Using methane hydrates before they cause disaster

Ref http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-23432769 Arctic methane economic time bomb....

I have written about this several times over the years and as usual nobody cares what I think. So I will write a bit more now, helps vent exasperation and frustration about people-stuff too complicated for everybody's good.

Again I point out that we ought to be putting our effort into harvesting the methane ice as our major energy source, ceasing use of coal and oil at least for the present, as rapidly as possible in the changing over of hydrocarbon energy sources. This would both provide the world with abundant - and somewhat cleaner - energy for the foreseeable future - yet at a CO2 increase and O2 loss little different from existing coal and oil use - while slowly reducing the energy stored in the "time bomb" which the article points will involve an estimated $60 trillion in economic losses, a year's world produce lost - and note the article does not mention associated human misery involved, either. Dollars often is not really the total measure, but it is the easier one to calculate and talk about as business bottom line stuff.

The problems include developing the techniques for responsibly harvesting that tundra and undersea methane hydrates and using it in our powerplants and shipping, as well as getting Big Coal and Big Oil to rapidly transfer their efforts into methane hydrate harvesting while shutting down their coal and oil well production as fast as possible in the situation. Definitely not something big business would choose to do voluntarily, understandably, when business-as-usual is providing them the cushy life as-is; and obviously they do not consider the fate of the world's long term prospects as any business of theirs, as usual.

Same attitude that has crippled the "hoop kests to geo space escalator" technology for providing abundant economical energy for the world over the past twenty-four years: would compete with big oil and coal. Business games are quite out of my expertise, but it is in my expertise to see the disasters we are powerfully headed for largely due to the human ego thing and King Midas singleminded mentality.

Yet naive Asperger me still fantasizes that humanity could act responsibly in these things - the ideas all seem quite within easy technological reach, both the methane hydrate thing and the hoop space access thing. And they both could provide great constructive adventure for humanity, lots more fun than the current beating up on each other stuff. Plenty of drama potential, drama of the good kind in these large scale projects.

Some of why people-stuff is complicated to me

Maybe it is only that the morning cup of coffee is still too hot to have had enough caffein this morning, but once again I have been recalling a peculiar event in my life, so why not write about it here in my blog, maybe that will satisfy whatever subconscious thing that is trying to point something out to me that I need to be aware of now.

The event's scenario was that I was in tech school, on my honeymoon too, and the abundant lovemaking was invigorating me enough that my brain was working again lots better. I was doing quite well in the classes, which were eight hours a day on electronics, some theoretical and some applied. In the evenings, I would explain what i was learning in class, explaining to my wife - who knew when to nod her head yes she understood - electronics, and I had to start with basic physics and work up to the present lesson's subject; it was a delightful time in my life.

However, there was a subset of the class members, who once came to me and invited me to spend my evenings studying with them.

That did not seem at all appealing to me, when I could be spending my evenings with my wife on my honeymoon. (Maybe I ought to have tried to explain that to them, now that I look back.)

Anyway, the group subsequently began to act a bit strange towards me, not friendly. That was a time when most people smoked; most of the others in class smoked cigarettes, but I smoked a pipe. Once I noticed one of the group smiling at me and making a show of writing something on a piece of paper, then hiding it in his cigarette pack; it appeared to me that he was suggesting make notes for cheating on tests; a pipe tobacco pouch would also make a place to hide notes, could be. But I had no need to cheat on tests, nor would I even if I needed to do that.

Then I noticed the same guy who had been acting out the cigarette package note thing, talking to the the instructor and pointing at me, waving his cigarette package. The instructor then turned and glared a long time at me, then looked away.

People-stuff is complicated. Probably moreso to me, having Aspergers social ineptitude; but back then, I did not know I had that dysfunction.

In class, eventually the next test had come and gone, and the instructor spoke in front of the class, carefully not looking at me with glares anymore. He announced to the class that he had heard of cheating going on, and so he had made up a brand new test, given for the first time (unlike other tests, apparently - and probably passed around from class to class among the in-group folks.) And he continued, saying that I was the person who got the highest grade on the exam.

