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FRIDAY REPORT OF 01/26/07
The Most Direct, Frequent Link to Knowledge Workers in the Eastern Forest Economy
“AIRLINE PASSENGERS, RELAX: TURBULENCE DETECTORS ARE ON THE WAY”
Portions of an article from 01/22/07 NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC NEWS
“NASA researchers are on the job. They are developing a pair of technologies that will give pilots several minutes’ warning so they can steer clear of the erratic, gusty winds. ‘That’s enough time to get everybody seated and carts stowed if you’re in the meal phase of the flight,’ said Jim Watson, an engineer at the NASA Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia. ‘And it also allows you to contact air traffic control and get a route diversion if necessary,’ added Watson, who is project manager for NASA’s Turbulence Prediction and Warning Systems…
“Of the 58 turbulence-related injuries that occur on average in the United States each year, 98 percent happen because people don’t have their seat belts fastened, according to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. And turbulence costs airlines about a hundred million U.S. dollars a year in rerouted flights, late arrivals, and additional aircraft inspection and maintenance.
“Turbulence Detection
“The technologies were developed as part of a NASA program to predict oncoming turbulence and report its severity when encountered. One of the technologies is called Enhanced Turbulence, or E-Turb, Radar. It upgrades existing airborne weather radar systems so they can detect turbulence associated with thunderstorms…
“The hazard calculated by E-Turb is then presented to the pilot in a easy-to-read format. ‘The pilot sees what is called a magenta display that essentially says, For this turbulence level you should get everybody in their seat, and for this higher turbulence level you should definitely get everybody in their seat, and you might want to try to avoid it,’ Watson said.
“Turbulence Reports
“The second technology under development is called the Turbulence Auto Pilot Reporting System (TAPS). This software kicks in when an aircraft’s accelerometer, an instrument that measures acceleration, detects an encounter with turbulence. It immediately calculates the severity of the turbulence and reports that information to computers on the ground.
“After the airplane lands, maintenance technicians can then use the information to determine if the aircraft warrants special inspection before it returns to the air.
“Eventually engineers plan to rebroadcast the information flying similar routes, so pilots will know where the turbulence lies, allowing them to take evasive action if necessary. This is particularly useful in the 10 to 20 percent of turbulence events that occur in the absence of moisture and therefore evades radar detection, Watson said…
“Currently TAPS is used on more than a hundred Delta aircraft. As of August 2, 2006, it had generated more than 76,000 turbulence reports, according to AeroTech Research, a Hampton, Virginia, firm working with NASA on the project…
To read the complete report, click on http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2007/01/070122-turbulence.html
IS FRIDAY REPORT A BLOG?
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“THE BUSINESS OF CLIMATE CHANGE”
Portions of an article from Economist.com of 01/23/07
“For a country that is often cast as evil incarnate when it comes to the environment, America has amassed an impressive array of green credentials of late. Even the National Football League plans to offset the greenhouse gases generated by this year’s Super Bowl in February. The day before George Bush was due to use the state-of-the-union message to unveil his latest environmental measures, some of America’s biggest firms made their move. On Monday January 22nd, ten big corporations, including General Electric, Alcoa, DuPont and Duke Energy, in cahoots with leading environmental groups, called for measures to combat global warming.
“America produces a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gases, the main causes of global warming. America refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol and so far efforts to regulate emissions have been piecemeal and usually at state level. The US Climate Action Partnership is seeking to change this. It wants a mandatory nationwide cap on emissions of carbon-dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, and reductions by as much as 30% from today’s levels, within the next 15 years. It also calls for a carbon-trading system and strongly discourages the building of coal-fired power stations, unless technology allows them to operate more cleanly. The latter belch out carbon dioxide at a significantly quicker pace than other electricity-generating plants…
“Since the Democrats captured both houses of Congress in November, a welter of federal environmental bills have been proposed. Nancy Pelosi, the new speaker of the House, wants a special committee to produce laws to help the diversification of energy supplies and cut greenhouse gases. Barbara Boxer, leader of the Senate’s environment and public works committee, has organized a hearing on January 30th when senators will be encourage to introduce their own legislation to combat global warming. She considers mandatory caps essential and has given warning to Mr. Bush that the bipartisan support likely for such bills will be tricky for him to use a veto…”
To read the complete article, click on http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8579382
“QUOTATIONS FROM CHAIRMAN MILTON”
Portions of an article by Brian Doherty from REASON 02/07 Print Edition:
“Friedman was directly responsible for two enormous improvements in Americans’ everyday lives. Because of his work with the Nixon-era Gates Commission, which recommended the abolition of conscription, you can thank Friedman for eliminating the military draft. And because of his work on monetary theory, which convinced the Federal Reserve to keep a tighter rein on the growth of the money supply, you can thank him for the relatively low price inflation of the last two decades…
“The case for free enterprise, for competition, is that it’s the only system that will keep the capitalists from having too much power. There’s the old saying, ‘If you want to catch a thief, set a thief to catch him.’ The virtue of free enterprise capitalism is that it sets one businessman against another and it’s a most effective device for control…
“It’s fortunate that the capitalist society is more productive, because if it were not, it would never be tolerated. The bias against it is so great that …it’s got to have a five-to-one advantage in order to survive…
“The two chief enemies of the free society or free enterprise are intellectuals on the one hand and businessmen on the other. Every intellectual believes in freedom for himself, but he’s opposed to freedom for others…He thinks…there ought to be a central planning board that will establish social priorities…The businessmen are just the opposite – every businessman is in favor of freedom for everybody else, but when it comes to himself that’s a different question. He’s always the special case. He ought to get special privileges from the government, a tariff, this, that, and the other thing…
“Why has there been so great a shift in the attitudes of the public [toward accepting free market ideas]? …I believe the major reason for the change is the extraordinary force of factual evidence…The great hopes that had been placed in Russia and China by the collectivists and socialists turned into ashes…Similarly, the hopes that were placed in Fabian socialism and the welfare state in Britain or the New Deal in the United States were disappointed. One major government program after another started with the very best aims and with noble objectives and turned out not to deliver the goods…Ideas played their part. But they played their part not by producing a reaction against the spread of government, but by determining the form that that reaction took. The role we play as intellectuals is not to persuade anybody, but to keep options open and to provide alternative policies that can be adopted when people decide they have to make a change…
“If you really want to make a change in policy activity, don’t make that your vocation. Make it your avocation. Get a job. Get a secure base of income. Otherwise, you’re going to get corrupted and destroyed…One of the most important things in my career is that I always had a major vocation which was not policy. I don’t regard what I’ve done in the field of monetary policy as on the same level as what I’ve done about trying to get rid of the draft or legalizing drugs…But by having a good firm position in the academic world, I was perfectly free to be my own person in the world of policy. I didn’t have to worry about losing my job. I didn’t have to worry about being persecuted…”
To read the complete five-page article, click on
http://www.reason.com/news/show/118175.html.
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