CapitalistImperialistPig

What we know about physics can be summarized in very compact form. Classical electrodynamics is a subject that remains of immense practical importance as well as foundational for the modern field theories of particle physics and relativity. The equations that describe it can occupy less than a fourth of one of these lines of text. See, e.g., the tensor and differential form versions of Maxwell's equations in this Wikipedia article. Chad Orzel recently wrote a post on teaching so-called Modern Physics , which is conveniently summarized as the physics discovered between 1899 and 1950. In particular he makes the case for teaching the history of the discoveries. His point is that you can learn a lot from understanding how the laws of physics were discovered and why we believe them - but read Chad's version, he's a good writer. The alternative method, and it's also used a lot in physics, is to just write down the equations and then develop the mathematical techniques ...

Paul Krugman: Izabella Kaminska has a thought-provoking piece on the real effects of technology on wages, in which she argues that much recent innovation, instead of displacing manual workers, has displaced high-paying skilled jobs. As it happens, I sort of predicted this 20 years ago, in a piece written for the Times magazine’s 100th anniversary (authors were asked to write as if it was 2096, and they were looking back.) I argued then that menial work dealing with the physical world – gardeners, maids, nurses – would survive even as quite a few jobs that used to require college disappeared. As it turns out, big data has led to more progress in something that looks like artificial intelligence than I expected — self-driving cars are much closer to reality than I would have thought, and maybe gardening robots and post-Roomba robot cleaners will follow. Lawyers, pathologists, translators are all getting heavily hit, but I suspect that robotics is getting much closer to being an equa...

Temperatures in the high Arctic are finally nearly down to normal after having spent the previous three months 5 C or more above normal. There are still almost two months of hard winter up there so Santa may not want to break out his swim suit for a bit. In the Antarctic, sea ice extent is at record lows for the satellite era, while the Arctic is nearing sea ice max at levels barely above record lows for the date.

As early as the mid-third century BC, the Indian emperor Ashoka erected large stone pillars or signboards in Kandahar, Afghanistan, as well as in other cities, on which he displayed edicts on how good behavior or the Buddhists’ dharma could be spread. He counseled his subjects that “piety and self-control [exist] in all philosophical schools. But the most self-possessed are [those people] who are the masters of their tongues. They neither praise themselves nor belittle their fellows in any respect, which is a vain thing to do. … The correct thing is to respect one another and to accept the lessons of each other. Those who do this enlarge their knowledge by sharing what others know.”66 Starr, S. Frederick. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane (p. 81). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition. Of course the fool is immune to advice.

H. R. McMaster is the real deal. He's a soldier scholar who is used to telling truths to power.

A Chinese visitor to Samarkand in the century before the Arab invasion wrote in his notes the following observation on young people there: “All the inhabitants [of Samarkand] are brought up to be traders. When a young boy reaches the age of five they begin to teach him to read, and when he is able to read they make him study business.”1 Another Chinese visitor, equally astonished, observed that young Central Asian men were not allowed to participate in trading trips abroad until they were twenty, prior to which time they were expected to be absorbed in study and training.2 These observant contemporaries enable us to understand something very important about the lost world of Central Asia before the Arab conquest: the high level of literacy that prevailed there. The mass destruction of books and documents carried out by the Arabs leaves us particularly dependent on the reports of outsiders like these. Starr, S. Frederick. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Ara...

Eleven hundred years ago, Central Asia was the intellectual and cultural center of the world. It's cities were the wealthiest in the world, and mathematics, astronomy, architecture, art and literature had a golden age of enlightenment. No city was richer than Balkh, in what is now Afghanistan. To approach Balkh today is a sad experience. Where ancient visitors reported on vineyards, citrus groves, and fields of sugar cane, there is only sagebrush and dust, relieved by an occasional hollyhock in the lower-lying areas. Similarly, far to the north in Central Asia, the vast reaches of Khwarazm in Uzbekistan and Dehistan in Turkmenistan were once alive with castles surrounded by farmland but are today bleak deserts, utterly devoid of plant life. Starr, S. Frederick. Lost Enlightenment: Central Asia's Golden Age from the Arab Conquest to Tamerlane (p. 35). Princeton University Press. Kindle Edition. The Balkh river, which once supported cargo boats to and from the Oxus and Aral...

Kyrie Irving: Good thing he has a very high basketball IQ. Or he could be having a bit of fun with us. Or maybe has never looked out of an airplane window.

Our FP indicates that the so-called two-state Israel Palestine conflict is passe. So what does that leave? Apartheid , with Palestinians as a permanent underclass. Genocide , with Israel becoming an outlaw state. One person, one vote, with Israel likely to become an Islamic state. Anybody want to guess what's most likely, or suggest a better alternative? My personal favorite is that the Palestinians convert en masse to Southern Baptists. This would pose a pretty puzzle for Israel.