All the rest of the class then suddenly kept too-busy at their desks, no longer giving me angry looks. And there was no further grousing about me during that electronics tech class, from then on.

I did not much think about that event back then; I was enjoying my new wife and the joy of learning fascinating electronics and sharing my learning with her in the evenings. Electronics theory was full of very interesting things to contemplate, and the gadgetry utilizing these principles were also fascinating to me, especially with the evoked implications of what else could be done; what wonders.

But working relationships with co-workers always was a bit strained for me, like it was in that class, and then back on the job applying the new knowledge. The people-stuff part of it was real hard for me, although I did my best to be helpful and friendly to others, there always seemed to be some kind of stress present. I tended to get put on jobs where I worked alone, unlike most of the co-workers who worked in pairs much of the time. Not a problem for me; dealing with another person, particularly another man, often made things just harder for me, not easier.

It was not until after many decades later and I found that I no longer could get electronics employment - too old they thought - and thus figured out I was probably retired, that I became cognizant of the fact that psychological testing by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator testing, which I took a couple of times (and later confirmed by Temperament typing testing and info) when related to fields of associated endeavor, pointed out that my psychetype - INFP - was the opposite type for doing technician type hands-on physical gadgetry work - I would have found it much easier doing teaching or writing, the testing showed. That my career as a technician was a hard way for me to go, is less important for this post, than to point out - hopefully to myself more clearly to get aware - that the psychological typing also pointed out that for people to feel easy with someone else, they needed to be the same psychological type. Thus this seems to maybe explain the uneasiness between me and my technician type co-workers many times over the four decades of my work.

And it may well explain the classroom scenario re the testing - and it may well be that the group actually believed that I was cheating since I did not spend my evenings studying with them. That they attempted to make the instructor think I was cheating, however, is another part of the people-stuff that is so complicated to me.

Some things like that just give me a feeling of exasperation.

Yet, I too was part of the series of events that put me on the difficult career path in electronics as a technician, as a result of dropping out of the co-op program with WSMR as a physics major, and subsequent dropping out of college completely, the sudden extreme tinnitus and ADD (Attention Deficit Disorder, that canceled out the Asperger's strength of focused attention on a subject of special interest) and all being quite a struggle for me for studying. Electronics I had chosen for my co-op student path at WSMR (White Sands Missile Range, in New Mexico) - radio telemetry, quite interesting - and so electronics was how I could best earn a living after college dropout, and thus the career in electronics happened. So, that ought to be part of my exasperation - it is partly me and not just those other folks.

I have often mentioned in this blog my hypothesis that people have a need for drama in their life, a basic need like food and shelter. So, maybe the above is part of my unconscious setting up drama for myself.... I guess drama is drama, whether or not it is of a preferred type.

Writing high tech sci fi is more fun. Would be lots more fun if I had a good woman's comforts in my intimate ongoing life too; but, looking back, a woman in my life tends to bring on a huge amount of drama for Aspergers me - usually nice drama, but sometimes lots of struggle too, unfortunately. But looking back, rarely was the spice of life too hot to fully enjoy with woman, if ever.

I think that lots of men consider their wife mostly just a bragging symbol to others of how successful the man is - especially how much better they are than the men who have not been able to have a wife at the time - and so I doubt they would understand much of what I have written here. Many people seem to me to have the "whose-better-than-whom" guiding-light thing.

Anyway, I hope writing this blog post will help me to comprehend more of my ongoing life. Life is easier and less exasperating when I have some reasonable comprehension of what is going on. Maybe this blog post will help some other poor Asperger someday, too.

Space Day 2013 - the Moon - and Sci Fi

Well, am still here on this Space Day in 2013, so it is time for me to do my usual blog post about space.

