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News Briefs 17-07-07

By Jameskeon

Insertthespacesthenpostyourthoughts.

  • Why did Rome fall? It is time for new answers.
  • La Brea yields oil eating bacteria.
  • Mercury’s gooey centre raises problem of origin.
  • Rock hypocrisy and the warming hoax.
  • Deep inside you are a comma.
  • Moebius strip solved at last.
  • Planets go splat on stars.
  • Seeing circuits.
  • What science can and can’t tell us about the insanity defense.
  • A race to solve the mystery of the subterranean chambers of Mystic Pointe.
  • Homer-sexual.
  • Back from the dead.
  • Evidence found for novel brain cell communication.
  • The myth of consistent scepticism.

Thanks Greg

Quote of the Day:

Most people are other people. Their thoughts are someone elses opinions, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation.

Oscar Wilde

Jameske
Related

18 Comments

  1. Roman Empire
    Having recently written about Rome, the reason for decline of the empire seems to me to be simple stagnation. The might of Rome was simply that – might. And once it could no longer advance in terms of expansion, its purpose had gone. From then on it was just a matter of time.
    It’s a possible lesson for all societies – once the impulse behind its creation is no longer there, stagnation is inevitable – unless, of course, another powerful reason can be found.

    …

    I’m fanatical about moderation

    Anthony North

    1. time
      Indeed, time. Rome, the empire, took more than 1000 years to fall. The last little bit went away in 1453. So attributing this to a correlation of forces in AD 300 or AD 400 does not seem to explain it sufficiently.

      Also, there were (and still are) successor states. Like France, Germany, Venice, and the catholic church.

      Other examples – Czarist Russia “fell” with the October revolution, technically. But realistically it is still there in another form.

      Various dynasties governing China fell over many centuries, but China as an empire of sorts is still here.

      The Vikings didn’t disappear into history. Iceland is still here, and so is Russia, a Viking state.

      On a shorter time scale, places like East Germany and Romania are still run by basically the same people as before the “fall” of communism. The same people in government, in the post office, the same little pencil pushers in local governments. Just some of it has been privatized.

      —-
      meetings, n.:
      Where minutes are kept, and hours are lost.

    2. distance?
      hi Anthony, comunication over great distance was a big problem. It is hard to govern an expanding empire when it takes weeks and months for simple orders to be given or asked for.

      “Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told.”
      LRF.

      1. Dioceses
        Hi Floppy,
        I think we’re having an empire night tonight on TDG. Yes, distance was a problem in the Roman Empire, and they went a long way to sorting out the problem with dioceses and adminstrators, or vicars.
        They had automatic authority to sort problems out.
        My, dioceses and vicars – makes you wonder how deep our modern influences are, doesn’t it?

        …

        Nite nite

        Anthony North

        1. comminication speed and hierarchies
          Ok, this is not just for anthonynorth and Floppy, but they will read it i’m sure:)

          The traditional hierarchies in churches, governments, companies and such things were set up because of slow communication, among other things. Because of the lack of communication, local parts of the hierarchy needed to have some autonomy. Communication was a bottleneck.

          So far so good. Now we have much faster communication, so we have widened that particular bottleneck. Perhaps we can flatten the hierarchies, enable the little people at the bottom to have more constructive influence.

          But was that really the limiting bottleneck? I am not so sure, we don’t know this yet.

          There is also a bottleneck in team interaction. How many people can we get useful advice from, how many different news sources can we consider ?

          How large can teams get without forming factions within the team? I haven’t really studied these group dynamic things, but it seems 10 members is too many.

          So there is this fan-in and fan-out of information factors and control factors. 1->10, 10->1, and more is beyond our understanding.

          How many real friends do you have, be honest to yourself.
          How many real enemies do you have, be honest to yourself.

          So probably the width of the hierarchy is limited by the human mind. Improved communications can help, but we ourselves are a bottleneck.

          —-
          meetings, n.:
          Where minutes are kept, and hours are lost.

          1. very good earthling
            but it is not just about the time delay in cmmunication. It;s about the actions that would or could of taken place had the information been instant.
            So even though the day to day administrations were local, when trouble started it was much harder to manage. ie. send reinforcments.

            As for “bottlenecks”, i’m not sure I fully understand your meaning.

            “Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told.”
            LRF.

