put on the ballot by the Idaho teachers' union to raise taxes. I had not actually read it in detail--but I am inclined to suspect that there is something pretty badly wrong with it when the Idaho Statesman, of all leftist groups, opposes it. There must have been some point in the past where the Idaho Statesman disapproved of a tax increase intended to give raises to teachers, but I would guess it was during the McKinley Administration: Proposition 1 would infuse money into Idaho schools.It really doesn't bother me any to see school teachers paid better. If they were paid well enough to identify with the middle class, who knows? Maybe they would stop being such reflexive leftists. I would also like teachers to be paid well enough that at least some engineers could honestly say, "Gee, I would like to teach, and now I won't have to wait to win the Powerball before I can afford to go do that." If the Idaho Statesman considers a teachers' union initiative dangerously vague, however, that would seem a pretty damning statement--rather like if the Club for Growth came out in opposition to a tax cut, or the Sierra Club argued against a growth control initiative. Idaho Election Initiatives: Proposition 2 I have heard from at least two different people now the claim that one of the initiatives on the Idaho ballot next month is not what it appears to be--the initiative to protect private property rights, Proposition 2. One of the claims is that it doesn't protect private property rights at all, but is confusingly worded so that voting for it will actually make it easier for the government to confiscate private property to give to other private concerns. The other claim is that it will only work for the benefit of a few large landowners. Having now read the text of Proposition 2 (and not just the summary), I would have to say that both claims are so far off the mark that I wonder if the left has started a whispering campaign against the measure because an honest attack wouldn't work. This measure has two related but substantially different components. The first part defines, somewhat more narrowly than existing state law, under what circumstances governments may use eminent domain to take private property. Specifically: 12. Eminent domain shall not be used to acquire private property:There are some exceptions on 12(b) that make reference to various existing sections of state law, such as title 70, chapter 15, which controls the establishment of ports. (Don't laugh--Idaho actually has a port to which ocean-going ships come.) There is an exception for urban redevelopment as specified in title 50, chapters 19, 20, and 29--but even then, Proposition 2 specifies: that no private property shall be taken through exercise of eminent domain with the area of operation of a housing authority or within an urban renewal area or within a deteriorated area or within a competitively disadvantaged border community area unless the specific property to be condemned is proven by clear and convincing evidence that it meets all of the following requirements:The second aspect of Proposition 2, which is why city and county governments around the state are flipped out about it, requires that if a change in an existing "land use law" (which includes both zoning and planning regulations) causes a reduction in the value of private property, the owner is entitled to compensation for the reduction in value. The reason for this is obvious. Some years back, there was a zoning situation that developed in San Diego County where a property owner with a vacant parcel suddenly found that his land had been rezoned so that he would never be allowed to build a house on it. What had been a somewhat valuable piece of land--because of the ocean view--was now nearly worthless. Now, I believe that there may well be cases where zoning and planning can perform some legitimate functions with respect to density and so on, but similarly, if the government is going to change the zoning, they should be prepared to compensate injured parties for it. If you know that a zoning change is going to cost the government ten million dollars in compensation to those injured, it may encourage a little more thought and care in how severe such changes are. Or it might encourage the government, if it really wants a greenbelt, to use eminent domain to buy the land that it wants, instead of sticking a private property with the cost. I do not doubt that the major beneficiaries of this second part of Proposition will be big property owners. For the most part, people that live in the suburbs have pretty stable zoning situations. Where I lived in Sonoma County, the county supervisors decided that big chunks of the west part of the county should be zoned minimum 160 or 640 acre parcels--meaning that the land could not be subdivided. They did this to preserve the rural character of the area. This is very pretty, and it is a gorgeous area in which to live because of it--especially if you are one of the people that can afford to buy a house on a 160 acre parcel (in my experience, the multimillionaire Democrats, Greens, and further left that dominate Sonoma County politics)--but when you make this type of zoning change, you are substantially reducing the value of the land. I intend to vote for Proposition 2. Wednesday, October 25, 2006