"Space" in this context means the immense volume that is above the atmosphere of Earth, as opposed to the remaining space in one's crowded closet, for example. The International Space Station is up there in space, in Low Earth Orbit, along with a growing horde of smaller objects in low earth orbit. They tend to stay up there because there is a nice balance between their forward earth-horizontal velocity straight line trajectory leading up and away from the planet, is exactly balanced by the force of gravity pulling down on the mass of the object, so it just goes round and round the round planet.

Another way to look at it is the angular momentum of the circling object generates a centrifugal force that exactly balances the opposite direction downward force of gravity.

Getting up there into orbit from the surface of the earth, takes a lot of effort, however.

But don't worry, am not going to use this place do another grouse about my concepts for hoop-type space escalators and even anchored tether space elevators, for high efficiency space orbital access, as having been suppressed and ignored, by some influence-expert folks behind the scenes.

What this post is about is celebrating that day when humans first set foot on our Moon, on July 20,1969.

As I have often said, people-stuff is complicated - especially to an Asperger's socially-dimwit viewpoint. In that frame of mind, the achievement of Apollo 11 setting people on the Moon briefly, is analogous to a can of fishing worms in the fisherman's bait can, all roiling around in coping struggle, and yet somehow the cooperate enough to manage to boos a couple of their kind up to the edge of the bait can - before they fall back in again. A highly unlikely thing to happen; but people did it, brought back some rocks and regolith from the Moon, and left some Earth stuff on the moon in repayment.

There are other viewpoints. One of my good friends who is quite intelligent and caring about people, says he believes that no humans actually landed on the Moon; that all the videos and pictures of those times were fabricated, as a NASA contract, by the moviemaker Stanley Kubrick. All fakery. However, I never could find out why my friend has this belief. Anyway, people do not have to agree about all things, Neither he nor I were there on the Moon to verify what happened, so it is all conjecture for both of us.

I used the Moon as environment most extensively in my high tech sci fi novels "The Ark of 1984's Future" and "The Torus City Ice Shields Returning Home" and those both involved rather detailed utilization of the Moon's environment.

In sci fi fantasy adventures, and in real life adventures like Apollo 11, the people-stuff is complex. Much like the aforementioned can of worms that somehow do make quite an achievement despite mostly just busy surviving while getting in each others' way. Indeed, is amazing to me that humans have not exterminated themselves long before this. Still, there is some good stuff despite the Machiavallian kind of stuff.

Drama, the hunger for drama, seems to be the motivator. Like in the years I was trying to get people to pay attention to my Mooncable Project concept of a lunar space elevator built using existing materials, for the benefit of civilization, a concept that assumed that people automatically worked together so all would thrive better, that by the mid-1970's it was still sandbagged while the public was starting to become enthralled by the "Star Wars" movies into which the put millions of dollars, but not one penny for my Mooncable project to enable those people live much better. With their dollars they showed that they much preferred the battles and heroes of Star Wars than the Mooncable Project adventures providing people with space resources in their time. I thin part of it is because with Star Wars movies, in a couple of hours of excitement, the movie is over and they can go back to their familiar world with which they know how to cope; no new stuff there to deal with for those moviegoers, for better or worse.

So I can take a hint. Sometimes, anyway, given time to figure it out, of course. So I write high tech sci fi. And I finally now have available in print a new high tech sci fi novel, this one about a generation starship in process of seeding a new planet; title is "Planetfall Twenty-Seven" and can be gotten from CreateSpace or Amazon. This is the one I wrote in 2011; in 2012 I wrote most of its sequel, but still needs a chapter or two and then the long left-brain struggle to format it for printing. CreateSpace had a new interior template, nice to have, but maybe I ought to put my time into getting the template to work with my Mac software with less endless chapter by chapter adding stuff afterwards; then put what I have of the novel into the template, so when inspiration arrives, I can just plug the finishing up of the novel and send off for a first proof copy. What fun. Yet it is the best I can do to help people eventually have real-life adventures, like that landing and foot-setting on the Moon on July 20, 1969; without the prior direction-pointg by sci fi writers, back then people would probably have settled their posturing by using a few nukes on each other before saying enough is enough. Yay space race team even if they did not like me.

