Category: Science

Ignorance is strength

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
“Hey, I said no DEI! Who wrote this?”

The FreeDummies have finally turned their beady little eyes to the Land of Enchantment.

According to Alaina Mencinger at The New Mexican, Los Alamos National Laboratory has been “suspending programs related to diversity, equity and inclusion and climate change and scrubbing old issues of the lab’s magazine that discuss these now-disfavored topics.”

LANL employees are federal contractors, not federal employees. Nevertheless, a review has determined that at least two of Dear Leader’s edicts apply to the lab’s DEI and affirmative-action programs, “and the lab is ending such programs as a result,” Mencinger writes.

The New Mexican apparently got its hands on some internal communications — a memo signed by lab director Thom Mason went out Thursday — and bits of this, that, and the other have already begun slip-sliding away down the old memory hole, among them issues of LANL’s National Security Science magazine, focused on anything and everything from climate to diversity, nuclear deterrence to manufacturing.

And it’s not just magazines getting fed into the shredder. According to Mason, LANL has “received guidance” to suspend climate action, sustainability and carbon-neutral energy programs. It goes without saying that LANL is also removing “relevant terminology” from external communications.

But, good news, comrades! “The removal of some content isn’t permanent,” according to the Ministry for Sit the Fuck Down and Shut the Fuck Up.

“To comply with recent direction from the Presidential administration, parts of our website are temporarily unavailable while they’re under construction. We appreciate your patience as we work to update and repost them. … You may notice changes to our website while we reconstruct pages and evaluate language.”

Huh. “Construction” and “update” are not the words I would have chosen for this odious project. As for “evaluating language,” I’d be inclined to leave that sort of thing to the smarties, who are very much not in evidence as the Stalinization of the federal government continues.

Doing it old school, or ‘Yeah! Science (fiction)!’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
A script from the Before-Time, possibly written by Dr. Eleven. Or that “Mad Blog” fella.

I always liked science fiction. Science, not so much.

Science always seemed rigid and impersonal. But science fiction, or speculative fiction, if you prefer — especially of the apocalyptic variety — spoke to the gloomy bog-trotter in my DNA.

So I studied the fiction instead of the science, with predictable results. When it came time for me to go to college, there was only one in the state that would accept me with my miserable GPA. However, the institution excused me from freshman comp because I was a fool for words, as long as there were no equations to solve.

SF seems best to me when the future isn’t pretty, but people manage to muddle through somehow. “A Clockwork Orange.” “Alas, Babylon.” Or “Station Eleven.”

We watched the “Station Eleven” TV series on Max, recently watched it again, and afterward I finally got around to reading the book, which as usual is considerably different. Author Emily St. John Mandel was gracious about the changes, though, saying she thought the series “deepened the story in a lot of really interesting ways.”

I doubt that I’m adding any significant depth with this latest episode of Radio Free Dogpatch, but the notions contained therein have been taking up space in my head for a while now and the Voices would like them to leave. They’re your problem now.

• Technical notes: RFD favors the Ethos mic from Earthworks Audio; Audio-Technica ATH-M50X headphones; Zoom H5 Handy Recorder; Apple’s GarageBand, and Auphonic for a wash and brushup. NASA noises, starship flyby, countryside ambience and appreciative audience come from Zapsplat. “Wernher von Braun” is the work of the inimitable Tom Lehrer. The Celtic tune is from Freesound. And the outro clip is from The Firesign Theatre’s “I Think We’re All Bozos On This Bus,” which remains all too relevant. All other evil racket is courtesy of Your Humble Narrator.

Thanks to Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke for “2001,” Gene Roddenberry for “Star Trek,” Emily St. John Mandel for “Station Eleven,” Pat Frank for “Alas, Babylon,” Stephen King for “The Stand,” and The Firesign Theatre for … well, for everything.

Tarting up the rice

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments
Fresh from the Yonsei University candy kitchens. Photograph: Yonsei University/PA

One of the fathers of the Pop-Tart, a staple from my childhood, has gone west.

William Post, who died Saturday at 96 in Grand Rapids, Mich., led the bakery plant that developed the first Pop-Tarts for Kellogg’s in 1964, according to his son, Dan.

Post was a hands-on sort who used his kids to test-drive the early prototypes — some good, some not so good — and once he got them dialed in, well, it was off to the races. Today, for good or ill, sales are in the billions.

One wonders what Post might have done if some Suit brought him the idea for “hybrid rice” — traditional rice grains slathered in fish gelatin, seeded with skeletal beef muscle and fat stem cells, and then grown in a lab.

Professor Jinkee Hong, who actually brought this Frankenrice to life at Yonsei University in South Korea, was hoping to develop a protein source more affordable than traditional beef, with a smaller carbon hoofprint.

After cooking and tasting his creation the professor said it “retains its traditional appearance but carries a unique blend of aromas, including a slight nuttiness and umami which are characteristic of meat.”

“While it does not exactly replicate the taste of beef, it offers a pleasant and novel flavor experience,” he added. “We tried it with various accompaniments and it pairs well with a range of dishes.”

Hm. Maybe so. I suspect it might have been one of those tough sells around the Post family table. But as a perpetually famished skinny-ass kid who inhaled everything from Tang to Space Food Sticks to Hamburger Helper to sammiches of Wonder Bread, pasteurized/processed “cheese food” and Oscar Meyer braunschweiger (in a tube!), I might have given it a go.

Hold the Beef-Rice Pop-Tarts, though. Ain’t enough Taster’s Choice in the world.

Say, who wasn’t that masked man?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 10 Comments

Some faces should be covered.

The fully vaccinated no longer need to mask up when they’re out walking, running, hiking, or biking, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

However, if you’re out robbing banks, knocking over liquor stores, or burgling the homes of absent walkers, runners, hikers, or bikers, it’s probably still a good idea to keep your mug covered, regardless of your vaccination status.

You might just get your shots without the fuss of making an appointment, of course. But then life is full of risks, no?

Can it happen here?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 24 Comments

Punch a button, the heat comes on. Magic!

Here’s a story that every daily newspaper should be running as of, oh, day before yesterday.

Is your state’s power grid in shape for a Texas-size storm? Do you even know where or how your state gets its power?

I sure don’t. Lucky for me there’s this magic button on the wall, and when I press it, zoom, I control the weather! Inside the house, anyway, and only if nothing goes wrong outside it.

Here’s a New York Times story from last fall breaking down how making electricity has changed over the past two decades. Regarding New Mexico, it reports:

Coal has been New Mexico’s primary source of electricity generation for nearly two decades. But coal-fired power has declined since 2004 in response to tougher air quality regulations, cheaper natural gas, and California’s decision in 2014 to stop purchasing electricity generated from coal in neighboring states.

Natural gas, wind and solar accounted for a little more than half of the electricity produced in New Mexico last year, up from just 15 percent two decades earlier. In 2019, the state legislature passed a law requiring utilities to get 50 percent of the electricity they sell from renewable sources by 2030, rising to 100 percent by 2045.

According to [the U.S. Energy Information Administration], New Mexico has among the highest potential for solar power in the country. The state also sends a significant amount of electricity to California, which has long set aggressive renewable energy goals.