Here's a list of major highways in the US Interstate Highway System and how well they are presently covered by the Tesla Supercharger network. The Interstate system is intended that "major" roads are multiples of 5: even numbers east-west, and odd north-south, with connectors in between, and bypasses and spurs having a leading digit (bypasses even, and spurs odd.)
I-5: Fully covered, Canadian border to the Mexican border
I-10: Largely covered, but there's a big hole from Tuscon, AZ to San Antonio, TX
I-15: Fully covered L.A. to Pocatello, ID, but from there to the Canadian border is challenging
I-20: Spotty coverage. It's not a transcontinental: it only goes from West TX to SC. It should be called I-14.
I-25: Good from its northern terminus in WY, but stops at Albuquerque.
I-29: Is an important road in the midwest, running from Louisiana (where it's called I-49) to Winnipeg with a big gap in Arkansas with the renaming at Kansas City. It has 4 superchargers. It needs a dozen.
I-30: This is really just a spur, from Little Rock to Dallas. No coverage. It should be called I-335.
I-35: Almost complete, San Antonio to Duluth, with just a couple of gaps
I-40: Almost complete, L.A. to Raleigh, NC, with a big gap from Oklahoma City to Nashville
I-44: the old route 66 is almost complete, Chicago to L.A, with just a small gap in MO.
I-45: despite its name, it's a spur, not an interstate at all: it's completely supercharged, Dallas to Houston. It should be called I-314
I-49: Is called I-29 north of Kansas City.
I-50: no such road. They may have been worried about confusion with US-50. US-50 is a true transcontinental, Ocean City, MD, to San Francisco. It shares its route with I-80 and I-70 for part of the way and is well supercharged in those places, but not otherwise.
I-55: Almost finished Chicago to New Orleans, with one charger needed near Memphis, TN
I-60: No such road. US-60 goes from L.A. to Norfolk, VA. I-10, I-44, I-64 share parts of its route.
I-64: spotty coverage, St Louis to Norfolk, VAI-65: Almost finished Chicago to Mobile, AL
I-70: The first supercharged transcontinental. Fully covered, DC to Utah, where it splits into I-80 to SF and I-15 to LA
I-75: Almost completed Southern Florida to Michigan, with northern MI the only gap.
I-80: About half completed, but there are a few big gaps. As a transcontinental, they are redundant with I-70, but Southern WY, NB, IA, and Northern PA are unserved, and would be by finishing I-80.
I-85: A stub, from AL to NC. Fully covered.
I-86: Southern New York. unserved.
I-90: Fully covered.
I-94: Is the northern route, connecting connecting Billings, MT to Chicago through Minneapolis, Fargo, Bismark, etc. It needs a half dozen more superchargers.
I-95: Fully covered.
US-101: Fully covered, San Diego to Ukiah, CA, No coverage at all north of there. Two SCs in Eureka and Crescent City have been planned for over a year, but no construction at all. 101 in Oregon is well covered by Aerovironment's CHAdeMO. update: Eureka is started and Seaside, OR is open, and there appear to be plans for Lincoln and Coos Bay, OR.
US-1: For a lot of its route, it's close to or shares it's route with I-95. I found no place south of Maine where a US-1 Tesla traveler would have to drive far for a supercharge, or for that matter any place east of the Appalachians. Northeastern Maine and northern New Hampshire are a problem
US-2: Much of the northernmost transcontinental route is uncovered, except for where it crosses another route, which is rare.
US-61: New Orleans through Minnesota, is now largely supplanted by I-55.
The Music Highway. The crossroads where Robert Johnson purportedly sold his soul to the
devil is at Clarksdale, MS.
02 June 2016
19 May 2016
10 Essential Economic.....
I just stumbled upon a little bit of absolute rubbish in the pages of Forbes. 10 Essential Economic Truths Liberals Need to Learn. It's been there for a couple of years. All of these ten "truths" are false, many egregiously so.
1: Government cannot create wealth, jobs, or income. Dorfman doesn't understand what money is. government can obviously create jobs, by hiring teachers, soldiers, police, etc. They create money too. The purpose of money is to create liquidity in markets. If money didn't exist or didn't have a competent government behind it, nobody would be wealthy except a few bandits.
2: Income inequality does not affect the economy. Of course it does. Inequality takes the value of the labor of the poor and gives it to the rich. The rich don't spend all of it, so it's out of the economy. Parking money (saving) doesn't help the economy at all, except insofar as some of it is used for real investment. He understands the difference but he is absurdly wrong.
3: Low wages are not corporate exploitation. Of course they are, although he's got the causality arrow backwards. Low wages are about disenfranchisement. If you have poor bargaining power, your wages tend to be low. As a consequence, you have few choices but to take whatever abuse the employer wants to dish out. Low wages are not the only abuse the employer might impose but they're a big one.
4: Environmental over-regulation is a regressive tax that falls hardest on the poor. He takes a little germ of truth and turns it into a giant strawman. Over-regulation might be a problem but nothing like that is happening, anywhere in the world. Again, his almost complete ignorance of what money is misleads him. Regulation does increase prices, across the board. But because it's across the board, it's nominally fair. The poor pay a much higher extrinsic cost for pollution. Lead is a case in point. From Tetra Ethyl Lead to lead pipes in Flint, to unmitigated lead paint, the children of the poor pay a much higher price.
5: Education is not a public good. Of course it is. Education can provide bargaining power, among other things, which leads to higher wages, not to mention increased ability to rebut ignoramuses like Dorfman.
6: High CEO pay is no worse than high pay to athletes or movie stars. This is a strawman. It's technically true: both are harmful. These people have higher bargaining power and are thus able to get more money. They spend some of it buying fancy clothes, fancy houses, etc., which does help the economy. But a lot of it is simply parked. See #2.
