Self Control

Michael Gerson is taking Ron Paul to task for his performance in the recent Republican debates.

Paul was the only candidate at the debate to make news, calling for the repeal of laws against prostitution, cocaine and heroin. The freedom to use drugs, he argued, is equivalent to the freedom of people to “practice their religion and say their prayers.” Liberty must be defended “across the board.” “It is amazing that we want freedom to pick our future in a spiritual way,” he said, “but not when it comes to our personal habits.”

This argument is strangely framed: If you tolerate Zoroastrianism, you must be able to buy heroin at the quickie mart. But it is an authentic application of libertarianism, which reduces the whole of political philosophy to a single slogan: Do what you will — pray or inject or turn a trick — as long as no one else gets hurt.

Without self control self government is impossible. Gerson says that self control is impossible (how did we manage for the 30 years heroin was legal over the counter?). Thus we will need minders. Drug minders for sure. Probably sex and food minders as well. Not to mention income minders.

It used to be government was to protect us from each other. Now it is tasked with protecting us from ourselves. A much bigger job. No government ever invented has been equal to that task and you don't even want to live under governments that would make serious efforts at TOTAL Control. Such governments have a bad name. They are called Totalitarian.

An Enemy Of The State

Ted Turner favors a global one child policy in order to (you know what is coming) Save The Planet™.

Mr. Turner – a long-time advocate of population control – said the environmental stress on the Earth requires radical solutions, suggesting countries should follow China’s lead in instituting a one-child policy to reduce global population over time. He added that fertility rights could be sold so that poor people could profit from their decision not to reproduce.

“If we’re going to be here [as a species] 5,000 years from now, we’re not going to do it with seven billion people,” Mr. Turner said.

With four children I am right up there in the ranks of future enemies of the State and certainly a current enemy of Mr. Turner.

I wonder if Mr. Turner has given much thought to enforcement? What will be done to children that the parents want and the State doesn't? Of course if the parents don't want them and the State doesn't either I'm sure some mutually acceptable solution can be worked out to keep immediate and future consumption down.

Control

About 80% of humanity (by my reckoning) go about thinking "if only I was in control". While 20% of us go around thinking "if only we had a lot fewer controllers".

Which is why we have two parties whose deep philosophies are identical. It can be expressed in one word:

CONTROL

The rot runs deep. Because the "conservative" side thinks control is a good idea it gives political cover to all who want control. It goes something like this: “Every one agrees on control. Our only serious disagreement is over what to control.”

In America today we have a few percent addicted to drugs and 80% addicted to control. Tell me which is a more serious threat to the country?

The Word Virus

So where do Conservatives go wrong in pattern recognition:

There is no problem so complex that it can't be solved by putting a gun to people's heads.

1. Not true - excesses in that direction lead to revolutions.
2. If there is not excess you merely get black markets.

It is an anti-liberty stance to be sure. Liberals of course take the same stance (that should be a clue right there of the inherent defect of the position). The objects of their desire for power and control are just different from the conservatives. The impulse is the same. (I see a pattern).

So let us look at the not excess case further. Opiates.

At the time before the Harrison Narcotics Act when the drugs were over the counter, opiate use in America was 1.3%. After nearly 100 years of opiates being outlawed in America opiate use in America is 1.3%.

In other words several trillions of dollars have been spent to no effect. And yet our Conservatives who claim to be no supporters of government programs now think that the waste has some good effects. Like keeping some people who would be harmed away from opiates.

Well the evidence is in: prohibition doesn't matter when it comes to affecting opiate use. Those who want them get them. Those who don't want them don't get them. The big con is that by enacting a prohibition law some people actually fooled by words believe that prohibited means: unavailable. When what it actually means is available outside legal commercial channels. Wm. Burroughs calls this effect of words: "the word virus". The scary part? Liberals AND Conservatives are addicted to the word virus. The evidence is in: no matter how many times their plans fail those addicted to the word virus press on. Liberals can't learn from the failures of socialism and conservatives fail to heed the lessons of the USSR (where many items of commerce were prohibited) and alcohol prohibition.

A few Burroughs books that explore the word virus:

The Ticket That Exploded (Burroughs, William S.)

The Soft Machine

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Spending My Time

And for those of you wondering where I have been lately? Busy learning the ARM instruction set. Preparatory to writing a simple FORTH for the ARM. The whole concept is supported by a number of companies so code written for one company's chips should with modification work on another company's chips.

Right now I like the TI, ATMEL, and ST Microelectronics chips. For the time being I've settled on the IAR Toolset. If any one has any suggestions, I'm open.