A high valence puzzle

Sometimes life presents a puzzle to a socially-dimwit Asperger that the usual wait-I-will-figure-this-out-give-me-time process does not provide an explanation, despite returning to the memory to process it much later, after more of life experiences have provided new data about the people-stuff puzzle. So as an effort to reconcile, even though not comprehend, one such experience I had, and the some ... forty years since it happened, still no adequate answer has shown up, and so is likely to remain a mystery to me along with its high valence content, needs to be resolved insofar as possible, so making this blog post is maybe a way to deal with the thing. Or at least shine new light on it, air it out.

As I said, this happened about forty years ago. It is time to let it go, insofar as possible.

The situation was that my wife of 12 years had divorced me, and I had been participating with a church singles group for a long time, and it was at one of their group events I now found myself. The off-site group activities were all quite different and interesting, although Aspergers-me could at best only be a fringe person watching what others did, as I tried to comprehend so as to participate a bit better. I also always had the desperate hope I could find a new woman for my life among the group, a desperately hoped-for thing that I could not physically express.

The singles group had moved to a fairly large empty room, and we all were asked to line up in a straight line, and stand facing away from the line.

I found myself down near the end of the line of about twenty people, because it took me a bit to figure out what others were doing so I could then try to fit in. I had no idea what it was for, but I had some curiosity blended in with my usual lonely despair.

One of the members I recognized came out of a door near the far end of the line of people; he was a benign person, and he announced to us that he sometimes functioned as a psychic for police work, and he was going to demonstrate that skill to us. So he stood in front of the first person on the far end of the line, paused a moment, then spoke outloud so all could hear, something that apparently made sense to the person there. Then he would shift to stand in front of the next person in the line, pause thoughtfully, then speak something about that person. I listened in, and the things being said were all quite different kinds of things, but meant little to me. He slowly worked his way down the line toward where I stood.

Eventually he had worked his way down the line of people to stand thoughtfully in front of me a moment. Then to my surprise he said something unlike said to any of the others. He said that I was very intelligent, had a high IQ of 165, and a bit more. Then he shifted to the next person in line.

So I was standing there with those words "IQ of 165, highly intelligent" yet in reality I felt quite squashed and ruined and unable to think of much of anything useful, barely surviving. Surely he had been wrong. Yet at one time the high IQ kind of thing had applied to me, but decades before.

The man had finished going down the line telling each person something they needed to know about themselves, then he said to all of us to stay in line where we were, and he then left the room.

A moment after he left the room, another man popped out of that door, a man who walked with the physique of muscles under the formal clothing and he had a curious air of utter confidence. He walked straight at where I was standing, but as he got closer, I noticed that he was walking powerfully to the spot I stood, but did not appear to see me standing there. At the last instant I stepped back to keep from getting rammed by him; he then turned and stood as if he belonged in the line. I was now standing a bit in back of the line, quite puzzled.

Then out of the door came a very attractive young woman, clearly one who would have made a fine companion for me, but of course she would not ever notice a miserable man like me. She started walking a bit away from the line of people starting at the far end, clearly she was counting people as she walked. Then she stopped right in front of the man who had taken my place in the line, and started talking to him, introducing herself.

The line of people broke up and people drifted off, and the attractive young woman who continued to talk softly with the man who had taken my place in the line, and they slowly moved off and eventually out the door together.

As usual I was then left alone, and so I made my way out of the door, quite baffled by it all. As usual, people-stuff was complicated. Yet I had figured out that I had been cheated out of my desperately needed opportunity for a new woman in my life. And the manner in which it was done was a multiple puzzle. I needed time to figure it out.

Forty years later now and despite occasional replay of that event in my mind, I have come up with little in subsequent life experiences to figure it out. That I remain lonely miserable mateless without woman, is apparent; and that my unexpected big chance to have not have that miserable thing happen, had been cheated from me by some really peculiar ongoings long ago.