7: Consumer spending is not what drives the economy. Yes it is. Dorfman confuses GDP with "the economy". Trade is mostly driven by consumer spending...most of what is not is driven by government: the military for example. Big business buys from each other to make consumer products. He is right to be concerned by consumer debt, but that's not what he says is wrong. consumer debt is a big part of GDP, which is dangerous and in the long term harmful for the economy, although it makes a few people very rich.
8: When government provides things for
free, they will end up being low quality, cost more than they should,
and may disappear when most needed. Only if you let idiots run the government. There are actually very few cases of this. For example, US public schools used to be of very high quality, and still are in many cases. The fire department. The military. DARPA. NSF. NOAA. it goes on and on.
9: Government cannot correct cosmic injustice. No, but it can mitigate the consequences. "every time government fixes or eases a cosmic injustice, it creates a new one by sticking somebody with the bill." So? Compared to the problems, the bill is trivial. The number of people with terrible debilities is fairly small, and assisting them creates jobs. The multiplier effect almost pays for this by itself: these are low paying jobs, so all the money goes into housing and food and such.
10: There is no such thing as a free lunch. In a literal sense this is true, but the cost to society, for example of having hungry students in classes, is far greater than the cost of buying them lunch. 12 years of school lunch at $5 each costs about $12,000. If that raises the student's GPA 1/2 point, that's worth several thousand dollars a year in income, every year, for 40 years. It only takes 5 or so break even. If the student would have been really hungry, it probably raises GPA more than that. The student is also significantly less likely to need the dole later in life.
12 May 2016
Renewable Energy
There are three ultimate sources for energy on the earth, none of them renewable. One of them, solar nuclear fusion, deposits so much energy on the earth that its consequences are left behind for millions or even billions of years. Whether a sources is renewable or not is really whether these consequences can provide meaningful amounts of energy without causing environmental consequences or using the resource faster than it's produced. I'll get into the two ultimate sources first.
Nuclear fission: All chemical elements have some degree of of nuclear instability and spontaneously decompose, emitting sub-atomic particles and energy. Leo Szillard figured out how to use the sub-atomic particles to create a self sustaining chain reaction, generating a lot of heat. At controlled densities, this heat can be used to run power generating equipment, such as steam turbines. At uncontrolled densities, it's an atomic bomb. The atoms involved are destroyed, but there are plenty of them around so renewability of the supply is not a serious problem. But the process generates a lot of dangerous radioactive waste. Presently, there are no really good solutions for dealing with this waste, although there are some that are not extremely terrible.
Geothermal compression. Gravity causes the materials in the interior of the earth to be compressed, which causes them to heat up. Most of this stays deep inside the earth, but a little comes out in volcanoes, geothermal vents and a few other things. This heat can be used to run power generating equipment, such as steam turbines. The total supply of geothermal energy is finite, but far larger than present consumption rates could use for millions of years. As far as I know, there's no real downside to using geothermal energy, but there just aren't very many places where it's near enough to the surface to be of much help to energy needs. In order to drill our own geothermal wells into the earth's mantle would require some big breakthroughs, none of which show any signs of happening. For the time being, we pretty much have to rely on earthquakes and volcanoes to do it for us.
The third, and far and away the most important, is Nuclear fusion in the sun, causing lighting and heating of the earth. The sun is finite, and will eventually burn itself out, but this won't be for billions of years. Radiation from the sun strikes the earth at about 1 kilowatt per square meter. average US energy consumption is about 3 billion kilowatts. The US is about 10 trillion square meters, so theoretical capacity is about 3000 times what we need. No means of collecting that energy is very efficient, but that's a big multiplier. Ultimately, the question of renewability is whether we can extract energy in a way that doesn't wreck the environment. Here are a few:
There are numerous ways of using solar energy fairly directly.
Photovoltaic cells (mostly silicon but there are others) can be exposed to the sun and turn about 15% of the energy received into electricity. This are almost completely renewable and will work just fine for as long as they aren't damaged or obstructed, although some of the chemistry in making the cells is nasty.
Solar heating: There are several ways of doing this. The sun can be used to heat blackened tubes to generate hot water, which is a useful commodity, and can be used for bathing, washing, or radiant heating. The sun can be focused and used to generate something hot enough to run generating equipment, such as steam turbines. These are completely renewable, but a little fussy to manage.
Hydroelectric power: the sun heats bodies of water, including the ocean, and evaporates it. Some of this later precipitates and fills other bodies of water, at higher elevations, where it can be run through a turbine to generate electricity as it falls to lower elevations. Modulo the environmental damage involved in redirecting the water, this is completely renewable.
Wind Energy: Differential heating of the earth causes air to move from warmer places to cooler ones. We call this air movement "Wind". Windmills can be put up to collect electrical (or mechanical) energy from this. This too is completely renewable, modulo the environmental consequences of building the windmills. There is also a tiny but real risk that we affect the movement of air. Windmills have also been known to injure flying animals, such as birds and bats, that can't recognize the fast moving blades. The harm from this is considerably less than from fossil fuel plants.
Biofuel. Ultimately, biofuel uses energy from the sun to cause plants to grow. The complex molecule chlorophyll uses the suns energy to convert carbon dioxide from the air, and minerals and water from the ground, into plant material. There are many biofuels. The most familiar is wood. Trees can be harvested and burned, generating heat directly, or used to run power generating equipment, such as steam turbines. Whether this is renewable or not is whether the trees are harvested at a rate that damages the forest or allows it to continue to be as healthy and large. There is a lot of wood that is cut down and thrown awaybecause it's the easiest thing to do with it. A lot of this could be turned into energy. There are many wood-products industries that generate all the energy they need from wood waste.
