Wednesday, January 31, 2018
Who's the fool and who's the genius.
Just one week after the Trump administration announced a massive 30% tariff on imported solar panels, one of China’s largest solar panel manufacturers announced plans to open a manufacturing plant in the United States.
The company, JinkoSolar, said on Monday that they have received the green light from their board of directors to “finalize planning for the construction of an advanced solar manufacturing facility in the U.S.
It's amazing that that move worked so quickly. Someone must know what they are doing.
In stark contrast, there's the Solyndra debacle. There, another president wasted millions and millions of tax dollars trying to prop up a solar panel company. In opposition to all common sense, the politicians set up Solyndra in one of the highest cost regions they could find, built a very expensive factory with all the bells and whistles, and then went bankrupt.
Having started a business or two myself, I recall how stunned I was driving past the huge Solyndra facility in the Bay Area. It was all first class, as if they were GM or some other well established company with a long history of successful competition in a competitive industry. In fact, they were a start up, sheltered from the rigors of free competition by friendly politicians using public money - a recipe for disaster.
They should have opened that factory in a second hand warehouse in the Midwest, with railroad access, where the labor and rent would be inexpensive. But no, they had millions of tax dollars and a tone deaf politician behind them, so why not splurge?
Their collapse was inevitable, I guess, with so much isolation from real free market competition.
So, to compare and contrast, in one administration, huge piles of taxpayer money were wasted propping up a business that failed, for political reasons. In another administration, tough action is taken against a foreign competitor abusing our markets, who then sets up a domestic factory right here in the USA, at zero cost to the taxpayers.
I'll take door two, Bob, any day of the week.
Democrats during about 99% of the SOTU last night.
I mean, really. The visuals were terrible. They need to hire someone to advise them who knows how to use the media like a master. Someone with years of experience on TV. Someone like....The Donald!
Tuesday, January 30, 2018
Democrat congressman Luis Gutierrez was filmed leaving President Trump’s State of the Union Speech Tuesday as the crowd began chanting, “USA! USA!”
He self deported from the SOTU. Maybe someone mentioned to him that the job of Dictator of Puerto Rico was open.
The Designated Survivor is....Sonny Perdue
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue will skip Tuesday’s State of the Union address, serving as the so-called “designated survivor.”
A member of the presidential line of succession traditionally skips the address to the joint session of Congress and is safeguarded at an undisclosed location to ensure continuity of government in the event of a catastrophe.
The latest on Erdogan's adventure into Syria
And the Russians are playing things like masters. Soon their puppet Assad will have his forces in Afrin, and the Turks will be thwarted, their military embarrassed and their losses incurred for little or nothing. Check and mate.
"For the strongest beard"
Coming from, of all places, Latvia. Etsy and Paypal, coupled with late evenings sitting at the computer in my man chair, is a recipe for foolishness.
Monday, January 29, 2018
The Willamette Meteorite, the largest found in the US at 15.5 tons, nicely pitted, and composed of 91% iron and 7.62% nickel.
Interesting that there is no impact crater at its discovery site. The lack of an impact crater at the discovery site was only explained after the 1920's, with the new understanding about the Missoula Floods, one of the largest floods documented, caused by the collapse of an ice barrier during the last deglaciation. The meteorite presumably landed on an ice cap in what is now Montana or western Canada, and was transported as a glacial erratic(dragged by the glacier ice) to the vicinity of an ice barrier that formed across the Clark Fork River. This barrier had ponded a huge amount of water at the Lake Missoula right at the time when the meteorite reached the area and the ice barrier became unstable and breached. The resulting flood involved up to 10 million cubic meters per second of water discharge, with large blocks of ice rafting down the Columbia River and the Willamette Valley at the end of the last Ice Age (~13,000 years ago).[6] Some of these ice rafts included boulders (named erratics by geologists) like the Willamette meteorite, which eventually sunk in the flood waters and settled where they were found by humans.
