Personal Made Public

I've grumbled previously about the lack of great accomplishments by the United States in recent years. Another place we're way behind the rest of the developed and emerging world is now rail. It's a bit ironic since the U.S. was one of the great rail powers at one time due to our concentrations of populations along the coasts and again in the heartland (Chicago, Cincinnati, Memphis, New Orleans - well, if we rebuild it, but that's another grumble).

In any case, our population distribution continues to make the U.S. a great place for rail, especially high-speed rail running up and down our coasts. Instead, all we have is the Acela (which has been plagued with problems -- mostly related to poor tracks -- and covers only a limited portion of the East Coast). How does it stack up with high-speed rail elsewhere? According to an article in the NY Times this morning, it doesn't even count as "high-speed" except by U.S. standards:

The French manufacturer Alstom, like most of the industry, considers high-speed trains to be those with a top cruising speed of 150 miles per hour; trains with a top cruising speed 210 miles per hour are considered very high speed. The Acela's top cruising speed is about 125 miles per hour.

It's not for lack of demand, either: the Acela now has 45% of the commercial transportation market from DC to NY.

It hurts me to see the rest of the world pushing ahead with great achievements while we sit on the sidelines. Great bridges, great dams, great buildings, great trains: are we ever going to build something amazing again?

Posted by Kevin at 07:11 AM | Permalink

Sooner or later, oil production in the world is going to peak and then go into a long, slow decline. If you understand that getting oil from underground rock strata is not like pumping it from a tank but like wringing it from a sponge, you know that you get a lot of easy oil early in a field's life. Later, you still have plenty of oil in the ground, but it takes more and more effort to wring it out. U.S. and North Sea oil locations have already peaked. The Middle East is a bit more of an unknown because Saudi Arabia is very secretive on the subject, but evidence based on the salinity of Saudi oil indicates that the peak isn't far off. One of the first things to look for is for OPEC to give up on quotas. That will happen when they can no longer maintain the illusion that they have plenty of spare capacity. Well, it looks like it may have just happened:

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries pledged all its remaining extra capacity, or an additional two million barrels of oil a day amounting to 7 percent of the group's output, in a last-ditch attempt to bring prices down from their record highs. Source: NY Times

Can they deliver? Time will tell. It looks to me like an excuse for stepping aside from the quotas without having to announce that they are very close to being unable to pump that much anyway.

I want to mention one other thing here. I keep hearing from some that the solution is more drilling. However, we don't know of any other large, untapped reserves. Yes, we can go drilling in the arctic. That is expected to yield about a 10 month supply of oil for the U.S. at current consumption rates. However, the field will actually have to be pumped dry over the usual lifetime of a field -- say about 40 years. So that's 100% of our needs for 10 months if we could pump it like it was in a tank. However, since it will actually be pumped over a 40 year period, it will (on average) provide for about 2% of our needs over that time provided we have NO growth in consumption. Overall, new drilling is just not going to put a sizable dent in our needs. Time to get our heads out of the sand and make the move to newer technologies (electric-ethanol hybrids, perhaps?). Putting more rigs in our wildlife refuges and off our beaches is NOT going to save us: it's just going to spoil our beaches and endanger wildlife we'd hoped to protect.

It's like flooding in New Orleans: everyone knew the Big One was going to happen sooner or later, but no one wanted to pay for levees then that would protect the city now. If we don't start moving away from our dependence on oil NOW, we'll have an economic and political crisis on our hands as we fight over an ever-dwindling supply.

Posted by Kevin at 06:26 PM | Permalink

If you can't answer that question, you are probably in the United States. At least, that's what the National Geographic Society's 2002 international survey of geography knowledge indicates. I noticed this little snippet over at Out Loud (Annatopia):

The National Geographic Society made a survey of young Americans' knowledge of geography. Here are the SURVEY HIGHLIGHTS Among 18- to 24-year-old Americans 87% couldn't find Iraq on a map 70% couldn't find New Jersey 11% couldn't find the U.S.

Ouch! I had to wonder if this could be right or if it was a misquote. You can take a subset of the survey yourself and compare the results for the answers given by people in 9 different participating countries.

The first question dealt with the population of the United States. Of the nine countries to which it is compared in the summary, Americans scored LOWEST on this question.

Less than half of all Americans could find Japan on a map -- and only 16% found Sweden. How about Afghanistan? Remember that we have a war going on there right now! 17%. Ouch.

Oh, for the record, I got 19 out of 20 correct. I learned something from the one I missed, so that was valuable to me as well. :-)

Posted by Kevin at 06:16 PM | Permalink

This weekend we tried to define "irony" for my daughter. This morning I have the perfect example, but she isn't familiar with 1984, so it probably would do little to enlighten her. Take a look at this photo from George Orwell Plaza in Spain:

Translated, the sign informs you that everything within a 500 meter radius of the sign is under constant surveillance.

Posted by Kevin at 07:23 AM | Permalink

After the recent Revenge of the Scopes Monkey Trial in Kansas, I've been thinking quite a bit about science, evolution, religion, and Intelligent Design.

After some reflection I realized that the real problem with the idea of Intelligent Design as a scientific theory (which is what proponents of Intelligent Design claim it to be) is that there can be no room for God in science.

I'm not claiming there is no room for God, just no room for God in science.

After Copernicus determined that the Earth circles the sun rather than vice-versa, people naturally asked what kept the Earth and the other planets circling. The popular answer was that God's angels pushed them in circles, so basically the answer came down to "God ordered it be done".

Isaac Newton rejected that notion and developed the Theory of Gravity. (Side note: Gravity is a scientific theory, not a fact, just like evolution. See my previous post on Evolution to learn more about the meaning of "theory" in science). Gravity replaced the angels with a natural force.