So I write it here in my blog, to air it out and let it go a bit. People-stuff is complicated, the past is past and gone and cannot be rescued from the far away from here and now; I need to realize some puzzles will remain, but they don't have to have such high valence emotional content anymore. I hope.

Doing the energy numbers for lifting way up

Probably not many people are much interested in how much energy it takes to lift something, starting, say a few planetary radii above the Earth. Still, if one needs to figure that out - as I once did over four decades ago - it might be nice to have some hints about how to do that. It is surprising to me that the calculation is still not readily available in the usual physics software nowadays.

I resist the urge to describe the long struggling search it took me to figure it out, back then. Nor tell you of the many uses I have had for the equation since then. My math skills are not easy for me, but sometimes one just has to do the numbers to show something very interesting can be done. (And unfortunately sometimes doing the numbers does not show that the something can be done; but, that is the way the cookie crumbles. There are lots of other things yet to explore; and one blocked path invites looking for another path toward the goal.)

Lifting something takes energy to do. And in lifting something a ways up, it gains energy thereby. The amount of effort exerted to get the mass lifted up there, however, can be considerably more than what is given to that which is raised up. For the following analysis, only the amount of energy that is received by the lifted mass, is what is of concern.

Lifting something up a short ways, we simplify the calculations. But if we are contemplating lifting something up a significant portion of a planetary radius or more, now we have to consider that the force of gravity varies with height above the planet. It is an inverse-square function kind of thing, meaning that if one squares - that is, multiply itself by its own self - the altitude in planetary radii, and take the inverse of that - meaning divide that quantity into 1, that gives one the gravitational force up at that number of planetary radii up there.

This means that figuring out how much energy it takes to lift something a specific distance, gets less the further one gets from the Earth - or other planetary body or moon. It takes doing the numbers to figure out exactly how much less, however. And that can be of interest if one is figuring out a rocket traveling up or figuring out an anchored tether space elevator. OK so not many people are interested in doing that, most likely. But to those who are, the following might save them lots of struggle in figuring out how do do that.

The task is to find out how much energy is given to a specific mass to lift it between two planetary radii altitudes. To lift it up from the ground, it is the difference between one planetary radius and the radius of its target altitude. Say, up to Geostationary Earth Orbit, from the ground.

Note that this is the energy to lift it straight up, not to put it in orbit up there.

The key to calculating the energy from one altitude to another, is to calculate the energy it takes to lift the mass to an infinite distance - an easy calculation - from one altitude, and then calculate the same thing only starting from the high endpoint altitude to an infinite distance, and subtract the two.

One can calculate the energy required to give the mass escape velocity starting from the upper altitude, from the escape velocity from the lower starting point, to get the result. But that is a way to check easier forms of calculation.

Remember, distances are considered straight up along a line to the center of the Earth or other planetary body, and expressed in terms of planetary radii. Thus, the ground level is a planetary radius of 1. Another example, for the Earth in 24 hour rotation, geostationary orbital altitude is about 6.6 radii.

So the asy equation is create a constant that is the product of the gravitational constant times the mass of teh earth (or other planet or moon) times the mass of the object being lifted. Then multiply that times the difference between the inverse ratios of the two altitudes expressed in planetary radii.

That is, Work (energy) = GMm((1/r0)- (1/r1))

I made a nice gif of the equation long ago, so here it is:

As an example taken from my web page http://www.kestsgeo.com/1techconcepts/energygroundtogeo/energygroundtogeo.html to use this to calculate the energy added to mass by lifting it from the ground straight up to geostationary earth orbit altitude:

W = GMm ((1 / R0) - (1 / RGEO))

W = (6.67E-11)(5.983E24)((1 / 6.378E6) - (1 / 4.23E7))

W = (4E14)(1.33E-7) = 5.31E7 Joules / Kg to GEO = 14.76 KwHr / Kg; @2.2 Kg / lbm = 6.71 KwHr per pound to GEO

That is the theoretical energy needed to lift one pound mass up to GEO; but to stay up there it also needs to be given orbital velocity, an additional 0.96 KwHr/ Kg to orbit at GEO (see the referenced web page to calculate that if need be.)