A recurring theme in the history of fallen nations is that some factions in a local dispute see advantage in allying with an aggressive outsider against their local enemies. In this fashion a few British adventurers conquered India, Cortez conquered the Aztecs, Rome invaded Britain, and Persia subdued Babylon. So too today, the Republican Party of the United States seems prepared to tolerate massive interference in our electoral process and other corrupt practices in the hope of enacting the unpopular wishes of their plutocratic masters. Paul Krugman today: The story so far: A foreign dictator intervened on behalf of a U.S. presidential candidate — and that candidate won. Close associates of the new president were in contact with the dictator’s espionage officials during the campaign, and his national security adviser was forced out over improper calls to that country’s ambassador — but not until the press reported it; the president learned about his actions weeks earlier, but t...

* Blog, that is. One reason that I've been increasing reluctant to write anything on the blog is the near certainty that anything I write will be met with a mostly off topic, inane, or otherwise annoying rejoinder from a notorious internet troll. I hate to suppress dissent, but I also dislike the idea of my blog becoming a forum for Exxon, the FSB, or general crackpottery. Comments?

From the NYT : Summary: sit down and shut up.

The NYT has a piece today on our President's seeming inability to properly tie a tie. Which reminded me of a time when I was in a play at the local university. The costumer asked me if I knew how to tie a tie for my character's costume (I was about 50 at the time), so I asked what knot she wanted, listing a few of the options. Her reply: "OK, I forgot that you were a real person." I'm not sure that Trump is a real person. At least I hope not.

I wouldn't have pictured Trump as a spelunker, but he just caved big time to China. Kevin Drum has a chronicle: Behold the greatest negotiator our nation has ever seen: President Donald J. Trump and President Xi Jinping of China had a lengthy telephone conversation on Thursday evening. The two leaders discussed numerous topics and President Trump agreed, at the request of President Xi, to honor our "one China" policy. Follow the link for the play by play. UPDATE: (from NYT ) “Trump lost his first fight with Xi and he will be looked at as a paper tiger,” said an adviser to China’s State Council.

The fountain of lies that is Trump's White House might be the product of a deranged personality, but it also has a sinister logic. Charles Sykes, writing in The New York Times Sunday Review , takes a look at how alt-reality came to dominate modern right-wing discourse: For years, as a conservative radio talk show host, I played a role in that conditioning by hammering the mainstream media for its bias and double standards. But the price turned out to be far higher than I imagined. The cumulative effect of the attacks was to legitimize those outlets and essentially destroy much of the right’s immunity to false information. We thought we were creating a savvier, more skeptical audience. Instead, we opened the door for President Trump, who found an audience that could be easily misled. The news media’s spectacular failure to get the election right has made it only easier for many conservatives to ignore anything that happens outside the right’s bubble and for the Trump White House...

From Josh Marshall: College Republicans at Central Michigan University handed out Valentine's Day cards mocking Jews who died in the Holocaust. "my love 4 u burns like 6,000 jews" ... really. So, Lee, what were you saying about me being hysterical?

I haven't heard a peep from all those who were so exercised about Hillary's supposed conflicts of interest lately. Cat's clearly got their tongues. Josh Marshall: JOSH MARSHALLPublishedFEBRUARY 8, 2017, 3:06 PM EDT I've been saying for months that the language of 'conflicts of interest' for President Trump is entirely inadequate and frankly silly. The concept of a conflict of interest is one that speaks to a situation in which an overlap or conflict between an individual's personal and professional or public interests makes it impossible for that individual to act in an ethical manner or to appear to be doing so. It has no meaning when the actor - in this case, the President - is openly using his office for personal profit. In other words, it has no meaning when the President refuses to recognize any difference between his public responsibilities and his personal and familial business interests, the state and himself. He recognizes no conflict. Indeed, ...

A couple of recent events illustrate Trump's failure to plan or think through consequences: The Yemen Raid (Fred Kaplan): The Jan. 28 raid on an al-Qaida outpost in Yemen, which resulted in the deaths of a Navy SEAL fighter and several civilians, was approved by President Trump with no advice or consultation from intelligence officers or military commanders, according to officials familiar with the chain of events. As the New York Times reported on Wednesday, Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Gen. Joseph Dunford Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, presented the plan over dinner at the White House, on Jan. 25, to Trump, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and his political strategist Steve Bannon. The epic Fredrick Douglass fail: Last month, we celebrated the life of Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., whose incredible example is unique in American history. You read all about Dr. Martin Luther King a week ago when somebody said I took the statue out of my office. It turne...

Yet more evidence of all the creeping, crawling things coming from under the rocks Trump has overturned: Students Give Nazi Salute in Senior Pictures High-school students in Texas did a Nazi salute in their senior pictures, setting off a firestorm of controversy after the photos spread on social media. A student who witnessed the incident at Cypress Ranch High School told KPRC that the students pictured, about 70 of them, were shouting phrases such as “Heil Hitler” and “Heil Trump.”