Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
Here’s diagram of how the JTEC works.
(click on image for animated flash illustration)
Here’s an article with more details.
Honestly, this is one of those, “it’s perfectly obvious. Why didn’t I think of it?” sort of ideas. Good god, I wish I had money to invest!
Like most “alternative” energy projects, this “car” is simply stupid. [h/t Instapundit] [More Details]
Here’s the fundamental problem: they designed the car backwards.
It being Labor Day, there will doubtless be many political speeches and newspaper articles touching on the rise of the American middle class and crediting this rise to labor unions and perhaps also to FDR’s New Deal.
I don’t mind giving some of the credit to unions. But the primary driver of middle class affluence has been the availability of plentiful and low-cost energy…especially in the form of electricity…coupled with a whole array of productivity-increasing tools and methods, ranging from the horse-drawn harvester to the assembly line to the automated check sorting machine.
The middle class affluence enabled by these factors is gravely threatened is gravely threatened by the Democratic-“progressive” hostility toward energy production and distribution in all practical forms, and by the endless set of productivity-sapping policies advocated by the same group of people.
Over the long term, or even the medium term, a nation cannot consume more than it produces. It doesn’t matter how aggressive the unions are, or what tax policies are in place, or how much Oprah-like sympathy for the unfortunate is exuded by politicians–if you harm the productive power of a nation, its average standard of living is going to go down.
Low-energy, low-productivity societies can support a very wealthy elite, and have historically often done so, but they cannot support a broadly affluent middle class.
In late June, the U.S. Missile Defense agency conducted a successful test of THAAD, the Terminal High Area Defense system. THAAD is intended to provide the upper level of a multilayer defensive shield, with a lower-level defense provided by Patriot or a similar system. It is particularly intended as a defense against short- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles, although it also offers some capability against intercontinental missiles.
I don’t think Barack Obama would be much of a THAAD supporter. In this speech, he says he would cut investments in “unproven missile defense systems” and indeed seems pretty hostile to defense technology programs in general.
I guess THAAD counts as an “unproven technology,” given that it has not yet been combat-tested or even deployed. The radar-and-communications network that protected Britain from air attack during WWII was also an “unproven technology” when it was deployed: it is very fortunate that Neville Chamberlain, rather than Barack Obama, was Prime Minister of Britain at the time.
THAAD is a hit-to-kill system: it destroys its targets via force of impact, rather than with an explosive charge. This is basically “hitting a bullet with a bullet,” an idea that opponents of missile defense have long mocked.
An aerodynamicist once supposedly “proved” that it was impossible for bumblebees to fly; however, the bumblebee continues flying happily, unaware of the impossibility of its behavior. Similarly, THAAD “hits a bullet with a bullet,” not deterred by the supposed impossibility of this action.
Very clearly, “progressives”–and even many mainstream liberals–have long been hostile to the very idea of missile defense. They were hostile to it when the principal threat was from the Soviet Union, and they are hostile to it when the principal threat is from rogue states, terrorists, and a brutish theocracy. They were hostile to it when the latest thing in computer technology was the IBM System/370, and they are hostile to it several generations of technology later. It seems to really bother them that any system should be so presumptuous as to interpose itself between Americans–and citizens of allied nations–and those who would launch missiles at them.
Why?
Via Reddit.com:
The 7 dirtiest jobs in IT – Somebody’s got to do them — and hopefully that somebody isn’t you.
I especially like this:
Dirty IT job No. 5: On-site reboot specialist
Seeking individuals for on-site support of end-users. Must be familiar with three-fingered Ctrl-Alt-Del salute and power cord reconfiguration. Ability to withstand a variety of environments and personality types; concealed-weapons permit a plus. Individuals with anger management issues need not apply.
Closely related to the help desk zombie, but even lower on the totem pole, is the on-site reboot specialist, says Scott Crawford, research director at Enterprise Management Associates in Boulder, Colo. Unlike help desk or support vampires, the on-site rebootnik must venture out into the physical world and deal with actual people.
[ For more fear and loathing of end-user interaction, check out the original “Stupid user tricks: Eleven IT horror stories”]
If you think that this passage suggests a certain level of misanthrophy you haven’t had to put up with enough of the anthropoi out there yet.