So, it is not that hard to calculate the energy given to the mass of an object lifted up to high altitudes.

Works on the lunar surface too, starting with the 1/6 earth gravity as the starting point. That is where I had to use this kind of calculation back circa 1970 as part of my hobby project to figure out if a tapered fiberglass anchored tether could be made of an existing material anchored on the moon and balanced weight across the Lagrange-1 point of the earth-moon system, between the Earth and the Moon. Months and months of tedious hand calculations back then, using a slide rule and doing the sums and difference by pen and paper, in my limited free time at home. Turned out, it could be done. But nobody cared back then but me; all the doers were too busy doing other things. As I said, that is the way the cookie crumbles; but in this case it is not the physics or the math that failed, it was the people stuff that failed to make the mark. Nowadays with a simple calculator one can do it easily, however. Works for Earth anchored tether space elevator calculations too.

Women essential at the dawn of American space exploration

Ref http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-23349135 "female rocket propellant designer for Explorer I" reminded me of another female who was essential at the dawn of America's space program, Donna Wilson, who was a person with whom I was acquainted at one time.

Struggling to figure out how to write something comprehensible about what was my related experience, it is just too much for my Asperger's inept social capacity. So I will struggle to write what I write, maybe add a bit to ... history's possible recording, given permission from the Internet Trolls who control my communications availability... or should I say that usually sandbag my efforts to communicate. Anyway, from my Asperger's viewpoint, such as it is now and it was back then:

My first awareness of Donna Wilson's existence was seeing her give a presentation to the small group of Los Angeles chapter of the ISSS, being given at a room loaned by the RAND Corp in Santa Monica, after hours. Being signed in and on the acceptance list, itself was a bit of adventure for me, at each of the meetings there at the somewhat famous place.

Nevermind how out of place I felt there; I have attempted to explain my connection with the L A Chapter of the ISSS elsewhere. (International Society of System Scientists) (For example http://www.smashwords.com/extreader/read/2471/1/a-potential-application-of-general-systems-theory-kests-a-unique-transportation-technology-concept-implications-1994 )

Anyway I had signed in and found the room, deep into the after-hours fairly empty halls of the RAND Corporation. And was seated with the others of the ISSS there, awaiting whatever was to transpire. A tall thin fairly attractive middle aged woman stood up, and began her presentation. Donna Wilson, by name. She spoke of her role at the beginning of America's space activities, she an astronomer, and she taught the essentials of orbital mechanics to the rocket scientists back then, who knew of rockets but not much of how to calculate what they did once in space, in orbit. Donna described briefly how she was key in their learning how to mathematically connect their rocketry to satellites in elliptical orbits, not coming down, at least for awhile. Her mathematical expertise in astronomy that routinely was able to calculate planetary orbits in the past, now worked quite well also in calculating what orbiting satellites would do.

So, like the woman of the referenced article who was essential for rocket propellent craftsmanship at the dawn of America's space age, so also was Donna Wilson key to having the early rocket scientists figure out where their orbiting objects were likely to go.

Being a lonely single man, at that meeting of the ISSS, I noticed the late middle aged tall thin attractive Donna Wilson with more than one viewpoint; I knew she was out of my reach, but still I had longings. Perhaps she somehow was aware of that, because during her talk there at the ISSS meeting, she only gave me a brief look that was sheer hostility, although we had never met. That look clearly erased my interest in her.

The LA Chapter of ISSS knew me as both a space concept dreamer from my Mooncable concept of the early 1970's and of my more recent Centristation and KESTS to GEO conceptual designs. To the ISSS these all were interesting thoughts to briefly contemplate before moving on to other things; yet, I who had few academic credentials, seemed to be tolerated by those intellectuals, and they had some things to talk about that were very stimulating to my imagination too; and Donna's presentation stimulated me in more than one way. Yet clearly she did not like me or my concepts. As I have often written, people-stuff is complicated.