If There Was Any Question About Whether Idaho Needs to Pass a Marriage Amendment It is today's decision by the New Jersey Supreme Court that New Jersey is legally obligated to either allow same-sex couples to marry, or create some parallel institution for them. The essence of the argument is that while same-sex marriage is not a fundamental right, discrimination against homosexuals violates New Jersey's equal protection guarantee: Only rights that are deeply rooted in the traditions, history, and conscience of the people are deemed to be fundamental. Although we cannot find that a fundamental right to same-sex marriage exists in this State, the unequal dispensation of rights and benefits to committed same-sex partners can no longer be tolerated under our State Constitution. With this State’s legislative and judicial commitment to eradicating sexual orientation discrimination as our backdrop, we now hold that denying rights and benefits to committed same-sex couples that are statutorily given to their heterosexual counterparts violates the equal protection guarantee of Article I, Paragraph 1.Gee, what about same-sibling couples? Aren't they being discriminated against? Unlike Massachusetts, which prohibits non-residents marrying if it that marriage would violate the laws of their state of residence, New Jersey apparently has no such restrictions. This has opened the floodgates to lawsuits by gay couples who marry in New Jersey, and then return home to file suit. UPDATE: Over at Volokh Conspiracy, one of the comments pointed out, with respect to what changes were required to New Jersey's marriage laws: But then I flipped open the New Jersey statute book to the very first section on "Marriage and Married Persons"...Or a brother to marry his sister. Or a man to marry his daughter. After all, what, other than moral disapproval, provides sufficient justification for New Jersey to deny the equal protection of the laws to same-family marriages?§ 37:1-1. Certain marriages prohibited Desperate Times for Gay Marriage Backers Dan Popkey is one of the local columnists for the Idaho Statesman. (There's no need to identify him as a liberal. By definition, any local columnist for the Idaho Statesman is a liberal. They certainly couldn't allow diversity within their pages.) Now, while I intend to vote for Marriage Amendment next month, I confess that I would have preferred something that simply told the judiciary that only the people, or the legislature, has the authority to define marriage. Still, it is on the ballot, and it will stop judicial activists dead in their tracks. Almost everything that homosexuals complain that they lose from not being married can be handled with a small amount of paperwork. (See here, and for a discussion of a market opportunity for a gay lawyer, see here.) It is something of a sign of the desperation of those who are trying to stop the juggernaught of the "one man, one woman" constitutional amendment initiative that Popkey's best hope now to get this initiative voted down is...Mormons. Yeah, like I am really expecting large numbers of Mormons to wake up on election day and say, "Yes, it would be discriminatory and unfair if gay people couldn't get married in Idaho. I'm going to vote against it!" Did The Framers Disqualify Themselves From Holding Office? Instapundit mentions Brooke Allen's new book Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers, as well as Michael and Jana Novak's criticism of its accuracy. I can't disagree with any of the Novaks' argument, and you can find my argument on this subject here, but I would add this rather important point: if the founders of our government were the non-Christians that Brooke Allen seems to portray, why did so many of the state constitutions of the time discriminate against non-Christians, or at least allow the legislatures to discriminate against non-Christians? Pennsylvania's 1776 Constitution clearly required belief in the "Divine inspiration" of both Old and New Testaments: And each member, before he takes his seat, shall make and subscribe the following declaration, viz:More typical are states such as Maryland's 1776 Constitution:I do believe in one God, the creator and governor of the universe, the rewarder of the good and the punisher of the wicked. And I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine inspiration.And no further or other religious test shall ever hereafter be required of any civil officer or magistrate in this State. That no other test or qualification ought to be required, on admission to any office of trust or profit, than such oath of support and fidelity to this State, and such oath of office, as shall be directed by this Convention or the Legislature of this State, and a declaration of a belief in the Christian religion.Several states weren't so open-minded. North Carolina's 1776 Constitution, for example: That no person, who shall deny the being of God or the truth of the Protestant religion, or the divine authority either of the Old or New Testaments, or who shall hold religious principles incompatible with the freedom and safety of the State, shall be capable of holding any office or place of trust or profit in the civil department within this State.Even more detailed is the South Carolina Constitution of 1778: III. That as soon as may be after the first meeting of the senate and house of representatives, and at every first meeting of the senate and house of representatives thereafter, to be elected by virtue of this constitution, they shall jointly in the house of representatives choose by ballot from among themselves or from the people at large a governor and commander-in-chief, a lieutenant-governor, both to continue for two years, and a privy council, all of the Protestant religion, and till such choice shall be made the former president or governor and commander-in-chief, and vice-president or lieutenant-governor, as the case may be, and privy council, shall continue to act as such.Other provisions also show a clear preference for Protestants. Article XII defines the qualifications of state senators: [N]o person shall be eligible to a seat in the said senate unless he be of the Protestant religion, and hath attained the age of thirty years, and hath been a resident in this