There are numerous other biofuels. The one in largest use is Ethanol, which in the US is mostly from corn. Because the government subsidizes corn farmers, some of the surplus is fermented and distilled into ethanol. Most of this gets added to gasoline. This technically renewable but it is a terrible waste of agricultural resources and taxpayer money. Professor Patzek calculates that it takes between 4 and 7 times as much fossil energy to create the ethanol as it produces, which makes it a big new loser on the renewable scale.
Other biofuels include converting dirty cooking oil into biodiesel. This is certainly renewable: the cooking oil is an agricultural product, which probably was sun and carbon dioxide less than a year prior to it being turned into biodiesel, but the total supply is very small.
Another which seems promising until you do the math is microbes which secrete, or can be turned into, some sort of petroleum-like product. Again, this is completely renewable, on short cycles, but chlorophyll is a very inefficient converter of the sun's energy to usable energy: around 1/10th of 1% at the very best. If we were to use the entire area of the US (including alaska) to generate biofuel this way, it would not be sufficient for present energy needs despite that amazing 3000:1 multiplier. Their advantage is once the process is started, it's very low maintenance, but Photovoltaic is way more efficient.
Fossil fuels are technically biofuels and renewable, but the time it takes to renew it is in the hundreds of millions of years. Plant matter in large quantities lived, grew, and died, over thousands or millions of years creating big piles. When they're in the process of being created, they tend to be called things like marshes or peat bogs. Eventually they get covered up by hundreds or thousands of feet of earth and over millions of years they turn into fossil fuels. Whether it's coal, petroleum or natural gas depends on the exact temperature, pressure and chemical composition. Coal stays where it was formed, but petroleum and gas are lighter than earth and stone, and if there's a path to the surface, they float up and eventually are lost into the atmosphere where the sun causes them to break down into CO2 and water. When there's a geologic formation on top that causes it to be trapped, we can drill into it and recover the petroleum or gas. Most petroleum was created around 300 million years ago, but over hundreds of millions of years. By burning fossil fuels, we're emitting hundreds of millions of years of CO2 storage in a few decades. Not renewable.
Nuclear fission: All chemical elements have some degree of of nuclear instability and spontaneously decompose, emitting sub-atomic particles and energy. Leo Szillard figured out how to use the sub-atomic particles to create a self sustaining chain reaction, generating a lot of heat. At controlled densities, this heat can be used to run power generating equipment, such as steam turbines. At uncontrolled densities, it's an atomic bomb. The atoms involved are destroyed, but there are plenty of them around so renewability of the supply is not a serious problem. But the process generates a lot of dangerous radioactive waste. Presently, there are no really good solutions for dealing with this waste, although there are some that are not extremely terrible.
Geothermal compression. Gravity causes the materials in the interior of the earth to be compressed, which causes them to heat up. Most of this stays deep inside the earth, but a little comes out in volcanoes, geothermal vents and a few other things. This heat can be used to run power generating equipment, such as steam turbines. The total supply of geothermal energy is finite, but far larger than present consumption rates could use for millions of years. As far as I know, there's no real downside to using geothermal energy, but there just aren't very many places where it's near enough to the surface to be of much help to energy needs. In order to drill our own geothermal wells into the earth's mantle would require some big breakthroughs, none of which show any signs of happening. For the time being, we pretty much have to rely on earthquakes and volcanoes to do it for us.
The third, and far and away the most important, is Nuclear fusion in the sun, causing lighting and heating of the earth. The sun is finite, and will eventually burn itself out, but this won't be for billions of years. Radiation from the sun strikes the earth at about 1 kilowatt per square meter. average US energy consumption is about 3 billion kilowatts. The US is about 10 trillion square meters, so theoretical capacity is about 3000 times what we need. No means of collecting that energy is very efficient, but that's a big multiplier. Ultimately, the question of renewability is whether we can extract energy in a way that doesn't wreck the environment. Here are a few:
There are numerous ways of using solar energy fairly directly.
Photovoltaic cells (mostly silicon but there are others) can be exposed to the sun and turn about 15% of the energy received into electricity. This are almost completely renewable and will work just fine for as long as they aren't damaged or obstructed, although some of the chemistry in making the cells is nasty.
Solar heating: There are several ways of doing this. The sun can be used to heat blackened tubes to generate hot water, which is a useful commodity, and can be used for bathing, washing, or radiant heating. The sun can be focused and used to generate something hot enough to run generating equipment, such as steam turbines. These are completely renewable, but a little fussy to manage.
Hydroelectric power: the sun heats bodies of water, including the ocean, and evaporates it. Some of this later precipitates and fills other bodies of water, at higher elevations, where it can be run through a turbine to generate electricity as it falls to lower elevations. Modulo the environmental damage involved in redirecting the water, this is completely renewable.
Wind Energy: Differential heating of the earth causes air to move from warmer places to cooler ones. We call this air movement "Wind". Windmills can be put up to collect electrical (or mechanical) energy from this. This too is completely renewable, modulo the environmental consequences of building the windmills. There is also a tiny but real risk that we affect the movement of air. Windmills have also been known to injure flying animals, such as birds and bats, that can't recognize the fast moving blades. The harm from this is considerably less than from fossil fuel plants.
Biofuel. Ultimately, biofuel uses energy from the sun to cause plants to grow. The complex molecule chlorophyll uses the suns energy to convert carbon dioxide from the air, and minerals and water from the ground, into plant material. There are many biofuels. The most familiar is wood. Trees can be harvested and burned, generating heat directly, or used to run power generating equipment, such as steam turbines. Whether this is renewable or not is whether the trees are harvested at a rate that damages the forest or allows it to continue to be as healthy and large. There is a lot of wood that is cut down and thrown awaybecause it's the easiest thing to do with it. A lot of this could be turned into energy. There are many wood-products industries that generate all the energy they need from wood waste.
