Bear Bussjaeger – Page 22 – 2A advocate, writer, firearms policy & law analyst, general observer of pre-apocalyptic American life.

New Superconductivity Claim

This has been getting a lot of chatter for the past couple of days; room temperature superconductivity. Here’s a glowing report.

Scientists discover superconducting material that could bring total revolution in energy and electronics
Researchers say they have created a superconducting material that works at both a temperature and a pressure low enough to actually use it in practical situations.

Others are more dubious of the claim. Dias claimed an earlier breakthrough — cold, but noncryogenic superconductivity — that was lacking in critical details, and which no one else was able to replicate; think cold fusion. That paper got retracted. Apparently some folks even muttered “fraud,” but without personal knowledge, I’d be willing to blame wishful thinking/confirmation bias.

If this is real, it’s big deal. In terms of superconductor theory. But not for practical applications.

To make a tiny speck of this material required pressure of 2 gigapascals — nearly 20,000 times atmospheric pressure — in a diamond vise, and holding it there, while baking it at 200 degrees Celsius, for three days. That manufacturing process is not going to lead to a superconducting power grid. It would hard pressed (no pun intended) to supply material for a computer chip; and such a one-off (no mass production) chip would cost millions.

No new gaming console for you.

If real, with this method, this is barely more than science fiction. But I’ll wait to see if anyone else can replicate it.

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It Ain’t The Age

It’s the stupidity, Wilhelm.

A Dim rep proved she’s really dim , which led to mjuch Twitter ridicule. But one response annoyed me.

This is why we need more younger people in office. We need people that understand tech, AI, social networks, data, crypto, etc.
— Jason Wilhelm

I’m more than twice Jason Wilhelm‘s age. But I’d match my knowledge of “tech, AI, social networks, data” against his any day. Granted, I’m weak on the subtleties of crypto (assuming he means cryptology and not crypto currency), because the real math is beyond me.

If he meant crypto currency, I learned enough about it that I may have been one of the few people not at all surprised to learn that the feds were tracing Bitcoin transactions (and doing it the way I predicted).

By the time he was born, I was already doing data transport: RF, lightwave (linear and SONET), FDM and TDM multiplexing, frame relay, and ATM. POTS and ISDN. Routers. I’ve worked every layer of the OSI model. Before his birth, I built at least two web sites from scratch. I was teaching programming nearly twenty years before he was born. Repairing computers, radios, and televisions. I was even an electrician in the ’80s.

Since his birth, I’ve tacked on telephone switches and Internet backbone routers, aDSL, SLCs, and assorted PON Internet access systems. Lessee… digital graphic design, Internet forum setup, Blogger and WordPress (that includes creating my own themes, not using the canned ones).

That’s a partial list. Let’s see yours, Jason.

The Nation IS Getting Dumber

And there’s evidence beyond just the daily news.

Looking for Flynn effects in a recent online U.S. adult sample: Examining shifts within the SAPA Project
A reverse Flynn effect was found for composite ability scores with large US adult sample from 2006 to 2018 and 2011 to 2018.

Domain scores of matrix reasoning, letter and number series, verbal reasoning showed evidence of declining scores.

The steepest slopes occurred for ages 18–22 and lower levels of education.

The “Flynn Effect” is a trend for increasing IQ scores over time; around 3-5 points per decade. Basically, the next generation kept getting smarter.

Until now. All those arguments you’ve had with younger people who can’t quite grasp logic and reasoning? That wasn’t your imagination.

Think Of It As A Free Market Approach To Animal Control

A Chinese restaurant is charged with stealing and cooking dozens of dogs
A restaurant in the famous San Francisco Chinatown was visited this morning by the SFPD and federal agents, after an investigation showed the owners regularly killed dogs they found in the neighborhood and served them to customers.
[…]
Large quantities of dog meat were found on the site and taken to a forensic lab to be analyzed.

According to the SFPD spokesman the owner of the restaurant, Tengdo Hueng, admitted snatching dogs from the area with his 16-year old son and killing them for meat.
[…]
Most of the neighborhood’s telephone poles have been covered with posters of various missing dogs for more than a year. In the neighborhoods of Chinatown stray dogs have been going missing for years, but pet dogs have also begun going missing. On January 27, the day before Chinese New Year, a total of 12 dogs were reported missing.