State at least five years.Article XIII defines the requirements to be an elector for the General Assembly, and to be elected to the General Assembly: The qualification of electors shall be that every free white man, and no other person, who acknowledges the being of a God, and believes in a future state of rewards and punishments, and who has attained to the age of one and twenty years.... No person shall be eligible to sit in the house of representatives unless he be of the Protestant religion, and hath been a resident in this State for three years previous to his election. Article 38 does establish a religion--but not a particular denomination: XXXVIII. That all persons and religious societies who acknowledge that there is one God, and a future state of rewards and punishments, and that God is publicly to be worshipped, shall be freely tolerated. The Christian Protestant religion shall be deemed, and is hereby constituted and declared to be, the established religion of this State. That all denominations of Christian Protestants in this State, demeaning themselves peaceably and faithfully, shall enjoy equal religious and civil privileges. New Jersey's 1776 Constitution is worded a little oddly, but it guarantees certain civil rights (including the right to hold public office) to Protestants--or at least those who subscribe to Protestant beliefs: XIX. That there shall be no establishment of any one religious sect in this Province, in preference to another; and that no Protestant inhabitant of this Colony shall be denied the enjoyment of any civil right, merely on account of his religious principles; but that all persons, professing a belief in the faith of any Protestant sect. who shall demean themselves peaceably under the government, as hereby established, shall be capable of being elected into any office of profit or trust, or being a member of either branch of the Legislature, and shall fully and freely enjoy every privilege and immunity, enjoyed by others their fellow subjects.Massachusetts' 1780 Constitution is even more extreme, directing the legislature to pass mandatory church attendance laws, and tax funding of the church of each community. Now, if you want to argue that these constitutions were terrible mistakes, fine. If you want to argue that the Framers were of a very liberal bent of Christianity, well, I won't argue the point concerning Jefferson and Franklin. But this new attempt by the intellectual classes to redefine the Framers as skeptics, Deists, atheists-- anything but Christians--falls apart when you ask this single question: if this bunch did not overwhelmingly identify themselves as Christians--and specifically as Protestant Christians in several of the states--why in the heck did they write state constitutions that would have disqualified so many of them from holding public office? In the last few years, we have had a burst of this sort of politically driven revisionist history (such as Michael Bellesiles' Arming America and Ward Churchill's false claims about biological warfare against the Mandan Indians), as the left has had to either abandon the Constitution as a core document of American society, or rewrite the past to make it fit their parallel universe version of that venerable document. Arthur Chrenkoff's New Book Night Trains Rolled Into The Station A review copy just arrived from the publisher, with a very nice note from Arthur. From looking over the first two chapters, I am reminded of Orson Scott Card's Enchantment--although the period isn't ninth century Ukraine, but World War II. Chrenkoff's style is a bit more literary than Card's. At least in the first couple of chapters, I notice the style, without finding it either annoying or pretentious. I'll let you all know what I think when I finish it in a few days. Perhaps a good sign of how well the cover presentation is done is that my daughter saw it in the mail, and insisted that she wants to read it after I'm done. Macintosh OS X A reader provides this entertaining history of where Macintosh OS X came from--perhaps of interest to Mac owners, and in places pretty entertaining even if you aren't particularly interested in the technical details: Mac OS X is based upon NeXTstep (the old NeXT OS), which combines the Mach "microkernel" (nothing all that micro about it) process/thread/VM model from Carnegie Mellon circa 1987, and OS services, many runtime libraries, and command line utilities from BSD. Add to this NeXT's re-implementation of Brad Cox's Objective-C in the GNU C compiler, and supporting object runtime library. Then add a whole new object-oriented driver framework, which was still under development when NeXT got absorbed into Apple.UPDATE: Another reader responds: 1. Darwin is still published. You can get the source code and compile the thing for Intel and PPC here: http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/ Tuesday, October 24, 2006
Fun With Fasteners I mentioned earlier the fun with threads problem that has suddenly come up. It turns out that Astro-Physics doesn't use a tap and die to make the counterweight shaft and safety device; they do it on a lathe. This strikes me as an inefficient way to do it, but that's mostly because I read the instructions for using the optional threading attachment to my Sherline lathe, and find it confusing. Anyway, I have found that while the threaded bolt is 1.083" diameter, the threaded hole it goes into is 1.098" inside diameter. I have just about convinced myself that the 1.083"-14 threaded bolt is really a 1 1/16"-14 thread--or at least close enough to make a reasonably good fit. The nominal diameter of a lot of bolts is a good bit bigger than the actual diameter. For example, the major diameter (that is to say, across the largest part of the thread, not the grooves) of a 