Posts by Lyndon Hood
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Actually, in Arcadia at one point the precocious Miss Thomasina Coverly at one point reads the original paper on the impossibility of building a perfect steam engine (probably mentioned above) and becomes quite distraught, because she realises what it's actually talking about is the heat death of the universe.
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The electrolyser cannot be 100% efficient, so the energy recovered from the burning of its output will be less than the energy consumed to produce that output.
The argument I've seen run is that the presence of the hydrogen somehow catalyses the burning of the fuel. Or something. Possibly makes it burn more thoroughly. I hazily recall that this effect was borne out by experiment, cars not being all that efficient, but it's (surely) not going to make enough difference, especially if you're making hydrogen as you go.
I have never felt so much like an arts major in my life...
Tom Stoppard's __Arcadia__ has the best dramatic exposition of thermodynamics I've ever seen.
Okay, I haven't seen many of those, but it's a very, very good play.
Also fractals.
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In the latter case, W.S. doesn't actually encourage you to commit a pack rape, then cut off your victim's tongue and hands when you're done so she can't nark on you.
Yes: not as if, as a plan, it works very well.
On the other hand, both Measure for Measure and All's Well That Ends Well amply display the benefits of having sex with men in dark rooms so they don't recognise you.
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Re political nastiness
I was reading an essay (in David Foster Wallace's Consider the Lobster) about a wekk in the McCain 2000 nomination campaign; the bit where Bush started getting despicable and McCain, initially, responded by coming out swinging.
The analysis among the camera crews (as opposed to the confused ideas of the pundits) was that: the establishment candidate (Bush) had the most to win by lowering the tone. McCain's appeal to the disenfanchised etc to come out and vote were more likely to fail if the political process was disgusting.
Other things that stuck in my mind:
- McCain was apparently hugely inspiring in his conversational, unscripted Q&A - almost enough to override the alarming thing he said in his policy speeches.
- I hadn't absorbed the whole POW story. After months sat in a horrible cell partially treated for various near-deadly injuries he gets offered freedom after daddy got made Commander-in-Chief, Pacific Command. He turns it down, because going out before people who went in before you would be against the code of conduct. Say what you like about the platform, you gotta respect that. Plus, for Wallace it makes a lot of talk that would be glib rhetoric from any other politician kind of believable. -
The TVNZ page (re. spin doctors) says they sourced the story from Newstalk ZB.
TVNZ's website sydicates Newstalk's items for 'breaking news' stuff, I think - when they don't have a video or transcript of their own but still want to be up with the play as a news website. It's more a case of transmitting someone else's reportage than reporting it.
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Ooh, ohh, bearpit! I choose bearpit!
Is there a prize?
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-ing
I think I just worked out how to spell and anecdote the Simon McKinney used to tell:
Verbal picture of school principal's speech in assembly. Students nodding off, staff doing crossword etc. Principal commences (in slightly pompous'd accent):
Now boys, there's one word which I have been hearing around the school that I do not wish to hear again under any circumstances. And that word is c*nt.
Entire room suddenly comes to attention, crossword pencil clatters onto floor unheeded, etc ...
... "I c*n't do this", "I c*n't do that" - I won't have it!
... entire room exhales with relief.
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Oh, and then there's the 'Fiji effect'.
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On the question of taking up arms, a question (maybe more ethical than constitutional) that needs to be asked is what outcome you might reasonably expect.
Will it work? Will you plan succeed, or fail and make things worse? Will a sucessful outcome be worth the messy transition? Some of this depends on how much of a risk-taker you are*, and whether a middling chance of a great gain is worth it.
Will you really be able to install the style of government you want? It often ends in tears, and I think Machiavelli says something about good governance presupposing a good man and violent revolution presupposing a bad man.
And I've heard tell the skills required to run a country are not the same as in a military organisation or an insurrection.
Worrying about this at all makes me suspect I'm not a natural revolutionary.
* (Hobbes, for example, assumes the revolution = destructive anarchy, therefore tyrannical monarchy is better.)
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Seeing as we're still here, Steven Price has a post predicting the EFA will not produce a swag of litigation.