There are numerous other biofuels. The one in largest use is Ethanol, which in the US is mostly from corn. Because the government subsidizes corn farmers, some of the surplus is fermented and distilled into ethanol. Most of this gets added to gasoline. This technically renewable but it is a terrible waste of agricultural resources and taxpayer money. Professor Patzek calculates that it takes between 4 and 7 times as much fossil energy to create the ethanol as it produces, which makes it a big new loser on the renewable scale.
Other biofuels include converting dirty cooking oil into biodiesel. This is certainly renewable: the cooking oil is an agricultural product, which probably was sun and carbon dioxide less than a year prior to it being turned into biodiesel, but the total supply is very small.
Another which seems promising until you do the math is microbes which secrete, or can be turned into, some sort of petroleum-like product. Again, this is completely renewable, on short cycles, but chlorophyll is a very inefficient converter of the sun's energy to usable energy: around 1/10th of 1% at the very best. If we were to use the entire area of the US (including alaska) to generate biofuel this way, it would not be sufficient for present energy needs despite that amazing 3000:1 multiplier. Their advantage is once the process is started, it's very low maintenance, but Photovoltaic is way more efficient.
Fossil fuels are technically biofuels and renewable, but the time it takes to renew it is in the hundreds of millions of years. Plant matter in large quantities lived, grew, and died, over thousands or millions of years creating big piles. When they're in the process of being created, they tend to be called things like marshes or peat bogs. Eventually they get covered up by hundreds or thousands of feet of earth and over millions of years they turn into fossil fuels. Whether it's coal, petroleum or natural gas depends on the exact temperature, pressure and chemical composition. Coal stays where it was formed, but petroleum and gas are lighter than earth and stone, and if there's a path to the surface, they float up and eventually are lost into the atmosphere where the sun causes them to break down into CO2 and water. When there's a geologic formation on top that causes it to be trapped, we can drill into it and recover the petroleum or gas. Most petroleum was created around 300 million years ago, but over hundreds of millions of years. By burning fossil fuels, we're emitting hundreds of millions of years of CO2 storage in a few decades. Not renewable.
22 April 2016
Is Jon Snow Dead?
Spoiler Alert! If you haven't seen Game of Thrones series 5 or read George R R Martin's A Dance with Dragons, then this spoils one of the most important scenes, which is in both...read no further. This is an educated guess about what is about to happen.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There appear to be 4 ways that people can survive death or be brought back to life in the Game of Thrones universe:
A priest of R'hllor can use a fire ritual to bring a dead body back to life. Something seems to be lost if that happens though.
The chief White Walkers (Wights?) seem to have the ability to create White Walkers from corpses. The White Walker is a zombie and has little or none of its original mind left.
If a person who can animate another creature (Warg) is actively doing it at the time of their bodies death, then their mind is permanently transferred to the victim. This is considered at some length in the books, and apparently there is a merging of the minds that takes place after the death of the Warg.
Some people seem to be able to survive fire. This may be resistance, but I think it may actually be a death and full reanimation by fire...or perhaps a more than full reanimation, with special Dragon-related powers. I'm not sure if it's a property unique to Targaryens or what, or if it's tied in some way to the Priests of the Red God's ability to revive a dead person.
Here's the speculation: Jon Snow is not the illegitimate son of Eddard Stark, but the legitimate son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. Lyanna had been kidnapped by Rhaegar, starting Robert's Rebellion, but she had fallen in love and they had married. (Targaryens are allowed multiple marriages). When Eddard and his bannerman Howland Reed came upon her, dying in childbirth, Lyanna made Eddard and Howland promise that he would keep the secret of her children's parentage until they reached adulthood, and each raise one of them as his own. Eddard took the son, raising him as his own bastard, Jon Snow. Howland took the twin daughter and adopted her as his own, Meera Reed. Howland Reed is now the only person alive who knows what exactly was promised, and he has carefully stayed inside his fortress
If this is true: 1) Jon and Meera are fully legitimate Targaryens, 2nd and 3rd in line for the iron throne after their Aunt Daenerys. If Robert Baratheon had known the twins true parentage, he'd have had them killed as a legitimate threat to his right to the throne. It would have been particularly galling for him, because he was the one betrothed to Lyanna and he was madly in love. No wonder their mother wanted their secret kept. This was a terribly hard secret for Eddard Stark to keep. 2) One or both may be able to be reborn in fire. Both are dead at this point: Meera was killed defending her brother Jojen Reed, Bran Stark, and Hodor from White Walkers as they entered the camp of the Children of the Forest at the end of Season 4. She presumably is now a white walker, but it may be possible to bring her back to life by burning her. I speculate that this will happen in dramatic fashion at some point. They will burn Jon to try to keep the corpse from becoming a white walker. I'm not sure whether he will emerge in dramatic fashion from the fire or figure out a way to sneak off.
One way or another, I'm pretty sure the Red Witch Melesandre will be involved and Jon Stark will now become the object of her affections and promotion. She may be able to figure out the truth somehow. She plainly has exceptional ability to see things at a distance. The scene where she said, exactly as Ygritte said it: "You know nothing, Jon Snow" gave me goosebumps. (While researching for this I stumbled across the fact that Kit Harrington and Rose Leslie have been dating (these are the actors that played Jon Snow and Ygritte))
We know that dying absolves a member of the Night's Watch of their commitment. I suspect Jon will find a way to continue to honor it, nevertheless. He's aware that the White Walkers are far more dangerous than any other threat to Westeros.