1/4"-20 bolt is actually .2395" diameter, or 95.8% of the nominal hole diameter. For a 3/8"-16 bolt, the major diameter is 97.07% of the nominal hole diameter. This is really no surprise; if the major diameter of a 1/4"-20 bolt was .2500", and the major diameter of the threaded hole that it was going to thread into was also .2500", any burrs or imperfections on either surface would make the fit extremely tight--and even minor temperature changes could make it impossible to remove the bolt, if the bolt was of a material that expanded more rapidly than the threaded hole. A few thousandths of an inch of space between the bolt's thread and the thread is absolutely necessary. If the 1 1/16"-14 die that I would use to make the threads that need to to fit into the 1.098" threaded hole is actually 1.0625" major diameter, then this is 96.77% of the threaded hole's inside diameter. If the die produces threads that are even 1.050" major diameter, this is still 95.63% of the hole into which it goes. Of course, the die holder that I bought for my lathe a while back only holds 1" outer diameter dies. Due I am sure to some dark conspiracy that I will blame on George Bush, Dick Cheney, Haliburton, the Illuminati, and the Council on Foreign Relations, no one sells 1" outer diameter dies that are capable of producing 1 1/16" threading! So I will have to find a larger die holder for my lathe. It Is Important to Read Carefully I think all of us are guilty of this occasionally--reading in too much of a hurry. A few days back, I explained that I didn't find the claims that were being made about a prominent Republican officeholder here being homosexual terribly persuasive; the person making the claim was basing on a several people who claimed to have had sex with this politician--but they won't identify themselves. The analogy I drew was to call it the modern equivalent of Joseph McCarthy holding up a sheet of paper and saying, "I have a list of Communists in the State Department...."Liberal Idaho characterizes my comments as "Cramer hearts McCarthy; who'd thunk it?" I presume "hearts" in this context is the text equivalent of the stylized heart you would see on "I [heart] New York" bumper stickers. It is certainly true that if A writes X and B reads X as saying Y, the fault could be at either end. A may have written X very poorly; B may have read X carelessly. I've learned over the years not to get too arrogant; I do not assume that a failure to communicate is automatically a fault of the reader. Still, I look over that posting of mine, and I am hard pressed to see how my comparison of "hearsay accounts from one person who won't identify his supposed multiple sources" to McCarthy's character assassination qualifies as support for McCarthy. Unfortunately, there is little chance of correcting Liberal Idaho's misconception. I see from these remarks here that he has added me to his list of email that is never read. On a couple of occasions, I have emailed Liberal Idaho to let its owner (and as near as I can only participant) know that I have linked to particular stories that were interesting. I am still rather amazed at the level of rage that Liberal Idaho is expressing at me--not just disagreement with positions, but personal insults--rather like when he was suggesting that Bill Sali's staffers would not even be able to recognize Spanish as a foreign language. One of the "tantrums" that Liberal Idaho accuses me of are this one this one, where I responded to Liberal Idaho's claim: Conservatives; proudly hating things they don't understand since 1953.with a detailed discussion of the Department of Education budget. If this is a tantrum--but "Conservatives; proudly hating things they don't understand since 1953" isn't--well, I'll leave it to you to judge who is having a "tantrum," and who is prepared to debate and discuss important questions of public policy. The Rest of the Media Are Catching Up To Me Over the last week or so, I've been pointing out that polling data suggests that the Democrats are jumping the gun on their celebrations--that in a number of key races widely regarded as seats the Republicans were going to lose--the Republican candidate has either tied, or come in so close behind the Democrat that superior ability to turn out Republican voters makes these races likely Republican wins. Barron's pointed out a few days ago that by one of several measures, Republicans were likely to hold both houses of Congress: Our analysis -- based on a race-by-race examination of campaign-finance data -- suggests that the GOP will hang on to both chambers, at least nominally. We expect the Republican majority in the House to fall by eight seats, to 224 of the chamber's 435. At the very worst, our analysis suggests, the party's loss could be as large as 14 seats, leaving a one-seat majority. But that is still a far cry from the 20-seat loss some are predicting. In the Senate, with 100 seats, we see the GOP winding up with 52, down threeThis article by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann is pointing out that the race to control Congress is again a toss-up: Why are Republican fortunes brightening? A Weird Thread Question Astro-Physics has recently (as of May) changed the thread on the end of their counterweight shafts from 5/16"-18 to the very oddball size of 1.083"-14. A 1.083" size isn't any recognizable fraction (like 1 1/8, or 1 1/16), so I am thinking that it might be a metric thread. If you do the calculation, 1.083" comes to 27.5082 mm, and 14 threads per inch is a metric 1.8142 mm thread pitch. Now, I know that the actual size of some of the metrics threads is sometimes slightly off of the nominal size. Is it possible that 1.083"-14 is actually something like M27-1.5 or M27-2.0? There are gobs of tables telling you what