Some years later I learned of a holistic bookstore being opened in an area near where I often traveled, Woodland Hills, CA. It was called the Ginko Leaf Bookstore; and finding it in an out of the way quiet street one day, I explored its nice selection of books which well fit in with my interest in holistic concepts, something that I felt I needed to comprehend yet at that point it was mostly not yet understood, but tantalizing; maybe it all could enable me to resolve the mysterious problems I had long had.

Buying a book I had picked out, the lady behind the counter surprisingly was Donna Wilson. This time she had no evident hostility toward me. She was all bookstore business. Later visits, she ordered some books for me that she did not have on her bookshelves. Could be she never connected me with the ISSS meeting years before.

But I did discover she was still married, to some man who lived in the northern part of California.

I visited the Ginko Leaf bookstore http://articles.latimes.com/1987-12-31/news/vw-7867_1_bodhi-tree many times, even though it was a bit out of my way of usual travels, mostly to get a lonely glimpse of her, yet on the surface to search her bookshelves for interesting books to buy. There was a back room that always had one of the ISSS members, a muscular man who would only give me a smirk when I encountered him there in an otherwise empty meeting room. I felt the two were involved and he was ready to give me the boot if I got friendly with Donna.

This went on for a couple of years, best I remember. Donna would order me a book and email me when it came in, so I could visit and buy it. One time I noticed on the desk there, one of many holistic exploration items, a rubber ball of a few inches diameter and with projections all over it, said to enhance the effectiveness of laundry detergents, enabling use of less soap in doing laundry. I had heard of the item elsewhere, but had not tried it. Then I learned that the huge soap manufacturers were initiating a huge lawsuit against all the sellers of the rubber ball that claimed to reduce the need for soap to do laundry. Donna's bookstore was being sued for all she was worth. I felt helpless and in dismay; although she did not seem to do anything except her routine at the counter at the Ginko Tree, although the soap rubber ball was now gone from the counter, the one time I visited there afterwards.

Then I learned that the Ginko Tree Bookstore was closed; Donna Wilson was dead.

I never new how she died until this evening, doing an internet search that showed up " http://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Wilson,_Donna : "American macrobiotic teacher, bookstore owner, owned the Gingko Leaf bookstore in Woodland Hills, California; previously owned natural foods store, married twice, one child.
Death 28 May 1998, 10:50 p.m. PDT, following car crash of 22 May 1998.""

The whole scenario is like the usual plate of spaghetti insofar as my understanding it all. So I merely write the above in hopes it means something to somebody in the future, if it can get past the Internet Trolls that suppress public awareness of my writings lots of times.

And I remember the image of Donna as an attractive woman, who could have been helpful in my space efforts and holistic interests and my need for a woman to make love to, if it were not for the .... I don't know what they/it is, but it is quite aware of me and is utterly hostile to me and my doings.

And some years later, from a different source, I obtained one of those rubber spiked balls to be used in one's washing machine to reduce the need for laundry soap. It has been used for many years and is still in my washing machine, ready to again do its thing when I wash clothes next time.

Anyway, the world ought to know of the enormous benefit the woman named Donna Wilson provided to America's space race at the beginning, by her teaching of orbital mechanics to the early rocket pioneers in America.

Jim Cline

People who succeed by causing others to fail

Perhaps this post is only for those with "Asperger's Syndrome"; although to me, it seems a universal alarm signal.

There apparently actually are people who have an operating principle that they succeed by causing others to fail.

Yes, I know that this seems irrational. But, lots of observation strongly indicates that statement is accurate.

Although it is a symbolic example, note that in some sports, such as football or basketball, part of the requirement of players is to strive mightily to cause the opponent team members to fail in their endeavors. And, assume that they will treat you the same way.