While it is technically speculation at this point, there have been so many clues that I am almost certain that Jon Snow is the child of Rhaegar and Lyanna, and that's what the secret was between Lyanna and Eddard. I'm pretty sure that the only surviving character who knows the truth first hand is Howland Reed. The legitimacy, and that Meera is Jon's twin, is more speculative, as is the ability to be reborn in fire (as opposed to merely surviving, which was what we were led to think with Daenerys).
I wonder if the fact that there are three dragons and three Targaryens (Daenerys, Jon and Meera) is significant.
We know that the Targaryens have this dragon and fire ability and that some Starks have Warging--Bran for sure, and we've apparently seen Jon Snow doing it with Ghost. I wonder if Warging and communicating with dragons are related gifts or if Jon will be unique in having both.
We may learn the truth Sunday. I speculate that there will be something mysterious happening first, and the story will come out in a more complicated way.
--------
addenda 1 May 2016
It turns out my first guess was correct, that Melisandre, the priestess of R'hllor, was able to bring Jon back, although only Ghost and the audience realize it yet--she thinks she failed as we fade to credits. I thought the scene was very well played, if a little predictable. Right up until she tried, it could have gone either way--they'd mentioned burning the bodies. This may have been better storytelling choice strategically, to avoid giving away Jon's parentage too soon.
After 2 years out of the production, Bran is back, and his warging has given him a look at his father Eddard, aunt Lyanna, and uncle Benjen, as children, as well as Hodor before he lost the ability to speak. Bran wants to see more, and we can be sure he will learn some interesting things, but his new warging guide, played by the great Max von Sydow, is worried lest he go too far and get lost.
We also see Meera, who was the survivor of the White Walker attack--it was her (adoptive) brother Jojen that was killed. It's been 5 years since I read it and 2 since I saw it acted...sorry. The scene, I thought, really emphasized her similarity in appearance and attitude with Jon Snow.
And the release of the dragons. I'm a little mystified why Tyrion wasn't made a quick morsel, as was Tyrion himself. Perhaps the dragons really are smart enough to see the larger picture. Or maybe he has some Targeryan blood. Perhaps his biological father was not Tywin Lannister after all.
One of my favorite non-POV characters was Syrio Forel. I keep hoping he survived the fight, where he had a wooden practice sword and was looking pretty good against fully armed Kingsgard Meryn Trant when the scene cut away. When the opportunity presented itself, Arya violated her vows to the Many-Faced God to avenge him. I keep hoping he turns up in his native Braavos.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There appear to be 4 ways that people can survive death or be brought back to life in the Game of Thrones universe:
A priest of R'hllor can use a fire ritual to bring a dead body back to life. Something seems to be lost if that happens though.
The chief White Walkers (Wights?) seem to have the ability to create White Walkers from corpses. The White Walker is a zombie and has little or none of its original mind left.
If a person who can animate another creature (Warg) is actively doing it at the time of their bodies death, then their mind is permanently transferred to the victim. This is considered at some length in the books, and apparently there is a merging of the minds that takes place after the death of the Warg.
Some people seem to be able to survive fire. This may be resistance, but I think it may actually be a death and full reanimation by fire...or perhaps a more than full reanimation, with special Dragon-related powers. I'm not sure if it's a property unique to Targaryens or what, or if it's tied in some way to the Priests of the Red God's ability to revive a dead person.
Here's the speculation: Jon Snow is not the illegitimate son of Eddard Stark, but the legitimate son of Rhaegar Targaryen and Lyanna Stark. Lyanna had been kidnapped by Rhaegar, starting Robert's Rebellion, but she had fallen in love and they had married. (Targaryens are allowed multiple marriages). When Eddard and his bannerman Howland Reed came upon her, dying in childbirth, Lyanna made Eddard and Howland promise that he would keep the secret of her children's parentage until they reached adulthood, and each raise one of them as his own. Eddard took the son, raising him as his own bastard, Jon Snow. Howland took the twin daughter and adopted her as his own, Meera Reed. Howland Reed is now the only person alive who knows what exactly was promised, and he has carefully stayed inside his fortress
If this is true: 1) Jon and Meera are fully legitimate Targaryens, 2nd and 3rd in line for the iron throne after their Aunt Daenerys. If Robert Baratheon had known the twins true parentage, he'd have had them killed as a legitimate threat to his right to the throne. It would have been particularly galling for him, because he was the one betrothed to Lyanna and he was madly in love. No wonder their mother wanted their secret kept. This was a terribly hard secret for Eddard Stark to keep. 2) One or both may be able to be reborn in fire. Both are dead at this point: Meera was killed defending her brother Jojen Reed, Bran Stark, and Hodor from White Walkers as they entered the camp of the Children of the Forest at the end of Season 4. She presumably is now a white walker, but it may be possible to bring her back to life by burning her. I speculate that this will happen in dramatic fashion at some point. They will burn Jon to try to keep the corpse from becoming a white walker. I'm not sure whether he will emerge in dramatic fashion from the fire or figure out a way to sneak off.
One way or another, I'm pretty sure the Red Witch Melesandre will be involved and Jon Stark will now become the object of her affections and promotion. She may be able to figure out the truth somehow. She plainly has exceptional ability to see things at a distance. The scene where she said, exactly as Ygritte said it: "You know nothing, Jon Snow" gave me goosebumps. (While researching for this I stumbled across the fact that Kit Harrington and Rose Leslie have been dating (these are the actors that played Jon Snow and Ygritte))
We know that dying absolves a member of the Night's Watch of their commitment. I suspect Jon will find a way to continue to honor it, nevertheless. He's aware that the White Walkers are far more dangerous than any other threat to Westeros.