drill to use for a particular metric tap, but I haven't had much luck finding a table that converts nominal metric thread sizes to actual dimensions. UPDATE: It appears that there are 1 1/16"-14 taps and dies, which suggests to me that the 1.083"-14 really is to make sure that they have a loose fit--especially important if the parts are put together at room temperature--and you need to unscrew them at night, when it might be freezing. Ideally, both parts will shrink in response to cold at the same rate--but once you start handling a bolt, body heat may turn a tight fit into an impossible fit. UPDATE 2: The more I dig around the Internet, the more signs that I see that this is an odd British thread originally intended for pipe. The guy at Astro-Physics who told me the size indicated that he thought it had come from England. Macintosh OS X? I spent some time fiddling with my son's MacBook (his high school graduation gift) a couple of days ago--and OS X is clearly a Unix or Linux derivative. I am starting to figure out what laptop to buy to replace the antique eMachines that I use for email and most of my writing. (This is a 466 MHz desktop, still running Windows 98.) As I have mentioned in the past, I really don't think much of Microsoft's products. They are unreliable and insecure. I am pretty impressed with Ubuntu Linux--it is almost as easy to install and maintain as Windows. It isn't quite there, unfortunately, especially when you start looking for applications like movie editors. If I buy a PC laptop, the temptation would be to run Ubuntu Linux. But then I am paying for Microsoft Windows, even if I never use it. The MacBook is a tempting alternative, especially because it is at least as easy to maintain as Windows. Mac's OS X is apparently quite secure, and has the advantage that Apple is supporting it--and has a strong profit incentive to continue supporting it. The open source model used by Linux, unfortunately, doesn't have as reliable an incentive system in place to make sure that problems get resolved. The downside is that my son tells me that friends with MacBooks with only 512 MB of RAM sometimes see some rather odd quirks when trying to run multiple applications at once. The MacBook is also about $400 more than an equivalent PC laptop. UPDATE: Thanks for all the responses! OS X is apparently a BSD derivative. One reader tells me that he reboots his Mac perhaps twice a year, and asks if you can do that with a Windows PC. Well, of course, not. Windows isn't that reliable. Every version of Windows since Windows 95, in my experience, will crash (and often in a spectacularly clumsy way, such as lockup or blue screen of death) at least weekly. Even when it does not force a reboot, I am used to serious performance degradation caused by resource exhaustion when applications either crash, or fail to free resources properly when they exit. Monday, October 23, 2006
This Is A Sweet Request... The writer Dorothy Parker once observed that the average woman would rather be beautiful instead of intelligent because the average man can see better than he think. I thought about that when reading this "wanted" ad on craiglist.com, and saw an example of a guy who is clearly focused on the inner beauty of his wife, not external appearances: Looking for a Plus size 28 Wedding dress. - $100 Global Warming & The Ozone Hole I haven't the time right to chase down the sources and see if he's right (too busy filling orders for ScopeRoller), but Classical Values points to a recent article about the record-sized ozone hole that observes that the ozone hole gets larger when temperatures fall: If that's true, and if (as we are told) temperatures have been higher, then why would the ozone hole be growing as we're now told it is? Labels: global warming NBC & Madonna I see that NBC decided to edit out Madonna's little sequence with a crown of thorns, with her mounted on a cross. Yeah, yeah, I know, Christians should be more tolerant of blasphemous insults, because she's just doing it to get attention and make people notice her. If she really wants to get attention and make people notice her, why doesn't she liven up her stage performance with someone portraying Mohammed and a pig in...intimate proximity--perhaps while she sings "Like a Virgin." That will get her attention and make people notice her, that's for sure! That's what she wants, right? Besides, then we won't have to put up with her pretentiousness anymore. Sunday, October 22, 2006
Attempts At Humor Aren't Always Successful I'm writing my monthly article for Shotgun News, and the subject is mental illness and the recent spate of school shootings. In the course of digging through newspapers articles, I discovered that Duane Morrison, who sexually assaulted the girls at the Bailey, Colorado high school before committing suicide last month, only had one criminal conviction--for harassment. The newspaper account in the Denver Post describes it this way: On Nov. 22, 2004, Morrison left a profanity-laced phone message with Rocky Mountain Harley-Davidson after he received a promotional catalog in the mail, according to a tape of the call obtained from the Littleton Police Department.Interestingly enough, that article has a link to the audio of that message. Yes, the language is rougher than I like to hear--but it is pretty typical of what I would expect someone running a Harley-Davidson shop hears daily. He was clearly trying to get removed from their mailing list--he even left his name, and encouraged them to call him back to work out getting removed from the mailing list. It also strikes me that Morrison's remarks with the assault rifle were an attempt at humor. Hint: something that seems utterly absurd can be funny in such a context; something that is frighteningly familiar isn't funny. |