In the real world, there are people who similarly function that way in daily life.

So beware, there are - insane? - people out there who may strive to cause you to fail; and to their limited thinking, that enables them to succeed.

Sorry, but that is the way it seems to be. Abundantly reality-tested. You must strive to cope with such nuts while getting your life tasks done.

Shared values are what is too often missing in America nowadays

The post by Robert Reich today http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/serve-society_b_3540394.html "To Serve Society" seems to me to very insightfully see the larger pattern of what is going on regarding the relationship of the individual American and America.

The tragic loss of 19 young firefighters in an Arizona wildfire, was the article's focus on people being of service to America as a whole, vs the currently dominant philosophy that, like the stealthy serpent, has taken over the country: " ... selfishness is the only honest and justifiable motive. By looking out for Number One, we accomplish everything that's necessary...." "... The magic of the marketplace can be relied on to allocate resources to their highest and best uses. Anything "public" is suspect...." "...The titans of Wall Street and the CEOs of our major corporations have put this narrow principle into everyday practice. In their view, the aggregation of great wealth and maximization of profit is the only justifiable motive. Greed is good. Eight-figure compensation packages are their due....."

I have personally seen how these forces have cost America - and probably civilization overall - at least 50 years of robust development of desperately needed resources, at a time when business-as-usual is going along like the old saw about "the clerks are selling everything like mad, but nobody is minding the store."

Something about it all also reminds me of the sign I saw in the local library, about the squabbling 2-year-old group's philosophy: "Everything I have is mine, and anything I can see is mine too."

Anyway, Robert Reich's post goes on with what is missing: "This crimped perspective misses what's most important. Shared values are the essence of a society."

If the "Number One" that we are looking out for totally, becomes our larger self that includes family and the larger whole of America and indeed civilization, perhaps that Ayn Rand-associated principle would work. Using our power to benefit our self and all of humanity, is involved.

Those 19 firefighters were being paid to do that job, true. The 20th of the team apparently did not have the tools to function adequately as a lookout to spot and figure out the implications of wind direction shifts and velocity. Although whoever was guiding the overall task needed the same info and projection skill.

Cutting brush is a hard physical work job, very close to the earth, and not often focussed on the larger picture ongoing. A very busy busy activity, nose to the grindstone kind of thing. Yet potentially very dangerous; somebody has got to be "minding the store" or chances are, there is going to be a big problem eventually.

I hope there can be some innovative R&D on both high lookout capability - perhaps using satellite optics with radar bounce wind pattern evaluation - and predictive analysis real time for dealing with such tasks, as well as innovative R&D on practical field pack emergency sheltering when being overrun by a brush fire... maybe something like the existing reflective bubble pack with a face mask and small oxygen supply, the whole being filled by foamed fire retardant deployed in seconds. Like a car's airbag rapid response thing.

But who is going to guide such R&D intelligently, and it all be paid for being done ... where does that fit in with the CEO's awarding themselves 8 figure compensation packages in total greed as purest expression of good ... what is their opinion of the 19 firefighters and their task .. hopefully something different than considering they were not making money on it all so is not their concern, and besides, plenty more sheeple are out there waiting to take their place.

How long can it all tolerate with resiliency, before the lack of somebody minding the store brings on the end of the partying.

So if some overlord is appointed by unthinking investors to "mind the store" will they not simply do it to maximize profits instead of equally maximizing value added to benefit the society, the nation, that is getting more and more like a car that is not designed and built as a whole, but instead as a bunch of nice looking parts in a heap but not designed to function as a whole car on the road, all fun to do and wealth producing for a few, but when it is time to drive the car somewhere, reality sets in.

When reality suddenly set in for those nineteen hardworking young firefighters, I can imagine it was very unpleasant to experience. Similarly, America as a whole is at risk the way things are going, for equivalent unpleasant experiences. No fun when the resource-ravishing greed-worshipping partytime runs out of game pieces.