Cool
This Iron Age hoard of 32 Gallo-Belgic E gold coins, known as ‘staters’, was found buried in a cow bone during archaeological excavations at Sedgeford, Norfolk in August 2003.
The coins were made by the Ambiani tribe of Gaul in what is now Northern France. The Ambiani fought against Julius Caesar’s Roman army. It is believed British mercenaries were also involved in the fighting. After defeat, the mercenaries or even refugee Gauls travelled to East Anglia to escape to safety.
There are two theories about why the hoard was buried; first it may have been a votive offering to the Gods - a thank you for safe passage. The other theory is that they were buried to hide them and for whatever reason were never retrieved.
The coins were made by the Ambiani tribe of Gaul in what is now Northern France. The Ambiani fought against Julius Caesar’s Roman army. It is believed British mercenaries were also involved in the fighting. After defeat, the mercenaries or even refugee Gauls travelled to East Anglia to escape to safety.
There are two theories about why the hoard was buried; first it may have been a votive offering to the Gods - a thank you for safe passage. The other theory is that they were buried to hide them and for whatever reason were never retrieved.
Sunday, January 28, 2018
A $150 million NASA satellite which died from systems failure just five years after its launch has somehow reactivated and is still broadcasting
Astronomer Scott Tilley was searching for signs of Zuma, a classified U.S. government satellite of unknown purpose that officials declared a “total loss”shortly after its launch, when he was surprised to discover a signal from a satellite labeled “2000-017A.” In a blog post earlier this month, Tilley wrote that he was able to confirm that the object was indeed NASA’s long-lost Imager for Magnetopause-to-Aurora Global Exploration satellite by matching it to its orbit.
The satellite that woke up.
IMAGE was launched in 2000 and declared lost in 2005. It is still transmitting data beyond simple telemetry, indicating that some of its six onboard instruments may still be active. It’s possible the satellite turned back on during a period of time in which Earth’s orbit eclipsed its onboard solar panels, drained its batteries, and forced a reset of IMAGE’s systems. Per AmericaSpace, a Failure Review Board had concluded that an “induced ‘instant trip’ of the Solid Sate Power Controller” was likely responsible for the original outage, though they noted there was a small possibility of the SSPC resetting in 2007 or a subsequent eclipse.
“The odds are extremely good that it’s alive,” Rice University space plasma physicist and original mission co-investigator Patricia Reiff told Science.
The journal noted NASA is now looking to see whether it is possible to reactivate the satellite and its instruments entirely:
Since Tilley’s announcement, project scientists spent a couple days furiously digging up old software and records, and this weekend, NASA will attempt to contact IMAGE with its deep space radio antennas—as will the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, and researchers at the University of California, Berkeley. Right now, the team is puzzled as to why it appears the spacecraft’s rotation rate has slowed, which may make communication more challenging. “The team is collectively holding their breath waiting for some real information exchange between IMAGE and the ground,” Reiff adds.
I'm back
I just returned from LA to attend a memorial service for a grouchy old dude with a heart of gold.
Long drive down, long drive back, but I had Mrs. CW and the oldest daughter with me to help.
All that LA was awesome. Iconic street names like Sepulveda, Century, El Segundo and of course, the famous 405 freeway, where you drive either four or five miles per hour. My view from behind the wheel of the mighty Dodge on the 405.
Long drive down, long drive back, but I had Mrs. CW and the oldest daughter with me to help.
All that LA was awesome. Iconic street names like Sepulveda, Century, El Segundo and of course, the famous 405 freeway, where you drive either four or five miles per hour. My view from behind the wheel of the mighty Dodge on the 405.
Lots of pictures from the past.
Top to bottom, CW, Mrs CW's kid brother, Mrs. CW, and Old Grouchy Dude with a Heart of Gold
Decades later, that same kid brother and my boy, both now sharing the same first name.
It was a bittersweet trip, and a celebration of a life fully lived.
Friday, January 26, 2018
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