While it is technically speculation at this point, there have been so many clues that I am almost certain that Jon Snow is the child of Rhaegar and Lyanna, and that's what the secret was between Lyanna and Eddard. I'm pretty sure that the only surviving character who knows the truth first hand is Howland Reed. The legitimacy, and that Meera is Jon's twin, is more speculative, as is the ability to be reborn in fire (as opposed to merely surviving, which was what we were led to think with Daenerys).
I wonder if the fact that there are three dragons and three Targaryens (Daenerys, Jon and Meera) is significant.
We know that the Targaryens have this dragon and fire ability and that some Starks have Warging--Bran for sure, and we've apparently seen Jon Snow doing it with Ghost. I wonder if Warging and communicating with dragons are related gifts or if Jon will be unique in having both.
We may learn the truth Sunday. I speculate that there will be something mysterious happening first, and the story will come out in a more complicated way.
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addenda 1 May 2016
It turns out my first guess was correct, that Melisandre, the priestess of R'hllor, was able to bring Jon back, although only Ghost and the audience realize it yet--she thinks she failed as we fade to credits. I thought the scene was very well played, if a little predictable. Right up until she tried, it could have gone either way--they'd mentioned burning the bodies. This may have been better storytelling choice strategically, to avoid giving away Jon's parentage too soon.
After 2 years out of the production, Bran is back, and his warging has given him a look at his father Eddard, aunt Lyanna, and uncle Benjen, as children, as well as Hodor before he lost the ability to speak. Bran wants to see more, and we can be sure he will learn some interesting things, but his new warging guide, played by the great Max von Sydow, is worried lest he go too far and get lost.
We also see Meera, who was the survivor of the White Walker attack--it was her (adoptive) brother Jojen that was killed. It's been 5 years since I read it and 2 since I saw it acted...sorry. The scene, I thought, really emphasized her similarity in appearance and attitude with Jon Snow.
And the release of the dragons. I'm a little mystified why Tyrion wasn't made a quick morsel, as was Tyrion himself. Perhaps the dragons really are smart enough to see the larger picture. Or maybe he has some Targeryan blood. Perhaps his biological father was not Tywin Lannister after all.
One of my favorite non-POV characters was Syrio Forel. I keep hoping he survived the fight, where he had a wooden practice sword and was looking pretty good against fully armed Kingsgard Meryn Trant when the scene cut away. When the opportunity presented itself, Arya violated her vows to the Many-Faced God to avenge him. I keep hoping he turns up in his native Braavos.
25 March 2016
Bernie Sanders Tax Rates
Several sources are talking about how much Bernie Sanders would raise your taxes. For just about everybody, he would, but you get a lot more for them: free health care, free college, better bank regulation, lots more. The only people who are getting hit hard are people who have been treated very gently for the last 30 years. Here are a few hypothetical households and how they would fare:
Single, $20K income, 3 kids. (e.g. a single parent earning $10/hr)
2016 tax: $155, 0.8% effective rate
Bernie tax: $189.1, 0.9% effective rate.
Such a household is probably already on medicaid. if they had college loans, this is would be a huge savings. These are the people (and especially their children) who will be helped most: they will have an opportunity to go to college, where unless they get a "free ride" scholarship, they presently do not.
Single, $50K income, no dependents, no investment income or deductions (i.e. a recent college grad)
2016 tax: $5719, effective rate 11.4%
Bernie tax: 1131.55+4880.50+1373.60=7385.65 14.8%
2016 tax+$2K for medical insurance for a 26 year old: $7719 a 15.4% effective rate.
+5K for college loans: $12719.
Married, 2 kids, $50K income, no investment income or deductions (a "typical" family)
2016 tax: $3468, effective rate 6.9%
Bernie tax: 2263.10+1849=$4112.10, effective rate 8.2%
2016 tax+$3600 for medical insurance for 36 year old parents and young kids $7468: 14.9% effective rate. Bernie saves $3300 a year.
+5K for college loans $12468
Married, 2 kids, $100K income, no investment income or deductions (a 96th percentile family)
2016 tax: $11368, effective rate 11.4%
Bernie tax: 2263.10+9761+1088=$13112.10, effective rate 13.1%
2016 tax+$3600 for medical insurance for 36 year old parents and young kids $14968: 15% effective rate. Bernie saves $1800 a year.
+5K for college loans $19968
Married, 2 kids, $1M ordinary income, $200K investment income, $100K deductions (a typical 0.1% family, e.g. a very successful doctor or lawyer or upper manager in a big company)
2016 tax: $333,869, effective rate 27.8%
Bernie tax: 2263.10+9761+20,835.2+24,024.1+6529.6+98K+229,584.36=384,467.76 or 32% effective rate.
Health care and college loan costs are negligible on this income. Bernie costs them a few percent.
Single, no ordinary income, $10M investment income, no deductions (a wealthy, stingy widow)
2016 tax: $1,972,340. 19.2% effective rate.
Bernie tax: 2263.10+9761+20,835.2+24,024.1+6529.6+98K+678K+4,012,837.4=$4,852,250.4 or 48.5% effective rate.
Single, no ordinary income, $10M investment income, $4M deductions (a wealthy, generous widow)
2016 tax: $1,173,600. 11.7% effective rate.
Bernie tax: 2263.10+9761+20,835.2+24,024.1+6529.6+98K+678K+2,610,400=$3,449,813 or 34.5% effective rate.
Single, $20M ordinary income, no investments or deductions (I can't imagine anyone like this; it's constructed to create the extreme case)
2016 tax: $7,868,864, 39.3% effective rate.
Bernie tax: 2263.10+9761+20,835.2+24,024.1+6529.6+98K+678K+4016K+5,355,800.1 =$10,211,213.1 or 51.1% effective rate
I found several sources bogusly claiming Bernie would raise your taxes to over 90%. I can't work out any version where this would be correct. The nearest I can come is someone using the "imputed income" scam to add corporate income taxes to personal income and add percentages with different bases rather than dollars.