Cross Posted at Classical Values

Zilog Gets An Offer

Those of you in at the start of the personal computer revolution will remember Zilog for its Intel 8080 clone, the Z-80, that was a much better performer than the Intel chip. The Intel 8080 and the Zilog Z-80 were both designed by Federico Fagin. The Z-80 didn't require a special clock chip and it had a lot of neat add on instructions that made writing code easier and made the code perform better and take up less space in memory. It also used fewer clock cycles for some instructions. I upgraded my IMSAI 8080 to a Z-80 processor as soon as I could.

The Z-80 was also the heart of the Sinclair ZX-81 a really cute little computer with a very creative hardware design. As I recall memory address lines were used not just for memory access but also to scan the keyboard. I had one of those and had lots of fun with it. It used a TV set as a monitor.

Zilog is now entertaining a buy out offer from power semiconductor maker IXYS.

MILPITAS, Calif. (AP) - Semiconductor maker Ixys Corp. on Friday made an unsolicited offer to buy Zilog Inc. for $4.50 per share, a 9 percent premium over Zilog stock's $4.14 closing price.

Zilog, also a semiconductor maker, in February said a $4.50 per share offer by remote-control maker Universal Electronics Inc. was too low. Zilog's stock closed at $3.62 the day before that offer.

Zilog said it received the offer and is reviewing it.

Last week, San Jose, Calif.-based Zilog said it narrowed its net loss to $1.9 million, or 11 cents per share, from $3.6 million, or 21 cents per share. Revenue fell 13 percent to $16.7 million.

Compare Zilog's revenue to Intel's billions. They were once a contender.

IXYS makes some very good power semiconductors. With those kinds of transistors the heart of hybrid autos and plug in hybrids business must be very good. The control of power is a very important part of electronics these days. It is the area of aerospace I have the most experience with.

A New Wafer Standard For Chip Makers

The chip making industry is planning on increasing the wafer size for chip and power transistor production from the current 300 mm (about 12") to 450 mm (about 17 1/2") by 2012 according to eWeek Magazine.

Intel and Samsung, two of the world’s largest producers of semiconductors, are collaborating on new standards that will produce the world’s first 450-millimeter wafers starting in 2012.

The two companies, along with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC), made the announcement on May 5. The switch to the larger wafers, according to a joint statement, will help the entire semiconductor industry move toward a new standard for manufacturing integrated circuits.

Currently, most of the world’s top semiconductor companies produce processors on industry-standard 300-mm wafers. The switch to the lager 450-mm wafers will allow companies such as Intel and Samsung to double the amount of processors they can put on a single wafer.

This should help cut the cost of chip production, while reducing the amount of energy, water and other resources used in creating processors. For example, Intel was able to reduce the cost of its chip production when it switch from 200-mm to 300-mm wafers several years ago. The company achieved further savings when it reduced the individual processors from 65-nanometers to 45-nm.

This will mean a couple or three things. One is lower cost production of computer chips. Another is the possibility of more computing power per chip (more cores most likely). And finally cheaper power transistors or transistors with more power handling capacity (the amount of power a transistor can handle is a direct function of transistor area). The last part could help lower the cost of hybrid cars where power transistors are a critical element in the control of the electric motor that is part of the drive train.

Nuke Plant Data Storm

Instapundit links to a story about a Nuke Plant going offline due to a data storm.

The device responsible for flooding the network with data appears to be a programmable logic controller (PLC) connected to the plant's Ethernet network, according to an NRC information notice on the incident. The PLC controlled Unit 3's condensate demineralizer -- essentially a water softener for nuclear plants. The flood of data spewed out by the malfunctioning controller caused the variable frequency drive (VFD) controllers for the recirculation pumps to hang.

It is what you get when you use a non-deterministic (crash) protocol like Ethernet instead of a time division protocol like MilStd 1553 or an arbitrated protocol like CAN Bus. The fundamental problem is Einstenian. What is simultaneous when signals only travel at the speed of light? Unless you provide each unit on the bus with its own time slot (1553) or arbitrate addresses as they go down the bus (CAN) you will have problems when two transmitters try to start at the same time (which assumes absolute time at a certain level - a problem that need ony concern engineers)

Crash buses are not allowed in critical systems in aircraft design.

In a nuke plant all systems are critical. Three Mile Island started with a valve malfunction and a burnt out lightbulb in a relatively non-critical part of the plant.

So why don't people stick with the more deterministic buses? There is a lot of design and documentation overhead with such an approach. Every time a new element is added to the bus the bus control software must be at minimum inspected and at most totally reconfigured. In addition the peak data handling capacity of such busses is not as good as Ethernet especially over longer distances. The alternative of course is to continue on with the plug and pray approach. I might note that all wireless busses are essentially crash busses. They will not help much.

BTW I have nuke plant operational experience (US Navy) and aircraft electrical systems design experience (Sundstrand Aerospace).