Therein lies the problem: once you claim that something happens because God wills it to be so, you have closed the door to finding the mechanism. The nature of gravitational attraction was discovered because "God said so" wasn't a good enough answer for Newton.

Intelligent Design poses the same problem for the Theory of Evolution. How and why do beneficial mutations occur in organisms? The current form of the Evolutionary Theory postulates that they occur randomly and that natural selection reinforces beneficial mutations while killing off negative ones. It may well be that this is not true -- perhaps there is underlying chemistry or some intricate interplay between energy flow and entropy that actual drives beneficial evolution. Personally, I do feel that the idea that the mutations are truly random may not suffice to explain the evolution of species. However, once you claim that beneficial mutations occur because God tweaks the process, you are closing off further investigation.

Science works only so long as a supernatural being is not changing the rules while the game is in play. Once you allow room for routine divine intervention in your theories, you can no longer make testable predictions (a cornerstone of scientific inquiry) because God can do whatever God wants.

Back to gravity for a moment: If you assume that objects don't float away from the ground because God doesn't want them to do so, then when you see a helium balloon the only possible explanation is that God wants it to float. You've learned nothing from your new evidence that not everything falls when dropped.

It may be that the Universe is exactly what God wants it to be, but you can't learn anything new if you are willing to say that everything that happens does so simply because God wants it that way.

Science is not a study of God. Science cannot do that by its very nature. Science is not anti-God, though. It just must never use "God's will" as an explanation or the process breaks. Science is the study of the machinery of the Universe, not the why. So, much though it may distress those who wish otherwise, there is no room for God in science.

Posted by Kevin at 05:27 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Based on a discussion Elizabeth and I had earlier today I just wanted to send a little note to interior designers everywhere:

Don't paint the fireplace. Ever.

What is it with this fad on every home improvement show that requires the redecoration to include painting over a brick fireplace? Our houses are filled with electronics, plastics, veneers, artificial fibers, paints and coatings. Is that one little spot of warm, earthy natural brick just too much of an intrusion into dull plastic middle-class American architecture? It wouldn't be so bad if the process was easily reversible, but the only way to really fix it is to tear the whole thing out and start again. A fad that's going to come and go -- but whose effects are for all intents and purposes irreversible.

We have a brick fireplace. It's an earthy centerpoint in the middle of what otherwise would be a flat sea of painted wallboard. It anchors a modern house back to the Earth. It's the focus around which we socialize -- a warm, comfortable gathering point. Home and hearth: remember that phrase? Hearth is the center of the home -- not something to hide behind a few coats of latex semi-gloss.

Let's repeat this one more time: Don't paint the fireplace. Ever.

Posted by Kevin at 02:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Sears Tower: each stands as a testament to the greatness of American culture, capability, and resolve. Each broke records. Each enjoyed decades as the greatest example of engineering in its field.

Each is getting old. What have we done lately?

The world's longest suspension bridge is the Akashi-Kaikyo bridge in Japan. The first American entry comes in at number SEVEN on the list of the world's longest spans and was built in 1964. Another popular type of modern bridge is the cable-stayed design: the U.S. does not have a bridge in the top TWENTY.

Among dams, the U.S. still has the largest by reservoir capacity, but this is a poor of engineering accomplishment since it is the height of the dam determines the pressure it must withstand. By height, the U.S. again has nothing to offer in the top ten. The tallest U.S. dam (at 235m) will soon be a full 100m short of the number one spot (which is under construction).

Skyscrapers? Well that depends on what you measure (Do antennas count? Just floors? Decorative embellishments?) While you can debate specific points, a good list is available with a good explanation of the rankings. The bottom line is that the U.S. presence is not what it once was. One bright spot, however, is the proposed replacement for the World Trade Center: it would be higher than any other building currently in existence. However, other buildings are in the planning stages that may keep it from the number one slot. In the meantime, the first U.S. entry on the list is the Sears Tower, completed in 1974.

Tunnels? Road, rail, or subaqueous, you'll have to scroll way down to find the U.S. on any of the lists of the world's longest tunnels. For example, the first subaqueous tunnel in the U.S. on the list is the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel at 2779m completed in 1950. The number one spot goes to a Japanese tunnel under Tokyo Bay called Tokyo Aqua which runs an astounding 9583m!

I guess I'm disturbed by two things: the fact that we are no longer doing Great Things, and that those Great Things that we have are almost all decades old. It could be that I'm wrong to feel uneasy at this state of affairs. Maybe we have matured and don't need to show off, but somehow I doubt it. It seems more likely that we have grown short-sighted, risk-averse and lack vision. I guess time will tell...

Posted by Kevin at 07:16 PM | Permalink

There are many ways in which people show a lack of decorum with regards to using cellphones: in restaurants while their friend/family/date is sitting across from them, talking too loudly in public places, leaving their ringer on in theaters. At least in all these cases, anyone subjected to this abuse is free to tell the offender to hang up, quiet down, or turn it off. Recently I've seen a disturbing trend that particularly bothers me because the party being abused is not allowed to respond: cashiers.

I keep seeing customers that completely ignore their cashier while yammering away on their cellphone. The person on the other side of the counter is exactly that: a person. Ignoring them is demeaning, insulting, and dehumanizing. Adding insult to injury is the fact that since "the customer is always right" cashiers are not allowed to tell the rude snob that their behavior is offensive.

Here's the bottom line: If you can't get off the phone long enough to be polite to someone working with you, you should stick to mail order.

Posted by Kevin at 03:49 PM | Permalink