I found some more credible sources computing numbers in the 70s by adding payroll taxes (on which Bernie would lift the cap. It's presently $117K) and state income taxes. e.g., california's top marginal rate is 13.1%, and the payroll tax on my imaginary $20M ordinary income earner would be on the whole thing, where today it's only on 5% of it: 51.1+13.1+6.2 = 70.4%. But this is at best an apples to oranges comparison. None of the incomes above include payroll or state (or property) tax. Even if you imagine this to be correct, this person ends up with $6M of after tax income. They should use some of it to hire an accountant who is not as incompetent as they are...
sources:
http://www.moneychimp.com/features/tax_calculator.htm
http://taxfoundation.org/article/details-and-analysis-senator-bernie-sanders-s-tax-plan
https://www.wahealthplanfinder.org/HBEWeb/Annon_DisplayHomePage.action
Single, $20K income, 3 kids. (e.g. a single parent earning $10/hr)
2016 tax: $155, 0.8% effective rate
Bernie tax: $189.1, 0.9% effective rate.
Such a household is probably already on medicaid. if they had college loans, this is would be a huge savings. These are the people (and especially their children) who will be helped most: they will have an opportunity to go to college, where unless they get a "free ride" scholarship, they presently do not.
Single, $50K income, no dependents, no investment income or deductions (i.e. a recent college grad)
2016 tax: $5719, effective rate 11.4%
Bernie tax: 1131.55+4880.50+1373.60=7385.65 14.8%
2016 tax+$2K for medical insurance for a 26 year old: $7719 a 15.4% effective rate.
+5K for college loans: $12719.
Married, 2 kids, $50K income, no investment income or deductions (a "typical" family)
2016 tax: $3468, effective rate 6.9%
Bernie tax: 2263.10+1849=$4112.10, effective rate 8.2%
2016 tax+$3600 for medical insurance for 36 year old parents and young kids $7468: 14.9% effective rate. Bernie saves $3300 a year.
+5K for college loans $12468
Married, 2 kids, $100K income, no investment income or deductions (a 96th percentile family)
2016 tax: $11368, effective rate 11.4%
Bernie tax: 2263.10+9761+1088=$13112.10, effective rate 13.1%
2016 tax+$3600 for medical insurance for 36 year old parents and young kids $14968: 15% effective rate. Bernie saves $1800 a year.
+5K for college loans $19968
Married, 2 kids, $1M ordinary income, $200K investment income, $100K deductions (a typical 0.1% family, e.g. a very successful doctor or lawyer or upper manager in a big company)
2016 tax: $333,869, effective rate 27.8%
Bernie tax: 2263.10+9761+20,835.2+24,024.1+6529.6+98K+229,584.36=384,467.76 or 32% effective rate.
Health care and college loan costs are negligible on this income. Bernie costs them a few percent.
Single, no ordinary income, $10M investment income, no deductions (a wealthy, stingy widow)
2016 tax: $1,972,340. 19.2% effective rate.
Bernie tax: 2263.10+9761+20,835.2+24,024.1+6529.6+98K+678K+4,012,837.4=$4,852,250.4 or 48.5% effective rate.
Single, no ordinary income, $10M investment income, $4M deductions (a wealthy, generous widow)
2016 tax: $1,173,600. 11.7% effective rate.
Bernie tax: 2263.10+9761+20,835.2+24,024.1+6529.6+98K+678K+2,610,400=$3,449,813 or 34.5% effective rate.
Single, $20M ordinary income, no investments or deductions (I can't imagine anyone like this; it's constructed to create the extreme case)
2016 tax: $7,868,864, 39.3% effective rate.
Bernie tax: 2263.10+9761+20,835.2+24,024.1+6529.6+98K+678K+4016K+5,355,800.1 =$10,211,213.1 or 51.1% effective rate
I found several sources bogusly claiming Bernie would raise your taxes to over 90%. I can't work out any version where this would be correct. The nearest I can come is someone using the "imputed income" scam to add corporate income taxes to personal income and add percentages with different bases rather than dollars.
I found some more credible sources computing numbers in the 70s by adding payroll taxes (on which Bernie would lift the cap. It's presently $117K) and state income taxes. e.g., california's top marginal rate is 13.1%, and the payroll tax on my imaginary $20M ordinary income earner would be on the whole thing, where today it's only on 5% of it: 51.1+13.1+6.2 = 70.4%. But this is at best an apples to oranges comparison. None of the incomes above include payroll or state (or property) tax. Even if you imagine this to be correct, this person ends up with $6M of after tax income. They should use some of it to hire an accountant who is not as incompetent as they are...
sources:
http://www.moneychimp.com/features/tax_calculator.htm
http://taxfoundation.org/article/details-and-analysis-senator-bernie-sanders-s-tax-plan
https://www.wahealthplanfinder.org/HBEWeb/Annon_DisplayHomePage.action
18 March 2016
PRT Elevator
PRT Elevator is one name for an advanced elevator concept that might make extremely tall or large buildings much more practical, or might allow higher overall elevator capacity in more moderate buildings while reducing the amount of space consumed by those elevators.
Conventional elevators go up and down in a shaft, one elevator per shaft, stopping at intermediate floors. In the tallest buildings, there are multiple elevators per shaft, each traveling over a limited range. Passengers must transfer from an elevator that travels, for example, from the 1st to 40th floors, to an elevator that travels from the 40th floor to the 80th. This is done to increase capacity: as elevator trips become longer, the time to complete a trip increases. But because the building is very large, demand is also very high, and in order to meet it, the number of shafts required would consume a sizable part of the building.