          2. Communication and hierarchies
            Good morning everyone,
            I think what Earthling is trying to say is that ‘too many cooks spoil the broth.’
            Take a committee. To me it is only as good as the chairman. It is him who has to moderate all the factions, and the more factions you have, the worse it gets.
            Fast communication on the internet does not really solve the problem of hierarchies because it becomes a mass of complaining ‘fuzz’. For success, it has to be properly co-ordinated.
            But in so co-ordinating, and pulling the masses together again, don’t you end up with a new hierarchy?
            The answer to the world today is, I think, new philosophy, not leadership. If the two are combined in one man, you have a mad man. A leader by himself does not necessarily have a cause. A new philosophy doesn’t seek power, but influence. Which inspires leaders – as long as these leaders don’t try to think too much.

            …

            I’m fanatical about moderation

            Anthony North

          3. bottlenecks
            I use the term “bottleneck” to mean the dominant limiting factor. The literal meaning is obvious – the flow of fluid from a bottle is limited by the width of the bottleneck.

            When looking at making decisions in a large group that is geographically spread out, a big problem is the flow of information and control, up and down the hierarchy. Of course the same is true of shipping material and people.

            What I am saying is that the decision making itself is also a big problem. You can’t listen to more than about 10 people, and you can’t command more than 10 people directly. And 10 is probably a high guess. So this means that improving communication and transportation eventually is not useful any more. The decision process itself becomes the limiting factor, the bottleneck.

            —-
            meetings, n.:
            Where minutes are kept, and hours are lost.

  2. climate concerts
    All these people went to the save-the-climate concerts (in their SUVs), and even more watched it on TV. With their air conditioners turned up all the way, the weather was hot.

    So now all these problems are fixed and we can go back to bed, right?

    —-
    meetings, n.:
    Where minutes are kept, and hours are lost.

      1. hi Lee
        i’m not a “denialist”, so I shouldn’t make you sick, But I am skeptical about the evidence to surport all the hoo haa about global warming. It’s just not there. Weather patterns have changed in localised areas because of enviromental changes, but the over all warming is a falacy and the amount of toxic, including CO2 gasses produced by humans is a small amount compared to only 1 volcanic erruption. The stratosphere is actually cooling.

        Yes, I do believe humans should find a better way to use energy. We should stop gassing ourselves to death, but we are not causing any warming.

        You say denialists make you sick, well doomsday profotiers make me sick.

        “Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told.”
        LRF.

      2. SUVs
        The SUV part was a figure of speech, and you (Lee) know that.

        My point is that many thousands needlessly used energy to go to concerts, making the problem of excess CO2 worse. And they contributed nothing, zilch, zero to any solution.

        All they did was help some musicians with their careers.

        —-
        meetings, n.:
        Where minutes are kept, and hours are lost.

        1. Hypocrisy concerts
          As I wrote somewhere last week:

          ‘With ‘live’ and ‘earth’, and an audience that was ‘neutral’, it was obvious it would be a plug for electricity.’

          …

          I’m fanatical about moderation

          Anthony North

        2. And so many people watched it at home,
          not getting in their cars or flying off in an airplane. But maybe they farted too much, and caused excessive CO2 gasses that way. I see your logic. The whole thing was a complete waste of time.

          1. I can understand……
            ….earthlings views. Like the live aid concerts so long ago. They raised over 300 billion dollars. (not sure if that is actually 300 million)either way it is a lot of money. The very problem it was designed to help still exists. No change. So what was it for again?
            We have these people that are very high profile doing these things and it appears to be for their own concience only. Nothing really changes. I have lived my life to minimise the impact on my local inviroment, at the exspence of earning more money. Maybe it is as simple as that….hey?

            “Life can be whatever you want it to be, as long as you do what your told.”
            LRF.

    2. Yes go back to bed and stay there…
      Once again you have summed it all up and solved all the problems by belittling anyone doing something you don’t believe in. Its so funny I forgot to laugh again.

      1. doing something?
        My point is that the concerts did exactly nothing to address the problem. If anything, they made it worse.

        —-
        meetings, n.:
        Where minutes are kept, and hours are lost.

    3. Shakira
      It seems that Shakira, who performed in Germany, was flown after the concert in a helicopter to the airport, so I understand why people find the Live Earth as an hypocritical event. I believe that’s the reason the Arctic Monkeys refused to participate.

      On the other hand, after reading the response to criticism by Al Gore, I was under the impression that they intended to offset the carbon emissions produced during the concerts. Does anybody know anything about that?

      —–
      It’s not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me…
      It’s all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!

      Red Pill Junkie

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