Care to wager on whether complaints to Animal Control, over too damned many stray dogs, skyrocket now?

I’ve had dog meat. No big deal.

Kailasa

Via David Codrea:

Newark, NJ admits it got scammed by a fake nation led by fugitive
The largest city in New Jersey is admitting that its officials fell for a hoax to become a “sister city” with an Indian nation that doesn’t actually exist.

At a signing ceremony on Jan. 12, Newark Mayor Ras Baraka celebrated the city’s new relationship with the United States of Kailasa. The cultural agreement officially made Newark and Kailasa global partners under Sister Cities International, a nonprofit organization founded by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

I’d love to know how this got started. Did some Newark moron stumble upon the Kailasa website and think, Hey; this would be a good outfit to partner with? Or did the scammer contact the city first? Admittedly, the Kailasa website is pretty elaborate, complete with a 527 page “constitution.”

But you’d think someone in city government would have done a web search on a nation no one had heard of, yet claiming a population of two BILLION.

“Scammer” might not be quite the correct term. Reading about this, it sounds more like the Hindu equivalent of the “sovereign citizen” movement in America.

You Think Beef Is Expensive?

I just mentioned something about the plans for everyone to eat crickets. I ran across an article from a freak who decided to try it for five days. She included prices for the products she tried.

$12.38 per 4oz bag of cricket powder.

37 dollars per pound.

Nah. I’ll stick with meat, until everything is contaminated with mRNA vaccines.

And you thought dodging the mRNA ChinCOVID pseudo-vax was fun.

Math Is Hard

Especially when you’re a fed idiot. I ran across an article about the Xiden Admin trying to double the budget for offshore power generation. It referenced some numbers that looked odd. Fortunately, it also linked to the White House “FactFake Sheet” that was the source for those numbers.

Establishing a Target of Employing Tens of Thousands of Workers of Offshore Wind by 2030. The Departments of Interior (DOI), Energy (DOE), and Commerce (DOC) are announcing a shared goal to deploy 30 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind in the United States by 2030, while protecting biodiversity and promoting ocean co-use. Meeting this target will trigger more than $12 billion per year in capital investment in projects on both U.S. coasts, create tens of thousands of good-paying, union jobs, with more than 44,000 workers employed in offshore wind by 2030 and nearly 33,000 additional jobs in communities supported by offshore wind activity. It will also generate enough power to meet the demand of more than 10 million American homes for a year, and avoid 78 million metric tons of CO2 emissions.

Um… 30,000 megawatts is 30,000,000,000 watts. Divide that by 10,000,000 and you get 3,000 watts per home.

3 KW

Try running your whole house on a 3 KW generator. Except your fridge. Or HVAC (remember that’ll be electric because natural gas bad). You’ll probably need to turn out some lights, especially if you want to watch TV. Some in the White House slipped a few decimal points.

No refrigeration… I hope those crickets they expect us to eat are shelf stable.

Oh, and that 30 GW seems to be nameplate capacity, which no wind gennie ever maintained 24/7.

TZP Column: Conveniently Violating Rights

“CONVENIENTLY” PREEMPTIVELY PROVING ONE’S INNOCENCE
Former ATF agent, and once-wannabe Director, David Chipman thinks that delaying Second Amendment rights by requiring people to pay good money to beg the government to give them permission to purchase a firearm by first proving they are not a criminal, and then waiting even longer if the feds can’t do their — unconstitutional — job in a timely manner, is convenient.
[Read more]

The Broad Side Of A Barn

The ATF tweeted a… remarkable demonstration of their marksmanship for a reporter.

I’m not even sure how that’s possible.

Spike Cohen recommended a different target.

Hat tip to David Codrea.

I’m Not Seeing The Problem Here

Seems like a lot of Tesla owners consider the steering wheel to be optional anyway.

US investigates Tesla for steering wheels that can fall off
U.S. auto safety regulators have opened an investigation into Tesla’s Model Y SUV after getting two complaints that the steering wheels can come off while being driven.