A different approach might be to allow the elevator vehicles move between shafts in order to bypass each other as they're stopped. People familiar with PRT will recognize this as very similar to an offline station. Such an elevator would allow many vehicles per shaft (as many as .33 per floor: 26 in an 80 story building). This very much higher capacity per shaft would require far fewer shafts and allow far more non-stop trips, providing much better service.
There are many technical issues to be solved before such elevators become practical, including powering the elevators (existing elevators use cables or hydraulic pistons), switching or steering the elevators, providing a similar level of reliability to existing elevators (existing elevators have several extremely reliable safety mechanisms), and control. None of these seem intractable, but a lot of hard work will be required to solve them.
In its most extreme form, these flexibly routed elevators can also be routed horizontally and diagonally. Viewers of the Star Trek television series will recognize this as a TurboLift.
The author is aware of very little actual development that's taken place on either a PRT Elevator or a Turbolift, but doesn't see any fundamental barriers. Some conceptual work has been done on the Spanish ATS PRT system. The author thinks it is workable but it remains a concept only.
This article was originally at http://www.advancedtransit.net/atrawiki/index.php?title=TurboLift but AtraWiki seems to have malfunctioned.
Conventional elevators go up and down in a shaft, one elevator per shaft, stopping at intermediate floors. In the tallest buildings, there are multiple elevators per shaft, each traveling over a limited range. Passengers must transfer from an elevator that travels, for example, from the 1st to 40th floors, to an elevator that travels from the 40th floor to the 80th. This is done to increase capacity: as elevator trips become longer, the time to complete a trip increases. But because the building is very large, demand is also very high, and in order to meet it, the number of shafts required would consume a sizable part of the building.
A different approach might be to allow the elevator vehicles move between shafts in order to bypass each other as they're stopped. People familiar with PRT will recognize this as very similar to an offline station. Such an elevator would allow many vehicles per shaft (as many as .33 per floor: 26 in an 80 story building). This very much higher capacity per shaft would require far fewer shafts and allow far more non-stop trips, providing much better service.
There are many technical issues to be solved before such elevators become practical, including powering the elevators (existing elevators use cables or hydraulic pistons), switching or steering the elevators, providing a similar level of reliability to existing elevators (existing elevators have several extremely reliable safety mechanisms), and control. None of these seem intractable, but a lot of hard work will be required to solve them.
In its most extreme form, these flexibly routed elevators can also be routed horizontally and diagonally. Viewers of the Star Trek television series will recognize this as a TurboLift.
The author is aware of very little actual development that's taken place on either a PRT Elevator or a Turbolift, but doesn't see any fundamental barriers. Some conceptual work has been done on the Spanish ATS PRT system. The author thinks it is workable but it remains a concept only.
This article was originally at http://www.advancedtransit.net/atrawiki/index.php?title=TurboLift but AtraWiki seems to have malfunctioned.
17 March 2016
Shirt Colors
Brownshirts -- Sturmabteilung or SA. A paramilitary army of thugs, consisting largely of unemployed young men, who intimidated opponents of the Nazi rise to power. The real police collaborated or looked the other way until it was too late.
Browncoat -- A fan of the short-lived Firefly TV Science Fiction series. The browncoats in the series were soldiers in the independence army, a little like greycoats in the civil war.
Browncoat -- A fan of the short-lived Firefly TV Science Fiction series. The browncoats in the series were soldiers in the independence army, a little like greycoats in the civil war.
Blackshirt -- The Italian Fascist version of the Brownshirts
Red Shirt -- A character in fiction who is there to be canon fodder. It originated from Star Trek where security personnel wore red uniforms and were often killed in the first few minutes of the episode.
Red Shirt -- in college sports, a player who is attending classes but not competing, in order to extend their allowable eligibility.
Red Shirt -- in American football, a player who is exempted from full contact in full contact scrimmages and drills.
Red Shirt -- A follower of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Italian military leader and activist.
Red Shirt -- A character in fiction who is there to be canon fodder. It originated from Star Trek where security personnel wore red uniforms and were often killed in the first few minutes of the episode.
Red Shirt -- in college sports, a player who is attending classes but not competing, in order to extend their allowable eligibility.
Red Shirt -- in American football, a player who is exempted from full contact in full contact scrimmages and drills.
Red Shirt -- A follower of Giuseppe Garibaldi, the Italian military leader and activist.
Red Shirts -- A white supremacist terrorist group in the south in from 1875 to the early 1900s.
Redcoat -- a soldier in the British Army or Marines. From the mid 17th century to the late 19th, British soldiers wore red uniform coats. The armies of Prussia wore blue coats during this time (and German dress uniforms are still this color), the French wore grey and blue.
Yellow Jersey -- In bicycle stage racing, the current leader in general classification (accumulated time). Some other races use a different color for this same purpose: the Giro d'Italia uses pink, and the Vuelta a Espania uses Red.
Bluecoat -- a soldier in the Union Army during the civil war. The Prussian army also wore blue coats.
Bluejacket -- an enlisted sailor in the US navy.
Greycoat -- a soldier in the confederate army during the civil war.
Redcoat -- a soldier in the British Army or Marines. From the mid 17th century to the late 19th, British soldiers wore red uniform coats. The armies of Prussia wore blue coats during this time (and German dress uniforms are still this color), the French wore grey and blue.
Yellow Jersey -- In bicycle stage racing, the current leader in general classification (accumulated time). Some other races use a different color for this same purpose: the Giro d'Italia uses pink, and the Vuelta a Espania uses Red.
Bluecoat -- a soldier in the Union Army during the civil war. The Prussian army also wore blue coats.
Bluejacket -- an enlisted sailor in the US navy.
Greycoat -- a soldier in the confederate army during the civil war.
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